Suburban Body Swap Help
 

Hi, I have a 1965 1/2 ton 4x4 Suburban. I would like to make a daily driver out of it. I was wondering if anyone knew what newer chassis would be the easiest to set it on with the least amount of headaches. I was hoping it would be new enough for disc brakes and auto.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. JJ

Re: Suburban Body Swap Help
 

If your chassis is in good shape, why swap it? Just update it with a later front crossmember to give you discs, and swap in a later auto (preferably OD) trans.

Re: Suburban Body Swap Help
 

X2. A frame swap for nothing more than disk brakes and auto trans is just silly unless the original frame is unusable.

An auto trans was an option for these trucks (and for years before--even the 50's), and bolts right in with the correct crossmember.

For disk brakes, just get another front axle from a later truck with disk brakes.

That is assuming you still want it to be 4x4. If you don't and it's a factory 4x4, I'd personally sell it to someone who will pay more for it because of that and buy a more common 2wd. (Although you could convert it to 2wd by adding the later 2wd crossmember AFAIK.)

Re: Suburban Body Swap Help
 

The frame/chassis swap question gets asked a lot. I will always recommend against it unles there is a good reason and the frame is an easy swap. Yes it can be done and has been done, but there are reasons to not do it. For one, it is much easier to just upgrade your original drivetrain rather than fabricating new body mounts to mount it to a later model frame. I have done it and will not do it again.

The short answer to your question is that there are no later model chassis that are easy to put under your Suburban. There are a couple of Suburbans on this forum that have had a chassis swap. Check them out in the 'Projects and Builds' section and the '60-66 Suburbans' section

Re: Suburban Body Swap Help
 

I agree, swap the parts out. There is more work involved to swap frames. Either way is going to cost money. If you have the frame already and trying to save a buck going that route your in for some fab work.

Re: Suburban Body Swap Help
 

I disagree. I used a 2002 Chevy 2500HD with duramax/Allison.

Re: Suburban Body Swap Help
 

for some it may not be a problem depending on skills and the time one can commit to doing a decent job. there are a lot of hack jobs. how many of these conversions do you see where the wheels are usually sitting in the right places and the registration for them is correct?
there have been a couple of those conversions that I have seen(pictures only) that have looked good, but one has to have a good truck to start with and as mentioned skills and the tools to go with it!
ron

Re: Suburban Body Swap Help
 

We found that by using a crew cab short bed frame that the middle of the frame is basically a straight rail so we took the extra length out of that area and re welded it close to how the factory had originally done it. Goal was to adapt new to old and not try and re-engineer what GM has spent 50 years building.

Re: Suburban Body Swap Help
 

He just said disk brakes + auto trans. Disk brakes are an easy and common bolt-on, and these trucks came from GM with automagick transmissions.