BlkWgn - A Power Wagon Build

[BlkWgn]

I have had my build thread online for a while, but I am finally getting around to getting it posted here.

The truck is a 2006 Dodge Power Wagon. For those of you that don't know, the current power wagons are "factory modified" Dodge Ram 2500's. What, you ask, is the difference between a Dodge Ram and a Power Wagon, the PW frame has some extra bracing, and the truck sits about 2" taller, Warn winch labeled 12,000lbs, but actually a 15,000lbs w/mounting brace between the frame rails and behind the bumper, electronic disconnecting swaybar , Eaton electronic lockers front & rear (front open/lock, rear limited/lock, tow pkg, full skid plates, forged one piece Alcoa rims w/internal beadlock lips, 1 ton axle shafts ,160 amp alternator, 4.56 gears, custom gas pedal calibration in low range, more but thinner leafs in rear spring pack(for better articulation), 33" BFG All-Terrain tires. 78.016:1 crawl ratio. Bilstein 5100 shocks. Gear ratios: 1st 6.29:1 2nd 3.48:1 3rd 2.10:1 4th 1.38:1 5th 1.0:1 6th .79:1.. Rev 5.74:1.

140.5" wheel base
227.7" overall length
79.8" wide
80.6" tall

That is probably more information than anyone really cares about, but nobody made you read it


I bought the truck almost 3 years ago at the end of March 2011 with 74k miles, and it currently has 140k on it. I have a 100 mile round trip commute, and it was my daily driver for quite a while. It has since been parked during the week and just comes out to play on the weekends. Here are a couple of pics from its first trip with me 2 days after i bought it.



The first mod I did was some Big Bear pinstriping on that first trip, but the first real mod was the snorkel.


Originally posted 01-01-2012

I got an airflow snorkel for Christmas, and installed it on Friday. I was rather nervous about doing the install. Looking at the instructions it did not look to difficult, but the idea of drilling a 4" hole in the fender really made me nervous. Well, it all went well, and the hardest part was pulling the trigger on the drill. It took me a little over 4.5 hours to do, but now that I have done it I think it could go much faster. I just took my time and made sure I had it right.

This is the template cut out and laying on my living room floor

One last shot with the fender and stock intake still intact

Template taped to the fender

Drilling the 1/4" pilot holes, 6 in all

This is where it got a bit scary

It came out pretty good, I did have to file it a bit to clean it up, but the instructions said I would need to

All of the holes except for the A-pillar drilled

a quick test fit, the instructions tell you to open up the top two holes larger, I tried to get away with leaving them smaller, but it bound up a bit and did not sit flat.

fitting the airbox with the new fitting and hose. I did not assemble it the way the instructions said. The instructions tell you to put the fitting on the box, put it in place, put the snorkel on, put the elbow on the snorkel and then try to fit the flex hose between the two. What I did was take the bracket that holds the air box off and put the fitting and hose on the airbox. With the bracket off I was able to put the airbox, fitting and hose in place all in one piece, bend the hose down through the wheel well, put on the elbow fitting, then slip the bracket up through the wheel well and bolt it all down. I then put the snorkel on and snapped the elbow into place on the bottom of the snorkel

the rest are a few shots of it finished

 

[BlkWgn]

Camper Shell and Sleep Platform v1

Originally posted 04-01-2012


When I purchased the truck it had a hard fiberglass tonneau that was installed at the dealership. It was a nice selling point for me, but I quickly found it did not really suit my needs. It did the job, but not the way I wanted. I decided I wanted a shell, but everything I found was either the wrong color, or more then I could justify spending. Well, I finally happened across one on Craigslist and was able to pick it up a week ago Thursday (the night before Desert Rendezvous)

Here it is on the truck about 10mins after picking it up in Big Bear

Last week at work I was able to get a prototype sleeping deck built and painted, and I put some carpet on it yesterday.

with the tailgate closed

with the tailgate open (holds 4 milk crates in the back section

Flip open section at the front

I have already learned some things I don't like about this build that I will change for the final build. This was just to get something back there to allow me to try it and see what worked for me and what does not. So far, the final build will be lower, and I will switch to something other then milk crates. I would like to get it closer to the height of the wheel wells. The compartment at the front will either hinge from the sides, or be lift off trap doors, not the way it is now, and I will build side pieces to go over the wheel wells and relocate the axe and shovel.

 

[BlkWgn]

KC Lights, CB Antenna, Highlift Mount

Originally Posted 04-01-2012

I had this mount on the cab with the tonneau cover

It worked great for my CB antenna and some KC lights, but putting the shell on, this bracket no longer fit, so I relocated the KC lights behind the grill

In looking for somewhere to put the "highlift" jack, I realised that the spacing of the holes in the bumper for the front license plate fit perfectly with the spacing of the holes in the jack. A couple of bolts with nylocks sticking through the bumper and a couple of wing nuts, and the "highlift" is mounted

and moved the CB antenna to the Driver side Hood

I have 2 pair of the kc lights, but the way the truck is I just could not get all 4 to fit. There are brackets in the way on the driver side. I will either need to build a bracket put 2 of them in the top half of the grill, or put a light bar on the front. The truck is already on the large side so i was trying to avoid the bar, but think that may be the route I take. I am also not real thrilled with the antenna on the hood. I keep catching it out of the corner of my eye and so far am just not used to it. I plan on a rack on the shell that will allow me to move the antenna back up top, and when I can finally do a custom bumper I may be able to work in a solution for the lights, but a bumper is still a long ways down the road.

