Harold's '48 S10 LS1 Build

[oldman3]

Looks great in primer...Jim

[Tikal48]

I only did a little work on the truck this weekend. I had a few projects around the house, so Saturday was a bust as far as the truck goes.

I clearanced the vertical supports on the grill to clear the front of the frame, and cut the lower grille support to fit. I'm thinking of using the area under the radiator to mount an oil cooler. I will add sheet metal to the grill support to make a neater fit. I did get a tight fit around the frame, but you can see the gap I left in the middle. More practice for welding sheet metal I guess.

I also think that I will add a couple of mounts to the flat front of the frame. I'm trying to push to get all of the sheet metal rough fit on the front end. I have started to order some of the rear sheet metal. With the few parts that I have ordered, a couple of the pieces are on back order, so they are not due to ship until the end of the month. . . Bummer

[Rabid Anti-Dentite]

Great build! What motor mounts did you use to mount the LS motor the the S10 chassis?

[Tikal48]

I used the Transdapt 4516 Swap Mount Motor Mounts. I used a different brand of bracket for the motor, but the ones on the attached link are very similar. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Transdapt-45...hVV6S5&vxp=mtr

I also had to make an adapter plate to push the motor back. I used 1/2" plate for the adapter. This fit a '94 S10 frame. I hope this helps!

[joedoh]

love your attention to detail! keep it up!

[99 to Life]

another peeve of mine on the s10 swaps, so much work getting every little thing to fit. I don't miss working on that chassis. I'm a fan of them, but like working on the OG frames better. You have a great sense of detail and patience you could say.

[Tikal48]

Still working on the grill support. I am going to mount my power steering cooler under the radiator support. I added sheet metal to form a tunnel. On the top side of the tunnel, I added a lip to bolt to the radiator support. I also added a bracket on the bottom side of the support to the front of the frame rails.

[Tikal48]

Here are a coupe more shots of the lower support. Now that I have the lower support to this point, I can start fitting the front of the inner fender wells.

[99 to Life]

very nicely done

[Tikal48]

I removed all of the front sheet metal, and drilled the mounting holes for lower grill support. I also cut and fitted the front inner fender well pieces, and then still re-installed the fenders. This was a pain! Tomorrow I will try to fit up the inner fender wells and add mounting clips.

I ordered the bed sides without the stake pockets and without the angle strips welded. These should be here in a few weeks.

[oldman3]

Looks good...Jim

[99 to Life]

niiice job, yeah funny how pics don't show the whole day or week it takes to make one little thing and how much of a headache it can cause!

[74project]

love the build.. i just got done with my air intake so i was just throwing out an idea since your fenders are out. here is a pic but w/ an ls it would be better on the pass side.

[Tikal48]

Thanks for the advice on the air intake. It's hard to see past the bear staring me in the face . . .LOL The sheet metal is driving me crazy!

I worked some on the hood over the weekend. I pulled in the front of the hood and re-attached the front hood brace and latch. After checking the fit, this is what I found. OMG I still need to pull it in about another 1/4" for the gap down the fenders. When I originally fixed the bottom lip, I kept 1/8" of the original lip. How I wound up with this, well I'm still scratching my head on that one.

Any suggestions on repairing this? I was thinking of splitting the hood at the lower radius, about an inch of so above the lip. I assume that the bottom gap needs to be 1/4"?

[Tikal48]

Now for some of positive progress this weekend. I worked on adding the bracing for the inner fender wells. I still need to finish up the driver side. After all of the welding and plugging of holes in the firewall, I had to drill more. At least they are behind the inner fender wells.

[Tikal48]

I finished up the bracing of the inner fender wells this weekend. I also finished the welding of the seat pedestals, and applied the first coat of primer.

[Tikal48]

I received my bed sides, bed strips, and tail gate today. These are the Mar-K parts. I am impressed with the quality of the parts, and they were packaged very well. I was a bit annoyed that I could not have these shipped to my work address with my credit card purchase. I lost a 1/2 a day waiting on the delivery truck.

[Advanced Design]

Nice work! Did you get the front sheet metal aligned? There was a thread here yesterday where a guy was fighting the same thing.

[Tikal48]

AD,

Ha ha! Fighting is definitely the right word, and it definitely doesn't go down easy!

I got the front sheet metal reasonably aligned. My focus has been on getting the inner fender well bracing in place. After that, I will be working on the bed and running board bracing. Once I get the remainder of the bracing on the frame, I can remove everything again, and touch up paint the frame. Then I can start working on getting things permanently mounted.

[Tikal48]

I hope that everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend! It doesn't seem like I got a whole lot achieved this weekend. I split my time between yard work and the truck. As for the truck, I've just been sanding and priming some of the parts that I received. This just seems to take so much time.

The more I look at the Mar-K parts, the more I'm impressed. The rounded edges on the tail gate, and the scrolls on the bed sides are perfect. I wish that I would have bought the front bed panel from them as well. The top rounded edge on the Asian reproduction panel is round on the ends, and sort of bullet shaped in the middle. I'm not going to attempt to fix this. I'll do more damage than good.

I still need to get the bed sides primed. It started clouding up and looked like rain, so I put everything up. Then the sun came out . . . LOL

[Tikal48]

I rough aligned the bed sides and running boards, where I can start fabricating the brackets. Unfortunately it started to rain . . . again. All I was able to achieve was to make the rear bed brackets.

I still need to purchase the rear fenders. I will fabricate the brackets and make the final adjustments once I have the rear fenders in hand. I mounted the cab 3" above the frame. At a glance, it looks like I will be losing about 4" of bed depth.

[99 to Life]

looking good. one of the many differences in the dime swap, loss of bed. but I'v seen way worse. with how nice you'll have it, I doubt you'll want to haul anything in it anyway!

[Tikal48]

I haven't been able to spend any time on the truck for the last couple of weeks, and I've been having withdrawal symptoms. . . haha

I received my new rear fenders and splash guards. So I've been trying to get everything roughed in on the bed and running boards. Hopefully I can get the running board and bed brackets fabricated this weekend. I've had to do some modifications to the splash guards. It looks like I may need to go forward with the bed and running boards about 1/4" more, based on the look of the front gap of the running boards. I would assume that this should be around 1/4" to 3/8"? Right now I have about 2" gap on either side of the bed to the cab.

[Tikal48]

While working on the bed, I figured that I would hang the tail gate to see how it looked. So I got off on the tangent of mounting the roll pan. Now I just need to figure out what look I want for the tail lights.

[Tikal48]

I continued working on the running board brackets today. I finished fabricating the middle brackets and tack welded them in place, until I remove the cab again. I'm planning on drilling the frame and installing some rivet nuts. I prefer to bolt these brackets into place instead of welding them. I also fabricated the front bracket for the passenger side. There were a couple of bolt holes that were existing that worked out perfectly for the front bracket mount.