1963 W200 3/4 ton crew cab (Air Force)

Driving and Modifiying Military Dodges
by Dave Jensen

So what do you do with a heavy old truck that can't hardly keep up with traffic? "Well, lots of things," is what I tell my wife when she asks why I want another truck. One is winching heavy things around.

PTO winches are pretty common on all the military Dodges. I've read that some of the WCs came a 5,000 lb. winch. My '56 PW has a 8,000 lb. Braden winch. Many M-37s came with a PTO winch with an aluminum housing. More than a few M-37s have been the recipients of Power Wagon winches, usually with a hole torched through the front cross-member to make room for the shaft. A factory winch bumper on a Power Wagon is a two-piece affair without fairlead rollers. This fall a neighbor was putting in a double-wide and the semis kept getting stuck in the mud. We chained the back end of my truck to a tree and used it to winch them, and the house sections, around. There was a lot of weight involved, but it was level ground and the big rigs were working too. It snapped the 1/2" lead chain once but not the cable.

Bracing up the front bumper and welding mounts for an A-frame and pulley for lifting was pretty common. My dad has one on his Power Wagon and we lift engines, logs, and such with it. There's an extended frame version of the Power Wagon on a ranch near Wasco, Oregon that is still used regularly to lift combine parts. The narrow front springs can take a lot of abuse, but some bending had taken place on that rig's springs.

Dodge owners tend to be either total loonies or very conservative, and sometimes both. But usually they consider themselves a very different breed of "four-wheeler" from the kids that run around town in lifted Blazers. They use a vehicle as a tool rather than a piece of sports equipment or a toy. That's why almost every Power Wagon has had some sort of modification, from tool boxes mounted to the running boards pipe racks on the fenders. Many decent old trucks have been turned into scrap thanks to people with cutting torches and dreams of monster trucks dancing in their drunken little brains. Personally, I don't mind seeing modifications if they are done as well as the original manufacturers work. The Power Wagon especially was considered a basic platform for a lot of applications such as winching, snow-plowing, and you could even get a version with hydraulics and rear-PTO for agricultural use.

                          1963 W200 3/4 ton crew cab (Air Force)

Lately, more collectors are restoring old Dodges, and it's a good trend, considering the traditional approach had been to simply beat them to death. But even a lot of "collectors" like the Dodges because they are practical and they balance out somewhere between having a museum piece and a hard-working pickup. I really enjoy using my '56 to haul firewood but I think it looks nice enough for a parade. I drive it through a lot of logging slash, but not right over trees like Dodge's old promotional movie shows (avail. from Vintage Video PO Box 551 Greencastle, PA 17225, (717) 597-9695).

Engine Swaps:

I'd bet everyone who has ever driven an old Dodge Power Wagon or M-37 has wondered why you couldn't get a V8 in one, especially during the 1960s. After all, the civilian style Power Wagons (like the W200s and up) had V-8s as an option during those years. A Power Wagon with a Hemi would have been amazing. More than a few people have tried to improve the situation, often messily. Some engine swaps have ended up throwing out the transfer case, creating a 2wd Pig. For some reason I saw a lot of these monstrosities when I was in Utah. At its best, an engine swap should look and work like a factory installation. Some advertisers in the MV Magazine classified are advertising various kits and plans. The only commercial package I'm aware of (around $8,000 last time I checked) is MARS Hercules Diesel re-power. From what I've read it's very complete and makes a M-37 a real cruiser.

My project isn't quite that professional. I still need to improve the exhaust and proximity of the oil pan to the front pumpkin, but it has been working pretty well.

A couple of years ago I bought a l953 Canadian M-37 for $1,100. I had actually had a chance to buy it earlier from a logger when it had a smashed up front clip and a non-running Chevrolet six cylinder engine with an automatic transmission. The collector I ended up buying it from had removed a couple of goodies, like the patched-in Braden PW winch and spare-tire holder, but he had also done a lot of work straightening up the front end. And it even had a factory arctic top with a sliding rear window.

Probably you've seen those M-15l engine-trans assemblies on a pallet for about $250 at the surplus yards and wondered what they would be good for. I had idly thought about dropping one into a Power Wagon or M-37, but never for more than a few seconds. This guy had actually pulled out the Chevrolet engine and dropped in the Mutt's guts. I ran it as it was for a year. On the level I was able to get up to 45 mph, but hills slowed me down quite a bit. With the transfer case in low, the engine had enough torque to move the truck around, even in mud and snow. Slick hills were more difficult.

