Who's dealt with it? How'd you fix?
Patch in metal, transplant good roof with cutting and splicing along a and b pillars?
I have (2) 1990 cabs here trying to get the best of what I have for my 83 D250.
One cab in paint jail and one on my home garage. Body shop says "no way" to roof swap.
I have a nice cutoff roof from an 87.
I'm NOT buying cab #3 cab at home otherwise a little nicer than cab in paint, but both much better than most below the roof pillars

Depends upon the extent of the problem..


Welding in patches is probably easier than getting a whole new roof to fit, and then get all the windows to keep the water out....

If I were to try and graft a whole new roof on, I would cut and retain all of the front and rear windows so that the a and b pillars are intact..

"cut and retain all the rear windows" doesn't make sense. All the glass has to come out no matter how the job gets done.
Are you saying "chop the top" like on a deuce coupe? Cuz that ain't happening.
The 87 roof cutoff I have was cut as low as possible at the bottom of the pillars to allow it to be cut down and matched up to wherever I wound up cutting the pillars on the old one so the door opening and front/ back window opening can be properly matched up.

And Reed
I saw your post about the possibility of doing this job on a ramcharger in another forum... Have you made any headway with that project?

I have taken the cab I have at home by the body shop and they don't want to do the work that I already have on the first cab to this one which includes transferring the wide transmission tunnel from that cab to this one. They want me to do that.... Id rather do things like floor pan work that is easier to hide with carpet seats and such

I would try to do patches... that is 100X easier than the whole roof... One patch at a time, and you don't get in over your head quite as quickly..

Measuring and cutting accurately the roof at the A&B pillars or anywhere along that is difficult in my book. I would rather be above or below the complex formed metal, and play in the simple areas.. but none of this is easy!

I would rather do floorpan work as well, but that is not the whole scope of the project... so leave the roof for last & take your time! Fritzee is pretty inventive and unafraid to tackle daunting projects! He might give you some ideas! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhGXSM3MZEQ

Here's what I did. Not too pretty but it works fine and does not leak.

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http://www.youtube.com/hyperpack

Thee are a number of videos on Youtube about fixing the very common Dodge truck roof rot issue. I have seen people take all three paths: (1) cab swap; (2) patch the rust; (3) swap the whole roof. Some people go so far as to do the job correctly by drilling out all the factory spot welds (I don't advise it) and duplicating the factory assembly process.

Somehow, my 1976 D100 has survived with miraculously no visible roof rot and minimal body rot. Having watched videos about what happens between the unprimed double walls of the roof, I am going to spray rust neutralizer and treatment everywhere I can between the panels.

My 1993 Ramcharger has extensive rust above every window and door opening as well as the front fenders and rear quarters and both front floor pans. The Ramcharger is getting patches for the lower areas but I am replacing the entire roof. Patching the roof is just not cost effective, pluse someone installed a roof rack badly and that problem will also go away. I have gotten as far as purchasing a surprisingly rust-free roof, but thats it. Replacing the roof on a truck is easier since it is smaller and simpler to manage. On my Ramcharger I am going to start by prepping the new roof, meaning getting rust converter and preventative coating and spray it everywhere I can between the inner and outer roof panels. I am stunned Dodge never even primed the areas and left them bare metal from the factory. I have puchased a gantry crane to help lift the roof sections, but the hard part will be ensuring alignment. I am going to remove the rear hatch, all windows, and the interior then build a wooden jig to capture and locate the roof at various points and take numerous measurements and pictures before cutting the old roof off. Then will come the fiddly task of fitting the replacement roof and welding it in. Given the inherent weakness of welding the middle of the A pillar, I am going to stagger the welds and use pael adhesive to glue some reinforcement strips into the pillar channel before final assembly and welding.


There is a guy on Facebook making patch panels for the D series truck roof for over the windshield: Basile Custom Fabrication LLC He was selling them as hand-fabricated three piece sets. I don't know a price, but it is worth looking at if your rust isn't too bad.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

$315 for a 3 piece set. Left and right corner section and the center section.

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2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6

Pricey, but the only source for those pieces new. More than I paid for the whole replacement Ramcharger roof.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Yup I have a whole, nice, roof off an 87 for much less. And a cab off a 90 military issue d250 that's literally perfect combined for less than they wanted for those 3 pieces. If I knew how to do lead bodywork I could fix what's there without cutting it
.

