1966BT Dodge Camper Special Resto/Mod

LowDown

LowDown

Glutton for Punishment
Joined
Nov 4, 2011
Messages
30
My name is Andy and live outside of Baltimore, MD. I have built a few rock crawlers over the last ten years including a few Toyotas and Jeeps. I completed my last project major project in July 2010; a Jeep based racer I built for the Raush Creek off road series. Check out Crawl Magazine, issue no. 26 for an article the owner wrote about the race series and the build.
Other than fabricating, I have a great family including my wife and our two boys.

I found the blue '68 W200 Crew, a former Air Force truck, on a farm in Luray, Va in October 2010.
At the time, my wife and I had been contemplating buying an older 3/4 or 1 ton truck to do work around the house and eventually pull a single car hauler for my personal off road project (Toyota 4Runner). Having a small family, the four door cab immediately stood out to me. The truck was (is) ugly and rough as hell so I wanted it bad. My wife was on board with the project so I got the ball rolling. The timing worked out and I brought the '68 home with the help of my two good friends, Austin and Rob.


It was worse than it looked. The a-pillar floors and body mounts were gone. The bottoms off all four doors were completely rusted out and there was very little left of the rockers and door sills. The front of the cab was sitting on the frame. The doors were so out of whack that the driver's front was really hard to open and was lucky if it would close. The fender/cowl seams were gone and the inside of the cowl was really bad.
At some point, a 383 was swapped in along with a radiator out of something like a '55 Chevy. Whatever butcher did the swap, cut the core support and put a hole in the hood to clear the radiator neck. All four leaf packs were shot; the fronts were negatively arched and the rear main leafs were cracked.

The plan WAS to bring the '68 back to life but rust really compromised the structural integrity of the cab. I hated to let it go but it was the best thing to do.
Fast foward to May 2011; I came across a Craigslist add for 4 Sweptlines including a complete '66 D200 (318/727) Camper Special which I brought home 5/5/2011.
Thanks to Shane for hauling and Rob for making the ride to help load the truck.


Fast forward to November 2011; I found a '91 12v 6BT donor truck in PA so I'm going NV4500/diesel instead of with the BB.

I'm still linking the front suspension, new rear leafs, a GM D60 front axle, Dodge D70 rear axle, hydro boost brakes with discs on 4 corners, and power steering along with a hydro assist ram. The body will remain stock for the most part.

I'll admit, I'm cross posting ***** and have this build on two other sites but this was before I realized I'm going diesel. I've got it on Sweptline.org since this truck is a Swepty and on an East Coast wheeling board named rightcoast4x4.com.

My original inspiration came from a thread on Pirate4x4.com; on which "Chopperman" with a set of coil overs, sold axle swapped is 2003 Duramax CC 2500HD truck: Link removed site violation due to profanity)
I like everything about this truck and feel that the 4WD conversion with coil overs will be worth the time and money since the ride will hopefully be that much better compared to leafs.
I'm also digging the rear 4 link work that Phil @ Sillyneck Fab did on this '08 F450:
Link removed site violation due to profanity)
More than likely I won't 4 link the rear due to simplicity and function. When I'm done with my '66, at the most it'll see a 20' or so gooseneck trailer so I don't really the bags considering most people get away with the equivelent of one ton rear leaf springs..

This time last year, I took advantage of some end of the year sales and bought most of the parts to link the front. I also got a new Vanco hydroboost unit, and a passengetr side high steer arm and studs from Off Road Design.


 
Having written it off due to body rot, I spent a good part of the spring tearing the '68 down:





 
I kept the windshield surround sheet metal in case I need it down the road..




With the '68 reduced to a few pieces of sheet metal, I jumped on the '66. I think up until '67, the LWB crews were special ordered then stretched by conversion company.
Thanks to 5 buddies, we got the bed off mid October and spent a few days removing the rear end and rear suspenion.




Before (nice drive shaft!):


After:
 
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I dropped the automatic trans cross members then pulled the 318/727 in one shot then stripped the cab down.



I pulled the dash and all four doors. I'm psyched that the defrost vents are still in one piece and none of the vent cables snapped. On the other hand, I hate those damn phillips head screws that attach the rear door hingers to the doors and body. They were bear to remove even after heating them and going at it with the impact screw driver. Thanks to my buddy Jamie for helping out.

Thanks to my 8 buddies for help with pulling the cab off the frame and setting the cab on the table I made just for this purpose.

 
I've been tearing the frame down over the last couple of weeks.


I first pulled the two pieces of the 4spd bell housing cross member by grinding the heads off all the rivets and knocking them out with the air chisel.



