Well, I finally bought a donor truck for my Ram restoration - Tell me what you think - Crazy or plausible?
First - I have an 81' ram 150 short bed - My grand dad bought it new, and he's been gone for a while now, and it's ended up in my garage since I volunteered to restore it for the rest of the family. - Body is perfect other than not much paint on it- only reason I am doing this, besides the obvious emotional connection. Worn out slant, tranny is good, rear is junk - so I needed a whole donor drive line.
What I picked up - an 05' Ram 1500 2wd dr shortbed that looks like a tree fell on it. 4.7L V8 4spd at and whatever the rear is. Truck has 34k miles on it - So, I don't know what I'm getting into but I wanted to post this up before I start the process of stripping what I think I might need.
Am I crazy or does this make sense? I bought a complete drive line w/34k on it for $2k - and it was local - I wasn't really ready for it, but I thought it was a too good of a deal to pass on.
Thanks for any suggestions that might help!

btw- I recently visited my GrandMa - who is 92, and she asked me if I had done anything to the little red truck yet - I told her, not yet just need to dump about 10 grand into it and no problems! we got a good laugh out of that. She makes the world more awesome let me tall ya.

 

pics need pics

 

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Hell yes go get a used bed and drive that or just flip the truck im not sure what there going for but I bet u could easly get 8000 or more just like that then you would have $$$ to get ol red all fixed up lmc is comeing out with a gen 1 catalog in 2014 then u can get nice new parts to fix her up. im in up state ny

 

The problem with the 4.7 engine and driveline is everything will need to be custom to get it into the 81. If you have good fab skills then go for it but remember the 4.7 is not the greatest engine and there is like 0 aftermarket support for it. So to get the fuel injection to work you would need all the sensors, possibly the instrument cluster and graft it into your dash.

Also remember the rear axle is wider so if you use it you will need to move the spring perches and the wheels will stick out from the wheel wells unless you get a massive offset wheel. Also the wheel bolt pattern is different so you would have different wheels on the front and rear.

 

I think you got a great deal on your donor truck (I'd put those wheels alone to good use) but I agree that swapping the drive lines would be not very practical or easy. You could get your 2 K out of that easy just by parting it out.

The slant 6 in those older D-150s are legendary and I would stick with the slant 6 if it were me. Rebuild it, hop it up a little if you feel the need, and just enjoy having a unique truck that has a personal connection.

 

Don`t kill the donor truck, get a new bed for it and sell it. Its to nice of a truck to destroy, and with the money you get from selling it you will have more than enough money to restore the older truck.