Quote:
Originally Posted by joedoh
 IMG_5254 by Joe Doh, on Flickr
driving it feels like a normal modern truck. if you ever drove an old truck you know that lumbering, cumbersome feeling, that wallow and sway in the turns. this feels like driving a modern vehicle that you just start and go. I dont want to say uninvolving or underwhelming, more like just how you would treat a daily driver, without a second thought. the efi and overdrive helps this, and I spend a lot of time on ride height and interior comfort too.
my advice still is: mounting the body can be done in a long weekend. you dont need a mounting kit but some people like them because they have instructions and take away some of the chaos of planning. bolt on kits sell like hotcakes too, but I feel they are misleading because everything else will need some form of cutting or welding. on that note, lately I enjoy using ext cab s10 because they are more available and shortening the frame doesnt take long enough to be a big deal, you can get the wheelbase more exact that way too. but again, it takes cutting and welding. everything else beyond mounting the body will take months, at least. |
That '49 is beautiful!
A modern feel is ideal. I love older cars and trucks, but the older I get, the less comfortable (and fun) something is to drive, the less I want to take it out. Turn-key, nice ride, comfortable handling, and good brakes go a long way to consistently enjoying a vehicle. I want to WANT to drive the truck all the time, not dread the handful it will be to drive. I also get why the pre-fab kits sell like hotcakes, because time is money and much of the guesswork is taken away. Is it always an ideal setup? Probably not, but when someone else does the hard work, that's sometimes worth paying for. Plus, it's a great option for those without access to the tools/space/etc for fabricating it themselves.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gigamanx
Darn I was disappointed when I saw how little of the S10 was able to transfer over for my needs. I joked with friends that the only thing S10 was the transmission tunnel I cut out of the stock frame. I wish I had kept my decently working stock frame and started there. When the truck was finished, I had poured so much money in other places that the extra $$ to upgrade a stock frame would have been negligible. I falsely hoped I could steal most things from the S10 and convert them over...here's where it went wrong...
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I've spent some time and read through quite a few of the build threads on here that feature S10 swaps, and that seems to be far too common of a theme. If I'm going to frame swap, I want to be able to use the entire chassis. The fact that the track width is a bit narrow, rear axle needs to be swapped right off the bat, significant sheet metal mods, etc, makes me wonder why this is such a popular platform to start from! I guess cheap and accessible.
I think my thoughts there are, if I'm going to be performing that much fabrication to begin with, I want to start off with a chassis that will more closely match the end result. I think once I get some time, I'll bring my Explorer frame over and pull my '49 body off, and mock up how well everything will line up. I know these work well for the F1 and F100 guys!