I tell ya, if I get to pick parts off of this truck, all for the price of $150, I have a glove box latch I need, a heater/air conditioner direction switch for the dash, the glass in my driver side mirror is broken. And if there’s a way to get the ignition switch off the column and the tilt wheel adjuster that broke last week, this may be a Goldmine! Even if it’s not for the price of $150, I’ll be more than willing to pay extra just to have this parts vehicle delivered to me.

I consider a parts truck as being a bargain at $600 or less, depending on what is needed. Passing them around tends to be a thing. Buy for 1800, take some stuff, sell for 1200, that person takes some stuff, sells it for 600 to a junkyard.

Well, feeling a little bit of a letdown. Seems that the mechanic that owns the parts truck told the guy that’s going to work on my truck that there are going to be major problems with the wiring harness inside the cab under the dash. We would have to remove the dash from both parts truck and my truck to tear out the wiring harness. He thought there was also going to be major issues with the fuel pump and other things that may not be compatible between the two. So I am back to looking for a four cylinder 2.5 L engine.

It may relate to the change in communications buss. Maybe it did change and they kept the mechanical cluster for one year after the change. I always get mixed up because 2000 is just a clusterF of a model year for the dakota platform.

This is one hard engine to find. So…
I have a quote to rebuild for $1600. YOWZA, not thinking so.
NEXT!

That's actually not bad. Dakaz probably just spent twice that redoing his 2.5L.

OK OK NO and NO on the $1600 im not sure on the total but Im sure that's high I did all the work except the machine work.

The 2.5 is a very simple engine to rebuild

If the engine didn't toss a rod you should get by spending around $1200 or less NOW if all you want is to get it back running even less.
I will try and get a total for you but I opted to go high end on a few parts.

Now in regards to your engine swap as I said I know very little on such matters especially like magnethead said about the 2000 year compared to a 98 many things changed many things changed in 99 also.

To my knowledge the rads for all engines are the same for each year up to end of 99. Now 2000 up all engines have the same rad so up to 99 one rad was used 2000 up a different rad was. OK but .... you can swap in a 2000 rad in a 97 to 99 Dakota but you need the hoses for a 2000 to 2004 and will need to modify the rad mounts. Bottom mounts need widening for top mounts you need to drill and tap new mounting locations 2000 mounts are wider. Now making this rad swap means swapping your A/ C condenser as they mount very differently from 98 to a 2000 this also means swapping condenser connections as they are very different so that part of the swap is not a simple job custom A/C work is needed.

This is the big difference up to 99 the rad mounted to the inside of the engine bay 2000 up they mounted on the outside of the engine bay on the same cross brace.

Now each engine had different rad shrouding or two different shrouds available but the shrouds are not needed for proper cooling.. ( In my opinion ) but thats your discussion to make.