Halloween and Metal Work

During late October I was traveling outside the USA and returned just in time to set up our annual Halloween surprises.  For the last 15 years I have celebrated Halloween with lots of music and props, over the years my collection has grown and how includes flaming pumpkins, an 11' anamatronic reaper Demon and lots of props.  A few pictures below.

Since I had been traveling there were numerous business issues to take care of before I could get back to working on the truck project.  

DNA had disassembled the old truck and sent it to media blast, when it came back there were numerous holes in the body that would have required significant repairs.  They are well connected and were able to find a 1946 Cab that had some of the parts we were missing and they disassembled that and sent it to Media Blast.  

Then they wen to work and dissembled the 1998 Dodge 3500 truck and disposed of the unwanted cab and bed.  When the 1946 cab came back from media it had a few holes but was in good shape.  Then came the slow part, working to fit a 1946 cab around a modern Cummins 5.9L engine that was 3 times the size of the original engine while at the same time finding the right placement for the body components.

In order to get all this to fit the Engine had to be removed off its mounts and moved back on the frame about 6" and down about 4".  Then the nose of the cab had to be stretched 5"  to accommodate the big inline Diesel engine.  Jake Winterton fabricated new mounts and welded them in, he also fabricated mounts for the cab to allow it to fit into the frame.  

The Frame itself was too big and had to be cut almost 9" to fit the cab, even after stretching it.  During the process the cab and fenders came off and on the truck many times.

Once everything fit and cleared the Cummings 5.9l 12V engine was sent off to Court and his crew at

Outlaw Diesel Performance, after consulting with Court I decided to upgrade the injectors, timing plate, exhaust, and intake.   When its done I hope it looks something like this.

The Turbo will be upgraded to a 61mm 950cfm Turbo which should result it about 550 HP 850 Ft/lbs of torque in a modern Diesel engine.  

Two weeks after Halloween I was finally able to stop by and see the progress.  While Dan had kept me in the loop this was the first time I could check on the progress myself.  Here are some of the pictures from my visit that day.

This is the 1946 Dodge cab sitting on the 1998 Dodge Frame with  5.9L Cummings engine out.  You can see the doors from the 1947 fit perfectly into the cab of the 1946 model.

On the left side of this picture you can see the 5" extension in the nose.  They used 5" cut from the front of the original hood to weld in place and the made a custom center piece with hinges to attach it together

The fenders required a pie slice to expand them properly to fit on the frame.  Lots of hand pounding and welding here.

This is the passenger side fender that needed the same expansion and the body had some rust as well

The original 1946 dodge used a wood floor board this will need to be replace.  This picture shows the custom cab and engine mounts as well as the work on the floor to attach the body securely.  Eventually a custom shaped cover will be made to fit over this hole.  The engine will come into this opening about 3 to 5".

Progress seemed painfully slow but a fair amout of trial and error was required to get everything to fit