Frame swapped k5
 

Have there been many frame swapped k5’s on the forum?

I was at the Ducktail show in Gas City, Indiana over the weekend and saw a nice 72 swapped onto a Denali frame. I doubt I go this direction but can’t seem to get the idea out of my head! I’m sure you guys know how that goes.

Would like to see a complete build of 1 if y’all can point me in the right direction - didn’t have a lot of luck in my search of the forum (I probably missed it!).

Re: Frame swapped k5
 

I have owned a 2005 Denali pick up truck since it was new. It is all wheel drive with a new LQ9 crate motor. This truck has been great other than the cam bearing froze up at 165K miles, hence the new crate motor. I have thought many times how this setup would be great to incorporate this drive line into a K5 and make it look like a 2 wheel drive. With the truck being a crew cab with a 5'8" bed, the wheel base would be too big. I was thinking of putting a truck body on the frame and cutting a long bed down to fit. I haven't done any research just day dreaming. Has anyone done this type of swap or used the all wheel drive setup in a k5 or k10?

Re: Frame swapped k5
 

I was also looking into these options. The wheelbase on a trailblazer SS is much closer to that of our blazers. I believe the wheelbase on those is 2 to 4 inches longer?

Saab also made a Trailblazer SS type vehicle.

Re: Frame swapped k5
 

The 72 I saw at the show was on a yukon Denali frame that had been shortened. It was running the factory yukon engine, trans, tcase, front & rear diffs. Suspension had been modded with a lift. I should have taken photos.

Re: Frame swapped k5
 

I just looked it up the wheelbase on a 72 k5 is 104". The wheel base on a standard D
enali is 116" and on my Denali sierra truck is 143.5"

Re: Frame swapped k5
 

Here’s a 67 c10 on a 2002 duramax frame. https://youtu.be/r1tqlHfiPT8

Yukon (and Tahoe) frames along with the truck frames should be very similar.

With the price of LS swap crossmembers, this might be a cost effective LS swap. Seems like any Silverado/sierra/Tahoe/yukon from around 2000-2007 could do.

Re: Frame swapped k5
 

That would be a great project if you have a clean body needing a chassis etc. I think it would make a great daily driver using a GMT 360 platform ( trailblazer, envoy etc) , ive dreamt about this myself and would like to see some examples as well.
We have a mentioned above Saab Aero with an LS2 which is a TBSS with different sheet metal basically and i have measured the track width and it is roughly only an inch narrower then my 72 2wd blazer. If you could shorten the frame safely using the factory welds that are there putting front and rear frame together it would be hard to tell the frame was modified at all

Here is a guy doing it right now to a C10:

https://www.tbssowners.com/threads/t...-build.212106/