Finally bought my first Dakota R/T, even though this is my Donor truck to get my Dakota up and running it is my first Dakota R/T. The truck is in BAD shape, the guy hit a brick mailbox and destroyed the fire wall (ripped the Vin Clean off), windshield, passenger door, fender, hood, and stampede kit. So I have a 2000 4.7 NV3500 Dakota Sport sitting in the garage that had no motor and transmission.
Let starts out by saying EVERYTHING is different, even down to the horns of the truck. So EVERYTHING on my red truck will be out of that R/T.
Here is how I found the Dakota sitting on craigslist. ( Yes those are 20" Replicas that take factory center caps )
Picked her up on the way home from my TDY Trip. He put the spindles and wheels back on for transportation.
Her sitting in my driveway.
So first off cleaned up the engine bays and ripped out he complete 4.7 Engine harness, body harness and PCM.
Before the Tear down.
Decided to go ahead and delete the A/C out of the truck, a bracket is on order and should receive it this week.
Prepped the R/T for engine and trans removal (removed fluids, radiator, support)
Layed in the Dakota R/T body harness and PCM. And Removed the hood for easier installation on my truck.
Engine and transmission is installed Nothing is really tightened down just yet. Im going to be taking some stuff off the engine and replacing them with new clean parts, and cleaning up the plastics and harness in the engine bay.
So from there we decided to go ahead and look at the interior to see what I actually needed to change in interior to make this all work. After doing some research buying some alldata subscriptions for both trucks, the wiring is different and how it plugs into the fuse panel is all different. So I went to see if I could install the new fuse panel into the truck and there is no way to install the fuse panel and it be correct. So that was the deciding factor to change out the interior in the truck from the pre 01 dash to the 01-03 dash. ( I prefer the pre 01 dash myself. )
Goodbye beautiful dash.
As we take out the dash we know to do it right we have to change the heater box, so I went ahead and replaced the heater core in the box, and installed the heater box, replaced the duct work so that it will properly line up with the new heater box, and then went ahead and mocked up the new dash frame. At first I did a search to see if anyone had completely done the swap and couldn't find anyone that has done this all way just a guy that started it and never finished it. The 01 up dash's have a mount on the side where they mount up I'm guessing where they tried to make the dash more supported if there was a crash that the pre 01 dash's don't have. With that bracket it doesn't fit it sticks to far out because the 01 up trucks have a cutout for it to slide into, you have to cut that off in order for the dash to completely line up where it should (top and bottom bolts). Next we put the plastic frame on where everything will end up snapping into place.
Next was the steering wheel column, in order for it to completely hook up like in the R/T it needed to be installed in my truck. Found out there is a bolt and nut underneath of the dash that you can pull your column off, same with the 01 up trucks, so I pulled them out and swapped them.
Went to hook up the new steering wheel column to find out that nothing on there lines up either, so the bracket that holds your brake booster and connects to your dash is also different, so last we went ahead and replaced that. and finally got the Steering wheel hooked up and up into place.
(Will be cleaning all this before proceeding)
Got a lot more work to do in order for this to be correct, wouldn't be able to get any of this done without the help of my Brother.
Update: 1/8/2016
Here is a couple progress pictures with the dash.
Update 2/3/16
So I have gotten a little bit more work done, between weather and being gone Its been a slow go. But Pulled the door latches out of both the R/T and my sport and seen which direction the plastic holders had to go in order for the doors to operate. One can be just turned around the other one that needed changed came from the R/T.
You also have to take the bracket off of the donor truck and move the plastic standoff that holds the panel to the door down and snap it in place. These door panels will not be staying in the truck because i have manual window and lock setup and plan on keeping that way, this was just for fitment purposes.
I also completed the rest of the wiring needed for the swap.
2/22/16