Don
A couple of ideas on D series roofs:
1) if changing out the complete roof, how about chopping the top and lowering it 2 to 4 inches.
That would give the truck an awesome custom look. The side and back windows are basically flat and would be easy cuts.
2) a second option would be to cut the top off and leave it off. Dodge made a convertible Dakota. Google that. Again an awesome custom option.

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Doo Ron Ron and the Duke of Earl are friends of mine.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX8Nj8ABEI8

Well I'm gonna experiment with the lead
.ive sweated lots of copper pipe, the videos I have seen looks awful lot like the same. The top side of the 87 cutoff roof is great but a little pin holey underneath with this roof upside down on sawhorses. I sandblasted the drip rail top and bottom of it and the top side is great but the bottom has pinholes. With the donor roof upside down I'm thinking it'll be easy to fill in with lead.
I actually have been going up north to the Eastwood store, (yeah "that" Eastwood) and a couple of trips ago I had the stuff in my hands for lead body work and the store manager talked me into buying this (im paraphrasing) "aluminum fortified Bondo". and he made a good case but it's still " Bondo". If any place on a truck is wet it's up in the top of the windshield under the drip rail. And I ain't going thru all of this to watch it fall out. I have tried to tig,I can't so lead it will be.
Eastwood s video on this is done by Gene Winfield. And many hits on Google that refer back to this one.
I don't mind body work that won't be front and center to be seen . This will be up underneath just above and in front of the windshield where the windshield rubber will "hide" it. The roof on that cab isn't as bad as the cab I have in for paint, that one has rust up top between where the clearance lights were. And it's bad.
Not as bad as my son's '90 was, but plenty bad enough. We had fiberglassed that one a couple of times. The cab in the body shop was supposed to go on his truck but he sold it before we could swap. That cab has been in bone dry storage for a dozen years so I was surprised once blasted how bad it is.
Coincidentally both cabs I have are off of '90 trucks.
The original cab off my 83 (which is where one of these cans is headed) was bad underneath, both of these are great where the tinworm was worst on that one. The newer ones in the D/W series seem worst for roof rot.

If the lead work on the 87 roof goes as well as I hope I may try to hang the 90 cab upside down on my 2 post lift and see if I can fix that one before I cut it off to weld this roof on in its place.

If it is just pinholes, maybe try some of that "all metal" body filler? If you already have it on sawhorses upside down, I would try pouring some rust treatment in there and coating all the inner surfaces to prevent rust-out in the future.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Yup already have the rust converter/ sealer stuff.
I do have a can of "lab metal" but have never used it before.

Someone needs to take one of these roofs over to LMC and nicely ask them to start reproducing them including the heavy reinforcement between the upper and lower skins. The biggest problem I see with installing a "new" roof panel is that the spot welds on the back of the cab over the rear window were spot welded from the inside and the welds are not accessible on an assembled cab.

I figured a way around this from some videos and some thinking. Whoever makes the roof panels would need to also make a V-shaped flange that follow the original rear flange. You would need to spot weld this V flange onto the bottom of the original rear flange with the V pointing up. This would give you a small channel to slip the rear roof flange into from the back. Fill the channel with high quality automotive panel adhesive clamp/strap the panel in while it dries with a copy of tack welds on the visible spot welded seams.

The rest of the spot welds are visible once the seam sealer is removed. Easy standard plug welds.


A few weeks ago a coworker mentioned to me he had an old ram in his families towing/scrap yards impound lot. It may end up in my possession if the title can get sorted out, it is not currently branded as a junk title and I want to avoid that. I saw it briefly on a cold snowy day a few weeks ago. I checked the roof and it looked good. Yesterday it was much warmer (60 and sunny) and I went back to see if I could get it to turn over with a breaker bar. Its a 88 318, turned easy with a breaker bar, had tags that expired in 24. Figured the gas was fresh enough to give it a try and had it running poorly in about 20 seconds with no visible coolant in radiator so very short run time.

During this much more thorough inspection I found that there is no rust, flaking, scale, bubbling or anything else of the sort on the roof panel or the seam sealed drip channel. But the vertical front edge of the drip rail is totally gone. The chrome trim is just kinda hanging in space. I am looking at getting it for around 500 and think I will be making a custom seam and rail from some 16 gauge steel when the time comes.