i bought this 2wd 88 dakota frame almost 3 years and had it stored at a friends house. i`m finally ready to put it in so i went and brought it home today. anyone have some tips/pics on welding one in? its going in a 47 desoto. i know i need to level, measure, measure, measure and measure again.

When I put one of those clips under a 39 Plymouth, the two clips matched up real nice at the firewall. The Dakota clip slides inside the 39 frame and gives you a lot of good area to weld. I cut the cars original trans crossmember out of the car and was going to use the Dakota trans crossmember. Unfortunately, I sold the car before it was road worthy, and as far as I know its still under construction.

My current project I'm installing a whole Dakota frame under a 48 Plymouth. I'm using the 124" wheel base frame and took 8" out of the wheel base, and I moved the engine and trans back 7" so it was located in the same relationship between the original Plymouth and the Dakota. The front suspension, engine location, and firewall are now located as they were in the 48. To maintain body hight, I channeled the 48 over the Dakota frame about 2", so I suspect the Dakota frame sits about 2" higher off the ground then the 48 frame (unmodified Dakota suspension, 90 with an 8' box, standard cab, V6, 5 speed). Don't know if that will be the case when you just use the front clip.

So, my conclusion is to mount the front clip so the wheel base remains the same, they join very nicely at about the original firewall. Then expect to move the engine and trans mounts rearward about 7". You may end up lowering the front suspension, if that is important to you. Gene

gene,sounds great any pics ? im on the fence,with my 40 dodge dakota stub,or some fat man stuff for my orignal style IFS,

1ST.POSTER as for the cutting of your frame,i just picked up and subscribed to rod and custom magazine,,even tho its mostly based on chevy powered rods,,,it seems to have a lot of tech articles,,,the july,august,and sept have an article on leveling the frame and how to refrence mark before cutting,,,

august has a a nice article on a 47 ply with a red ram hemi like my 40 its a beautiful car,just my 02

You know, about that picture thing.....I've always had good intentions....just seldom happened. With the current one, I swore I was going to do a step by step write up with pictures. The first couple days, I forgot all about pictures. The next time, the batteries were dead in the camera. Then I was working against a deadline before the weather went south, then, well, you get the idea. Now its too far along to get the important pictures, everything is already covered up by other stuff. I can take some pictures now, but really, it looks like it belongs there, so without in-progress pictures, its pretty senseless.

Somewhere on here (Moparts street rod section, if it goes back far enough) there was pictures of that 39 Plymouth frame with the Dakota clip, posted by the guy that bought it, but I can't remember him name.
Sorry,
Gene

gene no problem,,was just curious,, i doubt ide go as far as chopping to add the dakota stub,,but its a thought,,,

i currently have a marter power brake kit,fat man rack, all i really need to do is convert that dumb factory shock deal,,put on dropped up rights and new coil springs,, and it should be good ,,