49 3600, s10 swap, project boogie

[lower50's]

Now that should make you feel good!!

[Luther Grimace]

You build some great trucks! I loved the way you made the gauges work.

[joedoh]

thanks! it can be done in an afternoon, its not bad, way cheaper than buying gauges and senders and easier in my opinion.

so one of the things I wanted to develop with the 47 was a better radiator mounting setup. I have seen all the other ways guys have used the factory bushings and the guy who did the mechanical on the 47 even used a similar method. it isnt very producible, and I told him so, but it was never given any more attention and when the 47 was done I guess so was all the part development on his part.

thats ok, I had it in my mind what I wanted it to look like anyway, something simple that would not only hold the original core support and thereby support the front end, but also have an integrated radiator mount for the factory s10 radiator, which I like using because its already the correct one for the 4.3, and has the trans cooler and oil cooler built in. I had a guy call for a core support I had on craigslist and I dug it out. while I was looking it over, it hit me. It already had the bracket I was looking for on the bottom.


I almost dug out the spot weld cutter and took off the bracket, when I realized it already had a nice spot to weld the 49 core support to, so I got out the cutoff wheel and carved out my part



now to make some frame brackets to mount it to, wait a minute, those ALSO already exist.


I carved the rails back about an inch too since I dont need the length for mounting this setup


Now I needed to get the front clip from the side yard and start chopping it up to fit. Since my wife AND both my daughters were home today, I went ahead and did it myself (married guys with daughters know what I mean) Thank goodness for those industrial carts I bought, truly a one man operation, rolled through the yard just fine too.


now I need to line up the cab and bolt it down, then install the hood, and carve out the inners and get the front end lined up so I can spot in the bracket. I am going to try and leave it all together since its already aligned

[99 to Life]

nice work, coming together. That core support and radiator are def the hardest part about the dime swap.

[BlueJeep]

Good re-use of parts!

Question, will those outboarded brackets clear the tires when turned?

[joedoh]

Originally Posted by BlueJeep

Question, will those outboarded brackets clear the tires when turned?

lots of room, plenty of clearance.

[joedoh]

I ran to bowtie bits this morning for some hardware: those special hood bolts, a stainless fender hardware set, a cab corner. he didnt have the clutch head socket kit or trans cover part of the floor in stock so I ordered them


I also got.... THIS




sauder lygrisse GMC on west kellogg closed a number of years ago and I guess they went to the auction. its the old radio display from the showroom, had three radios in it but I didnt know if it had a power supply, or speakers, or if the radios had any guts even. I made an offer and he said sure!





this is my new shop radio, I had been using a little clock radio but this pumps out the jams

[joedoh]

need the cab bolted to line the hood. got the rear channel trimmed today to let the s10 bushing fit, had to find my 4.5" grinder (cardboard freight model) that I never use because my 6" metabo is the HOSS. got it trimmed, bushings set, everything ready, set er down, trimmed the trans hump


and it sits crooked. :/

it rocks back and forth between the front left and right rear corner. measuring it out and the rear is 1/4 off, the front dead on unless I pull down on the front left corner then the left is 1/4 low. ****. I spent some time kicking my own ass because I thought I had double and tripple checked these mounts before attempting to put the cab on. maybe the floor is crooked, there is a lot of rust through on the passenger side, enough that it is how I was spotting the mount alignment from the top instead of underneath like the drivers side.



well, there it is. I was spotting from the top and didnt see the 1/4 rubber isolator stuck to the bottom of the cab on the passenger side. in fact I didnt even see it when I was crawling around under there until I took a picture with a flash.

drivers



well that was a simple fix at least.

tomorrow I will get the broken hood bolt out of the mount so I can get it lined up and pop the front on!

[99 to Life]

looking good. on my 49' I didn't even have stock cab mount left. So I had to make my own. It really ate up time getting the cab on. I had nothing to reference and cab was too weak to sit on there. even yours looks like its pushing up on the pass side. Mine was worse.

[joedoh]

that sucks, mines still strong, doesnt flex anyway. just the sheet is rotted and gone, the underlying structure is solid enough. the cab sits square on the pads now with the 1/4" spacer removed.

started today planning on making a tutorial on extracting a broken bolt with the mig welder, drill a little for penetration, use a nut just smaller than the bolt, mig weld and turn it out. but with the first drill bit the broken hood bolt spun right through and fell out the back side. yay?




got the hood and springs bolted up and lined up, looks gooooood, like one of those tremors overbite monsters.


measured a bit, and cut the core monunt, inners, and lower air director. you have to cut high because the power steering lines stick up so much.


I'll put it on tomorrow and get it all tacked and set. I would do it tonight but I turned around and walked my scalp right into the open overbite hood and knocked the whistle out of me.

[Baldeagle SR]

Joedoh I am helping a friend put his 50 chevy pu on a s10 frame. What is the distance from the top of the frame to the top of your front cab mount?
I finished mine a couple years ago. It"s a 56 GMC with a Camaro front clip. Thanks a bunch. Rich
my build http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=576185

[99 to Life]

nice work, luv that patina on the hood. Tutorials are always nice. The welded nut trick has saved me many times.

[joedoh]

Originally Posted by Baldeagle SR

Joedoh I am helping a friend put his 50 chevy pu on a s10 frame. What is the distance from the top of the frame to the top of your front cab mount?
I finished mine a couple years ago. It"s a 56 GMC with a Camaro front clip. Thanks a bunch. Rich
my build http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=576185

its 3" from the top of the frame to the top of the mount. this puts the running boards below the bottom of the frame, which channels the truck and makes it appear lower than it really is. the s10 body mount is about an inch thick.

have you checked out skymangs s10 swap thread? its a great resource!
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=632686

I like your 56 build, I am actively looking for a big window 55-57 truck to be next after my 46 is done.

