mestdagh

W/ the dealer's being closed on Sunday, it's a great time to poke around w/ being disturbed. Since I'd like to build a diesel Power Wagon, I took a close look. Note that I'm a wannabe mechanic so ...

The bumper height is higher front and back. The 285/70R17 tires only account for 1/2" of added height. The Powerwagon front bumper is thinner from top to bottom than mine. I'm only talking about the steel part. This adds a little more clearance. I'm sure the front coils and shock make up for the rest of the clearance. There is no air dam on the front bumper. I've already removed mine.
The back bumper is really high even w/ the trailer hitch. A crawl under reveals 7 leaf springs as compared to 5 on mine. Also there's an extra 1/2 height "spacer block" (I don't know what the real term is) for a total of 2-1/2 spacer blocks under the springs compared to 2 on mine. Springs look like they are arched more. A retrofit of the back leaf springs would kill my back account I think. Probably be cheaper to go w/ a Kore front /rear suspension.

The electric sway bar disconnect is quite a mechanism and a bit bulky. I didn't measure the sway bar diameter but I think it's larger than mine. I'll have to figure out a manual disconnect method because I'm sure a retrofit would be pretty expensive.

A front skid plate protects the steering mechanisms and I think the sway bar disco. The rear skid plate assemblies are very complete and cover most of the width of the truck from the front of the gas tank to just before the rear diff. At the very least, I need a gas tank skid plate assembly. I remember a post from a few months ago on this.

Sigh... and I wish we had room under the front bumper for the winch...

deere nut

It shouldn't be that hard. You need lockers front and rear, 4.56 gears and a lift kit. THrow in some 37's while you are at it. Is the power wagon transfer case 4:1 ratio? Maybe I'm coonfuisng it with the Jeep Rubicon. I wouldnt even bother with the sway bar disconnect. A good supsension will flex enough on its own. You can by a better aftermarket bumper for your winch.
That power wagon sure is pricey. If it had a cummins I could maybe justify the $42,000 price tag. The only thing that I consider "extra"over a normal dodge 4x4 is the lockers. The 4.56 gear ratio should'nt cost anymore than 4.10's. They can keep the winch, I'd buy my own. They should give people a discount for forcing them to buy that wimpy gas guzzling hemi.

mestdagh

I'm going to go about this conversion slowly due to $$. The rear locker will probably come early when ARB comes out w/ one. Local 4x4 shop said should be out soon for our 1150 axle. The gas tank skid will also be an earlier mod. I don't think I'll ever get up to a 4.56 axle ratio though. I need decent mileage and from my experience so far .. 1st gear in 4-Lo is indeed slow w/ a 3.73. Tires and suspension will probably wait until I burn up my stock tires.

05mxdiesel

exactly what deer nut said, you can build a way better truck by buying a regular cummins equipped truck. Why be stuck with some of factory components that Dodge auctions off to the lowest bidder and then resales 20% higher than cost. Almost wish I didn't buy the laramie, because I could of saved myself a ton of money to put towards mods that are 10 times sweeter than anything from the factory.