Hopefully this will be the beginning of many post of my DIY complete overhaul of my '96 Dodge Dakota. A little background first: my '96 Dodge Dakota 5.2 V8 4x4 has been sitting for the last 3 years in a backyard rusting to death before I rescued it. No one even cranked the Engine over That old girl cranked right over as soon as I gave her a new battery though! Since the Engine seems to run just fine, I decided it was worth it to go ahead with my project. First I changed all the fluids and as I went I ended up replacing the radiator, water pump, belt tensioner, some hoses and discovered that the rear axle was shot thanks to the bolt shearing. This became my plan of attack:

*Replace rear axle (so I can drive her home)
* 4" lift kit (so I can ut 33's on)
*Swap the automatic transmission for a manual NV3500 (already bought and awaiting a rebuild) Thanks to the guy who posted his swap on this forum
*Redo exhaust (currently straight piped of crappy headers)
* Add Roll Cage
* Paint inside with bedliner
* Racing Bucket Seats and Harness


* first problem of replacing the rear axle was finding one for a 4x4. What I ended up doing was grabbing one of a '95 (same ring gear and ratio 8.25 3.55) and grinding the mount off and welding them on the other side since the only difference is the leaf under configuration for 4X2 and Leaf over for 4x4. Cost: $108

Axle from '95 Dodge Dakota

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/members...ota-44445.html

Grind Welds...Beware Dodge was not f-ing around with these

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/members...nts-44446.html

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/members...0&ref=gnr-prev

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/members...0&ref=gnr-next

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/members...0&ref=gnr-prev

Finished!!!!

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/members...0&ref=gnr-prev

 

Sounds like a pretty ambitious project, but it looks like you're well on your way. Any time I've had to move spring perches (which seems to be pretty often), I just cut them off with a torch and buy new ones to replace them. I'm pretty impressed that you were able to grind the welds off and reuse them.

I'm definitely interested in following this project. Make sure you take lots of "before" pictures (I wish I had) and plenty of progress pics.

And good luck to you.

BTW, your pictures weren't showing up with the [IMG] tags, so I linked them for you.

 

Looking great so far! Good luck. Keep us updated.

 

nice work... trucks were built to truck spec in the day now they are built to plastic LOL .

anyway .. u can go 2 ways for lift.. roughly 2 grand US for a 4 inch trailmaster suspension or go the 2 inch body lift give/take 100.00 bucks and crank the torsion bars.. I currently have 33's on stock rims on mine with modified STOCK ORIGINAL torsion keys and rear leaf hanger flip , minimal rubbing only when I turn full turn on frame I can still go more but alignment would be out bad..

one thing I keep debating is a rear disc conversion... ..... heavy truck to stop

 

I had a nasty thought when I was reading the guy in 3rd gen forum bragging on his 22.5 mpg. Nasty thought was, "Yeah, my 96 will be still running strong when your truck is rotting in wrecking yard." But that was nasty, so I didn't think it anymore.

I've thought about the rear wheel disk conversion, too. Looked into the prices (eek!) and research what people have said about what it accomplishes (not that much) and decided to save my money and time. I've got the factory trailer package, and the truck stops just fine. And the rear wheel ABS works well to keep the truck stopping straight.

 

not to thread jack but I did the disc conversion on my 2002 quad cab I had althought it was 2wd with 4.7 it made a WORLD of difference between front brakes locking up and rear not grabbing atall for the 800 spent on that one it wasn't bad.... till I ditched it and bent the frame... frame made of plastic perhaps? haha


and for a 3rd gen hes useless I just did a 550km's round trip and burnt just over 50 litres of fuel (all highway with my 318 and 33's) driving between 70km's(construction zones and 110km's/hour expressways) ) ... works out to be like the impossible of 25~ to the Canadian gallon

 

I lucked out an found a truck that had the suspension lift on it! Lucky me the truck had been in a flood and I picked it up for 500 bucks with some mags. Oh baby I got a 6 inch lift it (4 from trail master and the extra two from a torsion key drop bracket) this truck also has a 2inch bodly lift I will take off one day. Needless to say my truck looks great although my 31s now look like girl tires. Best of luck finding your lift! It's a lot of work and took me 4 days to take it all out and 3 weeks to put it all in

 

Thanks for the encouragement guys! I'll try to take more before pics, especially with the transmission rebuild and swap. so the general consensus with the drum to disc brake conversion is????? This was something I was also seriously considering until I saw the price and just replacing the drum brake components is relatively cheap. And I already bought the lift kit. The truck already has a two inch body lift and lift kit I'm adding is 3" blocks front and rear with torsion keys although it's pretty cranked up i think.

 

well so you can see this is how mine sits... shortly after I got it ...

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/members...558-39644.html


and now ....

 

That bumper is gnarly! Where did you get it?! If you decide to get 35" tires wheel spacers are a must the flood truck I got had 35s on it but he used a sludge hammer to move a body mount and fender out of the way.