New member & New project... '60 PW Restomod

[Fb73]

Hello guys !

My first post here, and surely not the last...After a few months of research here on the old continent (I live in France !!), I finally found a nice 1960 PW in a pretty good condition, with almost no rust (!!!).

Dodge PW are very rare here, we have a lot of WC military trucks, that were left over here after the WW2 obviously, but finding a civilian PW was a real challenge, but here it is !

I'm going into a RestoMod project, which should include the following features :

- V8 Small block swap along SM465 trans (don't get on me for the Chevy engine, it's the easiest choice I can do here to find parts easily...).
- Keep the stock NP200 Tcase and make some kind of custome shaft to link it with the SM465
- Custom Tubeless wheels (17x8 or 9")
- Full 12V rewiring, including lights, gauges etc...
- Electric power steering
- Fuell make over of frame and body paint
- Rebuild of drivetrains, suspensions, fuel system
- OEM style bed rebuild (current setup is some kind of towing crane and very small bed, I will get rid of this and build a new bed)...

Already got a pretty accurate list of what's needed, thanks to the guys of VintagePowerwagons.com, Novak Adapt and so on...

Again, I hope the Dodge conservatives won't get on me for going Restomod, but looks like I'm not the only one here goign that way !

Looking forward to you guys !

Fabien

[Matthew Welcher PWA]

Welcome and thank you for joining, we here are a support group for all walks of Power Wagon Life. I understand how finding the right parts for your build are more complicated where you live. Feel free to post pictures ask questions and most importantly, Drive your truck, build your truck, dream your truck and have fun!

[Fb73]

Thanks Matthew...Here are some pictures of my truck...

Previous owner was a pro body shop, using the PW for towing wrecked or crashed vehicles...

Bed is actually quite short as it is, guys from VPW claim that rear frame has been shortened, which is most likely true imo...So one of my first mission will be to remove that hideous bed setup and refab a nice stock bed and add some lenght to the frame...

[Matthew Welcher PWA]

Boy That is awesome, I personally love it the way it is. What is your current wheel base measurement? Has the entire frame been shortened? Just curious it is at an angle in which i cannot tell.

[Pismopowerwagon]

Cool truck , they sure did allot of work to it.

[Fb73]

Pretty sure the build plate says 126’’ as wheelbase.

From what I saw, they might have shortened the back end but everything else is bone stock...Some 12V conversion maybe as the speed gauge is german metric one...

Lot of work has been done for the hydraulic crane, that’s a full custom bed but it’s very short, like 40’’...

They added some stuff to front winch also.

I have some bit of history on this truck...It was first imported by the Swiss National Railway company...Truck was used to move the train wagons into the stations ! Then it was bought by a pro body shop that did the mods for cars towing, and here we are now...Got some pictures taken in 1980 or so, i will upload those...