My version of the s10 swap

[BlueJeep]

Nice Mick! Show a zoomed out picture as well...

[72-c20]

Originally Posted by BlueJeep

Nice Mick! Show a zoomed out picture as well...

[mknittle]

I thought the lighting looked funny on the first pic

[pinecrest]

shux.

[BlueJeep]

Small bit of progress this weekend. Did some preventative maintenance by changing the tranny filter. Very pleased to see that it was VERY clean in there, and very clean fluid.



Next up was the oil pan. I bought the Hummer H3 pan, $150ish and came with the pan, windage tray, new pickup, gasket, bolts, dipstick and tube (which I needed anyway).

Before:


Internals looked good:


And after:


Also finished up cleaning my "spare" wiring harness. This one I'll be using in a future project, and was kinda practice for the one for this truck. I might re-locate some things, we'll see. Disclaimer: the butt-connectors you see were like that when I got it. I NEVER use butt connectors, I always solder.

[BlueJeep]

I also have a new favorite way of filling holes. First I have holes that need to be filled:


I then make some plugs for the holes, and then drill the hole out to a size that will fit the plug. Punching 16ga. was the hardest part of this operation.


I use a hammer and dolly to get it right where I want it, and fusion weld it.


Works great, and almost nothing to grind afterwards vs. how I did the holes in my firewall.

[BlueJeep]

This is probably not enough progress to warrant a post, but I'm going to. Found a little time this weekend to clean up the rear axle that will be going in the truck. I'll narrow it this winter when I figure out exactly how wide I want it to be.

Really wasn't too bad to start with, but the DA wasn't taking it down very well:


So I decided to try some clean and strip discs, and now I'm sold on them:

[oldman3]

Looks great...Jim

[BILL48]

your doing an awesome job and thanks for the info on the windows but my roof is pretty rough so i will have to do it differently....Bill

[BILL48]

your doing an awesome job and thanks for the info on the windows but my roof is pretty rough so i will have to do it differently....Bill

[BlueJeep]

More work on the bed this weekend. I had a new rear cross sill bent up at a local sheetmetal shop to my specs and picked it up this week so time to start fitting it to the bed.

Here's what I started with, this is the stock s10 rear sill, which was several inches too far forward for my bed:


Here's roughly what it'll look like when I'm done. The sides will blend into the rear stake pockets and be welded vs. bolted like original. The stake pockets will be open in the bottom and won't allow water and garbage to collect in them and rot out again.


I'll have to make sure everything is just right before I weld these in and the tailgate fits, because there will be no adjustment with this design.

[BlueJeep]

Also, since I cut a couple inches off the front of the bed to fit the s10 wheelbase I lost my front 2 stake pocket holes. Today I made that right. Have to be able to run sides in it for hauling stuff in the future. :-)

Here's the layout matching the original design:


Now I just have to bend the tab down:


Everything behind the pockets is getting a coat of POR 15, and then they'll get welded back on.

[BlueJeep]

Yesterday I made sure everything that would be covered up had a coat of POR 15 on it, today I started welding things back on. Started with the stake pockets:





Then I had to make sure everything fit as I wanted it to before welding on the rear bed sill. This involved about 25 trial fittings of the sill, make minor adjustments, then fit again.





Yep, that's how I wanted it:

[BlueJeep]

I'm not sure this was any easier than drilling, it takes some pretty good squeezing to punch through 16 gauge but I didn't have to clean burrs up afterwards.



Welded on flush:



And back together to make sure:



Yes, I definitely like it!





Next up I have to do some smoothing and shrinking to get the front of the bedsides acceptable, then I can weld on those stake pockets too. Next weekend I'll be picking up the frame and cab, so some things will start to go back together for good!

[oldman3]

Nice job, turned out really nice...Jim

[BlueJeep]

It was a productive weekend and day today. More pictures and detail to come:

[bk2life]

great project, lots of work, but it looks like it's coming along nicely..

with all the work into it, do you think you would still use a S10 chassis on the next build? i am a fan of the toyota/nissan truck chassis myself.

