S10 swap fun

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i'm putting my '50 chevy truck on a '91 s10 frame. so far the swap hasnt been too bad. got a cab positioned and mounted about 3.5" off frame front & back.
wheels are decently centered in fenders.

NOW, onto the fun part....the front clip.
I started with the hood and got my gap at the cowl area pretty good and tac-d it in place. the fenders lined up pretty decent with hood and gaps were pretty good. tightened those up and tac-d fenders to hood. (i don't have any extra help so the tacs keep it from shifting on me)
my goal is to get my gaps and all lined up as good as i can THEN start on the radiator support/fender mounts to the frame.
well, here i was thinking "wow, that wasn't near as bad as i thought..."

wrong.

next was to mount the grill. the grill it self fit great between the fenders with a little nudging here & there.
The problem showed up with the hood and the upper grill "bar". the hood was at least a 1/2" back from the closing the gap on the upper grill in the center. (basically where the hood nose closes on top of the grill) towards the outter edges of hood and grill was not as bad. hood was as far "back" (towards the cab) as i could get it and so were the fenders.
I think i determined that the hood is sloped down to far so the whole front clip needs to "tip" up.

NOW, does anyone who has done this swap have any tips, pointers, warnings, etc.?
I've read ALL the s10 swap threads on here, on killbillet, and the hamb. none of them really seem to touch on this part of the build. probably cause its a different pain in the ass each time. haha.

even better would be to see some pics of fender, hood, cowl gaps you've managed to get.

[62ChevyII]

Stovebolt.com has some good tech articles on aligning sheetmetal. This one covers the front fenders/hood situation.

http://www.stovebolt.com/techtips/bo...alignment.html

As far as the S10 swap goes, I just try to make it adjustable enough where it attaches at the radiator support. Also the centerline can't be based off the frame horns. There is a tooling hole on the crossmember that is in the actual center... I just transfered that location to my structure I used to attach the radiator support to center the sheetmetal on.

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Thanks 62chevy. Yea, I'm realizing I'm gonna have to leave some room for adjustment with the mount seeing as its hard to get it perfect without. I figure as long as I have a 1/4-1/2" of adjustment on the mount I should be good to line up sheet metal after. Thanks again.
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[MMM...BRAINS...]

Just realized that the build thread on killbillet that I've found super helpful is yours. Thanks! I keep going back to your build for reference.
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[BlueJeep]

I also followed the stovebolt instructions exactly when I did mine and it turned out great. By great, I of course mean acceptable since no amount of adjusting will get it perfect without help from cutoff wheels and the welder. The least desirable torment of my front clip is the hood to grille fit...
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[Thadious]

A handfull of 1/8" and 1/4" shims for the front cab mount goes a long way. I basically made about 4 of each that were octagonal and about 3" across with a 1/2" hole in the middle. Certainly helped getting that "tip" in the right direction.

Best of Luck,
Ted.

PS Keep a real close eye on the gaps of the hood at the cab end as well... the amount of opening at the bottom will give you some indication on how much the cab need to rise in the front or the front of the fender need to drop. If it's any indication, I redid mine 3 times before I was happy with it.... and by happy... means somewhat "acceptable" by my standards....

[mknittle]

i know what you mean about no help. Oh well it makes us a bit more resourceful.
I will be following your progress. most of all have fun. Mark

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Thanks all. Once I get the front clip lined up ill post some pics. I got it pretty close last night but it looks like I need to try shimming the cab some in the front. I can get the hood to cowl gap pretty decent & the back of fender to hood, the nose of hood & front of fenders/grill is my prob.
Yea, no help gets annoying, but I secretly like being able to say *i* did it. And yes you come up with clever/weird backyard engineering tech on your own. Haha.
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