53 gmc questions

[mr48chev]

The 73/87 stuff usually doesn't work out under the AD trucks very well as the tread width is quite a wider and the tires usually end up sticking out of the fenders like those on a mid 70's love van. It is a point when you have to stand back and ask yourself, how is this going to look and is it going to look the way I want it to when I am done.
It may work but look too much like you cut too many corners. The way a guy might carry it off is to leave it sitting high in the air with narrow tires to have a heavy duty look rather than a rodded truck or custom truck look.

The MII setups work quite well in most cases and are quite clean in final appearance compared to some setups. Putting the MII on the stock frame allows you to keep the stock body mounts and cab, bed and fender alignment isn't an issue. You still have to deal with the rear suspension and on your truck the length of the bed if you want to run as a shortbed. Not big deals but they have to be figured out.

The S-10 setup is popular for these trucks and works good because the doner trucks are usually available for a very reasonable price in most areas and they have the 11 inch disks on the front good steering and the frames are fairly stout and strong and will handle a strong running V8 if desired. The standard cab longbed frame is the desired one to get in most cases. The short bed frame needs to be lengthened and the extended cab frame is a bit long but in your case you might get away with fitting the length of your bed to the frame and trimming the running boards to match.
There are other options if you let your imagination run a bit.

One of my friends built it on a mid 60's Chevelle frame complete with coil spring rear suspension. The Bed was trimmed at the front of the second stanchion and the front panel moved back. Another friend in Texas built a quite similar truck in the Mid 70's that was on a 55 Chev sedan frame that was shortened a bit to get the wheelbase right.
That was pre digital ( I don't think it had been invented yet) so all of my photos of it are stashed away in an album somewhere. Both guys trimmed the bottom edge of the fenders to match the bottom edge of the cab and on the truck in the photo he removed the bottom bar in the grill to raise the pan up a bit. The owner of this truck is heavy into the pro street thing and is building a new pro street chassis for it.

Sneak preview of his chassis. It uses a Stub off a Camaro/Trans Am, Tube rails and a narrowed nine inch with bagged suspension with a 4 link. I'm showing it to say that the limits are your what your imagination and skills can produce.