LS1 Bagged 52 Chevy 3100 Build

[Bagged3100]

Hey everybody. I’m new to the forum but I have seen several of you guys builds. I figured I mise well post mine up here so that I could see what you all think and hear your compliments, complaints concerns and suggestions. Hopefully my build will help some people out with some how to or different ideas. My project is a 1952 Chevy 3100 that I am transplanting onto a s10 chassis with full air ride laying running board and powered by a ls1 and six speed transmission. So feel free to ask away.

But I found a 1952 Chevy 3100 for sale for $800 and it came with a clean title so I went down to check it out. I knew I was going to do the s 10 frame swap so I wasn’t too concerned with the frame or drive train. I just wanted to make sure the body was in decent shape. Which it was. Other than the usual problem areas like cab corners, rocker panels, and floor it was pretty solid other then the driver side rear fender. But I didn’t think it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. So we loaded the truck up and brought it home.

[Bagged3100]

a little dirty ha

[Bagged3100]

A few days later I received a call from the guy that sold me the truck saying that he had a completely stripped down s-10 chassis that he would sell me. He said he was going to do the swap with the frame and that he wouldn’t need the frame now that he sold the truck. Even though I had already bought a complete s-10 for the frame swap I figured for $100 I mise well just buy the guys frame that’s already stripped rather then me tearing apart a complete truck. So I called the guy back and asked if it was a single cab long bed frame and he said yes so I told him Id take it. I went back down the following weekend to pick up the frame and before loading it up and paying for it I asked him again if it was a regular cab long bed and he said yes again so I paid the $100 and brought it home also.

[Bagged3100]

I knew I wanted to run a modern engine that is fuel injected for dependability and for fuel mileage but I also wanted something that would get the truck moving down the road pretty good so the choice was a easy one. LS1! So I searched and searched all over craigslist till I finally came across a wrecked Pontiac Trans-am ws6 with a ls1 and a 6 speed transmission. So that weekend we drove to Delaware to pick up the totaled car. The owner of the car had hit a bridge and completely destroyed the right side of the car. All the damage was in the middle right around the passenger door area. So I knew the engine was not harmed and also the rear axle was good. My overall plan was to use everything out of the Trans-am and put it into the Chevy to keep the price down. Engine, trans, wiring harness, ecu, cruise control, pedals, steering column, gas tank, chassis harness, speakers…. Everything I possibly could.

[Bagged3100]

I knew from doing research and also by looking at a lot of the build threads on here that I would have to cut the front frame caps off back near the steering box, and also to cut the cab mounts off the s-10 and cap plus grind smooth. So before I even did any mock up of the 52 chevy body I went ahead and got that stuff done and out of the way.

[Bagged3100]

Once the cab mounts and frame caps were cut off and ground smooth I started tearing apart my 52 Chevy 3100. Luckily I have a plasma cutter in my arsenal because almost all of the bolts were rusted solid. But I finally got the cab and everything separated off the old chassis.

[Bagged3100]

Then I got the s-10 chassis in the garage and got the frame set up on jack stands to where the frame was level length wise and width wise. After it was leveled I worked on setting the cab over onto the s10 frame and trying to mock it up to where it looked best sitting on the frame.

[Bagged3100]

This part I found to be a big pain in the butt. It took a bunch of tries to get the cab at the right spot on the chassis. Lining the wheels up in the front fenders and also getting the correct height between the cab and the frame and the rake in the cab that looked best and also to center the cab on the frame side to side. It seemed like every time I made a tiny adjustment to one of those factors it threw out all the other measurements so I had to start over and do it all over again. But when I finally got it to where I thought it looked good I worked on making the cab mounts. I actually got the idea and the measurements for the 4x4 tubing mounts off of somebody on this forum (Thank You). So I made the mounts and bolted them on the cab where it sat and then welded them to the frame. The only thing I don’t like is if you use the s10 cab bushings like the blue prints call for the center hole of the bushing is like two inches and when you bolt the cab on the bolt going down through it has about 1.5 inches play around it. So every time you mount the cab you have to re-measure everything and make sure its centered front and back and left and right. So because of that reason I will probably end up redoing the cab mounts so that I can set the cab on the frame and drop a bolt down through the cab and through the mount and it will line itself up. If that made any sense.

