It's my turn, 47 S10 build

[Cautrell05]

Few more pictures of the crossmember kind of set in place and things coming together. So far the planning is paying off. The rear bars for the x-brace start part way up the rear frame where it kicks up over the rear axle, ties in with the side of the rear cab Mount to stabilize those and then lines up with the bend in the top bar that goes over top of the transmission. The one by the gas tank came out better than expected. I should have about a half inch clearance between the tank and the bar without having to make any extra bends. The right front one is wide open. It will go straight from that same point forward to where the frame curves up right behind the control arm. The driver side front bar I'm not sure yet. It's either going to line up perfectly and I can use that as part of the mount for the brake pedal, or as can be right in the way and a headache. Could go either way. I'm hoping that I can get the two front bars far enough out that they hide underneath the inner fenders and are pretty much invisible with the hood open. That Parts optional but it would be nice.

[joedoh]

nice fab work!

the later long beds were boxed all the way to the rear axle but with your wider frame I think your x brace is a great idea too.

[Cautrell05]

Originally Posted by joedoh

nice fab work!

Thanks!

[Cautrell05]

Mine is a 91. The boxing stops about the middle of the transmission area

[joedoh]

Originally Posted by Cautrell05

Mine is a 91. The boxing stops about the middle of the transmission area

I just looked at my 03, the boxing is actually only about another 3 feet, to the gas tank, not the rear axle.

[Cautrell05]

To attach the hanging mount to the cross member I took two pieces of 3/16 by 1 1/4" strap and bent them to go around the crossbar. The transmission mount will have four holes drilled and sleeves welded in and I'm planning on using to 7/16 bolts on each side to attach it.
another friend of mine runs the salvage yard here in town. He had a 2 wheel drive 4L80 sitting on the shelf that I was able to get some measurements off of. Between those measurements and information off the internet the 4L80 is about 7 in longer from the bellhousing to the transmission mount than a 700 R4. If I did my measurements right I should be able to take this mountain turn it a hundred eighty degrees and it should line up pretty close with where it needs to be when or if I run a 4L80.
I made it a little further on the crossmember this weekend. I used four sleeves going through the tubing so that I could tighten the bolts down without crushing it. I had several shorter ones already that fit a 7/16 Bolt and I just welded them together to make the length needed. I use my trusty benchtop drill press and set up a backstop in an end stop so I could drill one hole through top and bottom and then flip it over a hundred eighty and have it in the exact same spot on the other leg. Drilled all four holes that way and then went through with my three quarter inch uni-bit and then found out that the hole it drills is about .010" smaller than my sleeves. Not a big deal, just a temporary setback.

[Cautrell05]

Couple minutes with a grinder at work and it's ready to weld up.

Nick

[lower50's]

Nice trans mount.

[Cautrell05]

Originally Posted by lower50's

Nice trans mount.

Thanks. I saw a similar design the other day that made mine feel really overbuilt.

Nick

[Cautrell05]

Little bit of progress this weekend. Got all the pipes for the crossmember in the middle of the x-brace trimmed notched and Tack welded into place. Next step is to drill holes in the straps that go over top of the crossbar for the transmission mount. I'm going to weld them and partially so I don't have to worry about the chassis flexing and cracking the tack welds and I'll do all the Finish welding after I pull the cab off.

The hydroboost I'm planning on using has a large nut that attaches it to the flange that normally bolts to the firewall. There wasn't really room for the flange without some big awkward bracket but the curve of the bar fit right underneath it and I'll just cut a flat plate and weld it on to the crossmember. From there it's just a matter of feed it through the hole and tighten up the nut.

The master cylinder I'm planning on using is for I believe a 2005 Chevy pickup. It does not leave a lot of room between the filler cap in the floor of the cab. But the reservoir is about twice as large as a regular master cylinder and it has a low level sensor built into it that I can tie into the parking brake light on the dash.

Nick

[joedoh]

looks strong!

[Cautrell05]

Finally got some time to get the rest of the chassis braces in before winter set in. I could have done it in the garage but I was getting tired of re leveling it on Jack stands. Both sides are in and tacked solid enough they aren't going to break loose. I waited to weld them for two reasons. First, I wasn't sure if they would work in their current place with the brake pedal mount. And second after trying to get twisted around under there to weld it I decided screw that. At whatever point I am ready to break it down for paint I'll strip the frame, sand blast where I need to weld if there's any surface rust and weld it in the open with no cab engine or transmission. The front cab mount welds especially look pretty sketchy in the pictures. They were tack welded on a couple years ago with my crap-tastic flux welder. And then earlier this year I retacked them with my new welder just to make sure they didn't break off.

