farm truck engine swap?

ok as many of you know i got a 94 dodge cummings dodge the truck has been great considering we use the crap out of it, now the tranny [ automatic] is acting up, it was replaced with a new one in 2001, now this truck has 250,000 miles on it, and the engine is still great, i dont particularly want to invest 5 grand in a new tranny for a regular pickup truck, so i have heard of a company that produces kits to put the b series cummings in virtually any pickup, you just have to tell them what your going to stuff it in, i have a old 1983 chevy 1 ton with a 12 foot flatbed, rack side also equipped with a dump and rolling tailboard, the old body is good,both the bed and the cab, and its a whole lot more usable rig on the farm than the pickup is, im thinking about putting the dodges engine in that truck and scrapping the dodge body any of you done this, how did it work out? cost? the chevys old 350 runs well but is high mileage now and this might be the best overall option for me

Still have to have a drive train behind that diesel to take the torque. Not sure if the gas powered tranny and rear will do it.
I looked into something like that in the late '70's. Cummins had a kit that you could put their diesel into a Ford , Chevy etc. Wanted to put it into my Ford.........$$$$is what stopped me after I found out it was going to cost me 6 grand, I didn't look any further.
But you already have the engine....so maybe it will work for you.

thats one of my wonderings too the old chevy has a cast iron 4 speed manual and a dana 60 full floating rear so im thinking if it was run in a sane manner it should hold up to the Cummings engine

Neighbor did that last year with his Dodge 1 ton and a Chev 1 ton he bought. Search here for posts by deerefanatic (I think that's his handle, anyway) and see if he maybe has some posts about it, or if his email is open. Or email me and I can send you his phone #.

The gas drive line will not hold up to the torque of the diesel engine. Plus the ratios will not be correct.

You can switch the engine but usually you would switch the whole drive line as well.

My Dodge pickups have Dana 80 rear ends. A Dana 60 is not going to last long.

You can find manual transmission that will mate the Cummin 5.9 engine in heavy truck applications. Ford offered that motor in their trucks up to the F600 at least.

I think the 4 speed would hold up, no problem. My concern would be that without having overdrive, you are going to be turning that Cummins pretty tight, for long periods.

WHAT FIVE GRAD FOR A SLUSH BOX . Ain't no flippen way . And people wonder WHY i do not like SLUSH BOXES . I have had four slush boxes in my in my own cars and trucks and all have failed . The War Dept has only had slush boxes and all have failed . With a standard the only thing that i have to replace is the clutch and other then my Road Runner they last a LONG TIME unless you do something STUPID like put more pony power to it then it was designed for or slip it because you do not know how to drive. Like the OLD IRON HAULERS us to say it takes IRON TO HAUL IRON . I can rebuild a SLUSH box and i can make it better but it still will only last so long . I don't care if you change the fluid every 10000 miles along with a filter change the seals get hard the clutch pac slip with each change of gears and once the clutch facing is wore down so far the clutch pac piston can only push out so far . And heat now that is the killer . Put a temp gauge in the pan for a SLUSH BOX and watch it . I did this on my 78 Ford F250 4X4 with a C6 after the forth trans in a year , the first three did not last thru the first winter of snow plowing . I rebuilt the forth one myself and did all i could to beef it up by digging into my spare parts from the drag racing days . As of May 10 1975 Ford made changes to there good OLD C6 by cheeping it up by dropping 2 disc and 2 plates in each clutch packs so you now had 6 less disk's in the trans mission , then they went so far as to SMOOTH out the shifts so they were no as harsh so the softened up the accumulator spring and dropped the shift pressure . Then for some reason on the 78 Fords with the JUNK 400 engine there was a major screw up at the plant and instead of putting 4 clutches and disks in the ft. clutch pack they left out one clutch and one plate and only had three . So when you worked the truck since al the power went thru the ft. clutch pack you had a smoked trans in just one day of plowing and a ride on the back of a hook . I rebuilt mine usen parts from old C6's that used 6 clutches and 6 plates thru the whole trans. changed the accumulator spring for one out of a police -taxi upped the regulator pressures set the clutch pac spacing did everything i could even a deep sump pan and extra Oil cooler that was bigger then what came on it . But the big thing was the temp gauge , just driving the truck on a hot summer day on a two lane at 50-55 she would run 180-195 but put it out on the four lane and kick her up to 65-70 and now you were pushen 240-260 . on a really COLD DAY below 0 plowing snow and working it hard seeing temps of 280-310 were not uncommon .I got five years out of it when it drop kicked me when the ft. clutch pac went and this time it was not due to burning up the disc's it was due to taking the teeth off of them from just plain old ware. The 79 F250 4X4 that had the 4 speed and a plow on it just ran and ran well till it got totaled in 1990 when i got hit head on by a 17 year old drag racen his buddy on there way home from school . I would have been still driven that truck .

