Hi folks,
how to start ... Perhaps introduce myself. I'm Jan living in the north of Germany, next to the Danish border. Educational wise I'm trained in electronics as well as mechanics, working since 06' for a company witch fixes and maintains wind turbines. Beside this I'm running a small car shop as a side business since somewhere in the early 2000's doing restorations and modifications (e.g. engine swaps) on domestic (you guys would properly say import ) cars.

Then the next Question, why buying an older Dodge... Due to (stupid) local regulations it's not allowed to drive a vehicle with more than ~7500lbs total weight in Europe without having a truck license. On top of that an other rule says it`s also not allowed to pull trailers heavier than your vehicles total single allowed weight.... And... Long story short, only 3/4 ton truck can Max out the rules (1/2t are too light 1t already too heavy due to an other rule) in terms of pulling trailers…

So I went out and took a look on a Chevy 2/3500 single with the 6.5TD, drove it up to temp floored the pedal and... Oh my god... 70's VW campers pulling harder than that thing... So Chevy was no option.

A few weeks later at a village next to my site a Ram 2500HD 5.9 Cummins manual was offered. Well, it came out that it was a long time 2nd owner low mileage (165t miles), not been used for hauling truck. I drove it, and it was pulling like a champ compared to the Chevy.

But where ever light is, there is in most of the times also darkness. In this case (beside some bushings and the track bar) cabin (rockers), fenders and wheelhouses of the box have some rust issues. The frame looks pretty solid to me, so it`s worth the work.

Now my Question. Ram's and parts for it are very rare in Europe because they were never sold here. My idea was now instead of buying body parts for nearly 1500,- then weld it and give it to the paintshop for an other 1000,-. Just buy a complete good truck.In this case there is an offer of a 01' 1500 4x2 3.9 gas, auto, std cab, long box for just a little more than the parts will coast. Mine is, as written above, a 94' 2500HD manual 4x4 Cummins, also std. Cab, Long box. Both have AC and beside that (nearly) no extra options.Is it possible to swap the chassis without a pain in the a** ?

Thanks in advance
BRJan

Ps.: sorry for the bad grammar/spelling, but I got recently "upgraded" to Win10 and haven't found the auto grammar off button yet. So Win10 thinks I'm writing German right now and tries to correct me all the time so I can't see any comma or dot because it's red underlined...

 

Gotta love win 10. Or not.....

The problem you are going to run into is, the electronics between the two trucks are radically different. Just about everything changed from 94 to 01. The entire communication bus is different, floor pans in the cab are different, seat belt mounts are different, along with a whole host of other little things. You would likely end up spending more trying to do the conversion, than you would spend repairing what you have. Since you already have the shop, I think you would be much further ahead just fixing what ya got.

Welcome to DF!

 

Hmm, obviously the whole dash would need to be moved over, including wiring, steering column etc. I'd think the interior (seats, seat belts, carpet) should be nicer in the 2001 so no reason to swap that out. The big question is if there are changes with the body mounts and firewall that could throw a wrench in there.

Bummer with drivers licenses in Europe now. When I got my "graue Pappe" back in 1980 class 3 was good up to 7.5 metric tonnes. Your english is pretty good and they love renewable energy here, maybe time to relocate. 26000 lbs combined with the regular license here in OR, plus imagine doing custom work without the TUeV