I got a crew cab Friday 10/30/09
I have been wanting one for years just waiting on the right deal.
This one is a 77 W200 360/727/203/60/44HD
Myself and the previous owner think it may have been an air force truck originally, but that someone switched over a buncha stuff from another truck. This one has cruise, tilt, a/c, power steering, dome light, stereo dash, etc...

Its pretty solid, not perfect but not bad! Previous owner said it had a rebuilt engine, trans and t-case, and he has had alot of brake work done recently. Its got a 3 year old Meyer 8.5' plow that has only been on the truck for a year and a half.

It had an in cab gas tank, and the bed has a filler cap but no tank under the bed. I removed the in cab tank and I'm putting a 17 gallon RCI aluminum fuel cell in front of bed (  http://www.summitracing.com/parts/RCI-2171AB/  )  This is to free up cab space. I pulled the entire interior apart and am starting from scratch. Primarily I wanted to see what shape the floor was in and stop any problems that might be happening. I got the seats out (rear seat was Dodge but front seat was late 90's Ford vinyl bench) and the carpet and padding up (not factory, it was house carpet) and the floor was solid underneath  So I filled any unused holes and resealed everything with silicone caulk. I then undercoated the whole floor. I ordered new carpet and padding for it that will be here soon. The new interior is out of a late 90's Dodge JMC Conversion van. Leather captain's chairs up front with a custom center console, and leather fold a bed bench seat in the back! I always wanted to do that when I got a crew cab so I am! The in cab tank had to go to get that  seat in the back, but it would have been getting removed anyway.

The windows will get tinted here soon. It runs pretty good, has a exhaust manifold leak. The exhaust looks new, 2.5" dual with turbo mufflers. To fix the manifold leak I got a new set of Flowtech headers for it. The valve covers were leaking so I put new gaskets on them. Cork, and the bolts were about to fall out, no wonder it leaked! Once the valve covers were removed I could see the engine appears extremely clean so the recent rebuild is no joke. Someone had already put an Edelbrock Performer intake and Edelbrock 650 4 bbl carb on it. So to help the ol' girl out I've got some ignition upgrades: Mopar Orange box ignition module, Mopar vacuum advance distributor, Accel SuperStock coil, Accel 8mm wires and new plugs.

The truck will get a 3" Performance Accessories body lift and 34x9.50 Super Swamper LTB tires. If it still needs a little perking up, I have 2" add a leafs in the barn as well. I want to keep the frame close to stock height for towing and pushing snow so nothing will need modified for that. I already have a brand new set of those tires from a Jeep I just built and sold so thats why I will use them on this truck. I'm a fan of tall skinny tires, for all the right reasons.

I will use the truck for a daily driver, snow pusher, tow rig when needed (buddy's Jeeps and stuff). Hopefully next spring or early summer I can find a good deal on a 1st gen 12V truck and will buy it to drive while the body and paint is getting done on the crew cab, then later in the summer I would swap the 12V donor stuff into the crew cab.

Sorry for the long post but I figured I needed to catch everyone up to speed on the project! I'm excited about it.

Here's some pics the previous owner had taken of it a while back:

















Pic from a Haspin trip we made Halloween weekend as soon as i got the truck. Towed a buddy's explorer on ag tires down there to play since his powerstroke puked a water pump first thing saturday morning. The rest of these pictures are new.








Interesting auxillary heater that runs off of coolant lines Tee'd in under the hood.. has a 3 speed knob on the dash, works wonderfully well too. Never seen the like.






Here's the new leather seats for it:


the bench folds into a bed   Nice for trips.

guy named Michael out of Indy? That would be the one. I didn't know he was on a forum...
He mentioned he had taken it to a Dodge show at Auborne, IN one time....

Getting ready to install the tank here in a few minutes, got all my hose adapters and fittings and hardware. gotta remove that nifty auxillary heater too and find seat tracks for my captain's chairs.. carpet won't be here til Friday and the body lift that was supposed to be in today won't be here til Friday either (which the carpet can't be done til body lift anyway cuz of the rear cab bolts). So looks like alot will happen this weekend... I can't wait to get the interior going..

