Apittslife

I am doing it the hard way & am doing a Dakota Chassi, w/ Dakota floor & firewall. If I were to do another, I would graft the front clip into the original Pilothouse, with a custom firewall. For the rear I would use the Dakota's or a Jeep Cherokee's rear suspension with rear Disk brakes. That's my 00.02 cents

I second the request! As when I seen the cattle catcher, I thought about how it might be kewl to have one of those for my project.

Really? Because I had a 48 panel, & I am pretty sure it had a FD in it. But that was many years ago & I may not be remembering things as they were.

Frank, I am pretty sure the Engine & Tramsnission are MIA. In the Pics of the front floor & toe-boards there is to much Light comming in. The Panel is actually in Great shape for its age & the fact that it is in Wisconsin ( I am originally from the Sheboygan/Milwaukee areas), The rust you have is common for all those areas, & minor in my opinion. Mine was actually much worse, & I bought it in the early 90's. I will definately be watching this thread.

Welcome, Nice Aquisition! I am jeliious! My first PH was a panel, & I regret having sold it. It is great that you have taken a picture of the Original/Former owner with the truck. In yrs past it was easier & cheaper to go with a GM drive train, But today it is not that difficult, or exspensive to keep it all Mopar. The kewl factor will be greater if you keep it Mopar, But in the end, She is yours to do as you wish! At the moment, we have a 54 PH in the shop for brakes & an exhaust, & it has a bigblock ford engine.

Very lucky it happened where & when it did! Gives you a winter project

The aftermarket has a couple of Mini units that have both Heat & AC, & Seems to be small enough to fit behind the glovebox door, or sit just below it like the Original style heaters. Good thing about trucks, they do not need huge AC units.

Thankyou!

Hmmm, didn't know that the frame number would be different from the rest of the vehical numbers. That kinda sucks as I scrapped my frame, so I will never know it's number anymore. But I do have the other two tags. Just not at home where I can access them. VIN Number is : 83322596 She is a B!B

I work @ an exhaust shop, so I did my own down pipe & muffler when I first got my truck. They are easy to build.

I used an Exhaust Spring bolt kit, for a Chevrolet truck I think?

Well for 2nd gear you should be able to hold it in place, till you shift to 3rd. you can install a later rear axle from a jeep, & there are a couple disk brake swaps out there. Do some searching here as there are SEVERAL threads about this. Infact I may have kept my original frame had I known this earlier! But I am happy with what I am doing doing, as a whole.

Welcome to the forum, I have a soft spot for Panels. You may be better off installing a V-6 or V-8 as they are not as long as the slant 6.

It is shameful, how the parts stores are now willing to hire people with no actual automotive knowlege. Another route is to contact a Local or Not so Local Drive Shaft Specialist, They will usually have or know what U-jounts are avialable & their parts numbers.

Very Kewl, Memories like this will be priceless! Hope you get to make Many more with the truck & your Daughter!

Hello Colin, Unfortuniatly it tends to stall pretty regularly, as life & work keep getting in the way. Right now my welder is down. Last week, I had to work on my BMW, & this weekend is Street Rod Nationals.

Hello Any Pilothouse's going to be at the Louisville Ky. show next week? I will be there Saturday checking out all the cars/trucks.

These are two differnt frames. One has a torsion bar suspension up front & the other is Ford I think? Looks like both are running T-bird or cobra mustang rear?

In 1990 I found a 1948 Panel truck sitting in a back yard, I was hyped & left a note for the owner. a week later I was the newest owner. In 1998 I ended up selling her & most of my other toys, as the wife wanted a morgage payment. In 2011 A friend heard me talking about wanting another pilothouse, & he says he has one sitting around someplace & he was willing to sell it to me.

Looks like it will work

Truthfully She is worth the buy it now price, atleast here in the States! I do not know how Dodge hold up against Ford & Holden in Australia? But if it is the same as in the States, with Few exceptions Dodge is the underdog, But that only means that we can own them for less then the rest!

Hello, I am doing the Dakota swap as well, http://p15-d24.com/topic/31437-1948-dodge-pilot-house-dakota-frame-swap/ I used the Dakota column & shortened it to fit the original dash. The column shifter is not that noticable & I personally may end up retaining it, as a LoKar shifter is a bit pricey.

Pflaming, is correct, I am so Jelious that my skin color is a bit green with envy! Would Love to have a Pilothouse Ute!

They came from Bumber to Bumper, I used 1/4 inch Plate.

It finally stopped raining late yesterday, So today I pushed the truck into the shop to finally get the motor mounts & transmission crossmember built. For anyone that is thinking of doing this, You WILL Have to remove the body from the frame in order to Install the Engine & Transmission as a unit, Here is the crossmember in place, I still have to drill the mounting holes, & the carrier bearing brace needs to be moved forward, & is only mounted temporarally. Front mounts, & No they are not finished, still have some work to do but they are well on there way & are doing what they need to do. Last pic is of the oil pan & front crossmember