47-55.1 55.1 S10 swap Gypsum

[joedoh]

I sold some mounts to a nice local guy in Gypsum ~70 miles away, and a few weeks later, as such things sometimes happen, he abandoned his project. he wanted to know if I wanted the mounts back to resell, sure, and I will buy the truck too! I get a lot of feedback on swaps and i am always up for trying new things so I always have a "development article" (project) going. he had all the parts, albeit disassembled, and the cab just lazily sitting on an ext cab s10 chassis. just the way I like buying them!

with the 41-46 swaps behind me again (see the pre 47 forum) I decided to implement some of the aforementioned changes to the 47-55.1 kit stuff on this truck. the reason is twofold: first, I have it. second, ks just passed the law that says you can title anything 60 years old and older that hasnt been on the tax rolls for a decade on a bill of sale without an inspection. I normally have trouble with inspections, mostly with the officers conducting them, so this means now i can avoid them with my 50s ADs, previously the law was 1950 and newer required inspection.

nick picked up his 46, the 55 was still at the storage building, and instead of loading my heavy car trailer on my 8mpg silverado I decided to try out the hitch I got for my also recent purchase 2 owner cherokee.





the cab gave just the right amount of weight to let the tires self center (a bare frame would not)

i pulled the cab off using the a frame I borrowed from my neighbor "for a week or two" 4 years ago



it has a little rust, for the most part just flat work but it needs the lower cowls replaced. and one cab corner I can change. if I have to. I guess.

then roll the chassis in for a little middle surgery, planning on removing 7 inches. I havent done this work yet, normally i have more backlog of work to post, but one thing I remember is that shortening the 98+ frames (this is a 2000 2.2 truck) might be easier to just cut square aft of the factory splice, the extra boxing on the 98+ frame can make a lot of work to grind out the splice.




so maybe a blunt cut and fishplates are in order.

regular project followers will notice I am STILL in my 19x19 attached. there is a good reason for that. we bought two more properties, one right after the other, so the money I saved up for insulating and HVAC in the 30x50 storage building got spent on those instead. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

follow along! I promise no stretches of inactivity like I sometimes do. I wil ltell the reason for that in a bit, maybe closer to mounted and rolling.

[mongocanfly]

Good deal Russ, looks like a good solid truck..!!!

[Tempest67]

Let the games begin................... I'm in for this

[joedoh]

thanks!


spent the afternoon chasing jack stands. by the time i remembered who had them and sent him a text, I had already bought 2 new pair at cardboard freight. so now i guess i just have 6 pairs.



ran out of battery juice. removing the pass side will have to wait. mostly i am just mentioning this because I decided to do it the right way. *SIGH*.




what about the morning? well instead of just posting this thread and generally laying about, i met up with dando (i have shown his couple of builds here at various times) and bought something to plug the space I just vacated next to the storage.



8 lug 16" that clear the front drums and tie rods on the 3600, thats rare as hen teeth!

pretty nice floor. if I were smarter (or at all) i would have used this cab and front clip.



oh and one important extra came with it.



I GOT A CLACKITY CLACKER FOR THE COE PROJECT. oft mentioned, barely worked on. but i have almost everything now. I figure an ext cab s10 frame will give me a 9 ft bed (once i push the cab forward and up) anyway, lets leave that discussion for a later time. dando earned his friend label today, I think if i sell the 3600 brake drums and parts, and those hard to find wheels, and the open drive trans and those race seats, I might be almost paid back. which would make dando almost completely paid because "as per usual" we merely shook hands and everything came to my place. so far. dan has nothing to worry about though.

[6DoF]

dude ... is that a P-Pump on a benz diesel?

[oldman3]

Russ, look forward to another one of your great builds, always learning something each time...Jim

[joedoh]

thanks jim

Originally Posted by 6DoF

dude ... is that a P-Pump on a benz diesel?

?? i googled p pump, this is what came up.

