Yet Another s10 swap

[jeffs51chevy]

I've been lurking for a long time, reading all the great stuff you guys are doing. I've posted in the welcome section awhile back. Thank you to all who took the time to say hello. I was just wondering if there was any interest in a "how to" or better yet a, "how I did it" on the subject of fixed cab mounts for the s10 frame swap. I know there is a lot of info out on the web, and nothing I have done is ground breaking. The only thing that might be different is that I only have about $120 into the cab mounts and front core support. Let me know, and thanks again. You guys are true craftsman.

[GRIMSS]

Go ahead and share. There's always someone looking for alternative ideas on how to do stuff.

Make sure and post lots of pics.

[jeffs51chevy]

I'm going to try and post a few pics of the progress. Everything is all dirty, rusty, and rough. I will fix that later. I'm just trying to get everything mocked up. I know, I know, the 14 inch tires look very goofy.

[54 jimmy]

looks good how did you relocate the motor so it wasn't in the rad?

[jeffs51chevy]

First, I mounted the cab for clearance. Then welded motor mounts to 3/8 steel plates. Next, I bolted the mounts to the engine. Then, I set the engine in place, leveling front to back and side to side. I tacked the steel plates to the cross member, pulled the engine and finished the welds. I currently have about a one to two inch gap between the firewall and the distributor. There is probably a better way, but this was my solution.

[54 jimmy]

sounds good. keep the pics comming

[jeffs51chevy]

Ok, so this is the process I used to build fixed cab mounts for the s10 frame swap. I got back to my kindergarten roots and made some very crude patterns out of old folders in my office.
[IMG][/IMG]
I took these down to the local Agricultural Equipment machine shop and had the pieces sheared and bent. After drilling a few holes (that I ended up not using) and a little welding, I had finished mounts. Here are the results:



Thanks for looking.
BTW- I've tried to shrink these pics down. I chose the preset "website" size 320 x 240 but they still are huge. Can someone give me a fix for this?

[GRIMSS]

Here's jeffs51chevy's bracket design. Hope this helps some people out on their projects.

******removed for changes******


_

[GRIMSS]

**note to design**

This drawing is the improved version from the ones he made. We moved the foot 3/4" to raise the mount some more. Kind of a "if I was to do again thing".

[jeffs51chevy]

Well not much progress lately, but I did get a chance to track down a 4x4 rear end. It's not that photo worthy, but it does show the rear track width. I wanted the rear disk set up, but $75 for the whole assembly, ebrake, and sway bar I'll drive it and save for the next one.



I have to still trim the rear frame rails, and set the bed, but it's what I could get done today. One man show you now. Thanks for looking.

[55dude]

nice job! great reading and well detailed. the really funny thing about "body mounts" is over the years i have seen some really"ghetto" ones that functioned fine just not pretty. safe is really the key issue and you seem to have done that in your design. old pipe used to be the standard type i came across in the past and they were scary!

[BarryB]

This is just the type of write up I have been looking for. I was offered a 51 Chevy recentlly. I have the long bed S10 in the backyard so I just might take to guy up on the offer.

[jeffs51chevy]

Thank you BarryB. I appreciate the feedback. I will tell you this, the swap is no small undertaking. It has been a ton of fun for me and my four year old, but everyone on the web makes it sound like a peice of cake. Swap the sheet metal and you'll be on the road. It's much more involved. Do not let me detour you. I am just saying it is not as easy as everyone makes it out to be.

[littleb]

Just wondering if you have any pics of how you mounted the front end? Fenders, rad support, ect? Did you have to cut the inners? I've seen many builds where they did but with it sitting 5" from the frame do you still need to cut the fenders and how did you mount the rad support?

[jeffs51chevy]

Of this whole project, the front radiator support was what dictated the height of the cab. Next time I would like to be more daring and fab the front end differently, but I used conventional wisdom this time. I cut the bottom of the rad support off right below the two welded nuts that hold the grill, and then welded a peice of 3/4 angle iron to hold things together.

