54 GMC, S10 swap, OM617 diesel

[DieselRat]

Thanks!

Couple more pics I snapped.


Firewall clearance

[DieselRat]

Had to take a few days off for vacation...back to building.

Cut out my floor and all wherethe driveshaft was going to interfere.





Spent quite a while cutting and fitting panels. No plasma or break, so all cut and bent with hand tools.

Much later I got to tacking everything into place. Nice to take the time and be sure everything fits, makes assembly when Im anxious to weld, go much faster..



A lot of the far back was precauction and not necessarily because there was interferrence i just didnt want to have to come back and do it twice!


Quite obviously I decided to keep the bench seat. I thought about going with buckets, but the original seat is just right and fits me well, so I wanted to leave as much of thr floor frame in place and just built around that.



Got the first half of the firewall cover made. Just ran out of steam and called it a night.
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[48ChevBagged]

This looks awesome. I am in the process of building my third AD truck on s10 chassis. The last two I have built have been fuel injection. So on this one I am going a different route. I have a cummins 4bt and a manual trans from a bread truck I am doing for my drive train. I haven't messed with diesel engines much so its gonna be a learning experience for sure. I haven't started a build thread yet for my current build but I need to. I will be following along on this one for sure. Your work looks great.

[DieselRat]

Originally Posted by 48ChevBagged

This looks awesome. I am in the process of building my third AD truck on s10 chassis. The last two I have built have been fuel injection. So on this one I am going a different route. I have a cummins 4bt and a manual trans from a bread truck I am doing for my drive train. I haven't messed with diesel engines much so its gonna be a learning experience for sure. I haven't started a build thread yet for my current build but I need to. I will be following along on this one for sure. Your work looks great.

Thanks!

I would have rather went with a cummins, BUT the big issue is fitting it on an S10 frame. Plus the weight of it would bend the frame in half! It would definately need boxed in to make it more stout. Actually if I was going to do a 4bt I would probably work with the original frame and just clip it with a different rear. There really isnt much room on the s10 frame for diesel size engine in between the control arms!

Good luck with the build, if you got any diesel questions I may be able to help, I dont know everything but I know a little about them

[DieselRat]

Got the rest of my console/trans tunnel all fitted up and tacked in. Pulled the cab back off to finish up some welding on that and also to then paint it on the bottom and inside.


Also got the floor pans all fitted as well.





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[DieselRat]

Still pluggin away over here. Got my dash all smoothed out and painted as well as back inside of the cab.









Had to throw the cab back on to mock up the bed and running boards so I can build some mounts for those. So while I was at it I cleaned up the garage and put the seat and column back.







Hopefully dragging home the bed tonight, need to mock that up, then repair all the holes and rust on it. Hang the running boards. Then do brake lines and finish up the frame.

[xpickup]

DieselRat, looking great. It is really coming along. Keep up the great work.


Shannon

[Katrina/10]

Like that interior color!

[DieselRat]

Thank you both. I wanted to go with a creme kind of color and found antique white which really fit the bill. Of course its going to get carpet so I wasn't being too picky about the overspray on the floors. I painted the black trip piece that goes along the top of the dash black and it came out really sharp too.

Still need to figure out a clutch pedal/master assy to work with the jeep tranny. Be back with updates soon.

[DieselRat]

Got the bed to my house, ripped all the old wood out of it and decided to do a mock up and hope everything fit. I trimmed about 5 1/2" off the back of the frame, the front sits about 4 1/2" off the frame. To me it looked pretty good, wheels seemed pretty centered, running boards might end up with about 1/2" gap from fitting perfectly between the fenders which is fine with me.

Go a few patches to make and a few hours with the wire wheel and Ill be ready to mount it up. Lemme know what you think!


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[T Hilde]

Looks good from here.

[chevyboy73]

thats cool. good job

[Beaker]

Impressive, I give you credit. Very interesting and unique to say the least. Great work and keep us posted. Don't worry about being a master fabricator some of the greatest fabrication work is done by someone learning and going slow through the process and learning. I love the idea of the diesel engine just not sure I'm up for the swap. I'm re-building a 1950 Chevy and just looking at engine candidates but I never would have thought about a diesel. Thanks for sharing the info.

[DieselRat]

Thanks for the kind words and encouragement!

My build is finally at the momentum of soooo much to do and stuff falling into place. I spent a LONG time prepping metal, hammering fenders etc. sometimes I look at it and wonder if its gona end up a descent truck, or a cobbled together hunk of junk!

Not that theres anything wrong with it, but I just wasnt feeling the 350/350 setup. Everyone does it, its 'easy' my other choice would have been something stupid big V8, but I dont have the money or know how for any of that either.