[6DoF]

BAAAHAHAHAHahahahahah!!

no no no ... Bosch in-line mechanical injection pump. like the P7100 on a 2nd gen Cummins. is the benz a direct injection?

[joedoh]

haha yes it is. thats what gives it the clackity clack I think!

years ago I had an 83 300sd and worked at a shop on a 60 mph highway... you had to be REALLLLLLY careful deciding when to merge. its only 129hp and 180tq, and 0-60 is something like 4 minutes, but they got 23mpg combined in a 5000 lb mercedes, i drove from rochester new york to wichita ks and got almost 30 mpg on that trip. great car.

[joedoh]

today went much better, i got everything trimmed and ready to slide together.



it takes quite a bit of trimming on these later frames, i immediately regretted not taking a blunt cut and fishplating. but making the overlaps works and is stronger, just takes



a couple ratchet straps pulls it tight. (this is in process)



check the measurments i made earlier. (minus 7" on the straights of course, and make sure the diagonals are the same) really if you get this far the frame likes to "nest". thats whats nice about the overlap, so if your cuts were square and the right length it was just a matter of sliding it together and and it squares itself up.



and weld er up.





tomorrow i will weld up the insides and bottoms, my least fav part. get the wheels on and start mounting parts!

[vintovka]

Great work!! Wish i could do that!!

[6DoF]

come on, you know you wanna fish plate it anyways

[joedoh]

Originally Posted by 6DoF

come on, you know you wanna fish plate it anyways

I really dont. there is at least 1 1/2" of underlap where the front section slides into the rear on three sides and then the legs and inside overlap the rear 4", its like a built in fishplate as long as my welds are as good as the factory. that underlap/overlap is so strong it held the front section off the ground with just friction when i realized the left front jackstand had dropped a notch.

today I will get it rolled back out and pressure washed, and maybe start on the new mount designs. plenty of time right now! there is no rain in the forecast and so i havent been mowing, which is a 6 hour process with a trailer drive, hopefully i can buy a tractor with a finish mower the end of the summer. it wont be faster than my zero turn, but one of the lots is an unruly and bumpy unfinished lot that takes the most time.

[joedoh]

so while i am waiting for all my parts to cut, here is a tip for all you s10 swappers. there is a lot of misinfo, mostly on facebook about the vin stamps in the frame, that s10s dont have them, that certain years of s10s dont have them. I havent found them all, mostly its because I wasnt looking hard enough or got too aggressive with my surface prep.

on 82-93 frames they are almost always stamped with punch dies on the passenger side tops of the frame, both stamps are on the rear sections, one on the long flat section under the door and one on the flat section over the axle. on 94-99 they are punch die stamped and can be on either side of the frame, drivers or passenger. on late 99-2000 and up trucks they switched to a dot matrix punch and the front stamp is right behind the drivers front cab mount on the top of the frame, right where it starts to bend. at the torque boxes.




no matter what year, its always a short VIN, starting with a C and only has 9 digits (including the C) instead of the full seventeen. if you bought just a frame and need to know axle codes or other rpo codes, you can talk to the dealer, they can seach by this short vin and even give you the full vin. its great to have a record of this when you are building an s10 swap, so that you can verify possession of the frame if it ever comes up. YOUR state may not have inspections for this but others will.

i got it pressure washed and semi painted and ready for cab mounts. still adjusting and cutting in 16ga, want a perfect fit! i sanded back the vin in case someone needs it later.

[joedoh]

one of the requests i get for kits is to NOT use the factory s10 bushings. some guys are happy with hockey pucks, some with NOTHING, just rattling their fillings without even a slip of rubber (which only works if you can isolate the bolt from the mount, which is harder than you think). but i get the request enough, and stocking two sku is detrimental to the "keep the costs down" mantra I have printed on the wall. or rather, I WOULD have printed on the wall if it didnt cost money to print things on the wall. so I redesigned the mounts so that they have a removable section to use the factory rubbers, or a slot to use their own rubbers.