[STOCKISH]

Nice work so far. Will be fun with the 6 speed!

[Bagged3100]

After I got the cab mounted it was time to start on the bed of the truck. I set the bed on the s10 chassis to start working on figuring out how to build the mounts for the bed. That’s where it all went bad. I noticed the wheel openings on the bed were nowhere close to being centered over the rear axle in the frame. That’s when I realized I have been lied to. And that I really shouldn’t have took his word on the frame being a regular cab long bed cause obviously it wasn’t. It must have been a regular cab short bed. I thought about it for a while and then decided that I did way to much work to the frame to start over now and use the other s10 I bought before. So I decided I was going to move the rear axle back I think it was about 8 inches. But of course the frame was now around 8 inches short at the back. So I had to do something to make up those 8 inches. After a little bit of measuring I realized that 2x4 rectangular tubing slides in the stock frame rail snugly. Since I was planning on boxing in the frame later anyway I thought this would be a very strong and quick and easy way to extend the frame 8 Inches. So I got enough 2x4 tubing to run up into the frame as far as possible then stick out the back an extra 8 inches and then enough to connect the frame in the back. Once frame is boxed in it should almost be unnoticeable.

[Bagged3100]

The floor of the bed was completely shot, pretty much non existent so I decided I needed to redo it and square everything back up. I figured since I was redoing the entire floor in the bed I would lower the floor down as low as possible that way it gives me as much bed space as possible. So after I squared the bed up I got 1x1 angle iron and tacked along the sides of the bed. This will hold the bed to the new braces I am using to bolt to the frame and also the floor will sit on top of the angle iron. Then I took 1x2 rectangular tubing and ran from side to side to make the two braces to bolt to the frame. Once done I used the original front cab mount I cut off of the s10 chassis and welded on the back of the truck frame to make the back bed mount. I used the stock s10 bed mount for the front of the bed. It worked out very very nicely.

[Bagged3100]

Once I had the cab and bed mounted on the s10 chassis it was time to make it a rolling chassis.

[Bagged3100]

I bought the trans am to use all the parts off of it so I was planning on using that rear axle but after I took it out of the car it was way to wide for truck and to make it worse it wasn’t even a posi. So I decided against that axle. When figuring out what rear axle to use the s-10 axle was out because I needed something stronger to hold up to the ls1 power and torque and it also didn’t have posi. I didn’t want to spend the crazy amount of money on a custom ford 9 inch. But I remembered reading somewhere that a 31 spline ford 8.8 was just about as strong as a 9 inch. Ford Explorers are everywhere plus they have disk brakes so that’s the route I wanted to go. However the 8.8 was to wide for the chevy body. The ford 8.8 pinion is offset to one side by 3 inches if I remember correctly. So I thought I would just buy another short axle from a junkyard and cut the long side axle tube to the same length as the short axle tube and install the spare short axle. That would narrow the rear axle by three inches and center the differential. Sounded easy enough? And everything went very well and was pretty easy. I also cut off all the stock brackets on the axle. When I welded the axle tube back together I made a little jig out of angle iron to make sure the tube was lined up perfectly straight to prevent axle and bushing failure later down the road

[Bagged3100]

After the ford 8.8 axle was narrowed it was time to install it on the truck. I put my tires and wheels on the front of the truck and leveled the frame so that the back of the frame was at proper ride height. I installed the wheels on the rear axle and centered it in the wheel well openings and also centered it side to side and set up my pinion angle then tack welded the axle to the frame so that it didn’t move on me. This part was also very time consuming to get everything centered just right. (#52,53,54)
Then I started to build my triangulated four link, to hold the rear axle in. If the truck would have been a regular cab long bed like it was supposed to be it would have saved me a lot of headaches especially in doing the suspension cause then I pretty much could have just bought bolt in kits for a s10 instead of having to do everything custom fabricated. But when I started my four link there wasn’t anywhere to weld my tabs to on the rear axle differential. So instead I made sort of like a bridge out of 1x2 rectangular tubing that came up from the axle housing up over the differential down to the other side axle tube. Then I welded my upper bar tabs to that bridge. Then from there I leveled the bars and ran them out to the frame. I tried to get a 45 degree angle on the upper bars. Once I determined my angle I got my four link bars and welded in a bung to thread the ends into for my upper bars. Then set it up and welded my tabs to the frame. Then all of a sudden I realized I had made a big mistake. I got ahead of myself and forgot about me putting the front on air ride and using 2 inch drop spindles. Not using the stock springs its sitting on now. So whenever I put the air bags up front along with the drop spindles im sure it will sit at a different height then what it is currently sitting at now. So if I set my triangulated four link bars up the way its sitting now they will no longer be at the right angles once the front is lowered. So I just wasted several days worth of work. But hey it happens. So for now the rear axle is set to the side since it cant be installed till I get my front control arms which I ordered a while ago.