 

[BlkWgn]

Sleep Platform v2 and roof rack

Originally Posted 03-12-2013

So I have not been real good at updating this, so here is a quick update.

The temporary sleeping platform is now temporary sleeping platform version 2. Cut down about 3 inches off of the height, turned the hatch at the front around, and replaced the milk crates with 2 drawers. It also got Aluminum trim holding down the new carpet.

I also picked up a roof rack that a friend of Dave Druck had

Today i went over to Jeff Wanamog's shop, and we got it mounted up. (sorry for the bad cell phone picture, I snapped it real quick when I stopped for dinner on the way home)

(by we I mean Jeff did 90% of it)

 

[BlkWgn]

Tires and Backup Lights

Originally Posted 05-30-2013

Got some new shoes on the Wagon. Took forever to find due to a national backorder, but finally got some Toyo Open Country MT's in 35/12.5/17 Love them so far. When I bought the truck it had Nitto Terragraplers 305/70/17 (about 90% tread) on the rear and bald Michelin street tires on the front. I had the dealer match the Nitto. They were not bad on the road, but I was not impressed with them on the trail. Hard pack dirt roads were ok, but anytime you even looked at a rock they would chunk, off road traction was nothing special just what you would expect from an A/T tire

Here is a shot from their trial run on Cleghorn


This is almost full compression. They really fill the wheel well, and rub a touch but not too bad



The Toyo's are a bit louder on the road but not bad at all. Handle well on the pavement and really shine in the dirt. I will probably stick with these for a while.

I have also picked up a 125w solar panel and charge controller. Right now it is temporarily installed

It fits perfectly on the front half of the rack. I am making up some basic mounts with some aluminum angle, and made a wiring harness. Now to get a day cool enough to work in the driveway and get it permanently mounted. I need it too keep up with the fridge in Havasu for 4th of July.

I also added some "Eagle Eye" 3 watt LEDs bolts. I have them as the license plate bolts and tied into the reverse lights. I was not sure what to expect from them, they were less than $4 with shipping from China via ebay. It took them a couple of weeks to get here, but they actually work very well. My driveway is very dark, narrow, and up hill which makes it difficult to back the truck in at night with the tint and rear window graphic. These little lights have helped greatly.

 

[BlkWgn]

Steering Stabilizer / Dual Battery / Rewire

The last 2 weeks has been a lot of projects. Unfortunately, just after I started on them, I got sick and that has really slowed me down, but I am making progress.

I got a couple of items for the truck for Christmas so this is the start of getting them installed, which turned into stripping a lot of previous stuff off for upgrades.

The first item is a new Carli Suspension tuned Bilstein Steering Stabilizer. Cody, the owner of CJC Offroad in Bellflower was cool enough to throw it on for me free of charge. I also have a set of Thuren Fabrication Overland Shocks on backorder through Cody which will hopefully be available in a week or two



I have also pulled the Amp Research power steps off the truck. I have dented the bottom of all 4 doors, and the front of the bed on both sides. So, the steps came off and when and if they sell I will order some sliders from White Knuckle Offroad.

Now for the Dual Battery / Rewire

One of the other Christmas items was a TMax Dual battery system. The problem with this system is that installing this system has led me to remove all of the aftermarket wiring that has been done on the truck and start over. Some stuff had been done before I got it and I did not really like how it was done. Some of it was done by me for temporary installs. I am still working on this part of the project as it has turned into a lot more than I originally planned, but it is all worth it.

The Tmax kit comes with wire, and the first thing I did was throw it in the corner of the driveway in the pile of stuff I took out of the truck. The only wire that came with the kit that was used was about 6 inches of tail on the back of the controller, but I replaced their plug with a standard molex plug and covered the 4 loose wires in abrasion flex.

This is how the wires come and the plug that I cut off



and this is after the abrasion flex and Molex connector



I used the same flex on all of the wires for the install. It is great stuff, similar to a chinese finger trap. The controller itself fit perfectly on the dash with some industrial velcro just to the left of the steering column and just below the gauges.



it sits just high enough that you can see the charging status while driving, but just low enough that you can still see the fuel gauge (important when you have a Hemi and 4.56 gearing)


I used a piece of 1" x 4" aluminum angle to mount the solenoid and the 300 amp breaker



The second battery is a Group 31 Diehard Platinum Marine battery (1150 CCA 205 min reserve) This is the same as the starting battery. It is mounted in the bed in a NOCO Marine battery box. To fit the box where I wanted it I had to modify the lid a bit, cutting out a small part of the lid. This let me get it tight in the corner and still keep the cables coming into the bed low.



