From Build To Adventuring... A 1950 Dodge B2B Pickup Story

[GoldiesGarage]

Sharing a build my Brother (Ish) and I did.

**Full Disclosure** - This is our first real 4x4 Off-Roader. We knew very little about Off-Roading when we started this. We made MANY mistakes and lots of changes. This was a learn has you go experience.

I think this would be considered a ground up build. Which took a combination of 5 different trucks. The goal of this thread is to share this build with anyone interested, somewhat entertain you, and having a place to post the adventures. I know there isn't that many Custom Full Size Rig driving around.

I love vintage trucks besides how sweet they look. They are extremely rare to see around town. Some other positive things are that you don't smog them (California). So I can do whatever we want. No limits but money and our imagination.

Let's begin.
This is how it all started, I purchased this 1950 Dodge B2B Pickup (Truck #1) from my local junkyard. Seems fairly complete, all the body parts are there. minus the grill and some emblems...



It was an abandoned project. It had a front clip off of something. It was bolted in ghetto style but the plus side is, it has disk brakes. While I was pondering what to do with it, I had an epiphany.
It NEEDS to be Four Wheel Drive. So the search began for the new to us 4x4 chassis. In the same Junkyard, they had this low mileage beauty, 2006 Dodge 2500 4x4 (truck #2) and it was only half burnt, PERFECT.

Got the cab and bed taken off. Just had this burnt 5.7 Hemi with the transmission and transfer case left. A friend was interested in the engine and bought it. I was able to sell the trans & T-case on Craigslist.


Note* This will be my first time messing with chassis modifications.
Going with a budget build mindset. I thought of the smart idea to move the rear axle forward about 30 inches forward. This would do 2 things. 1. it will shorten the wheel base. 2. give it a free 6+ inch lift.
Here we go.


You can see I flipped the leaf spring perches. The rear went in the front due to it fitting better. I then went and welded them in.
Later, a buddy of mine came over and noticed that the driver rear wheel was about 2 inches forward. Hmm... probably should of measured instead of eyeballed it : )
Well, since I jacked it all up it was time to correct the newly discovered issue.

On Craigslist I found 2003 Dodge 2500 2x4 (truck #3). What sucked was a complete truck and I would have to rip everything off. It took me and my buddy about 6 hours to get it on the trailer and drive away.
This how we left it.



My Buddy Cam - A Mopar fanatic - He helped me strip the 2003 Dodge.


To be continued...

 

[Marine]

Will follow along for sure

 

[GoldiesGarage]

Here is where we started separating the front frame clip from the frame extension.

Lookie here there is a factory straight edge inside. This will come in handy later. Hopefully the other frame is the same.

Who would of thought, the 2x4 frame is the same as the 4x4 frame - *Win* I cut and removed the factory extended cab frame spacer and brought the two frame halves together. These are factory straight ends so I didn't have to do much measuring. I welded it up and took whatever wheelbase it came out to be.

I heart ratchet straps. I uses them for everything. Used the ratchet strap to pull the two frames together. I welded a piece of angle to the bottom to line them up.



Not the nicest but it holds. I can jump on it without it breaking. So it must be fine.





Cutting up the frame extensions to make frame braces.

Looks good enough for me. Plus no one will see it so...


Until next time : )

 

[GoldiesGarage]

Will follow along for sure

Welcome aboard.

 

[ITTOG]

I heart ratchet straps. I uses them for everything. Used the ratchet strap to pull the two frames together. I welded a piece of angle to the bottom to line them up.

Not the nicest but it holds. I can jump on it without it breaking. So it must be fine.
View attachment 622462

Welcome and I can't wait to see where this build goes.

Yes ratchet straps are amazing. I use them for a lot of things as well.

Your comment about jumping on the frame made me spit out my coffee. Yeah, that will do. LOL!!

 

[Todd n Natalie]

Reminds me of the first vehicles I ever owned. A '49 and '53 Fargo. Flathead 6's with 3 on the trees.

 

[GoldiesGarage]

Welcome and I can't wait to see where this build goes.

