Big Tex's 83 Chevy 2wd to 4wd Conversion

[Big Tex]

This is my first thread. Thought I'd start a build thread for my '83 SWB 2wd to 4wd Conversion. First a little history....

Back when I was in high school, Dad came home and told me he was going to buy an '83 short bed from a guy at work. I was extremely excited, as at the time it was my dream truck, and was so much cooler than the VW Scirrocco I was driving at the time.....then he announced it was a diesel.....the wind left my sails. However, he wasn't buying it for me. And he said he'd fix it up a little. We pulled the rallye's off of it, and put them on a trailer, and at my prodding it came home one day with 15x8 and 15x10 chrome mod wheels. It did look better. This is the only pic I can find of it in that condition, sitting behind my buddy's 66. This is about 1993.



This is pretty much how it stayed until 2003ish......except we did paint it solid red sometime in the late '90s.

Around 2003, i'd spent pretty much every Saturday helping my Dad frame their house. One day, he asks what he's gonna owe me for all the help. The old red truck had been an extra vehicle for years at this point as Dad was driving a '98 Dodge truck. I looked over at it, and said, i don't know, what are you gonna do with the old diesel? He said, I don't know, I hate to sell it, but I don't use it anymore. You want it? I said yeah! So he dug up the title, and later I drove it home pretty much like this.





Cowboy bumper and all!!

[Big Tex]

Oh yeah, I forgot, my name is Brent and I've been lurking and hanging out for a couple of years, finally joined about a year ago. I have been able to find out pretty much anything I've needed to know about this truck on here. It's truly an amazing Forum. Thanks to all who post all this useful info.

All right, where did I leave off? Bringing the truck home. Back then I was more into hot rod types of trucks, and knowing that this would be a toy, I wanted it lowered with a nasty little smallblock. I located a 350, from a suburban, not a corvette, like most of them seem to be . I lowered it, and had the 350, built and installed:

Lowered with the Diesel:
At this point, I had changed out the drop bumper for a wreckin' yard Blazer bumper, and pulled the sliding rear glass in favor of a solid piece.



Like the drip pan?


I drove it like this for a year or two. It got great milage, but just wasn't what I wanted, so the next step was the gasoline swap.

Out with the 6.2



Loaded up going to get the motor swap done



I got the 350 installed, and it stayed like this other than upgrading to some drag stars, and ditching the drop in bed liner until 2009. The engine was pretty stout with a high lift comp cam (which required headers and a stall converter), World Product Heads, and an Edelbrock Carb and intake. I wasn't very smart back then. The guy building the engine asked me what I wanted. I told him it was a toy, and I really just wanted it to lope hard and shake the truck when the cam hit, but I wanted to be able to run pump gas in it. He delivered, and it would haul the mail, but it wasn't very "driver friendly". As it turns out, all that speed junk and a stall converter is only good for about 3 mpg. With only 1 of my 16 gallon tanks working, I pretty much had to put gas in it every time I drove it. It looked pretty cool though:



Then it happened. I attended a swap meet in Arlington, Texas in 2009. Couple of buddies and myself had a booth, and where selling stuff. During one of the times I was walking around, I ran across this truck and fell in love with it.



That night, I told my wife I thought I was going to sell my little red truck, and buy a 4x4 one like it. She then brought up the fact that over the years, she had suggested selling it, for silly things like.... house down payments....and apparently I was very adamant about not selling it, since my dad had given it to me. So she says, why don't you just make that one 4 Wheel Drive if that's what you want? I could barely go to sleep that night thinking through how I could do that. It couldn't be that hard....so the idea was born. Now what all would I need to do this?

[Greenlee]

Nice truck!

If I were in your shoes I would search for a cheap 4x4 for the frame, axles, and transmission / transfer case. Then swap your trucks body onto the 4x4 frame. You will also need the high hump transmission tunnel from a 4x4. Up until about 83' the transmission tunnels were bolted in.

There is a great thread on here somewhere where someone did this a couple of years ago with a buckskin colored mid-70's truck.
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[Big Tex]

Thanks Greenlee. You're exactly right. That's the route I chose.

[Big Tex]

So, over the next days and weeks, I did a lot of research on how to do this. (Thank you for inventing the internet Al Gore ) At first I thought, I really only need a front axle, some springs, and spring brackets, right? Not quite. Oh yeah, to be 4x4, it's gotta have a transfer case. Wonder if one would bolt up to my 700R4? Nope. Need a 4x4 trans for a t-case.

So, I came up with basically 3 ways to do this. In my opinion, none of them are wrong, in fact I've seen all of them done on this very forum. I think it boils down to what tools you have, your skill set, and what you feel the most comfortable doing.

Option 1 - Gather up all the parts needed, and swap them onto the 2wd frame.
Option 2 - Swap the body onto a 4x4 Frame
Option 3 - Cut the 2wd frame and weld on the front half of a 4x4 frame.

I chose Option 2.

Now let me take the opportunity here to say (and this was brought up by the Great Dirty Larry) the easiest, fastest way to convert to a 4x4, is to sell your truck and buy a 4x4 one. So really, the only reason to do this type of swap is if you really want your truck to be 4x4. I fall into this catagory. This swap is time consuming, you probably spend more money, and it can be frustrating at times. It is a challenge, and once it's completed it does give you a great sense of accomplishment.

