New member and new square body owner from Livermore ca

[Coybilt]

Thanks, yeah I know it's cheating when you find them clean. I build muscle cars for a living so I wasn't looking for a huge project. The truck currently has a 454 th490 with a dana 70 rear axle combo. The motor and trans are coming out for a cummins swap at some point soon. I bought the truck with the intentions of making it the replacement for my 07 duramax.

[AZ87V10]

Welcome from Northeastern AZ! Originally from Southern California myself, although I have family that lives in Livermore! That's a nice looking clean truck! I wish my paint still looked that nice!

[big_al273]

Guess i cheated a little too then  (almost zero rust) but these square trucks with a GOOD turbo diesel shoehorned in are better than anything on the Dealers lot and a lot cheaper than a new Diesel too, by the time I've got my 5.9/NV4500 swap done ill be around the same price as a well optioned half ton, still that's a lot cheaper than a 70,000 dollar truck, The prices of these new trucks boggle my mind  , and they SUCK based on my hands on experience.

[Coybilt]

I will say the new trucks may be really nice riding and all that, But my 07s body was pretty fragile. I am super careful with my vehicles unlink some of the guys I know who I are like a wrecking ball. The new trucks have a great chassis, I will give them that but the  body sucks. I wanted a old square because they are not tin cans and with the right parts can be made pretty decent. Ive looked into doing a duramax swap in this truck, but then the truck is reffed for California emissions, something I am trying to get away from. I am also trying to get away from the new truck parts prices and registration prices. (07 3500 HD is $485 a year to register) If I do a 98 and down 12 valve then I'm exempted and we are all good. My biggest worry right now is the front suspension being able to handle the extra weight of the cummins. I also need to find out what options are available for the front brakes if there are any. If we have to we will fabricate spindles or make something happen so we can run bigger brakes. I do under stand that they ran bolt on style calipers on these trucks as well. If that is the case I can get those spindles and make my own caliper brackets etc.. I will first do a motor/trans and diff swap, then I will start pulling some of the cars around and see if needs better brakes. I will ultimately put a goose neck 48foot trailer behind this thing some times, so this truck has to be on its A game. I am in this to make this truck first class and keep it that way to make all of us Square body owners proud of it.

[big_al273]

as far as the front suspension goes i haven't looked into the independent 2wd suspension much but i would assume that like the 4wd you should be able to get a set of springs with the weight of the Cummins in mind, i'm going to have to order custom front leafs for mine as i need to lift it for then oil pan to clear the axle and for the springs not too break or sag excessively under the extra weight of the 1100 lbs Cummins. For the brakes aside from rear disk conversions (these have the issue of a parking brake) i have not found any easy brake upgrades from the stock 1 ton stuff, i'm pretty sure you should have either the same 13" tall by 3-1/2" wide rear drums as i do or you may only have the 13" tall x 2-1/2" wide rear drums, either way i was VERY impressed at how well my truck performed in an "emergency stop" and that was when i had minimal too zero rear brakes (some strange issue with my master cylinder that fixed itself after 5 bench bleeds, don't ask how many attempts i had at bleeding it in the truck, a lot with a power brake bleeder too). The brakes in these trucks are pretty dang good, in the 85 K20 monster truck my dad has we're running the stock front disk/rear drum (the 13"tall by 2-1/2" wide drums) and that is with 47" tires and a 450-500 horse 454 and it stops good as well even after being dragged 200ft though 4 feet of mud soup.

[Irish_Alley]

Can't help with the brakes but I can with the Cummins swap. I have a 91 v3500 with a Cummins and 5 gal oil pan and no lift. It's close but the pan clears. I'm also using the Cummins to GM clamshell mounts. Over in our Cummins swap board you will find Baja who is William Potts and he's done a few Cummins swaps on the squares and has his 2wd crew cab Cummins that has been lowered. A 454 is a tad under 700lbs so it's 300-400 lbs difference

[Coybilt]

So,
 
I ended up find in a 94k 180hp 12 valve cummins out of a 97 2500 auto truck. The truck had good service records etc and was not modified. Now I'm trying to put together a AAM 11.5 Rear diff with 3.42s since the truck has 29.5 inch tall tires on it. I am going to run this with a 06-10 Allison 1000 or 2400 in front of it, I will need a separate standalone TCM. I don't mind that as I used to have a duramax with a Allison and it was very good to me. I will have to run a lower stall speed converter, the converter will also need to be made to handle the power we are going to throw at it . I am going to keep collecting parts for the truck until we have everything to knock it out.

[big_al273]

Why are you looking at swaping the axle? the 11.5 AAM you mentioned has the same 10000lbs rating as the Dana 70HD that should be what you have, why not do the gear swap (if that's your main concern) and know as fact that everything is New and good inside?

[LTZ C20]

Heavy duty AAM axles are still excellent axles.