99 I know! I wanted to make a quick how to and I was done in about 3 minutes, I think I spent longer looking for drill bits and a nut and setting up the welder. It was very unsatisfying haha like the first time I used my plasma cutter to clean up a mazda frame for bags, done in 5 minutes instead of the 2 hours it normally took.

oh well, maybe next truck!

[Baldeagle SR]

Joedoh Thanks for the link Theres a lot of info. Rich

[Dave836]

Gotta say love this thread ( And this entire forum for that matter). I wanted to comment and ask a few questions. I am trying to complete a similar build, in which I am using a 1950 Cab and front fenders ( from a one ton chassis), swapped onto a 2001 S10 reg cab longbed chassis. I have removed the original 4.3 and 4L60E to upgrade to a 5.3/ 4L60E trans from a donor 1999 Silverado. What I am trying to do is use the column from the silverado because it has tilt and cruise and also a double universal joint. With the 5.3 mounted 5 inches back, the space between the steering shaft and power steering pulley is awful tight. I raised the engine to compensate, but I am concerned about mounting the column before my headers arrive. I have seen some engines in this forum mounted with the manifolds on them, but rest assured that cannot happen with my set up, way too tight to fit stock manifolds. Have you ever tried using the silverado column? I noticed that you used the aluminum block from the s10 for your column mount. I found that the one from the Silverado was made of steel and has the template and mounting for the booster all in one. How did you mount that block for the column? Thanks for any info.

[joedoh]

kylie built (to my design) a cantilever mount that bolted to the firewall and had mounts to receive the aluminum pedal/column mount. I will be doing it again in about a week and will take pictures of it as I do it. essentially it was just an interface to provide the mounting structure for the column and bolt to the firewall.

[joedoh]

front day! working by myself but its still not too heavy to need a winch or lift.



not bolted on yet and still a little down in front but everything clears: frame, steering box, a arms, splash pan.

radiator will definitely clear the fan on this one.


running for some washers, the bowtie kit came with 8 washers but they dont fit the bolts so I am not sure that is what they are for. There are 8 coarse threaded bolt screws that look more likely. in any event, washers coming up, then adjusting and welding in the core support mount. looks like it will fit well

in other news the 46 I bought had some tree limb damage. its hard to see because of the lichen and mottled paint, but the passenger hood would not shut (or even straighten out) and the hood was concave



my second favorite tool is my BFH which I wield with the precision of a watchmaker (not really, usually I just make dents next to whatever I am trying to hit) a couple whacks and



nice thing about that older thicker steel I have noticed is the memory it has.

[Baldeagle SR]

coming along nicely. Do you plan on raising the floor in the bed? or just raising the whole bed asm? Thanks Rich

[joedoh]

I raise it and use the stock s10 longbed floor and tubs, its a tip I got off a another guy on this forum.
then I do a wood floor over the stock floor.

[Baldeagle SR]

Oh yea that looks nice. Thanks Rich

[lower50's]

I love when stuck bolts come out easer than expected. Tremors is a classic.

[joedoh]

love tremors. the movie that shouldnt have been great that was SO GREAT.

the guy who bought the 47 texted today just to say how much he loves the truck, made me feel good.

on the tool front I picked up a 4ft piece of rail track as an anvil.

back on the 49, I got everything trimmed, the body square on the frame, the back of the fenders bolted to the cab, and the hood shutting great, and tacked the radiator core piece in when I was sure it was square



then I tacked the mounts to the frame. I turned the wheels all the way to make sure the tires dont hit the mounts or the core support.

off the jacks, it sunk about a 1/2 inch. I had compensated about 1/4 with the jacks, so its 1/4" low. I will either fix it when I blow it apart to finish weld, or use a body shim. hard to plan for settling of rubber mounts.


next I wanted to see how bad the windshield frame was, someone shot the roof and the bullet lodged in the window frame after knocking the seal out. add time and it had rotted. I pulled the rubber and found the rest of the frame better than expected, so I will only need that small patch area.



so I moved on to the bed mounting. I will use a longbed bed floor like on the last truck. I had been using the truck as a scrap holder and the PO had used it as a trash can, so I needed to clean up. I pulled and separated all the steel and aluminum and swept it out



I might go out later and get the bed loose and flipped off.

[joedoh]

working alone, pulled the bed. well how would you do it by yourself?


work smarter not harder. I could have dragged it to the garage, dragged the 49 bed over, trimmed and fit trimmed and fit ad nauseam. instead, I measured the width I needed and marked it out, measured how far the first bed mount was from the back of the cab, and then measured the overall length. I left a couple extra inches on the back because the 47 floor was a couple inches short and I wanted to make sure I had some wiggle room.


for anyone interested in the numbers, I used 50" width, 75" long (plus my extra), and 20.25 inches from the center of the first body mount to where the front panel of the bed would be.


I saved the gas door too


then it was cleanup time.


here is a work smarter example, all the steel was in the wheel barrow and it would have been falling off the bed if I loaded it that way so I just backed up the hill and used the side ramps, then strapped it to the headache rack. at the steel yard I just dumped it.


I was pretty flagged after that, so I did some light work. I drilled out the window on the passenger side to replace the glass. only one screw came out on its own, and after I drilled only two more were extracted.


then I tackled the big dent in the passenger door. with my BFH and a baseball bat I got it knocked out pretty well


tomorrow I will mount up the bed, should be easy peasy.

[Advanced Design]

Nice work on cutting the bed floor. Me, I usually am off on something like that...my approach usually seems to be measure a bunch and cut a bunch, then weld some back on.

[joedoh]

my middle name is hubris, so it will probably work like that for me too.