Other than the obvious disadvantages of mis-matching the tiny engine and transmission to a hulking M-37, I had troubles with the AMC distributor "breaker" plate. And once I lost a U-joint cap where the modified Dodge drive shaft hooked up to the Mutt transmission.

Eventually, I located a beat-up '68 Dodge 2wd pickup for $200 and pulled out the 318/NP435 4 speed and installed it, with my dad's help, in the M-37. The small block 318 fits well but I put it in with the front running a bit uphill to avoid cutting into the firewall. I bolted a couple of angle mounts off the frame up front and made hangers in the back that bolt to the stock rear mount location. After fitting it in I pulled it back out and totally rebuilt it. I was happy to find it had a machined steel crank in good condition (as opposed to a cast crank).

Ideally I should make a custom pan but I ended up using a van pan and pickup tube to get the rear sump behind the front axle. You can actually just turn a 2wd pickup pan around, but your dipstick doesn't work out very well. A 360 pan WON'T work on a 318.

Between the transmission and transfer case, I used the stock yoke that came on the NP435 and a short spicer shaft (from a mid-60s International Travelall). The wide splines on the spicer tube fit the M-37's stock short shaft from the transfer case and I used a $20 conversion U-joint (NEAPCO power train components, part # 2-3100, avail. from Driveline Services (1-800-227-8608 of Portland, OR) to match the spicer shaft to the NP435s Dodge yoke. (There's a slight difference between the cap sizes of Dodge/Spicer-type U-joints and the caps are retained differently.) The Dodge 1/2 ton yoke is a weak spot because of the way the u-joint caps are retained by straps and bolts rather than u-bolts, but I haven't had any trouble yet after more than a year of use. They say to keep the bolts tight and replace the straps each time you remove them.

There should be a transmission yoke that would fit the newer transmission and the stock M-37 U-joints, but I haven't found one, yet. A couple of machine shops in Portland, Oregon wanted more than $500 to build a short shaft that would have stock U-joint on the transfer case end and a big one-ton ('60s type) u-joint on the other side. It seemed a little high to me.

There are other approaches to a V8 installation. I have seen small block Chevy engines installed with automatic transmissions and know of one man who shortened down the tail of TF727 on back of a Dodge 360 to fit it up to the transfer case. An automatic saves you the clutch-linkage work, but I think a manual transmission is better for a truck that will pull a trailer.

Another solution is to make an adapter plate to bolt the V8 to the stock bellhousing and transmission. This is preferable with a winch-equipped vehicle because the PTO unit is mounted on the transmission. I have a bell-housing from a 1960 Dodge truck that has mounting holes for both six and eight cylinder engines, and you can bolt a Power Wagon NP420 up to the other side. Unfortunately the length of the transmission shafts varies over the years. In a note to PW Advertiser (April 1995), Mike Fleig of Vintage Power Wagons indicates that it's possible to switch shafts between some of the late Power Wagons and their "civilian" cousins, but that the NP420 4 speeds in M-37s won't exchange with the others. There's also supposed to be an aftermarket racing bellhousing which will bolt a hemi on one end and a four-speed on the other, but I've never seen one. It's probably a vicious lie. You might try finding one through the Power Wagon Page's forum.

It's a pain to deal with things like mounting a hydraulic clutch cylinder/linkage. And that the transfer case is offset about two inches to one side, etc.. And of course I had to change my gauges and lights over to 12 volt from 24 volt. (Some early M-37s had 6 and 12 volt electrics.)

With 5:83 gears it's still a slow machine. I can go up some slick/steep hills that stop my stock '56 Power Wagon and my brother's stock '68 M-37. Third gear combined with low in the transfer case is a very nice way to get around in snow with an M-37 and when you have the V-8 power, it's even better. One particular hill on my Dad's driveway is very difficult when it gets a foot or more of snow in it. A stock Dodge wimps out at the top and you have to shift down, causing you to spin out and loose traction. In order to crawl up the hill in a lower gear, you have to have chains and eat your way up. The V-8 lets you maintain momentum and you don't have to shift down. With tires aired down it really works well.

Generally I'm satisfied with the results, but if I'd had a stock six cyl./trans handy, it would probably have been preferable in terms of work, cost, and value to restore the truck back to stock.

This page was last modified on 5 Apr 98

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