Truck got about 6.5 mpg towing about 7 or 8,000 lbs hills curves and interstate and highway mix and idling for almost an hour on that tank as well... that was on our haspin trip... thats not too terribly seeing as how thats what most of my power wagons have gotten around town (either factory 2 bbl or Eddy 650 4 bbls on 'em usually)... Michael said it was gettin him 10-11 empty. I would have liked a bigger tank but this one seemed like my best option. I would say I will put dual tanks in at some point, either put one under the bed or a second one of these right next to this one (can barely fit 2 wide in the bed if desired)...

my thoughts too, hes on 1stgen.org under 3kings plumbing.  he was trying to trade it for a 1st gen for a long time, and recently had it for sale again.  decent truck for sure.  too bad im broke, or ida owned it a long time ago.

Might check on putting a ramcharger fuel tank in the rear under the bed....

LOL......... 

I understand about the rear doors. I'm in the process of getting my crew done and I'm not going to cut the rear doors either. I think I'm going to use the rear "cab corners" to mount some speakers in or mybe under the front seat. I haven't figured that out yet.

Too bad about the rear seat man. 

my crew had 2nd gen seats front and rear, with the cup holders from genos garage on both consoles. it was awesome.

Mopar65pa- ya i have been following your post... been following all the crew cab posts actually LOL... anyone remember PeteRR  that had the absolutely stunning black crew cab 12v/NV4500 4wd dually with the 91-93 front clip and the old body F350 dually fenders?  Thats what I want mine to look like when its done, that has to be the most awesome sexiest crew cab in existence.  And I like your idea of using the rear cab corners, in fact one of my regular cab power wagons had what appeared to be factory brackets with 6x9's in 'em mounted in the cab corner. It never occured to me to keep those brackets but now i wish i had... I can't recall for the life of me which truck that was but it probably got parted and scrapped... I'm thinking it was "brownie" which got parted out. I would say those brackets came from an 80's model truck, my uncle used to own that truck and most everything not original on it was from an 80's truck so thats my best guess. Something you might check into.



Jeffro- yea i had a cupholder similar to geno's in my '96 that i made myself out of a universal cupholder (just couldn't see spending $40-50 for Geno's but i have seen them and like them). thats what i would do if i put 2nd gen seats in it. Really leaning toward that option right now, thats the only other setup i wanted in it. How was the leg room in the rear? and did the rear seats have to be straight up and down or could you recline them a little without sacrificing leg room? Any pics by chance? Do you have to modify the brackets or do they line up pretty good with the floor? I need to get ahold of this guy around here with 'em in his crew but i have long lost his card and can't remember his name to look him up I don't know where he lives i just happened to catch him out one day and talked to him.

I looked for almost a year to find the one I have. I stole it right out from underneith a guy in NC.    Ok well he didn't want it because it was 2wd.  I really didn't know he was looking at it till he started posting and I meet with him. 

They are out there you just have to sift through the rusted out junk and the over priced wishful sellers. I got mine for $1600 with a never fired crate 360. 

I'm officially crew cab crazy... i know this for a fact. I gave up a '01 durango and a lifted '00 Grand Cherokee both 4.7 V8's with heated leather for mine... Ok well i was tryin to sell the Durango as i had just built the Jeep and the guy with the truck was like hey i can't hold it any longer for you i need to sell it bad so i'm giving the other guys a shot. So i then decided i would sell the Jeep if i could find a buyer as i was having no luck selling the Durango. Then i wound up selling them both in the same day then going to get the crew cab that evening LOL...... So everyone thinks i'm crazy for giving them up for this but its totally worth it and i don't care what anyone says.