[Homebuilt Hotrods]

Love the work you did to the bed. Sweet looking truck.

[Wheelie]

This thing is coming along nicely. A lot of great sheetmetal work. Where did you pick up that punch?

[BlueJeep]

Originally Posted by bk2life

great project, lots of work, but it looks like it's coming along nicely..

with all the work into it, do you think you would still use a S10 chassis on the next build? i am a fan of the toyota/nissan truck chassis myself.

Thanks! I still think the s10 is a great platform to build off of. This will be a driver, and the availability of off-the-shelf parts across the country was a major plus. Really the thing that causes the most design challenges is the steering box, if there was a cheap, relatively easy way to get a rack on it it would make a lot of things quicker. Toyota/Nissan frames have historically been more straight, correct? I think they might also make a good platform to build off of, but at least part of the time they had a steering box too.

Originally Posted by Homebuilt Hotrods

Love the work you did to the bed. Sweet looking truck.

Thanks! Hopefully that's something that makes my truck different than the masses. If not, oh well.

Originally Posted by Wheelie

This thing is coming along nicely. A lot of great sheetmetal work. Where did you pick up that punch?

That's nice to hear as I'm still new to sheetmetal. The punch is a Roper Whitney Jr. hand punch, I picked it up off eBay.

[BlueJeep]

Friday morning started off with a bare frame on my dad's garage floor, and by Friday evening it had both the front and rear suspensions back in, and the cab on being loaded on my trailer. In between putting it back together I spent a few hours at a salvage yard pulling an Explorer 8.8 for dad's Willys pickup (great axle for hot rods BTW, as many people already know), Explorer discs for my 9", and TBI for a buddy's truck.

Hauled the truck home Friday night and yesterday afternoon started positioning the motor.

Here's what I started with:


This was the area that gave me some challenge, but offsetting the motor .625" to the passenger side alleviated that concern. I think that's approximately how far the original s10 motor was offset too.





I'm going to have to change my radiator/fan configuration from when I was running the 4.3. I was hoping not to have to, but there just wasn't room. I did try to maximize fan clearance by sliding the motor back as far as I could and notching the firewall...but it just wasn't enough. Another hole to patch.

[BlueJeep]

I did use the carshop.com motor mounts, thinking that would save me time. It turns out that it didn't really save me any, and I had to cut them apart to get them to work...so it probably would have been easier to just make them myself. They might work well with a flat, straight frame but with a curvy s10 frame not so much.



In the end, I'm very happy it's in and happy how it turned out. I have to order a poly transmission mount and move my tranny crossmember because this 4L60 is longer than the s10 one was, but that's easy.

Not too much of a tunnel required:


And plenty of underbody clearance with the H3 oil pan:

[bk2life]

Originally Posted by BlueJeep

So I decided to try some clean and strip discs, and now I'm sold on them:

what is a clean and strip disc?

Originally Posted by BlueJeep

Toyota/Nissan frames have historically been more straight, correct? I think they might also make a good platform to build off of, but at least part of the time they had a steering box too..

yes the earlier models are gear box, later ones are rack and pinion. Rails made out of 2x3 box. Lots of parts available, drop spindles, lift spindles, big brakes, lighter in weight.
Still lovin all the work your doin on your truck, will be fun! I miss my toys.. ill be back in USA after march

[xpickup]

BlueJeep, Looks great. I know what you are saying about the steering box being the only downfall with using the s10 frame. But I love the fact that you can buy parts anywhere for them also. I wonder if anybody makes a rack for them? Keep up the great work.

Shannon

[BlueJeep]

Well I've managed to get a few more things done over the past couple of weeks. I got the motor mounts gusseted and painted, and the engine has been installed for good. I also modified the transmission crossmember. I thought I'd have to re-mount it farther back on the frame, but was able to just make a new mount for it and notch the crossmember.