1988 R30 Crew Soon to be Dropped

That's enough for me then. Thanks for the info, definitely appreciated.

Baby steps

Well after searching for a while for a good donor transmission I hit a road block and ended up finding a good deal on a whole wrecked truck. The best transmission option for my needs would be a 47RH from a cummins equipped dodge pickup. They made them in 94-95 and they are hydraulically control which means you don't need a computer. The OD and convertor lockup are still electronic but those are easy to wire up if you don't have the dodge bcm. You CAN use the 47rh from the v10 trucks but the convertor, valvebody and OD housing would need to be changed.

I thought about many other transmission like the 4l80e but they are almost all electronic which means I would need to either get the trans with the computer from the vehicle it came from or buy a pricey stand alone computer along with an expensive adapter to mate it to my engine. I have manual transmissions in almost every other project vehicle so this time I wanted to stay auto.

I got lucky and came across this truck locally, it is a 1994 3/4 dodge 2wd w/ a cummins and the 47rh trans with lower miles than my bus engine. It also has a lot of pieces I would have needed to make the bus engine fit like the exhaust manifold, all the intercooler equipment, air conditioning(nice to have), engine fan, motor mounts not to mention the transmission.


Plan is to start taking it apart for the stuff I want and the stuff I can sell and adapt the right parts from both engines like the Power-steering/air compressor from the bus will be reused on the truck engine.

nice score on the parts truck! having a parts truck to pull stuff from is soooooo nice.

Thanks! It will tie up a lot of loose ends on this engine install.

Tried mounting the semis with the adapters on my SRW 14B tonight to get a good overall width measurement and came upon a major hurdle. The SRW hub centric lip is ever so slightly too large of diameter for the bore of the adapters. I also tried to throw one of my dually wheels on the SRW axle and the bore is also too tight for them rims to mount which proves its not the adapters.



I don't have a caliper large enough to measure the diameter of the hub with the studs in the way so I can't tell you an exact number of how much bigger they are but I will say that it is a very very small difference. I thought about using the lugs to suck the adapter on but thought better of it. I have to remove the lug studs for longer ones anyways so I will take the hub and an adapter to a machine shop and have them machine the hub diameter down to the right size for the adapter.

This led me to immediately try and mount the adapters to the dually 14b hub to make sure it wasn't an improperly machined adapter bore. The adapters went on the dually front and back without a problem.











I did set some wheels up with an adapter and laid them stacked up flat on the ground how they would mount on the truck and they measured 13 and 5/16 inches wide from the wheel mount surface of the adapter to the outside of the tire sidewall. The adapter is 13/16" thick.

I took a measurement of how it sits right now and the rear measures out at right around 99.5 inches from outside tire sidewall to outside tire sidewall.

When I get home I can measure the SRW axle from WMS to WMS and add 13 5/16" to each side to figure out how wide that will be and then measure the fenders on the truck.

So are you still using the bus engine for the truck? Might be easier to just use your new donor truck motor and install the bus air compressor on it. Just my thought. I wish I had a 47 rh at this point...

Nope, the bus engine is getting put on the back-burner and I'm going to use the pickup donor. I'll be putting the air compressor and maybe the alternator on the pickup motor.

For our application the bus motor is not economical, all the accessories are too big or too tall(intercooler too tall, turbo to far back, pan sump wrong location). Not a big deal in a 4x4 with a body lift or something more custom(like a rat rod).

I'm just about to start tearing the dodge down and selling off most of its parts so I can start on the dually. I'm also waiting on a unit at a storage unit right by my work to free up more space and store the dodge.

The bus engine doesn't have the CPL tag anymore which also makes things interesting. If you need those specs on the compressor let me know.

Measured the SRW 14 bolt and it comes out at 67" WMS to WMS which would bring my total width to somewhere around 93.5" total width outside sidewall to outside sidewall once the semi wheels are mounted up.

I may end up having a machine shop take 3/8" off the face of each rear wheel to get some extra clearance at the fender. Right now the wheels are sticking out 2" past the outside lip of the fender with a total width of 99.5" sidewall to sidewall with the DRW axle.

My SRW 14 bolt came from a 1974 C20 regular cab long bed truck.

Got some time in on the dodge.







Lots of parts, some to re-use, some to sell/scrap/trash.







All the wiring is disconnected from the engine to truck. Should be able to button up the throttle linkage, trans linkage, and few other things and be ready to pull the driveshaft and blow mounts apart for final removal.

One step closer to getting the dually in and tore up.