It finally starts... another S10 swap...

[Thadious]

So... busy over the holidays... got some work done on a buddies house that netted me $1100, so time to buy more goodies!

I ended up with a Painless TBI harness, a set of headers, a Monster-in-a-box Transmission rebuild kit and a new fuel pump from a late 80's F**d F150.

Last friday I tore down the old transmission that came behind my V6 4.3 (used it because it had the "K" case in it), turns out it was a V8 trans anyways.... score!

This was after it was stripped down and cleaned...


All the guts strewn across my workbench! Wow... didn't realize there was sooo much stuff in there (never rebuilt a trans before!)



And my Christmas present to myself!



Finally got it all put back together on tuesday night, last night bolted it and my headers to the block.... What a pretty sexy combo! And should hold up to the power of the V8 no issues now.



Should have the mounting brackets all welded and bolted up tonight.. primer and Zero rust on and dropped back in by tomorrow...

Cheers!
Ted.

[Mogal]

Geez, I wish you'd hurry up and get some stuff done... sheesh!

Nice work!

[hotrodjoe1952]

i am so freakin jealous lol...jk love the work you are doing man, great job.

[hotrodjoe1952]

Originally Posted by Thadious

Well, a couple of good buddies and I travelled up to the parent's place to finally pick and choose the parts that is to be my truck. We spent 7 glorious days up drinking beer, eating fantastic food, having some great laughs and somewhere in there we got to get some work done on the trucks.

The first day ended up with all of the trucks at the same place for the first time and ready for the next day's teardown!



After a week, we had 2 partial trucks and 1 full one... which was bound for my place... 600 miles away.



So, ready to roll, we were off at a god forsaken hour of 5am... gah!



Eventually the sun decided to make an appearance and we couldn't resist the pic... was also an opportunity to check the straps and chain hauldowns before the first town (good thing we did, one had slipped off!)



By mid morning we were well on our way and the scenery was excellent... time for a morning watering break and strap check!



So, with everything finally home safe and sound... the time had come to finally put a body on the frame and engine that I'd been prepping for so long.

Well, after two days (didn't take any the first day) here's where I sit... the front has been trimmed to fit and the cap is in place... the two bolted together, but not mounted to the frame as of yet.





Now, clearing out the box and running boards and getting ready to fit them as well and then get them all fittin properly. I'd like to extend a great thanks so far to Jeffs51chevy for his measurement and assistance so far... making the trimming of the sheetmetal soooooo much easier!

Cheers,
Ted.

PS Yes I know it's a GMC hood and Chev grill... the chevy hood is in the shop atm getting worked on... just wanted to keep the dust and rain outta the engine bay.

Thadious, In this picture did you have wheel spacers on the front or is that just how well the swap turned out?

[Thadious]

Sigh... I wish... I had 2 1/2" wheel spacers on there... now I'm trying to figure out how to get it back there without them. I've moved my offset on the tires from 4 1/4" to 2 1/2" but still have a ways to go... (about 3/4" but it makes a difference.)

Looking at full size chevy control arms and see where that leads me...

Tubular are going to be a b*tch to jig up and weld.

Ted.

[hotrodjoe1952]

Originally Posted by Thadious

Sigh... I wish... I had 2 1/2" wheel spacers on there... now I'm trying to figure out how to get it back there without them. I've moved my offset on the tires from 4 1/4" to 2 1/2" but still have a ways to go... (about 3/4" but it makes a difference.)

Looking at full size chevy control arms and see where that leads me...

Tubular are going to be a b*tch to jig up and weld.

Ted.

Was hoping you would say you didn't have any lol...Oh well, I have a 52 and I am so stressed about which way to go so I think I will just keep it a 3/4 ton for now and maybe when I retire I will attempt this build....thanks for the reply

Joey

[Thadious]

Gimme time... I figure I will find a way for a swap that will work. I'm not fond of having to build suspension parts... so if I can find a swap that will work, trust me, I'll post it!

Cheers,
Ted.

[hotrodjoe1952]

Originally Posted by Thadious

Gimme time... I figure I will find a way for a swap that will work. I'm not fond of having to build suspension parts... so if I can find a swap that will work, trust me, I'll post it!

Cheers,
Ted.

sounds great to me, i figure i will retire in 10 years and old s10 frames will be hard to come by and old nova and camaro sub frames so i have one of each stored away, all of your notes, ideas and build pics are logged in a folder stored on my pc to lol

[hotrodjoe1952]

Ted, One more question, what is the total dimension from center to center of your wheels? i read in your forum that you cut the frame but i don't remember if you gave the dimensions after you cut it....thanks, keep up the good work.

[nickp51chevy]

Originally Posted by hotrodjoe1952

sounds great to me, i figure i will retire in 10 years and old s10 frames will be hard to come by and old nova and camaro sub frames so i have one of each stored away, all of your notes, ideas and build pics are logged in a folder stored on my pc to lol

This guy has a long term plan Great idea!!! I just jumped in and I was hoping to figure it out along the way.

---------


Great job on the trans and the engine. I can't wait to see it in and bolted down. I tell ya I was stoked when I got to that.

[alwaysbroken]

can you say sleeper. nice truck keep up the good work!!

[Thadious]

Actually, I cut 5" out of the frame to 117" as this sets the wheelbase almost perfect. These frame are relatively easy to shorten, just make sure you make lots of alignment marks! I laid out the cuts with a scriber, but I also made measurements on taped lines to make sure the end result was well within 1/32". Also made front tape marks for straightness of the frame (up and down) and diagonal reference marks as well. All in all, it came out pretty damn square and level!