Yes ratchet straps are amazing. I use them for a lot of things as well.

Your comment about jumping on the frame made me spit out my coffee. Yeah, that will do. LOL!!

Hopefully, you didn't make too much of a mess.
I don't claim to be a great scientist or anything of the sort but I'm glad you agree with my testing techniques. Using the Equation LxWxH Length of the weld x my Weight x Height of my jump, 14x200x8=22,400 that is a lot of force/stress I introduced to the weld. ?

Reminds me of the first vehicles I ever owned. A '49 and '53 Fargo. Flathead 6's with 3 on the trees.

I've seen 3 names/titles for this truck Pilot house (corner windows), Job-Rated & Fargo. I've only seen 2 others that were able to drive. Do you still have them or pictures?

 

[Todd n Natalie]

I've seen 3 names/titles for this truck Pilot house (corner windows), Job-Rated & Fargo. I've only seen 2 others that were able to drive. Do you still have them or pictures?

Fargo was the Canadian version. Like how Mercury built trucks here.

No don't have them still, never got past the project stage as they were hauled out of a field. Turned 16 and wanted something I could drive right away.

Sold the Fargo's and bought a 1964 Pontiac Parisienne Custom Sport. (Think Impala SS dimensions, chassis and running gear but with Pontiac Catalina styling)

Unfortunately no pictures of them. Although I still have a bunch of the old soda pop bottles I found in the bed of the '53.

 

[GoldiesGarage]

In the other pictures you can see the front end is sitting up at ride height. So this is slightly out of order.
I bought a ZONE lift kit. It was a spacer type of lift that factory upper & lower control arms.

*Note* if you are lifting a 2003-2008?? Dodge 2500 4x4 don't waste your money on a factory length control arm lift kit.





Back to the timeline.
At this point this Boot went off on his 1st Deployment.

 

[GoldiesGarage]

Coming back a MAN... I sold this truck to my Brother Ish. From this point on he is the Sole Financial Investor. While my role changed to Lead Scientist.
here we go...

Since we have a rolling chassis we needed to get the body fitted. Working with very limited tools (No lifts, forklifts, or lift-y things).
As Lead Scientist I thought of this...
Four strong dude, one per corner, and some wood.



We made our own body mounts. The front mounts used the 1950 factory ones with some body lift spacers. For the rear we designed our own with some 1/8 diamond plate steel. Both need to be remade.
The front bumper is off a 60's Ford COE that we shortened to fit.
Chassis ✔
Body ✔
Drivetrain ❌ Need to fix that...

 

[GoldiesGarage]

Fargo was the Canadian version. Like how Mercury built trucks here.

No don't have them still, never got past the project stage as they were hauled out of a field. Turned 16 and wanted something I could drive right away.

Sold the Fargo's and bought a 1964 Pontiac Parisienne Custom Sport. (Think Impala SS dimensions, chassis and running gear but with Pontiac Catalina styling)

Unfortunately no pictures of them. Although I still have a bunch of the old soda pop bottles I found in the bed of the '53.

Oh... I see. That's cool but bad you don't have pictures. I would have like to see them. I know I can google but those are someone else's.

 

[Regcabguy]

Sharing a build my Brother (Ish) and I did.

**Full Disclosure** - This is our first real 4x4 Off-Roader. We knew very little about Off-Roading when we started this. We made MANY mistakes and lots of changes. This was a learn has you go experience.

I think this would be considered a ground up build. Which took a combination of 5 different trucks. The goal of this thread is to share this build with anyone interested, somewhat entertain you, and having a place to post the adventures. I know there isn't that many Custom Full Size Rig driving around.

I love vintage trucks besides how sweet they look. They are extremely rare to see around town. Some other positive things are that you don't smog them (California). So I can do whatever we want. No limits but money and our imagination.

