95 Ram V10 and 3/4 ton axle swap

[Bluefish]

Hi everyone, I'm pretty new to the forum and only have a couple posts, but I'm hoping people will be interested in the work I am doing to my 95 Dodge Ram. I have had the truck for less than a month, I got it in trade for my 89 Bronco II! I have always loved Dodge, and my first vehicle was an 89 Ramcharger that I will always miss; we had some good times together.

My Ram came with 33" Toyo Open Country MT's (like new and for sale), a 318, 5-speed (I think it was originally auto) and it appears to have a 3" spacer lift. Downshifting for every hill got lame quick, so I researched my options, and found a complete donor truck in the form of a 95 Ram 2500 with a V10, NV4500 5-speed, Dana 60 front/70 rear, and an exploded transfer case. The axle gear ratios are 3.55, same as what my truck came with. I am hoping the lower gearing in the NV4500 and added power will give it a good balance.

This is what it looked like when I got it


The V10 and NV4500 trans


NP241DLD transfer case, sitting next to the cracked one from my parts truck


318 ready to come out


Its out!


Begging for more cylinders


Thats it for today! More pics to come tomorrow!

[RamAford]

Looks like a good start. Definitely will make it have much more power!

You may want to re-gear to 4.10's with those 33's in the future. It will still help the tranny live longer. If you ever go to a bigger tire, you will need 4.56 or 4.88 gears. so think about that also. So you can do it all at once.

[Bluefish]

(01-18-2010 09:27 PM)RamAford Wrote:  Looks like a good start. Definitely will make it have much more power!

You may want to re-gear to 4.10's with those 33's in the future. It will still help the tranny live longer. If you ever go to a bigger tire, you will need 4.56 or 4.88 gears. so think about that also. So you can do it all at once.

Im going to be running 35's. The tranny is an NV4500 5-speed manual, with a 1st gear ratio of 5.61:1. I was hoping that would get me going well enough, but I can get my hands on a d60/70 combo with 4.10's for $750. Should I most definitely go with those?!

[RamAford]

If your going to run 35's you will want 4.10's at least. i would jump on those if you had the chance.

[sicram]

(01-19-2010 11:48 AM)RamAford Wrote:  If your going to run 35's you will want 4.10's at least. i would jump on those if you had the chance.

looking good so far man

[Bluefish]

(01-19-2010 11:48 AM)RamAford Wrote:  If your going to run 35's you will want 4.10's at least. i would jump on those if you had the chance.

(01-19-2010 04:02 PM)sicram Wrote:  

(01-19-2010 11:48 AM)RamAford Wrote:  If your going to run 35's you will want 4.10's at least. i would jump on those if you had the chance.

looking good so far man

Thanks guys! I will do my best to jump on those axles.

I will post some more pics when I make some more progress!

[Bluefish]

The v10 swap is 95% done! Here are some pics. Today I installed the radiator and hooked some more stuff up. All thats left is the exhaust, tcase and some other wires, but so far the only thing thats given me trouble was an a/c line that wasnt as long as I'd like, still fit though. Pretty straightforward swap, although it helps that I had a complete v10 parts truck to start with.

I picked up some 3/4 ton 4.10 axles last week. Going to throw those on after I fire up the v10 and finish with the engine.

I'll take some more pics when the engine swap is 100% complete!

[dodgethis12]

I pm'd you about your half ton stuff..... get back to me!

[silvers_13]

So what did you do for a transfer case? Did you have to get another one from a v10?

[Bluefish]

(02-08-2010 08:47 AM)silvers_13 Wrote:  So what did you do for a transfer case? Did you have to get another one from a v10?

Yup, found another v10 5 speed truck being parted out a couple hours away and went and pulled the tcase myself. np241dld.. lets hope this one doesnt break!

This thing is heavy! I failed at my first attempt at installing it with a floor jack, not sure what to try next but I'll think of something.