I also get a lot of comments about the running board mounts, I thought guys would appreciate the universal nature and adaptability. one of the problems with putting a truck together that has been in a field 60 of the last 80 years is that sometimes the mounts are all boogered up, so I made a mount that could be installed at any point on the board, not needing the little stands on the bottom of the board if they happen to be gone, not even needing the legs I make if you have some 1.5x1 rectangle. but more people want a "slot a, tab b" application. and I get it! I love when stuff is figured out for me too. so I made the running board mount an integral part of the cab mount instead.

so front and rear cab stands changed, using the original weld on part and adding a second part to weld to the frame that has an integral running board mount on it. just clamped on for now, but exactly right for the cab mount holes and for the running boards. cab and boards installed in less than a 1/2 hr, well 2/3rd of the boards. ingore my quicky "lets mock this up" welds haha. more tomorrow.

[Tempest67]

Clever design to please both uses, and I like how the running board bracket is incorporated into the mount.

[6DoF]

aw man, i'm jealous, i miss the product development and user feedback. those look super nice.

[joedoh]

V2.9




changes incorporated from originals include: fully cutting the center hole rather than making an extra step for 80% of kit users (still saving the cutouts for the 20%), bending rear closeouts 90 degrees to make a strong 3 part joint in the center of the mounts, moving center running board mount 1/2", measure once cut twice for me apparently, although I made this mistake on a calculator without actually measuring so maybe that should be measure nonce. built the jig for welding, its surprising how many requests I get for fully welded parts on a weld on kit.

i will tack and plop the cab on today, this weather is crazy, 106 yesterday 103 today. my garage faces west and so its unbearable even inside at 3-4 oclock. getting a lot of ancillary kit parts designed in the down time though, motor mount setbacks, motor mounts, adjustable trans mounts. I sent the cab/running mount designs to the laser cutter even though the rest isnt done yet, so they can get used to them being around haha.

[joedoh]

well that was easy. i waited for the sun to be behind my big elms and tacked them all in. you can whistle through every body mount hole, like it was made for it!


i went over to the storage and picked up the extra core supports i had, this truck didnt come with one. while I was there I looked for a bed fro a friend. might be a minute before I can get it out! (he just wants the steel floor)

[Hey Dude]

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[joedoh]

sorry no extras, I have a couple complete long bed trucks in there!

[28TudorAZ]

Glad to see you are doing another. Mounts look great!!!! subscribed.

[8man]

You do great work. Those mounts look great. Also, thanks for the frame shortening info. Very nice.

[joedoh]

thanks!


today I decided to tackle all the cab and rust issues. this cab is pretty nice but it needs 4 hinges, both cab corners, the left lower cowl, some drivers floor work, and the bottoms of both fender mount sweeps on the cowl are gone. regular readers know I would rather staple my junk to a stump instead of doing rust repair but I figured, i like 5 window cabs so WHY NOT convert it to 5 window too? as long as I am doing the hinges and all that rust repair, it would be fun to do a 5 window conversion too. I have almost everything for the front clip too but I was missing a hood latch and the inner fender supports. the drivers fender also had a lot of rust in the lower section and where the inner brace attached. *SIGH*. more work.


so to get all of this started, I hooked up the trailer and drove about 40 minutes south. I had gotten a number for a guy who may be able to help and after his third "motherfricker" used in casual conversation I had his address. he had the fender I needed. he had the inner braces. he even had a rust free 55 5 window cab. bam. issues fixed, i didnt feel a thing!





has this weirdy seat setup, I wish it was more complete because these are RARE.



its a "ride control seat" and has extra brackets for the passenger seat, which i dont have. but I bet someone needs it.


I might have to change the project thread name



got it all home, 3 hours for all that rust repair and 5 window conversion, I am whupped.

lets see if anyone catches the easter egg.

[vintovka]

Smart move. I think 5 windows are somewhat revered, look classier they are reported to be safer as well. I can attest to all 3.