Well its been a rough weekend with the crew.... Saturday bout 9 am i get up and at it, go outside gonna do add a leafs... yea well i jacked it up and front driver tire wiggled when it came off the ground. Brakes had been making a growling scraping sound i kinda dismissed til i had chance to check it out, thought previous owner had put brakes on it not too long ago.. anyway i get the wheel pulled and someone did not get the axle nut nearly tight enough, and the resulting slop destroyed the rotor and outside pad was down to backing plate only! So i called every parts store and salvage yard around and only place i could get one that day was salvage yard, went there and broke ratchet and breaker bar trying to bust axle nut loose on it, after PB Blasting it... Borrowed another breaker bar from the owner of the yard, finally got the nut off but then couldn't get the rotor off for anything... wasn't alot of meat left on it and needed turned to get rust and junk off So I decided to call it quits on that one. It had nice meaty pads on it so the guy gave me those and i put it back together decided to order new rotor and throw it back together this way to get me by. Well then the caliper was stuck and would not compress in any. so we took it off and went to town for a new one, came back and entire master cylinder had drained down through that line onto ground. Lovely. Change caliper, refill master cylinder, work for nearly 2 hours to try to get fluid through system, NOT A THING..... At some point along in here i had said screw the brakes i'm doing the add a leafs. By now it was dark and i was pissed because a whole day and been shot getting side tracked by stupid stuff. so I did the add a leafs. We decided to go get a new master cylinder. Came back and put it on, bled brakes, got it all done and called it a night. Whew.

Sunday, we leave bout 10 am to go pickup a Jeep buddy bought, its about an hour away. We get about halfway there and it starts cutting out. I'd been runnin 65 on the interstate so about 3k rpm, for the last 20 miles. I back off the throttle down to 55 mph / 2500 rpm and it seems fine. Then starts doin it again so i hit an exit and park at a gas station to check things out. #5 plug wire is a little loose but thats all i could tell. 2 fuel filters between pump and carb (some genius' idea before me) the first one by pump is a see through one and you can see some gas goin through it. We take off again and get through that town with about 20-25 miles to go yet mostly highway, then it gives us fits about all the way to the guys house, we make it within 1.5 miles of his house and have to call him to come get us... he tows us to his house then runs us to town, we are 100% positive its ignition and it acts just like a coil so we get a coil and ignition module. It seems like it gets hot then acts up and letting it cool down seems to cure it for a few minutes. So get back and put those parts on, i take it down the road, before a half mile its cutting out again. I limp it back and ask him to borrow his air hose so i blow the fuel line back from carb to tank then back from tank to carb and it seemed like some crap got freed up. I put line back on, fired it up, held it to bout 4500 rpm for a good 30 seconds. By this point we had spent 5 hours what shoulda taken an hour or maybe hour and a half to get there. So, it seems cured. We load up the freaking jeep, thank the guy for his help, and head back into town. I decide to get a new piece of fuel line and a new filter and get rid of the 2 filters it has to just one filter. Take 5 minutes to switch all that out, we do then go eat and then get gas, then head home for a long boring uneventful rest of trip.  By the time we get back into town i know it is about 8:15 pm at this point and i just wanna get it home parked in the driveway and go to bed, the weekend was tooo much. Try to do one thing and spend all day fixing other problems that should not have been an issue.

And that leaky exhaust manifold and no radio is gettin real old! I gots to get the headers on and interior finished! lol... Oh and on that last tank comin home, with it running fine again, yea, 6.2 MPG... Some highway and some country highway with twisty curvy 90 degree turns every 1/4 mile...

She tows great, the engine is the only indication there's a load back there, the truck handles the weight awesome (better than my 2nd gen 12V's) not near as much power but it feels like the truck was meant to haul weight...

Anyway i hope you had a better weekend! I'm off here and off to work.

LOL..........  I think I fall in there somewhere too..... 