The automatics in the dodge trucks can be built to handle 1000 HP and 2000 pounds of torque. Give DTT a call and talk to them. There are other companies as well, I just can't think of the names. Before you do anything check out the cummins forum.

If you do decide to do the swap, I would look for a spicer 5 speed trans. The rear end will be fine depending on how you drive it.

The 5.9 is the best choice for a "real truck" swap into the Chev. With a real truck tranny, either Spicer or New Process manuals, 4 or 5 speed from a full size truck (medium duty) salvage. The Dodge NV and Getrag manuals just didnt stand up to the Cummins well. For a real truck slush box, Allison AT545 or if you really want to go bulletproof, MT 653 series. I always wonder why Dodge never put a real truck tranny behind the 5.9 Cummins

Cummins Repower- Steve Mallicoat, Iowa, 1-319-366-7537.

With you already having the motor and the truck it won't be that hard. If it were me I would buy and NV4500 5spd out of a dodge and put in the truck. You won't have to spend the money on an adapter plate then for the motor. That trans will do just fine. Check out chevycummins.com. There are some helpful theings on there you will need in doing the conversion. If you are going to load the truck very heavy or pull some heavy loads with it I would suggest swaping a Dana 80 in for the rearend on the Chevy. Just my 2 cents worth.

Chris

i guessing 5 grand, the one in it now was a brand new transmission from dodge in 2001 i think and it was 4400 then, im figuring it could only go up from then, after reading all this im now wondering if it would be advisable to hunt for a wrecked dodge with a 5 speed, and swap mine over, buying the whole wreck as ill need th eunder dash and fiorewall stuff too for the manuel, im going to do more research now before it twist any wrenches the dodge is fairly straight other than the whole top of the dashboard cover fell in lol

good idea on the rear end,if i did swap the cummings into the chevy, i could also just use the dodges rear under the chevy i think too, its bigger than the one in the chevy but not sure right now just which one it has

5 G for a trany NO WAY someone i screwing you

STAY AWAY FROM DTT!!! The kid took over from the old man, and is running it out of his house. Customer service is non-existant. He's buying off-the-shelf replacement parts off another company, and shipping them straight back out as custom-built parts. He's even sent boxes back out without first taking off the old mailing labels.

Couple good reads for you:
http://www.dieseltruckresource.com/dev/good read dtt transmission t306176.html?&highlight stay DTT trans, http://www.dieseltruckresource.com/dev/issues dtt trans t305340.html?&highlight stay DTT trans

Call ATS and don't worry about replacing it again, probably for less than a factory transmission. Goerend out of Iowa is another good one.

The NV4500 was originally a Chevy application. The harmonics of the Cummins makes it have some issues with OD. The 5600 from behind the later Cummins has better ratio splits without the big jump from 2 to 3.

There are a number of medium-duty 8-13 speeds that will fit, but you would need to swap in the proper flywheel housing as well.
ATS Dodge trans packages

Messed up with the links before
issues with DTT

good read about DTT

I've read bad about all of them. Biggest difference is I don't hear to many complain about the DTT trans once it's in the truck and they are driving it. I've read that the ATS trans are strong but not very streetable. I know of a few guys with Georends that are having problems with them and are having a hard time getting the problems resolved.

Bottom line is they all build good trannies but they all have problems.