Gallery Page 76
Shaun Bremner's 1983 Project Truck Turns into a 1993
In 2002 Shaun's Dad and he were driving down the highway. They spotted a red 4x4 for sale. It was a 1983 dodge power ram 250. They turned around and pulled into the parking lot. They looked at it and as far as they could see it was in pretty good shape. At the time, it had a 360 for a motor that had not passed air care and a 5 speed transmission. The body appeared to be in good shape. The truck had a 3-inch body lift and 35 inch all terrain tires. The seller was asking $3500 for it and they got it off him for $1500. So they drove it home and it sat in their backyard for about a year.
Then after it sat there for whole year Shaun finally got room and time to drive it into the shop. Shaun's Dad and he started by pulling all the bigger parts off such as hood fenders etc. The thing Shaun hated most was the bolts that hadn’t been turned since 1983 and weren’t easy to get off. Within 3 hours the truck looked like something you would find in an auto wrecker. It wasn’t far off as far as the body went. It was really rusted and full of body filler and the box was not useable. The body mounts on the cab were rusted right out and weren’t worth doing anything with.
Over the next few months, Shaun's Dad had come across a 1993 truck with a Cummins diesel 4x4 ¾ ton. It was badly smashed in the front. One thing with Dodge trucks is the body styles are the same from 1980 to 1993 so Shaun's Dad decided to combine the two trucks using mostly the 93 parts because they were in much better shape. They still hadn’t found a box for it. They needed a short box. One of Shaun's Dad's workers at the time saw a short box in a guys yard on his way to work one day. Turns out the guy who owned it wanted to sell it and delivered it to Shaun's Dad's work for 75 bucks! The box was rust free but was covered in roofers tar. They had to chisel the tar off and get the box sandblasted. Other then some dents it was in really good shape.
Over the next few months Shaun's Dad built up a good cab and front end. But they still needed some parts from the wrecker. They changed the doors as well and put power doors on it. They kept the ¾ ton chassis and had to shorten the frame 14 inches’ to fit the short box. The diesel was left on the 3/4 ton chassis. It was easier to keep it as a unit with the wiring harness that they had. The dash was the next big change, since the diesel had different gauges then the gas motor. However, it bolted right in. Finally they bolted in the drive shafts that had been shortened, and built a 6-inch lift kit for the back. For the front lift we bought 6-inch lift leaf springs. The truck was almost complete.
Next came the paint. They decided to stick with the original color from 1980. After the paint was done they bought an aftermarket carpet for the interior and installed it as well as the seat and headliner. The same guy who found the box had a friend who had a steel bumper for sale with a 10,000 pound warn winch. So Shaun bought the winch and bumper for 400 bucks. The winch weighed a lot so it pulled the front of the truck down an inch. They didn’t worry too much about it until they found a set of 38 inch super swamper TSL tires for it. They bought the tires and noticed they hit the fenders really bad when the truck was flexed. So they made another custom lift for the front of the truck. Shaun's Dad and he cut the old exhaust off and ran the exhaust outside just before the rear wheel. (Not shown in pics) Shaun has to go to Cap It Canopies and buy a chrome exhaust tip to make it look good. Everything else such as the relay for his KC lights and stereo system will be finished soon.
Shaun can be reached at:
brodie_diablo@hotmail.com
UPDATE: Shaun's truck now has a 5 inch stack and it is still looking great! He knows how to have fun...check out the quads!
Are you proud of your Dodge truck or car? Want to show it off? Please email me a pic along with a description of your vehicle and I will add it to the Gallery.
Joe Leonard 2007-07-28