[Cautrell05]

Again with the upside down pictures.... Any solutions?

[Cautrell05]

As it sits I'm about 90% sure the brake pedal mount is going to play well with the chassis braces. I kept the factory pedals and mount from the 47 chassis. I wasn't sure at the time if there was a pre made Mount for what I needed and most of them looked really universal.
The first step was to determine where the pivot is supposed to be. Before I pulled the old pedal mount I cut a line in the top inline with the front body Mount holes. About 3 1/4" ahead and about 2 inches down from the cab mount hole is where the pivot lines up. With the pedals and pivot shaft wired up in place it looks like if I notch the top of the tube it will line up really well. Tie it into the cab mount and down to the frame and it should be solid.

[Cautrell05]

Not that's a huge deal but I like that the front tubes aren't that visible from the top. I'm a fan of concealed upgrades whenever practical.

[Cautrell05]

So I made some good progress this weekend. First up was the broken Hood bolt from three years ago that I have been putting off. Every one of them came out really really hard and I got a little impatient on the last one and twisted it off in the hood. I had been dreading the part of removing it mainly just because if I screwed it up that meant ether finding a new hood which I have heard do not fit very well or trying to source another original hood and pray it's in usable shape or not cost a fortune. It actually went pretty well. I took my Dremel and ground all the rust off of just the bolt but left it on all the surrounding metal. I then welded a piece of coat hanger to a large washer to use as a handle. I would have used my vice grips but I left them at work. My at home tool selection really sucks some days.welded the washer to the head of what was left of the bolt and then afterwards welded and out onto the washer. It took several minutes of wrenching it back and forth to finally get it worked all the way out but it came out on the first try so that's a win. Ran a tap through all the holes so the threads are clean and attempted to bolt on the hinges only to find out that the new hinge bolt set that I got are all staggered sizes and only two of the six are correct for my hinges. Still working on figuring out what happened there.

[Cautrell05]

With the cab mounts more or less done other than finish welding The next step was to get the steering and the pedals in place. The cab Mount bushings that I have been using came on the S10 and are currently about 28 years old and definitely look like it. They're good enough for mock-up but they're pretty squishy and they're not really in that great of shape. I looked into different options, but I wanted to stick with the OE style mount. Reading on several of the S10 forums the guys with the poly cab mounts said that they work good, they're a little more firm than stock and you just have to grease them really good when you put them in so they don't squeak. Where I live in the country and I have a minimum of a mile and a half of gravel between my house and the highway I don't see grease on the cab mounts is being a good long-term solution. All that will do is just collect a lot of dirt and gravel and just make a mess. I did find some of the original S10 mounts there were still available through GM. My cost working at GM was about 25 bucks a piece for the upper half. The lower half is about the same cost which is just kind of ridiculous considering it's just a rubber donut. I bought four new uppers and I figured the lowers actually are in pretty decent shape or I can source them pretty easy from a you pull it yard off of something newer. And they're easy to change later. Overall I gained just under three eighths of an inch of cab height between the new bushings not being squished and these having a quarter inch shim on top of them. if I really wanted to I could have just transferred the rubber portion and use the old shells but I'm not real worried about a quarter inch of frame height.

[Cautrell05]

As much as I want to get the front half of the body mounted, that's going to have to wait. From what I can tell the easiest way make sure it's on straight is to mount the hood first and then the front clip so you can line it up as you go. For one I don't have the proper Hood bolts, do I don't really have room in my garage to pull the front end off so that will have to wait till spring when I can move it outside. So I spent Sunday focused on the interior of the cab. First step was pulling the gauges. One of my absolute preferred tools for working in dashes is an extra long flexible quarter inch handle driver that I got years ago. It's a regular nut driver handle and this one's got an 18 inch flexible extension that you can run a quarter inch drive socket on the end of. It made pulling the Gages a lot easier. I got those out without breaking anything or twisting any of the stubs off so that's a good deal. I have an S10 gauge cluster that I picked up that has all 4 gauges in the speedometer that my plan is to transfer the guts over into these housings.
Got the heater assembly pulled out along with all the rest of the wiring that was left under the dash. I have a probably crazy an over-ambitious idea for the heater. as I'm working on this I see there's a big huge Dead space behind the passenger front wheel inside the fender. I'm thinking very hard about building a heater box to go in there to house the motor and the heater core and AC evaporator core. Then run the air through the passenger side cowl panel do a distribution box under the dash. I know that vintage air and several other ones make kits for these and I have installed a couple in other vehicles. They work, but compared to the OE quality stuff I work on everyday they feel kind of cheap for as expensive as they are and almost every one of them you lose your glove box or almost all of it. There's not much room in here for storage as it is and I don't really want to sacrifice that.