LOL guys

well I'm already convinced at some time it was an AF truck, theres stenciled letters on the driver door and it appears to have the same paint as the rest, in the jams inside and everywhere like it hasn't been repainted. Besides how many civilian crew cabs got that color?  But there's no dash insignia placard like military trucks have, since the dash was swapped out for an a/c dash. It used to have a 225 /6 so this would be the 3rd engine in this truck? No W200 CC AF truck was a /6 were they?  For that matter was any W200 ever a /6 in the late 70's? I don't think there was...

Whoever swapped all the stuff into it did a good job, it all looks perfectly factory (the dash, a/c, c/c, t/w, dome light, etc. They appear to have used all factory items including wiring and i wonder if the donor truck was a crew cab because the rear dome light wire looks like a factory style wiring, and that light is a long way back with a long wire so it had to be a crew cab i'm thinking.

The rear auxillary heater appears to have been in this position forever, there's no holes for the coolant lines back where you're describing it should be.

I got a little work done to it last night, new plugs, Accel 8 mm wires, Accel Super Stock coil, Mopar orange box ignition module, and got it timed in a little better, it was definitely retarded too much!

A buddy is coming over today to gimme a hand with some stuff....
here's the current to do list:
3" Body lift
Install 34x10.50 Swampers
Install headers & connect to existing exhaust
Install fuel gauge
Install stereo & speakers, wiring, etc.
Install carpet
Find and attach seat tracks to captain's chairs
Install captain's chairs
Build center console (have some cool plans for it too)

Hoping to get the first half of that list knocked out today hopefully... Then its just interior stuff left. I decided to stay with the conversion van interior... A couple friends sat in the backseat and convinced me its not really too bad and when you need to bed down its definitely worth having. So I'm gonna run with it. And the leather captain's chairs are really comfy!

Here's some new pics...

















 

Those seats are a billion times more comfortable than the POS FURD bench seat that was in it!!! I HATED that thing.... These are soft, hold you well and sit up where they should. I used RCI seat tracks on the captain's chairs. As I was saying, the rear fold a bed bench seat is large and takes a lot of room but getting in and out is still feasible and the leg room is about the same as the back seat of a 2nd gen Ram club or quad cab. The back seat can be folded down into bed position (will probably sleep two people) and the front seats don't have to move much, you could drive comfortably while the seat is folded into bed position. I slept on it this weekend on another Haspin trip and it sleeps pretty good! I was really pleased with the setup over the weekend....

Even with the tune-up, headers and ignition upgrades, timing set at 10* advanced, it still only gets 7 mpg, which was pulling a pop up camper and keeping the engine between 2,000-2,200 rpm on the highway and letting it shift by 2k rpm usually, no excess idling... I didn't expect any more fuel milage out of it despite previous owner telling me "it gets 10-11 mpg" but man it'd be nice if i could get a couple more mpg out of it...

I would gladly take 8-12 and never complain! Heck my Cummins only got 13.5 mpg! LOL it was a little bit big and over powered though hehehe...


yea, 46" Michelin military tires (about 250# each + the wheel) on a 20" Eagle wheel, 12" of custom lift, dyno'd over 450hp and 1,000 lb/ft of torque at the rear wheels... but it has its own post somewhere on here.... thought i'd explain with a pic the unheard of fuel milage, or lack thereof lol

Anyway, the back seat leg room, well that was with the front seats set extremely generously, the rear seat leg room isn't near as bad as the entry opening between the B pillar and the seat... But, my 6' 4" 350# best friend said it was OK with him, he wouldn't wanna get in and out all day everyday, but wouldn't mind taking the back seat on a road trip if need be, getting out a few times here and there it was no bother to him... The truck is a daily driver for me, will be used for snow removal subcontracting for my friend's business, and will be used to tow off road rigs or a camper for wheeling trips, some of our club's tow rigs are crew cabs and some are not, but generally i don't need to take more than one passenger with me, so the backseat will get used for cargo and gear, then sleeping at night. So for my needs its great with me.

The fuel mileage thing will get fixed with a 12V drivetrain hopefully next year sometime.