And lastly welcome to the forum, Ive learned a TON surfing around here, although I'm still a newb myself!
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[DieselRat]

And an update. I got the bed cleaned up, one area of rot replaced. Overall its pretty toasted, and from the beginning I was going to go with a flatbed but decided to use the factory bed for now....

I put the whole front end together to make sure everything still fits, and also so I can get the wheelbase and running boards lined up properly. This is the first time Ive had the complete front end on.




The newspaper has been on the windshield so long its getting yellow!

[DieselRat]

Got the bed mounts all made up and welded on last night. Used the factory rear mounts, basically just a plate welded to the frame, then some supports to hold it in place. The front I used 1x2 tubing and welded that as a crossbrace, then made little brackets to bolt to that, then the same style 3x3" square tube I used for cab mounts to attach it to the frame rails. Still gotta do more welding to finish it up once I pull the bed back off. Probably going to add a center brace as well to ad some more strength even though I prob wont haul anything in it.













Gotta do running board mounts yet...

[DieselRat]

No pics but I got the driver side running board tacked in place. Have to say that was about the least pleasure able part of the build so far. Who's idea was it to make this thing so low anyways

Still have to figure out the rearmost mount, where it needs to mount to the frame it's going to hit the front leaf spring mount so I'm going to have to get creative there. More pics soon.
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[DieselRat]

Reasonable productive weekend. Went to the junk yard on sunday. Ended up scoring a jeep starter, clutch pedal and bracket from a cherokee as well. Also got a cluster and speedo cable from an older jeep, gonna try to retrofit the single gauge into my cluster to work with the jeep trans. Thats for much later.

End of last week I got both running board mounts tacked on.



End up cutting up the factory bracket for the jeep pedals ( brake and clutch are together) worked out nice, figured out pedal height then welded to 2 together.



While I had the pedal assy ou about 100 times I also make up a plate to weld to the firewall, seen other people saying theirs would flex so figured I would take care of that now.


The cuouts are where the pistons will eventually go through when I get around to drilling out those holes.

And pastly just a couple engine shots. I think it looks great in the truck, really fills the engine bay and sits nice.




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[69CST-V]

Looks great. You have done a great job of being creative and making it look like it belongs. Nice work.
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[DieselRat]

Thanks I appreciate it!

Does anyone know if there is supposed to be something between the factory heater and the firewall? In my last pic above you can see the hardware and water lines, just looks like the 3 screws are incredibly long, seems like maybe Im missing something.
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[Katrina/10]

Mine look the same.

[DieselRat]

Heres a couple pics of the jeep pedal and S10 pedal melted together.



basically the jeep had the same bolt pattern for the booster as the s10 did, and I was going to just keep the 2 holes on the left and overlap them, but it didnt sit flush, so I cut just the foot off that had the 2 holes in it, then welded that to the side of the s10 setup.




I wasnt happy with the position of my passenger running board, somehow when i tacked it it must have moved and it left too big of a gap at the splash guard at the back of the cab, so I popped that off last night and hope to get that refit tonight. Kinda lost my umph for a couple days after I finally got it all on the chassis. Gotta make bumper mounts on the front yet and drill a couple holes and I think Im about ready to tear it back down to paint stuff.

[DieselRat]

Got my running board mounts all tacked on, also made my brackets to mount the bumper. Basically just going to use the factory brackets, took a little thinking and trial and error but it worked out nicely.

Pretty much at the point to tear it all back apart and paint stuff and start doing some finishing up.

[DieselRat]

So its apart down to the frame for the last time. Got the rest of my welding done, and painted the frame in gloss black

[img]http://i413.photobucket.com/albums/pp218/BackroadsXJ/54%20GMC/2079D056-2A67-4F59-B9E5-B92DC83B4E5B-33633-00001B1187E34284_zps4f0ffdf2.jpg_/img]



Hopefully getting brake lines tomorrow and hope to get that done so i can remount the cab.
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[DieselRat]

Still hackin away at this. Skipped a bunch of updates but heres the current. I ordered up a spun gas tank with some custom upgrades to suit my needs. Having a driveshaft made, after that I will more or less be able to take a test drive.

Started painting stuff. Really didnt want a flashy nice paint job, not really my thing. I primed the whole thing, really liked to wet look of primer so I ended up clearcoating it. Extremely happy with how its turning out.

Got my brake lines ran, booster and master installed and bled, cab and all back on, clutch hooked up and working.



Could not have gotten the mounting points any closer, had myself worried there for a bit!


Cab paint.


Can back on, firewall painted to match the interior.



Today I bolted up the front clip.







Radiator mounted as well as the oil cooler up above it.



Plumbing for the oil cooler.


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