[Bagged3100]

My air ride kit showed up from Thorbeckbros! Now im just waiting on my s10 control arms.

[Bagged3100]

Since I cant do anything more till I get my control arms I figured I could start working on getting the engine out of the trans am and start installing it into the chevy.

[Bagged3100]

After the engine was removed from the trans am and the front k member I tried to set it down into the s-10 frame. However the a/c unit and also the alternator were hitting and would not allow the engine to drop down into the frames cross member.

[Chevette]

Really like what you're doing. Looks like you have everything under control. Good luck with your build. I'm sure it will turn out very nice.

[Bagged3100]

After I removed the a/c unit and alternator it dropped down in the frame rails really well. I mocked the engine up so it was at the right height and centered and also level. Once I had it set where I wanted it I worked on making custom motor mounts. I used the original rubber mounts that bolted to the engine block but I had to fabricate mounts from the frame to the original rubber mounts on the engine. I used 1/4 inch metal to make plates for the front and back. One that bolted to the cross member where the original s10 motor mounts bolted and the other back a little bit bolted to where the lower control arm bolts to. Then I used 3/4 bar stock that ran from the one plate to the other. Then I used 3/4 bar stock to cut out and make two tabs to weld to the other bar stock that will then line up and bolt to the mounts on the engine. The tabs were identical to the ones that were originally used on the trans-am.

[Bagged3100]

Once I had the engine mounted in it was time to install the steering box. I know that when doing these swaps the radiator support hits the steering box of the s10. I really wanted to retain the stock radiator support cause it lines everything up up front. So what I did was left it installed to the fenders and everything but cut the bottom off just above the steering box. Then I cut a piece of 1x2 rectangular tubing long enough to fit the width of the radiator support. The tubing fit in the c channel of the radiator support nicely. Then I took another piece of 1x2 tubing and welded to the bottom of the frame rails up front right below where I capped them. Then from there I took more tubing and welded them vertically to the piece I had running under the frame. And I used tabs to bolt the radiator support to the tabs on the frame.

[Bagged3100]

Next step was preparing the s10 frame for the big Dominator 2600 air bags I wanted to run upfront. Ive been looking at a lot of peoples s10s they bagged and too run that big of bag you have to notch out your spring pocket a good bit so I got started on that. I actually used one of the lids from those plastic round gallon jugs that ice-cream comes in. I took the lid and centered it on the spring pocket it and traced that to get a nice perfect circle. After they were cut I cleaned them all up with the grinder

[av8tr33337]

Wow very nice write up. Looks like you have overcome a few obstacles with some good old American ingenuity, patience, and determination. I'll be following along since it looks like your about to pass me up with the build.

[Bagged3100]

Ok I had gotten everything done that I could do at this time. I AM STILL WAITING ON MY CONTROL ARMS! But until they get here I figured I could do some busy work. So I started tearing the trans am the rest of the way apart. I want to use everything out of the trans am including the chassis harness. So I started ripping out every single wire out of that car. Hours and hours later I finally got it all out.

[Bagged3100]

Next I had to address the situation where I removed the a/c unit and the alternator to get it to fit in the frame rails. I found the solution in a bracket made by speedway. It relocates the alternator from the lower left hand side and puts it on the upper left hand side. Everything was nice quality and of course speedway gets you the parts like within a day or two. My favorite company to work with. However things I don’t like are that there is no room between your alternator and the sensor that’s right there, also doesn’t look like you’ll be able to change spark plugs without removing alternator first which seems like a PITA. Also the alternator is pretty close to the exhaust manifold. But idk ill let you know how well it works later once I start driving it.

[Bagged3100]

Ok thats everything finally. Should be caught up with everything. Now its time to get back out in the garage and get to work. Feel free to let me know what you think anytime.