I then used some 1/4 steel plate, bent in a 45 degree, to hold the rad support to the frame.
The plan is to weld them to the frame when I get everything else set in a final position. I want good gaps everywhere before I weld for the last time.


The passenger side frame slopes, so a peice of angle iron will be used. As you can see from the pics, the inner fender skirts are trimed to miss the upper A arms. The photos were from a month ago, and were only a trial run. I will get new shots as they come available.

Thanks,
Sorry for the photo sizes. My computer skills suck.

[jeffs51chevy]

I got a little more done on the runningboard mounts today. They are 1 x 2 channel. The bed mounts are 3" tubing cut on a bias.



Thanks for looking

[Daniel U]

Very nice work!

[BigSix302]

As others have already stated...nice work!! I have a friend using a kit another guy made up. It seems to be going ok. I think I like yours better from what I have seen so far. Plus the cost value is much better. I may attempt one of these some day myself. Keep up the great work!!

[junkman1jmc]

i haven't started on my swap yet but i have made my cab mounts. i used that diagram you posted . is the bottom of the frame even with the bottom of the runnin boards? i 'm puttin my 48 on a bagged s10 frame and i would like it to layout with the runnin boards flat on the ground.

[jeffs51chevy]

Originally Posted by junkman1jmc

i 'm puttin my 48 on a bagged s10 frame and i would like it to layout with the runnin boards flat on the ground.

junkman1jmc, my best guess, if you are putting it on my original measurements, would be no. The bottom of the running boards would be about 2+ inches off the ground if you are "laying frame". I really don't know because my truck was never going to be that low. Just mess with your mock up to see where you like it.

50adrod - thanks for the compliment. I'm going to weld/capture the nuts on the back of the firewall for now. If it looks like crap, I'll weld the hump down.

Jeff

[jeffs51chevy]

I finished up my steering linkage, and thought I would share. The best part was that I reused most of the stuff I had in the garage - total cost =$25. I started by dismantling the stock s-10 steering column. This gave me the double D tubing and double D shaft. I went to u-pick-it yard and got the intermediate shaft from a 1985 c-10 van. This is what I started with:

Separte the van shaft and cut the stock s-10 steering column into the three pieces shown. I jointed the lower van u-joint with the double D shaft using the double D tubing. I used 1/4" plug welds to joint the three pieces. These are what you should have at this point.

Slide the bearing onto the stock '51 shaft and cap the end with the end piece from the s-10 column. I drilled both and set it with a 1/4" grade 5 bolt.

I had the stock '51 column clearenced for the bearing.

This is what it looks like assembled.

I'm sure there are different ways of doing this, but this is what I came up with. Let me know what you think.

[weldvair@embarqmail.]

You have helped a lot of people....Don Meyer

[54 jimmy]

any progress lately. got some done on my swap. found a cheap junkyard swap for the trans crossmember. a fullsize 1500 2wd crossmember works great with a little trimming and some mounting plates welded to the bottom of the frame. best of all $12.95 at a local yard, beats $50.00 for a universal nightmare to mount one. i'll try to get some pics to post. well hers a pic of the progress so far.

[jeffs51chevy]

Sorry for the lack of updates. Life has gotten busy around here. I haven't had a chance to work on the truck in all of August. Lets hope September brings more time to work on it. I know you guys like pics, so here are a few of the last bit of work I got done.
Here is the rear track width. The plan is to use Cragars with a 2 1/2" backspacing.

Driver's side.


Passenger side.


total bed view

Thanks for looking.

[54 chevy 55]

Originally Posted by jeffs51chevy

Sorry for the lack of updates. Life has gotten busy around here. I haven't had a chance to work on the truck in all of August. Lets hope September brings more time to work on it. I know you guys like pics, so here are a few of the last bit of work I got done.
Here is the rear track width. The plan is to use Cragars with a 2 1/2" backspacing.

Driver's side.


Passenger side.


total bed view

Thanks for looking.

You are a Life saver I am not taiking about the candy. You have made thing a lot easier for lot of people and i am one of them THank YOU