Found it! I've still got quite the way to go to get this thing on the road and working towards paint in the summer... So... thanks for the kind words and if you'll excuse me... I have to run to the garage to get some of the wiring sorted out and hooked up, before the wife hauls me somewhere else!

Cheers!
Ted.

PS Alwaysbroken... keep an eye out this summer or fall... figure a deep metallic red...

[hotrodjoe1952]

Originally Posted by Thadious

Found it! I've still got quite the way to go to get this thing on the road and working towards paint in the summer... So... thanks for the kind words and if you'll excuse me... I have to run to the garage to get some of the wiring sorted out and hooked up, before the wife hauls me somewhere else!

Cheers!
Ted.

PS Alwaysbroken... keep an eye out this summer or fall... figure a deep metallic red...

Thanks Ted, I have really really enjoyed the knowledge you share about your build, I have found that others building the same truck went with 116" wheel base so I am going to assume you added the extra inch to yours because you wanted to be different lol

[Thadious]

Honestly, I wasn't intending to be different... although it always seems to be that way... lol.

I just measured the distance on a stock 47 from measured center of the wheel wells and it came up at 117", although a stock s10 wheelbase for a longbed standard cab is 117.9" ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_S-10

Cheers!
Ted.

[hotrodjoe1952]

Originally Posted by Thadious

Honestly, I wasn't intending to be different... although it always seems to be that way... lol.

I just measured the distance on a stock 47 from measured center of the wheel wells and it came up at 117", although a stock s10 wheelbase for a longbed standard cab is 117.9" ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_S-10

Cheers!
Ted.

I have thought and thought and thought even more about if I want to use the S10 frame and finally came to the conclusion that a scratch built frame is my direction only I am using tid bits of info from your build and a couple other builds on here that helped me decide on the job I want to tackle...the front will be a sub frame from a old 76 Nova I found on a road called the Big Lick which in eastern, ky would be a holler lol...The frame rails are going to be stock bare metal the same size the guy used to build his frame with, he used a 86 vette suspension...Anyway I am excited to finally have my mind made up because I was so frustrated that I said i'm just going to build a 4x4 which I didn't really want, as soon as the 69 camaro comes out of the frame shop I am getting started which will be in the next couple weeks and there will be plenty of pics because my gf never shuts her cam off.

PS...My wheel base will be 117"

[daverod]

Nice build.

[daverod]

Figure out how your going to mount that 350?

[Thadious]

Lol! Yes... the 350 is finally solid mounted! A big thanks to Jeffs51chevy for the Headman conversion headers!

I ended up cutting off the mounts I welded on earlier (what a b*tch), grinding them flush and rewelding new ones back on, centering the block again and raising it about 1/2" just to get the headers in the right spot and the intermediate steering shaft to clear, and only by about 1/4-3/8" between the pipes. Got the front end remounted back on and levelled after I put in 2" drop Belltech lowering springs in the front.

Then decided that I didn't like the fact that I was putting about 280-300hp to one tire, so swapped out the 10 bolt non-posi drum rear for one from a 2000 Jimmy that was a 10 bolt posi with discs (guy wanted $150 for it and couldn't pass it up!).

Didn't like the fact that I had lowering blocks (2") in the rear and had removed a leaf from the S10 pack.... soooooo.... picked up a set of leafs from a 96 F*rd Exploder (I had a ranger back in the day and remember the leafs sitting pretty flat), looked up the lengths from the locating pin to the ends and realized they'd work perfectly! Sooooo, using everything but the top leaf (the one with the eyes in it), cleaned them up, coat of zero rust and installed the rest of the pack. Dropped the rear by 3", no blocks!

So, now I'm running 7" at the front of the boards, 8 1/2" at the back and 6 1/2" at the bumper with no "mickey-mousing" (as we call it).

Had a buddy of mine pick me up a repop grill from Portland last weekend for $360 US and with the dollar being on par... great deal! (they want $600 up here!) and so now just waiting for the Dakota Digital shift indicator kit to arrive....

But really.... I haven't done much!

Oh yeah, waiting for the laser cutout to show up from a buddy to finish up the rear roll pan...

Cheers!
Ted.

[daverod]

So what mount did you use? Where are they in relation to the orginal mounts on the s10 frame? I think I got the same headers. Sounds like u got a lot done. You got lower that a step in the right direction.

[Thadious]

Basically I plated over the original mounts with 3/8" steel and skirted the outside of the plate with 1/8" to the frame... that gave me a clean slate to start with and didn't look like swiss cheeze. Then using 1/4" plate made the mounts. I used the 2.8 engine mounts and think mine were 2 1/4 to the bolt hole in the front and 2" to the bolt hole in the rear. That and my trans location and small hump in the floor gave be a 4 degree slope to the block (measured off the carb mount).

Cheers,
Ted.

[T Hilde]

oh the torture, all that work and no pics.

[daverod]

[Thadious]

Blame the wife... took the camera on her trip!

She should be back soon and I'll fix ya up... Damn junkies!



Ted.

[daverod]

I blame everything on the wife.or the dog.

[panelrodder81]

Originally Posted by Thadious

Blame the wife... took the camera on her trip!

She should be back soon and I'll fix ya up... Damn junkies!



Ted.

Junkie... yes that is a good word for it! I'm a 'Car Porn Junkie'! (Sounds like a punk band name!)

-Panelrodder