Plus I enjoy a challenge and I like building stuff with my hands so it seems like it's suitable project.

[Cautrell05]

So I managed to get a few hours in this weekend. Next on the list was the steering column. I opened up the hole in the firewall and moved the bottom of the column up a little over an inch and about 2 inches to the left. Originally I figured I would have to run 3 u-joints to clear the exhaust but I managed to make it work with just two. Couple things worked out in my favor. I had some left over steering shaft pieces that I used to extend the bottom of the column 2 1/2". That combined with moving the column to the left gave me just enough room to clear the exhaust. The other thing that worked out really nice was that the Ford ranger lower steering shaft fits over the standard double d shaft. I cut up the steering shaft that came with the van column and used the upper u-joint. That fit over the piece I used to extend the column and the cut end fits inside the lower steering shaft. If I ran different exhaust I could have had a bolt in steering shaft with no welding but I like these manifolds.

[Cautrell05]

Top of the column was pretty straight forward. Centered between the gauges, all the way up and as far forward as I can and clear the shifter. Now that I have the general location hammered out I'll start making mounts to hang out from the dash. I can't count how many times I have been in and out, sitting behind the wheel making sure everything feels right.
Legroom feels pretty good. Maybe a little less than my Yukon but not cramped. The current pickup seats I'm using are fairly this in the back compared to the original seat. That helps a bit with the legroom.

[Cautrell05]

Better picture of the GM to Ford adapter joint.

[joedoh]

thats the important thing, to get in and out as many times as it takes haha

[Cautrell05]

I got the steering column temporarily mounted over the weekend.I don't know about you guys but anytime I come up with leftover brackets I have a hard time throwing them away. I have a drill press, cop saw and a welder but sometimes it's faster and easier to take an existing bracket cut an ear off and use that. It lucky and had two matching brackets already been and drilled that I think should work. The 89 Chevy van column I'm using has 4 threaded posts welded to the column already. The right one bolted up to the upper hole and matched the curve of the dash perfectly. The left one was close and just needed a little tweak. I don't have a good vice at home and making precise bends in 3/16"x1 1/2 strap isn't easy so I just used my cut off wheel and cut about half way through on the back side where I wanted my bend and then folded it. it'll get welded up later once I'm positive that's where I want everything. for right now the upper mounts are only using two of the bolts. when I get ready to finalize the mounds I'll add in years so that it's attached to both bolts on each side. The firewall will probably just a standard flange mount with a band clamp to hold it in place.

[Cautrell05]

I also got the pedals halfway stuck in place so I can get an idea how that's going to work out. Right now everything is looking like if I notch that tube then it's sitting on and sink that sleeve about half or two-thirds of the way through it it'll end up being exactly where I need to be and just clear the exhaust manifold by about a half an inch while still traveling in the proper ark so it doesn't drag on the floor. I don't remember exactly how high the pedal set originally when I first got the truck. But it seems like if I pull the brake pedal far enough to be contacting the switch it sticks way through the floor to the point that it's almost uncomfortable to get my foot on it. I can play with the pedal ratio when I run the linkage from the pedal down to my brake booster. but it seems like about two-thirds of the way up is where it would feel natural. I'm going to wait to mount the pedals though until later this spring when it's warm out and I can roll it outside and pull the front clip off of it. Even with the motor in it, with the outer and inner fenders removed there area for the pedals will be wide-open where right now is just kind of a pain to get to. It is nice that so far everything seems to be coming together right as I had planned. I'm sure at some point that will stop being the case but for now I'm happy.

Nick

[dsraven]

I think the old pedal lever had a rubber bumper on the engine side of the firewall so it would contact the firewall at the top of the pedal return stroke and set the pedal height that way. not totally sure on your truck.