From there, I knocked out the hardware for the overload brackets then jumped on the frame splices.
Bill was 100% correct, this frame had an approximate 14" splice welded into the frame. I marked the welds with a silver sharpie.



Get the exterior brace off was fun (deep sarsasm there) since none of the rivets wanted to come out after I ground the heads off. I put my air chisel through the paces yeterday for sure. I'm sure my neighborhood hates me. You can see where the hole for the spring eye bolt was hand torched:



This plate is stitch welded into the interior of the frame rail. I'm debating on removing it or fully welding it in after I have the frame blasted.
Unfortunately the bottom sections of each side of main frame rails are rusted pretty badly because of the amount of moisture retained at these joints. The scale literally fell out in chunks.


I still have to break the other splice down before I have the frame blasted. The frame measures approximately 19' 7" BTW.
 
I've taken the frame as far as I can this year. I'd be pointless to blast it now then just to let it sit outside and rust. My plan for the frame for the time being is to start making the templates I'll need for frame bracing down the road. Once the templates are done, I'll send 'em out and hopefully get some nice laser or plasma cut pieces back in time for the spring.

Backing up, I had the axle housings, shafts, knuckles, and caliper brackets, a pair of motor mount brackets, and a pair of body mounts media blasted back in August.
The front D60 came out of an '88 Chevy 3500 p/u. I've since sold the dually hubs and am converting the axle to SRW with a pair of SRW Dodge D60 hubs.



I have since had the knuckles and caliper stands powder coated black.

The rear D70 came out a '93 Dodge W350.


I'm having Ballistic Fabrication in Az. make me a few set of the motor mounts. I plan on setting the bell housing and trans. on a pair of mounts so the engine/bell housing can stand alone should I want to remove the NV4500.

 
I'm having bad luck with D60 shafts..I've got two sets and the inner shafts from one of set are pitted really badly and it looks like another one of the inners has already started to fail..Bummer..When the time comes, I'll order a set of after market inners. If I do that, I might have the hub gear broached to 35 spline and go with a set of after market outers too.

 
Sweet project!! Looks like you're definitely taking the time to do it right. Also, I have a 12v nv4500 adapter plate out of a 1995 12v. Just pm me if interested.
 
I was all set to go with the Mopar 383BB that I kept from the '68. Throughout the year, I ordered several parts including an NV4500 adapter bellhousing from Lakewood, a pair of headers, and some engine ARP hardware. I recent sent it all back to Summit after I made a great for this running 6BT powered '90 D350. The owner advertised that it only had 180K on it but discovered it's closer to 250K while I was giving the truck a good once over. We settled on a fair price, loaded it up and brought it home back on November 5th. Thanks again to Austin, Phil, and my son Jake for making the trip.



It went up for sale because the engine mounted trans cooler went which wiped out the trans with engine coolant. None of the tampers on the injection pump have been tripped and it runs great. I'm zero out of pocket on it so I'm pretty psyched. It's a non-IC motor but am in the process of finding parts for the IC set up and the NV4500 conversion.

On top of trying to find 2nd gen. NV4500 transmission parts, I'm also trying to find a power steering pump for a 6BT powered truck that came with hydroboost brakes from the factory. From there, I plan on sending the pump to PSC to have them dyno it to verify it'll run my hydroboost brakes and hydro assist steering. Within the next few days I'm sending them my F250 boxes to be ported and rebuilt. My intention is to minmize the number of hands in my hydraulic system; Vanco for the hydro-boost unit and PSC for the rest of it.
 
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if you look at gm cars that had hydroboost (my 85 caprice wagon for example), it still only had one pump outlet. which was split to power the steering and hydrobost. and the reservior had two returns. which can also be tee'd together.

on my brothers riviera conversion, he utilized the factory vacuum booster instead of goin hydroboost, merely because the 24v he picked up has a vacuum pump on its power steering pump, and it pulls the vacuum now. waaay better than the gasser 455 he pulled out of the car.
 
Sweet man! Those old Swepties are so god damn ugly (especially the crew cabs from a side profile) you gotta love them
 
I've been making some progress behind the scenes but have not touched the truck for a few weeks.
I sent my CAD drawings to several local Baltimore companies who have CNC cutting capabilites. They either came back at over double my budget or never got back to me.
I then sent the drawings to Kert @ DIY4x.com who came in under budget and has been great to work with since. He's going to start cutting the plates on Monday and is making a set of mounts for the air bags too.
The bag mounts will be similar to these but super sized to fit the 11" diameter air bag.



The trusses arrived a couple of days ago and are awesome. My inner over killer is is very happy.

Also, Allen @ Ballistic sent me a finalized version of the motor mounts for the Cummins conversion.


Once I get the plates from Kert, and if the weather is decent, I might start welding 'em on the frame.
 
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