The idea is simple: take the bad motor (a shakey gas big block) out of a good truck (a ‘73 Dodge D200) and swap it with a good motor (a 12 valve Cummins diesel) out of a bad truck (a junked ‘95 Ram). How hard could it be?

As it turns out, it’s not quite as easy as it sounds. It took three days to get the Cummins out of the old truck and into the new one, and even then he only could let the thing run for more than a few beats. Most of the thing still wasn’t buttoned up yet.

And this is with a fabricator at his side and the resources of the Hot Rod mag garage at his disposal.

Angelo and Hot Rod had to wiggle the Cummins out of the Ram, which was not easy since the back end of the engine is under the Ram’s cab. Then they had to take the entire face off of the older Dodge along with its 400B. That was so they could easily measure out the engine bay, cut it to fit, and weld in new mounts for the Cummins. This also involved the Cummins going in and out or the D200 many, many times. And it is not a light motor.

Watch the video above and see what it takes to do an engine swap that sounds simple at first but quickly reveals a lot of needed fabrication and heavy lifting. And there’s a cool about the Cummins in there, too.

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