[mr48chev]

There are positives and negatives to each setup.

I'm one of those who is pretty vocal about keeping the stock 3100 shortbed frame and building off it "IF" you have a really nice frame to start with.

You could keep the stock I beam and change to disk brakes if you liked and swap rears for an open drive rear axle. That is about as simple as it gets but the steering can still give you a workout if it isn't set up perfectly.

Steve at Industrial Chassis in Phoenix is building a seriously strong independent front crossmember that uses Dodge Dakota two wheel drive front suspension pieces and steering. Under 600 for the crossmember from what I have seen and he builds them one at a time. Real midsize truck pieces and you don't have to cut up the inner sheet metal to do the swap out side of maybe a minor trim for clearance. There are some bolt on MII units that you can swap out the whole front suspension in a Saturday fairly easily if you wanted to go that way and the sky is the limit with other kits that can run up to 4 k or so with all the bells and whistles.

The "kits" to do the S-10 swap run about 1500 and up if you used one of the aftermarket kits to do the swap. with the cost of the chassis and rebuilding the front suspension and adding wheel spacers you end up with 2000 to 2500 in the chassis that way. In some states you may run into issues after doing that swap. Is it an AD pickup or is it an S-10 with an AD body? If you bought the rolling chassis out of some guy's back yard off Craigslist are you getting a chassis that you legally own or you buying the chassis from a stolen vehicle or one that the bank still has money loaned out on? The other thing is what does your insurance company say about a truck that has a frame under it that did not come from that model of truck?