Well, I thought I remembered hearing from someone who has done this, and now I know who it was. There's a guy on the Dakota convertibles FB page who has a '90 convertible with a 440 in it. He was at Carlisle recently and some members posted pictures of his truck, after which he joined the FB group.

Looking at the truck you can see it has the elongated front end. I had asked him about it when he first appeared and he said it's a '90 convertible with a '91 core support, hood, etc.

I thought he had swapped a convertible cab onto a '90 chassis because it has 6 lug wheels all around, but he says he also swapped the front hubs so they would match the 6 lugs on the 9.25" corporate rear he put in it. So, according to him, this is the real deal.

If I can get his attention, I'll see what he can tell us. This is the truck:

 

Well, I figured out where Dodge found the extra 3". They boxed in the frame on 91 and later and drilled an extra hole. Sunofabiscuit.

Here is an underside picture of my 90 frame, looking up and you can see the hole in the bottom of the frame for accessing the bolt to the radiator support.

Then here is an underside picture of my 95 frame. As it turns out, the frames are identical in length...BUT, Dodge boxed in the top of the frame so they could drill a new hole 3" out for the new radiator core position. Hard to believe noone's documented this in all the front end discussions.

 

So now I have to figure out if the bumper mounts stay in the same place or not. Because if they do, then I should be able to box in the top of the frame and add a hole for the radiator support. I was thinking at first, no way not enough support, but that's all Dodge did. Their radiator core is only on a piece of unboxed top frame. You can see the notch that allows access and the bolt is beyond where the lower frame ends.

 

You kind of also see it on this 92 frame if you blow it up....The upper hole for the radiator core is only supported by the upper part of the frame...the lower part of the frame ends sooner.

http://i432.photobucket.com/albums/q...9dakota011.jpg

 

So, I mocked it all up....I think the plan is to weld a piece on top of the frame, finishing what Dodge did in 91, cut a hole for the bushing, and be good to go? Thoughts????

 

Gives me a ton of room now

 

Aren't there extensions bolted to the frame on the donor truck? Or was that only in 1991?

I'm also guilty ...

Edit: Ah, that's what they did, box the frame in. I think boxing the top in should be good enough; you'll need the later Gen1 bumper supports, of course.

Doesn't help much that each of the years 1990-1993 has a DIFFERENT frame part number in the parts book ...

RwP

 

That's a 94 bumper on there with the supports....all seems to fit

 

I knew you'd get it sussed!

 

So here is the result of boxing in the front and redrilling.