Let's begin.
This is how it all started, I purchased this 1950 Dodge B2B Pickup (Truck #1) from my local junkyard. Seems fairly complete, all the body parts are there. minus the grill and some emblems...
View attachment 622429
View attachment 622430

It was an abandoned project. It had a front clip off of something. It was bolted in ghetto style but the plus side is, it has disk brakes. While I was pondering what to do with it, I had an epiphany.
It NEEDS to be Four Wheel Drive. So the search began for the new to us 4x4 chassis. In the same Junkyard, they had this low mileage beauty, 2006 Dodge 2500 4x4 (truck #2) and it was only half burnt, PERFECT.
View attachment 622431
Got the cab and bed taken off. Just had this burnt 5.7 Hemi with the transmission and transfer case left. A friend was interested in the engine and bought it. I was able to sell the trans & T-case on Craigslist.
View attachment 622433

Note* This will be my first time messing with chassis modifications.
Going with a budget build mindset. I thought of the smart idea to move the rear axle forward about 30 inches forward. This would do 2 things. 1. it will shorten the wheel base. 2. give it a free 6+ inch lift.
Here we go.
View attachment 622435
View attachment 622436
You can see I flipped the leaf spring perches. The rear went in the front due to it fitting better. I then went and welded them in.
Later, a buddy of mine came over and noticed that the driver rear wheel was about 2 inches forward. Hmm... probably should of measured instead of eyeballed it : )
Well, since I jacked it all up it was time to correct the newly discovered issue.

On Craigslist I found 2003 Dodge 2500 2x4 (truck #3). What sucked was a complete truck and I would have to rip everything off. It took me and my buddy about 6 hours to get it on the trailer and drive away.
This how we left it.
View attachment 622446
View attachment 622448

My Buddy Cam - A Mopar fanatic - He helped me strip the 2003 Dodge.
View attachment 622452

To be continued...

I owned a 50 Dodge pickup with raw aluminum camper shell. Original engine and "crashbox" non-synchronized trans. I bought it while staying in Sebastopol,Ca for awhile. $225. The starter was button activated under the clutch pedal. That's going to be a fine project.

 

[GoldiesGarage]

I owned a 50 Dodge pickup with raw aluminum camper shell. Original engine and "crashbox" non-synchronized trans. I bought it while staying in Sebastopol,Ca for awhile. $225. The starter was button activated under the clutch pedal. That's going to be a fine project.

That sounds pretty cool. Do you have any pictures of it?

 

[GoldiesGarage]

So carrying on... ol' faithful Craigslist, came through once again. We found this 2006 Chevy 2500 SCLB 2wd truck for the reasonable sum of $3500. Yes, 2wd truck...It had over 200k Miles on it. While on the phone with the gentleman, he lowered the price to $3200 without even asking. When we came to look at this fine piece of Detroit Steel. Everything worked and it ran great didn't seem to have any problems except the decent sized dent on the Passenger Side Bed. We took a gander under the hood and a beautiful 6.0 iron block Gen 3 LS was nestled between the frame rails. One thing I liked about the engine bay was the slight film of road grim/dirt. Meaning it hasn't been cleaned before we got there. Looking around, no oil anywhere. Took it out for a quick burn and found out it is a 1-wheel bandit. Ish and I agreed that this will work. Paid the man and came the next day with a trailer.

Didn't take many picture of the Donor truck. This is Truck # 4 ( if your counting)

Getting ready to do a front clip swap and pull the Engine.

Parts for the Dodge B2B
6.0 LQ4 Gen 3
4L80e 2wd
Hydroboost + brake pedal
Computer/ECU
Pedal & TAC Box

 

[GoldiesGarage]

Since we have obtained a Gen 3 6.0 Ls Engine. It is time for us to give it a new forever home.

Found a place for the Engine to live. We put it just far enough forward where we wouldn't have to cut the firewall.
Made some motor mounts from scratch. Flat stock, round tubing, bushings and some welding. Should be strong enough.
Also, Cleaned the frame from most of the rust. finished by painting it with some POR-15.



We bought some Flowtech turbo headers since they were $180 and had V-Band clamps already welded to the ends.


We moved the Engine as far over to the passenger side as we could. Because the steering linkages were not made yet. We wanted as much room as possible. Clearance is tight.