[txrdnek]

Heres my 2 cents, I had the cab, front clip, and the bed mounted on the s-10 chasis in a weekend, I did not buy one of the kits, instead fabricated my own using the original body mounts from an extended cab s-10 ( the middle cab mounts) and the original rear cab mounts from my '49. I have not mounted the radiator yet but have exactly what I'm going to do already planned out. It isn't as hard or time consuming as some would like to make it. I can weld but I am not a welder by trade so my reasons personally for going with the s-10 instead, was that I was afraid of the MII front end trying to get it exactly right so the truck was safe to drive (i.e. don't trust my welding abilities to that crucial of a compontent), plus there are readily available parts for the s-10 at the local parts house, no special order if something breaks or wears out. Lastly, I paid a total of $400 for the entire s-10 minus the engine, I am going to use the tranny, fuel tank, the brake booster, master cylinder, brake pedal, steering column, gas pedal, wiring harness, seat belts, rear valance, tailgate hinges and latches, tranny tunnel, posi .340 gears (firebird had a .283 single wheel turn) and maybe even the A/C/ heater core (if and only if I can make them fit in my truck). I figured it up to buy each of those components seperatly at a salvage yard plus the MII package, buying the whole truck and just taking it to the scrap yard after I am finished with it is way way cheaper.

A couple of things you do need to know about the s-10 swap though, the track width of the s-10 is not wide enough for the AD truck. The wheels will be inset of the outer fenders by quite a bit. Most swap rear axles which have a wider track width, some run a wider wheel/tire combo with the backspacing to bring the tire further away from the frame, and some are running wheel spacers to get the tires away from the inner fenders. I got a rear axle from a '77 firebird which fits perfect with 8" wheels, but I will have to run some sort of spacer for the front to make the wheels sit right in the wheel wells.

Look around on this site, plenty of people doing this swap, so you can compare apples to apples, not opinions to opinions. I know that sounds funny after the book I just wrote but thought I would throw that out there.

Since the question was asked and I don't want anyone wondering, I used the extended cab chasis because I have the 3600 3/4 ton truck, Imo, I think the 78" beds are a little out of proportion to the truck as a whole, I also think that the 87" beds go the other way out of proportion so now I met in the middle with an 82" bed and its is exactly the length I thought it should be for those trucks, which consequently is exactly the same length as my Z-71 short bed. The question I have know is: is my truck a short bed or a long bed, my wife says its a medium bed. HA HA!!!!!