To install the dash against the firewall I threw away the poor quality plastic fittings and went with some cage nuts purchased from Ace. These take a 5/16th bolt and hopefully will provide a stronger connection.


Old OEM fasteners, the abs used with these Gen 2’s definitely don’t hold up well.

Masking the dash and sprayed the metal with primer.


So this is something new, and frankly an experiment. For the pad I will use LMC’s pad. It’s night and day better than these dash skins. I want to reinforce my dash frame though either with fiber glass or Carbon Fiber cloth and resin at the stress points. For those who have tackles this project these dash’s are prone to cracking near the OD and radio mount. As a test I am reinforcing this skin with fiber glass. All bought at Home Depot for 20.00 bucks. I used it to patch the dash too.

 

 

Still working on the dash project, I just replaced the heater core With an AutoZone Spectre Premium part number 398313. You can find the same part number on Amazon for about $20 cheaper. Overall the quality seems ok, but the stock OEM is much higher quality. I’m actually pretty impressed with how well it has held up at 279,000 miles. To get it out I used an angle grinder with a cut off wheel to simplify its removal and alleviate having to drop a whole box. The one nice feature with the specter hearer Corp was that the tubing was able to rotate to allow me to install it with the box still being in. It took a little patience and a screwdriver to leverage it in, but it went in all the same. The foam on the outside of the firewall had degraded. Use some 3M insulation tape to seal the firewall and that worked pretty well. We’ll see how well she holds up.

 

 

Like many of us my headlight started going out the switch is basically melted due to the fact there’s no relay for the headlights I had a donor harness that I spliced together using those barrel sleeve crimps.

I ran the numbers and I am going to buy a relay harness from LMC. I have the wires, but not going to spend the time to build my own on this part of the build.

 

They are actually pretty decent. Plug and play. I installed one in my 98, and and very happy with it.

 

Thanks brother, appreciate you making sure I am on the right track there.

In your opinion would you buy a second one to modify for the led lights. I trust LMC to use use quality relays and gauge wire over the cheap no name brand stuff.

 

If I built one myself, I probably would have used heavier gauge wire, but, somewhere around here, a member did the math, and showed that the wire/relays were more than adequate to the task for the load they would be carrying. I've had mine for a couple years now, and no issues. (and no melted headlight switch either. ) If you plan on permanently changing to LEDs, I would just buy one, and modify that one when the time came.

 

Pinion bearing is the same. Axles are the same. Dodge never offered a true Dana 80 but even a true Dana 80 is only 10% stronger. Not worth the extra weight. I have not known anyone to break a Dana70 even with a 1200hp diesel

 

LMC makes one for LED headlights