Michigan. Flu to new jersey and drove the van back the same day. The van drove like brand new.

 

Really? What part of michigan? I KNOW there are some way good 4x4 shops around the state....... (just not around me..... )

 

Detroit area. Use to live near traverse city so any 4x4 shop in the state would be ok. I tried unlimited 4x4 but they don't do dodge. The more I think about this the more I'm thinking maybe not such a good idea. I just hate the thought of trying something on such a good van that might not work. If something gets tried and doesn't work or work right I'm stuck with a pile of junk. That and if something broke it's not like you can run up to the auto parts and get the parts because everything is custom made to fit. Just not sure at this point. Like I said in previous post. There's good reason why there's not 4x4 dodges. Still going to put them up on a lift for piece of mind and take it from there. Just seen a 1989 dodge 4x4 advertised locally. Would be interesting to check out to see if it was a factory conversion or a back yard job. Pathfinder did do conversions back then. If it was a factory job then the question would be will it adapt to the 2000.

 

Lookin' around, it appears that there were upfitters that could convert vans to 4wd.... (champion home builders did this for a while....) Most of what I see though, is that ford/chevy/gmc has a host of options. Dodge is notoriously absent. Supposedly, thats because the ford/chevy vans have a full frame, while dodge does not. There ARE 4x4 dodge vans out there.... Finding one, and seeing what someone else did may be enlightening, if a bit difficult, simply because of the rarity.

 

I'm pretty sure chevy / gmc are unibody as well since the 70s - hence the reason that the majority of newer conversions you see are Fords (with the exception of the astro / safari that have some unique options since they were offered in awd ). I read somewhere that the final straw with converting the dodges for folks like U-joint was when the fuel tank was moved from the rear to mid drivers side as it requires an alternate / custom fuel tank location or shortening the original tank (I went this route) because the only reasonable place for a transfer case is occupied by the front 10 inches of the fuel tank. This on top of an already limited market just ruled the dodges out as good candidates for conversions. That's just my impression from reading posts etc... but it makes sense based on what I've learned so far. Anyhow, that's one of the allures of doing a ram van conversion - you'll be hard pressed to find more than a handful of them out there - I can think of only a few that I've found pictures of online...

btw. I've run across (and saved somewhere) pictures of how a couple different dodges were done. I wasn't impressed with some of what I saw as corners that were cut (and am spending a good bit of time to avoid a couple of those...). I really (obviously) think it's very doable, BUT, just not cost effective to do a good job relative to some of the easier options... Now if I could just find the dedicated time to get in the shop and get mine to the place I want to... Some of what I've done / am doing:

The picture of mine above in this thread is sitting at ride height on a solid axle with leaf springs... The steering is already hooked up and Doesn't seem to bind anywhere (if it does, I'm pretty sure minor tweaking / changes will take care of it).

It's done axle over spring with perches from Barnes 4x4 welded to the axle. I made a new subframe to mount the springs on and am using dakota main leafs combined with ram 1500 and original van leafs to get the load carrying capacity I wanted. I did shorten and / or drill some of the leaves to wind up with the overall pack I wanted. custom leaf springs would be the best way to accomplish, but I started on the cheap and used what was readily available... in order to gain some height, some travel and a more compliant ride after I drive it around a bit, I may decide to just use light, squishy coils over the leaf springs (the buckets are already there!)

I used a stock dodge front axle and cut all the factory brackets off of it. Since I'm going to use a 46re transmission (with upgraded bands and clutch packs, pressure adjusted up, shift kit, aftermarket band servo pistons and struts, large external cooler with an inline filter and no check valve) and 231d transfer case. I'm planning to use the stock dodge axle vacuum disconnect coupled with a dash indicator light. People complain about these, but aside from a trashed vacuum line, I've never had an issue with them... you could always use one of the after market cable set ups or a different axle all together. I wanted to go with the doge so that I could work out / source readily available ball joints, tie rods and ends, etc...

If you use a dana 44 dodge axle, they're everywhere and can be had cheap. folks say they won't hold up well, but I've beat the crap out of the one in my 95 ram 4x4 for 260k miles on 33" tires with nothing but lube changes and it's still working great. That's a 5-bolt hub, but if you use the discs from the original truck, you can still go with 8800 gvwr calipers and pads made for late 2nd gen 2500/3500 ram trucks - they fit perfect and should yield plenty of stopping power. A dana 60 from a 2nd gen 2500 / 3500 ram should work just fine in the same sort of set up but with 8 lug wheels.... OH, and in either case, the width of the front axle is just right without spacers and using truck wheels... measurements say the rear truck axles will be too, BUT the spring perches will be in the wrong place... nothing wrong with using the factory van axle though... The rear van axles require 2" spacers to run truck wheels. I bought hub centric spacers made for the smaller truck hub size and turned the inside out to mate with the larger van hubs. I drove it with these on both front and back to run truck wheels for a while before starting the 4x4 conversion.

last tidbit I figured out is that the 1998/1999 ram 2500 HD truck steering upgrade set up (the T-style with the hubs connected directly to one another with tie rods rather than the standard y style that was used in those years. The factory drag link from the 2500HD set up wasn't long enough , BUT using the tie rod end from the original ram truck Y set up was longer and worked out just right also provided a place to install a steering damper. Note that this set up looks like it will put the tie rod ends in a bind at higher lifts higher lifts so as I bring it up a bit more, it looks like I may have to make a drag link with somewhat different (very slight bends) in it to yield a more favorable angle on the drag ling ends...

Hopefully this is helpful... the last disclaimer - I'm NOT any sort of expert, just a backyard hack...

 

You would think a leaf-spring SAS wouldn't be that difficult to graft onto just about anything...... Either that, or something similar to a 'long-arm' lifted truck, just without quite as much lift.....

 

agreed... radius arms would appear to be a good option to stay low as are leaf springs Either offer quite a bit of flexibility with leaf springs perhaps being the simplest overall imho. once you deal with the fuel tank, the spring buckets incorporated in the frame are limiting and the engine crossmember and cradle, mounts, etc... are all in the way and have to be completely redone to make room for an axle and differential...

 

Sorry. I just found this thread. I have a 1997 B3500 Quigley van. It has a 3" body lift and a Dana 40 up front. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

Nice van. I called Quigley and they don't do dodge vans any longer. When they did yours what type of suspension system did they use in the front. Coil springs or leaf springs. Did they move or shorten the gas tank for the transfer case. Do you know if they had to reinforce the uni body so there wouldn't be a problem with twisting and possible problems with the doors not closing right. Lastly if it's a leaf spring front, does it ride like a normal dodge van or is it all over the road and unstable. Thanks for the picture and the info.

 

Would like to post a picture of my van. How do you do that on this forum.