I used industrial cord grips to pass the 2awg theatrical cables (similar to welding cable) into the bed where there is another 300amp breaker (the one on the right) The breaker on the left is 100amp and feeds a Blue Sea Systems 5026ST fuse block but we will get to that later.

Here is the battery box with the sleeping platform v2 slid back in place



Now back to the Fuse box. The 100amp breaker above is feeding 4awg theatrical cable out of the bed through the other set of cord grips and comes into the back of the cab under the back passenger seat through you guessed it cord grips



the fuse box is on the center hump under the back seat


So far the only thing the fuse block is feeding is the fridge (Thanks Trump) I ran 12awg twisted sister from the fuse box to a Blue Sea Systems 1011 marine grade locking dash socket which is mounted in another piece of 1" x 4" aluminum angle under the driver side back seat



Guess that is about it for the dual battery setup. Tomorrow I am going to finish changing out the solar charge controller that I started working on today, and hopefully start running power from the fuse box for the Ham, CB, and a few other accessories. I am not sure how much I will get done as there is an airshow less than 5 miles away. We will see if I get side tracked.

 

[BlkWgn]

Solar Panel and Charge Controller

Well, solar panel is still just ratchet strapped to the rack, but the new charge controller is mostly installed and the wires are actually run and not just thrown over the roof and down the side of the snorkel.

The panel is 125w, and this is the original charge controller (I forgot to get a picture of it, so I stole one via google)


The controller I replaced it with has 2 charging circuits instead of 1 charging and a load. It allows you to adjust the charging voltage (3 presets) and also determin what percentage of the charge you want to go to battery 1 and 2



I did not have another piece of the 1x4 aluminum so I reused the 1x1 that was holding the old controller. I was thinking I would switch out the aluminum, but it is actually pretty rigid the way it is so I may just leave it alone. for the connections into the controller I used variocrimp barrels on the wire to make sure I got a good connection. I had every size but the right one for the leeds from the panel so I will have to cut them off and put the right size on tomorrow.



The barrels fit into the terminals perfectly. The controller has the option of using an external display. Since I have the display for the dual battery kit I opted not to get it at this point so i just put a small piece of Gaffers tape over the rj45 port to keep it clean.



I almost forgot the important project I did sometime last week as well


I did not want to drink it, but the picture did not look right without it being open and I was not going to waste it

And just to try and get this as up to date as I can, and some point last year I got rid of the steel cable and put on a synthetic line from Thor over at Viking Offroad

 

[Mitch]

Really nice work on the dual battery install. It's done right with breakers, and it looks good with the Flex-o-loom too!

 

[TemboTusk]

Just saw Cris's truck in Upland this weekend! That is a well outfitted truck!! Great Job!

 

[Dave]

I'm a big fan of Power Wagons and yours is sweet!

 

[TangoBlue]

Nice work! The PW is one of the few point-and-shoot true off-road capable trucks offered by the domestic car-makers. You are thoughtfully kitting it out too; I'm going to enjoy seeing it in person and it should be a big hit at the AR14 this October in Uhwarrie, NC.

 

[BlkWgn]

Nice work! The PW is one of the few point-and-shoot true off-road capable trucks offered by the domestic car-makers. You are thoughtfully kitting it out too; I'm going to enjoy seeing it in person and it should be a big hit at the AR14 this October in Uhwarrie, NC.

I would love to get out there but I dont think it is going to happen this year. Google says it is 4866 miles round trip, at 10.3mpg comes out to about 427 gallons of fuel and I only have a 36 gallon tank. Any possibility of getting a tow strap for the last 4500 miles or so?

 

[Dave]

Psstt... some of us may fly out and backpack it on a budget. I heard we'll be well fed with pies

 

[Haggis]

That'a a really nicely done Power Wagon.

 

[TangoBlue]

... at 10.3mpg comes out to about 427 gallons of fuel and I only have a 36 gallon tank.

Pfft... I got about 38 gallons of tank and get about the same with my fully loaded Tacoma. It's only money, right?

 

[Scott C]

Nice setup you have.

 

[BlkWgn]

Thanks for all the feedback. I updated post 6 last night, which gets me caught up on most things. I Still have some stuff to add and some stuff still in the works but I will add that to the end of the thread.

 

[Scott]

I don't know if the pics are just deceiving, but does the top of the snorkel protrude ABOVE the roof line at all? I am looking into adding a snorkel to my Dodge, but only if the top does not protrude above the roof line, as I have a slide in camper I would like to use, and don't need the snorkel getting in the way of it.

 

[Mike]

I don't know if the pics are just deceiving, but does the top of the snorkel protrude ABOVE the roof line at all? I am looking into adding a snorkel to my Dodge, but only if the top does not protrude above the roof line, as I have a slide in camper I would like to use, and don't need the snorkel getting in the way of it.

I'm sure he will reply but looking at this pic, if you draw a straight line off the top of the roof, the snorkel is lower.

 

[augie]

Nice rig, I'm liking those Power Wagons.