Project "blue cab"

project "blue cab". I knew my cab had rust, and some cracks, but I thought reinforcing the weak points would help hold it together for a while. During an off road test run with a new motor, I hit a small bump and my truck took to the air like a plane. With out wings, I came down hard and my cab bounced, it hit the bed, and the steering shaft came out of the steering box. And if losing control of huge Dodge at 40 miles an hour is not bad; try it with your wife. After plowing into a sand hill, and getting a good beating (both verbal and physical), I went to see what went wrong. It took just a few minutes to fix the steering.

When I got home, I debugged and came to the conclusion that the cab had bounced on the frame, pulling the steering shaft out. I have 2 Dodge parts trucks to pull from and compare. It turns out not all cabs are the same. I'm not speaking of manual / Auto. Some cabs have a removable floor, to access the transfer case. This removable floor weakens the whole cab, if its not bolted down correct. Even if it is, it still weaker then the cabs without the removable floor. In my cab, I have this removable floor, and when I bought the truck, the panel was not bolted down, and there was a 1" gap at the top. After two years of use, a tear started, and soon the driver side of the cab sat 2" lower. I fixed by using heavy steel, to "jack up" the drivers side. Under heavy use, the cab would force it steel supports down, and with nothing keeping the cab from going up, the tear continued to grow. And to make matters worse, both rear cab mounts were rusted gone, and the bottom was falling. The pictures will explain better.

{Here you can see how I added steel straps to try to hold it together.}

{Here is the removable floor panel, it's hard to see in the picture, but there are many cracks around where this panel meets the floor, this is why a solid floor is preferred.}

I looked at my parts trucks, to see what truck would be a be a better donor. My D200 had rust on the floors, so I was not going to use that. I have a W150 in my backfield, after cleaning out the cab so I could see the floor, I was amazed at what I saw. This cab had no rust, none. Just a little surface rust on the out side. Also this cab had the solid floor, so it will be better for hard off roading. It took me about an hour to pull the cab off the frame, as the front of the truck was already pulled. I took my rusty cab off in a few hours, by my self. Once unbolted from the frame and disconnected, it simply tips off (no jack, just lift on one side), like tipping cows (except you got to push cows on the side, near the top back bone, so maybe its not exactly like tipping cows, but its close).

I then got 3 buddies to come over. We debated the best way to get the cab on top of my lifted truck. We finally decided to use an engine lift. The cab had the door removed, cause they were dented, and my doors looked better. With the doors off, the engine lifts arm could be inserted into the door. Two chains bolted to the seat buckle boltholes; this supported the rear of the cab. A rope was ran around the front, and then to the lift arm to support the front. This looked like such a good idea, and would have been if implemented correctly. The rope had slack in it, so the front hang down. Basically, only the back of the cab was being supported. Two people had to hold the front up. the other problem we ran in to was dirt. I do not have a slab yet, so we had to push the engine lift and cab on wet dirt. This did not work out too good. So another person had to use plank to lift the one side of the lift and move it forward a few inches, then the other side. I wish I had taken pictures of this, as a picture would explain it better, but it was hectic & I really had no time, as the cab was flying around. I feel this would have went smother if chains wore used both in front and back, and if done on a slab. In all it took about 30 minutes to actually get the cab up on the frame.

The completed project, all that's left is aligning the body panels and reinstalling all the custom electric gages. Also, painting, Brake booster, wiper motor, sun visor,,,,,.

Be sure to label the wires, and or take pictures of them. Its mainly the wires you ran, as the factory wires usually only fit one way.

Another site that did a cab replacement and did it a different way, if you plan on replacing your cab soon, you must read through this site, as it is very helpful.

http://students.uwsp.edu/jderr664/project78/project78.htm

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