I've been offered a 92 D250 12v 5spd 190k mile 4wd truck with no useable body panels (rust) except for the core support and hood. I see gas trucks local to me including a '91 D350 dump and wonder what works and what don't for swapping cabs onto the 250 cummins chassis. I think the 250 frame is salvageable as most gas 350's here are 2wd. Anyone got experience?

The cabs are a direct bolt on. Diesel to gas wiring is different as well as some cluster items. So plan on gutting both cabs and using most of the diesel items in the gas cab. The 4wd has a floor hump you will need to cut out and fit into the 2wd cab. I assume you are going 4wd.

I would say there is no appreciable difference... I did a Cummins swap into a '80 cab from a '92 cab on a '83 chassis and the only thing I needed to change was the bulkhead opening and the heater box opening ( that was the difference between the '80 and '83 cab). Other than that I swapped the entire pedal assembly, elec. harness...everything straight bolt in. So a '92 to a 91 cab should be effortless.

If the floor hump in the donor cab is different just reuse the hump from the diesel cab.

That is a cut and weld not a bolt in.

That's what I thought. Outwardly the dashboard doesn't look much different than gas truck but I don't know. I know that the humps are different and I've done that before on my mud truck. This is a ton of work and have done it in the past. The only reason I'm considering this is it's a 2 owner truck and I know both owners. Never owned a diesel truck so I want to tinker.

The dashboard itself is the same. All the wiring and some of the other cluster and warning lights are diesel along with 4wd lights. With the steering column out along with the cluster, radio, and misc. The wiring harness should go in somewhat painless.

it may be more work but I think you'll end up with a better truck if you consider the diesel a donor.

If the 91 dump is clean, I'd put the diesel in it rather then swap bodies and fix frames. Most of the holes are in the rails for the 4wd parts to go into.

Just so I'm clear, you're saying 4 wheel drive into a 2 wheel drive chassis is mostly a bolt in?

I know we're discussing 250 and 350 trucks so would the same be true for a 150?

Kevin

Buried somewhere here is a thread on doing that conversion and it didn't sound easy. There's something different about the front besides the strut rod brace.

Converting a frame is not easily done. Better off having a good frame for the application and transfer over all the parts.

To the best of my research, the only holes not present on a 2wd frame are for the shackles. Applies to all weight classes of D and W trucks.

Note, there's a big difference in steering design in the late 70s that makes the donor choice more important.

I'll be doing this swap next winter on my D250. I'm currently rebuilding a Dana 60 axle, have springs and mounts to freshen, picking up transmission parts tomorrow. If you have a complete donor truck it's much easier, I've gathered parts from various junkers over the years. There's plenty of parts that get changed, biggest bugaboo is cutting all the factory rivets.

There's a fellow on Cumminsforum who has done enough conversions that he can do them in 2 weekends.

yes it is.not a hard thing to do.

Cut for sure, but I don't see any reason why it has to be welded.