Oh, and my speakers are in and sound good- MTX 6000 series 5" speakers and tweeters in front doors and Rockford 6x9's in boxes under back seat.. Threw an Alpine head unit in the dash for now until i build the center console (then the DVD players will go in as well as the 10" Kicker sub & Sony 800 Watt amp)..

Looks good, BHB!!!   

Here's a couple more Crew Cab pics for you...  I was thinking at the time these two could be the same truck.

http://ramchargercentral.com/index.php/topic,109647.msg1368577.html#msg1368577   

Thanks Pete, those two are really sharp trucks, super clean... I can't get enough 4 door 


Bruce,
Well I don't lean the seat back that far around town, just on the highway, I can look 90* left and see around the B pillar OK. 
Yea the whole full time 4wd setup sucks fuel for sure..  I didn't expect over 8 mpg, but i wish i knew why Michael said it got 10-11 LOL

Yeah anyway.......  $1100 or was it $1400 for that truck you should be ashamed of yourself..... 

To mount rear speakers in my '81 crew cab I used speaker mounts out of a '93 LE model Ram. They are 4" x 10" size speakers and mount with a couple of screws. They sound great. I also put the same style in my '84 D-250 and my '93 W-350. Dodge used them from about '81 to '93.


Dave

Thanks Exxon.

Dave, those your describing sound exactly like what was in my "Browny" truck... 

I put the plow on it to get the height adjusted for the trucks' new ride height, and had to replace a rotted hose on it, I also need to put new marker whips on it. The 8.5' looks great on it, I have previously only had 7.5' plows and usually put wings on them, this 8.5' is much better (the 7.5's were always too small for a lifted truck and IMHO too small for a full size to begin with) This plow weighs 846# and only drops the front end a half inch or so. I'm guessing thats the beauty of the rear add a leafs being used up front LOL

I'm diggin' that beast of yours. Color me jealous

i've always wanted to puta plow on my RC but have passed up a damn near free plow for the RC cause i just see myself doing it . dont know why besides my RC came from ARIZONA damn near rust free ..in the last 10 yrs6 of  it sat in a garage ..and as rust free as it is i cant do it...so i just got a BIG shovel.....chris

A little update:

Finally got the fuel gauge installed a week or so ago. Nice to have haha... got tired of guessing and tryin to go off the odometer....

the last few days a friend and I built a center console in his workshop (FINALLY!) it houses a 7" flip out DVD player head unit up front, my 800W amp inside the bottom, 10" Kicker Comp sub in back, plenty of storage compartments, 4 cupholders, 400W dual outlet 120V AC power inverter, and 6  12V power outlets (3 up front and 3 in the rear for backseat passengers) it also has a mounting base for a removable laptop mount that I built. I also installed my Clarion 7" drop down monitor on the ceiling for backseat passengers to watch movies.

Thursday night a friend and I tinted the windows 15% and replaced the sliding rear window with a solid one (to me they look alot cleaner and you can't reach the slider from the front seat of this thing anyway).

Today I took the futon backseat out, removed the leather cover and put the leather cover from it onto the original backseat for the truck, my mom gave me a hand and we got it to fit pretty good, put that seat in the truck and i like it alot better, much easier to get in and out, got the leg room back, and the other seat was worn out needed rebuilt (which is minor, but it was a big space hog). I'm much happier with this setup.

I got a '92 grill from "2young2drive" on here, and will be getting a diesel core support for it from a friend who is parting out a '92 12V 5 speed truck, which he made me a smoking deal on the whole truck, running and driving if i can come up with the money, if not he's gonna put the motor in his 96 powerstroke truck and sell the dodge w/o motor..... so i'm sellin everything right and left tryin to scrape up the cash. hard to do since i'm not working right now and the holidays ain't helping... bills come first  but this 7 mpg is killin me, it needs 12V'd bbaaaadddd....

Anyway i'm very happy with how the crew cab is setup now interior wise. I still need to fix the super annoying header leak i have...

Will post pics later...

If you put a Cummins in it, it's gonna be loud!

Can't get much worse mileage!