49 3600, s10 swap, project boogie

[joedoh]

against my wife's direction and better judgement I have started a new project.

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
― Winston Churchill

so at least I am enthusiastic! My wife sees another rusty shatbox holding down the concrete in our driveway, as if it would float away if that space was left unweighted.

I actually started this last year as I thought I was winding down my 65 s10 swap, not your typical s10 swap, kept the s10 firewall floors and drivetrain, a 2.2L 5 speed. Drove it a few times between friends promises, and everyone who said it was a waste of time was wrong, it accelerated like a normal truck and got decent mileage on the highway, in the 20s.


Anyway, thats gone, and in March of last year I picked up a 1999 S10 longbed 4.3 auto SLS (tilt and cruise!) with a wandery front end and 4 bald tires, two of which held air!
had the stock wheels off the 98 so popped em on

and rebuilt the terribly unsafe front end (upper control arm bushings were faint memories, explains the st bernard head shake under braking) with all brand new suspension and steering parts even upgraded to blazer sealed bearing spindles and dual piston caliper brakes while I was in there



now it drives stops and turns like a new truck. Used it a year looking for the right 48-52 Ford or 47-55 Chevy.

Found one saturday a 49 (very important for titling) 3600 flat bed, came with 8 boxes of original spares, but sadly no bed and no glass. Spiders and bullet holes included free though. I made a low offer because it had a 65 tag on it, and to my surprise he said "have at it!".




the front springs were broken at the rear shackles so I opted for the adult option instead of the 20 yr old lets-crawl-around-in-dirt-and-push-this-on-a-borrowed-trailer-for-6-hours.


now its home, I have to clean it out and get a couple tetanus boosters



got a couple of these, plus the one in the cab,

a couple diverter valves in the boxes, newish OEM bumpers, a refinished oem painted grille, and just loads of extra stuff, gauges, weatherstripping, etc.

scored a set of patina matching running boards today too, no more shortys.


I've been killing myself at work, I am an engineer, and there has been a lot of churn the last year. I plan to take a vacation in the next 60 days and will keep looking for a bed and some glass, which is all I really need. New door glass is like 70 bucks from LMC, I have all the frames even though the glass is broken. hoepful that my daughter and I can hit this hard, a tremendous whack

I keep an over/under spreadsheet on these trucks, I have for a long time and a lot of trucks, helps to keep track of exactly what the project costs. So far I have 2800 invested, but that will decrease as I sell the 8 boxes of stuff and the body parts/interior of the longbed. I have some protouring billet 22" wheels from the 65 project that I will never sell for what I have to have for them, so they may end up on here too.

[joedoh]

got a bed today, guy had a 1948 with s10 suspension on cl and I saw a bunch of stuff in the background
so I took a chance he would have a bed. He did!

[Low Elco]

Excited to see what happens with this one.

[YahamaR1]

Nice project,

[joedoh]

in kansas, 49 and older has one distinct advantage. no MVE required, just title and tag from bill of sale.



ordered every piece of glass and rubber from LMC for the cab. 90 dollars for a window channel kit, good googly moogly it better be silver plated.

[STOCKISH]

Awesme, cant wait to see more.

[ghettoluxury]

That's cool that all you needed was a bill of sale to register it. This is the reason mos projects wind up never getting finished.

[joedoh]

kansas is pretty good about combined bodies. my 65 was previously a 62 on the same chassis, the MVE trooper told me because I had a bill of sale for the 62 and a title for the 98, he would recommend titling as a 98. I told him I would crush it first, went and bought a 65 with a clean title and did the swap a second time. It was hard because I used the s10 floor and firewall, so that had to be redone.

They didnt have a problem with it though, and even if I didnt have a bill of sale or title they would have given it a new KS issued VIN.

[ricott]

Great to see you have the paperwork in order! Getting the paperwork done immediately (before any real money is spent) is a lesson I learned a long time ago (and it wasn't entirely painless, I might add). Good luck on your frame swap, can't wait to see pictures. I'm currently building a 1955 Task Force truck using a modified Trailblazer frame.

[joedoh]

yeah I learned that on the 62 C10 + 98 S10. get the title in hand before any work.

I got (what I think is) the last piece I needed for the swap. The elusive 92 auto s10 pedal assembly, I will cut it a bit but this is how I plan to use the 99 column, it is a combination column mount/brake pedal assembly.


tomorrow, wood! body crane! found a neat set of plans for a 2x4 gantry system and sold some of my parts to go towards a pair of chain falls.

[joedoh]

well I was wrong about the last piece. Ordered the speedway radiator today and a B&M 70264 super cooler for the 4l60e.

and then I made a big mistake, I talked to a guy about some ART tubular control arms he had for sale and made an offer I didnt really think he would take, my plan being to use my tubing bender to extend the arms slightly and keep from using spacers on the front.

while I was waiting I got in touch with a custom shop known for their arms and he said he could do that, make them slightly longer, which is really tricky because the s10 arm mounts angle towards the rear on the uppers and towards the front on the lowers, so you have to be careful changing length because you can get the balljoints all whacked out.

I said great, ordered them up, checked my pms and oops. guy said yes to my offer. I thought april was the cruelest month? anywho, after double dipping on control arms I am pretty sensitive to what stuff costs now haha.

its all scheduled to arrive next week, except the fancy custom control arms. good timing because I am off next week, through the 27th! investors: buy stock in pb blaster and tetanus boosters!

here are pics of the ART arms for the TTIWWP guys.

[FarmerSid]

Nice progress. What's so elusive about the 92 auto s10 pedal assembly?

