Morning all,

Yesterday I fired my Dak up after it had sat for, oh lets say 6 years, and started after a single turn over. Oh yeah, she was ready. Now the transfer case and rear end is completely torched in my truck, the older tranny is probably alright, and the engine is probably on it's last leg anyhow because it's smoking like crazy from the driver side (92 3.9l Auto 4x4). Anyways a buddy of mine has a 98 3.9 with the 5 sp, not sure about the drive but at this point I don't really care, I want my truck (currently rocking an 06 Grand Cara"Van Halen).

A few questions, anyways...
-What would ultimately be easiest, swapping my cab and bed to the other frame, or swapping the internals? The biggest problem I can see if I swap everything into my truck is drive length/width not matching up, but I'm thinking at least part of that can be avoided with a body lift. Biggest problem is definitely drivetrain length not fitting to the other frame, but I don't know if that can be altered or not.
-Computer, since my Dak is auto/OBD1, and the new one would be Man/OBDII, is there a possibility I could go find a wiring harness for a 1st gen 3.9l/5spd and go backwards with the new engine? I'm assuming the 98 is probably EFI so I'm expecting that to be a no go.

What may end up happening is rebuilding the engine (assuming I have a head gasket about done for), dropping a 5 speed and going with whatever by 4 is in the 98.

TL;DR- I have a 92/Auto/3.9l/4x4, will drivetrain parts from a 98/5 Speed/3.9l/?x4 be (relatively) interchangeable?

 

1st gen (92) cab and bed won't bolt up to a 2nd gen (98) chassis, at least not without modifications (would love to see someone tackle that though!).

You can use the manual trans in an OBDI or OBDII vehicle with an automatic wiring harness installed. Just takes a minor mod or two to make the computer think its OK. Your '92 is multi-port EFI, like the '98. Only difference is some of the components on the motor: i.e. no EGR on the '98 manifold, and a couple other differences I can't recall at the moment. You could swap the '98 drive train into your '92 without much problem, just swap the '92 manifold unto the '98 motor would be the biggest thing.

 

how ironic im tackling this swap now. lol

the bed will line up as will the radiator support but the cab mounts arent the same (not sure about the regular cabs though) best bet would be to swap the trans into your truck but the the driveshafts are different. iirc the 97 and newer trucks used a bigger slip yoke and the on 96 and older trucks the ujoint bolted right to the axle yoke. itll take some work but it can be done and wont cost much more than the clutch pedal assembly and hydraulic clutch and the clutch kit and flywheel(if the newer one is different) and a manual crank position sensor

 

Guess I spoke too soon with regard to the bed not bolting up

Looks like that works at least, aside from the minor issue with the fuel filler neck.

 

I'm going to stick with my 92 body/frame/engine and move the rest of the drive train from the 98 over. My buddy put water in his radiator before winter and forgot to change it to antifreeze, so I'm doubting that 3.9l is any good, but I can hope. I'll still tear it apart, but looks like I'm just going to be gutting most of the 92. This time next week I should be starting my build thread!