My version of the s10 swap

[BlueJeep]

Originally Posted by panelrodder81

Three questions, one is did you absolutely have to move the motor back? I ask because I'm a tall guy and my other truck is a panel truck so just moved my seats back for my height. If you don't HAVE to move the motor back I was hoping to extend my firewall forward to fill the space and gain some inches of interior space.

Is it absolutely necessary....maybe not....but you would have to do some butchering (ie. re-engineering) under the hood. Your radiator would have to move forward and the fan would have to be on the front side of that. I tried to show this with my earlier pictures. My buddy JR who is 6'9" is comfortable in this truck with the 88 seat. I think that would be far easier than extreme firewall mods. Having said that, the s10 firewall was 6" farther forward than the 49 one with it's cab-forward design.

Second question, during reassembly did you simply just hook everything back up from the S10 (minus the stuff you deleted) and run it?

Yes, basically. There was a huge loop of wires under the s10 dash that went from the driver's side over to the passenger side and then back to the driver's side that I cut about 4 feet out of too to clean things up.

Third, are you using the big fenders that were original to the truck? The look to have the smaller wheel openings that the one on my 1ton.

The fenders are original. From all my research, they didn't get the "big bolt" front clips until 1 1/2 tons. This one being a 3800 had the small front clip and a 9 foot bed.

One suggestion is, if your S10 is new enough to have OBD2 port you could keep the classic gauge look by using a cheep android based cellphone and install a program called Torque and then get a bluetooth obd2 adapter. This will let you setup a digital dash board that you can put in place and then remove at will. This is the direction I am planning to go when I start my swap.

Nope, this one's a bastard. It's like OBD 1.5 or something...it has the OBD2 plug but it's not OBD2. It's a 1995 with the TBI 4.3 and 4L60e. The New Vintage gauges get me a classic-enough look, however I may have to get a smart phone for a radio so I can stream Pandora in it some day!

And thanks for the inspiration!

Not a problem!

-Panelrodder

-Chris

[BlueJeep]

Here's some old school bodywork that was done to the truck. Basically, pound a screwdriver through the sheetmetal, pry the dent out, braze the hole shut and lead up the remainder of the dent. This is the main reason I'm replacing this cowl panel, plus I'm getting rid of the vent.

[BlueJeep]

I've finished all the firewall holes I'm going to fill, and moved on to some holes in the floor and the kick panel and cowl panel on the driver's side. I'm not going to finish welding anything until I get my hinges rebuild and the doors hung so I can get the gaps where I want them. Here's my progress:

[BlueJeep]

And a little farther:











Next up is filling all the extra holes in the toeboard and fitting panels for re-assembly. I'm still having fun with this!

[panelrodder81]

Originally Posted by BlueJeep

-Chris

Thanks for the info. I will have to get out to the truck I plan to use and get more info of it. I picked it up like two/three years ago and remember it to be a 1ton but it very well could be the 1.5 which would give me the larger fenders. I'm not sure I want to run the Big Bolt fenders on an S10 but it was my wife's grandfather's truck so I can't very well swap the whole front end out! Maybe I will have to go big with it.... we will see.

I just threw the idea out for the ODB thing because I think its pretty cool and I'm kind of proud of that idea! Hahaha. So if it doesn't work for you then I totally understand!

The truck looks great and I will continue to watch the project closely!

-Panelrodder

[BlueJeep]

More progress this week with the cab rust repair. Spent a lot of time fitting the kick panel, until I figured out to just cut off the bottom curved part, mount the main piece, and then fill in the bottom later (since the stamping didn't line up). This actually worked out really well for me because I was able to make the beads line up exactly where they needed to with the filler panel. Here's the pics:



Here's how the beads lined up:

[BlueJeep]

And welded in:





Still a little work to do here, but it's mostly done:



And some other fixes I had to make:





Until now I've had very poor experience using my weld-through primer. After reading a little on the metalmeet forum, I found another way to do it. I'm now spraying the "overlap" areas in the primer, then assembling and drilling for the spot welds and drilling partly into the bottom layer of metal. This cleans the primer off the bottom layer and allows me to put a decent weld in there. Without cleaning the primer off, it didn't "weld-through" worth a sh#t. I'm still not absolutely convinced it is necessary since it lasted 60 years without...but I really don't want to be wrong and have to do this again.

I'm also planning on seam sealing this area extensively and probably spraying on bedliner to finish it off.

[BlueJeep]

Almost all the holes in the floor are now filled:



And here's a teaser picture - mainly to tease myself because you guys already know what it should look like. This piece won't go on until the door hinges are rebuilt and the doors are hung so I can make sure the gap is where I want it.