[joedoh]

Its more than 10 years old, so none of the yards around here have any, took a lot of calling around to find one.

man speedway ships fast. I ordered the radiator at 2:57pm yesterday

[joedoh]

I took a couple weeks off and by the end of the first week I realized there wouldnt be any time, kept getting called back in. of the 10 days I was off, 4 were weekends and 6 I was either on a conference call or in the office.

but I did get some more parts. I got two cardboard frieght 1 ton chain falls for my homemade gantry, the gal was so sweet, got the sale price and the single item discount on multiple tickets. and picked up some universal motor mounts from speedway, made a mistake and ordered the new s10 engine side mounts, need the older ones.

and today I picked up some wheels, I think they would look sweet on the old gal with some big and little tires. do you think I should run em? or flip em?

[jholt]

Any progress, or just filling up your table with new parts

[joedoh]

nothing yet. downsized my work schedule and have been taking care of deferred maintenance on the family cars and family home. between last week and this week, I have

changed the fuel pump in the sonoma

changed the cylinder head on daughters CRV

changed blower motor in acura, fixed recalcitrant window in same

changed brakes and upper arms on grandmas crv, as well as put on a new hood and lights (hit deer)

changed taillights in pilot (hail)

drove to tulsa and picked up a new stove and dishwasher, then installed them

installed task lighting for new stove

fixed ceiling fan in kitchen

cleaned garage.

oh and we are adding on 1000 sq ft AGL with a matching basement.

I did get some new floors from rockauto/goodmark, under $100 for both sides shipped, pretty good deal I thought compared to LMC, who charges an arm and a leg for shipping even though they are in Lenexa, the UPS hub for Wichita bound deliveries.

Maybe tomorrow I start on the 49 again, have to do a scrap run.

[jholt]

I understand that! Projects are meant to be fun anyways, and not feel like another "chore". When I'm back in the ict, maybe I can swing by and help you out on the '49. I'm just off of 53rd and 135 and I have a '54 that I'm working on too. btw, I recognized your 65 and I think I've met you once before.

[joedoh]

nice to see you again jer, hope the blazer brakes work out for you

intake gaskets on the "golden suffering" 49 donor suffered a radiator event. I had been letting my 16 year old bomb around in the truck but noticed a little steam when she parked home from school. I took it for a blast and the temp shot right up. The radiator showed a little water leak at the seam, so I topped up the fluids and gave LD2 grandmas crv for the time being. The next day I picked up some electrical for the addition and had real steam on the highway, then the heat went away.....parked and checked the rad, empty, checked the oil, about 2 gallons too full. 4.3 intake gaskets.

ordered the felpro kit, metal gaskets and all the odds and ends like fuel orings and such. tore down. look how bad this went for the gaskets.



someone had done the job once before and didnt use metal gaskets, and didnt replace the intake bolts either.

cleaning up, milkshake city. this is before scraping and cleaning the gasket surfaces, settle dahn nah


had to replace the radiator, it had a 7 inch long crack on the front side of the tank, unseen until replacement. got a used one since I have a new aluminum one for the swap

all done!


got a new gauge cluster too, the stepper motors in here will find their way to the original 49 gauges.



I am currently laying out patterns for s10 swap body mounts for the plasma!

[joedoh]

picked up another bed today. got a good deal, passenger fender is a little worse but having those pieces of running board included is nice.

I should come out alright selling the old bed.


in this picture you can see how nice using the sonoma bed floor will be, it will fill it end to end.




this truck was around the corner, nice example of a 3600 long bed.

[jholt]

nice find. look a lot better than the old one.

[joedoh]

well looks like I got another upgrade.

I am swapping rear end gears in my 65, so I have been cruising craplist for a disc blazer rear end. I stumbled on a guy selling a 4.3 and auto trans for a sonoma. the ad says he bought it from an impound auction, the owner rolled it and didnt have comprehensive insurance. He bought it for parts so he cut the roof off and gutted it. I get there to look at it and it is a 2003 with 79k miles. (!) I gave him $300 for everything seen below.



stuck my rallies on it so I can sell the swirls.

I verified the mileage and the startup, the rad has a hole in it so we didnt run it long but the oil is clean and the trans fluid very red. its an extended cab so some shortening is in the future but its literally everything I need and I dont need to anger the wife god by tearing apart the tremendously useful longbed I already had. I am going to rebuild the front suspension because I can tell one of the balljoints is bad.



with the 49 behind it!

[joedoh]

whaddyaknow, rpo code said leather steering wheel and it is. neat, never seen one on an s10.


pull the bag

trusty 4 way to loosen (but not remove) the center nut

firm tug left

firmer tug right

viola.


got a bunch done. the wiring harness is actually attached to the dash, so I had to pull the dash and strip the vents and airbag and finally the harness out. almost everything is disconnected on the inside, tomorrow I will do the firewall side and pull the remainder of the cab sheetmetal. I will save the HVAC and steering portions of the firewall, and the tranny tunnel too it will be easier than making one.


The front frame horns look a little twisted, more than I saw at first, so when I grind the seam to shorten the frame I may just replace the front clip.



luckily this donor is rich with stuff I dont need and will sell on. the local craplist has s10 frames for 100-150, I should make at least that much selling the unicorn dash panel (03 had a double din radio opening) and double din radio, leather wheel and air bags, wheels, and other stuff. noticed today that the seatbelts are both there, sweet, one less thing to buy.

[jholt]

Nice score! So does this mean there will be more progress on the 49 build in the near future?

[T Hilde]

A good frame shop could square that frame horn up.

[joedoh]

Originally Posted by jholt

Nice score! So does this mean there will be more progress on the 49 build in the near future?

yes I am working on it now that the 65 is mostly done.

Originally Posted by T Hilde

A good frame shop could square that frame horn up.

I'm sure they could, but I have to separate the middle joint and pull the motor to move it back 5", and s10 frames havent changed 82-03.