Ok, so thank you to our good friend Craigslist, I found a donor, stock as a stove, hadn't been registered in 12 years. It even ran, probably on at least 5 of the 8 cylinders in it's little 305. The price was right though, so $500 later I drag home a long bed '85 1/2 ton 4x4. Sold the front clip for $200, the engine for $200, and traded the badly beaten bed for some diagnostic work on my F@rd Supercrew. At least I had a frame, axles, 4x4 trans, t-case, and all the brackets.

Now I needed to cut the frame down from a LWB to a SWB, no problem, internet just shows to take 14" out between the first and second set of bed bolts. Here we go.......

Dad reading the "directions" i printed online



It's either gonna work, or be scrap now!! That's me by the way.



14" gone, now just gotta put it back together.



Tacked in place. At this point, I called in a real welder to make this joint permanent. After all, I do want to drive this thing again some day. I just didn't trust my welding enough for a truck frame.



SWB 4x4 Frame.

[Big Tex]

Next up, just swap the body over, easy enough, right? I did power wash and paint the frame a nice semi-gloss black, just don't have pics of it.

Just need to disconnect the wiring harness, brakes, steering shaft, trans linkage, pull the motor, unbolt 6 body bolts and the cab lifts right off, right?

Pretty much. 2WD frame going out.







Then the frame just rolls right out.



Don't touch anything!



Now just slide the 4x4 frame into position, and bolt the cab back down.



Nothin' to it, but to do it. You can't tell really from this pic, but the moment of truth happened on the LWB to SWB conversion when we set the bed back on. The tires were right in the middle of the wheel wells where they were supposed to be. My advice.....measure a bunch before you start cutting.

[Big Tex]

Next thing to do was get the trans and t-case freshened up and back in the truck.....mainly to get them off the shop floor.

Uhhhhm, you know.....their in........but it looks like the t-case is sitting against the floor of the cab, and it's pointing down. Surely there isn't a difference in the cabs from 2wd to 4wd. I'll look on 67-72chevytrucks and see what it says, then I'll check out that donor truck when I get home..........Son of a B@#&h.

There's a huge difference!!



This next sequence of photos is called a learning curve. In my mind the only remedy was to cut out both floors, then weld the 4x4 one in the 2wd cab (remember what i said earlier about time and frustration) well, I was about 1/2 way through welding the 4x4 tunnel into the 2wd cab, when I was cruising this site one day, and found a post by, I believe TXFIREFIGHTER, who was facing the same challenge. He, being more cleaver, bought an older bolt in tunnel, and fabricated it to fit his cab. Man I wish I would have seen that before I cut the floor out of mine. Oh well, it's just time right?



The donor will fit like a glove!



All welded in, dyna-glassed, and primered. What a waste of time and energy. At least I was able to practice up on my sheet metal welding skills!





After this was complete, I got the motor back in. With all the added room, the Trans and T-Case had all the clearance in the world!



Now that that whippin' is over, let's move on to the fun stuff.

I had made the decision along the way to run 8-lug axles. Not that this truck is really gonna need them. The six lug's would be fine driving to Home Depot, or sonic or something, but I like the look the 8 lug axles give. I located a set from a 3/4 ton suburban and decided to get them. Now for you hard core guys......it's a semi-floater rear end.......I know, I know.......it'll be ok. Remember, this isn't Pirate.



I chose to rebuild the front one. It's an 8 lug 10-bolt. I have to give a huge Thank You to Mando and his extremely well documented drive way rebuild on his '73's Dana 44. I know I referenced that thread at least a dozen times while I fought my way through rebuilding it. I absolutely loathed this part of the build. It was tedious, time consuming, and you have to have an assortment of specialty tools and presses to do this. But it's done. Thanks Mando.

[quadzero]

What a great wip, I really enjoyed reading the history about this truck and your indepth journey to get it to where it is now. I can relate to not wanting to sell the truck but instead swapping out the frame instead, I'm pretty sentimental about my truck also. Your new trans cover turned out very well I think. And "this isn't Pirate"-LMAO.

[Greenlee]

Nice work! I thought you were really asking how to do this above, but you are almost done!

I actually started this same project, but my 2 wheel drive with sentimental value had some rust issues so I ended up going with another truck.
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[Big Tex]

Quadzero-
Thanks. I'm glad that I just went ahead with it.

Greenlee-
That's alright. It's getting there, but all the little stuff that's left will be what takes a while I'm afraid. Was your replacement 4x4, or are you still gonna have to convert one?
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[Greenlee]

It's a 4x4. I'm still working on it. I'm down to the little stuff also, but I still have a lot of little stuff left to do! Here is a link to my build. Same color as yours...

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=425848
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[Big Tex]

Oh yeah. As soon as I started scrolling through your build I remembered it. Looks great. I can't wait to get to the paint stage. Well, post paint stage. Mine looks better in these pics than it does in person.

[Big Tex]

When I left off, I had rebuilt the front axle and had the rear end in the truck. You may have noticed some lift blocks in the rear. I bought a 4" Pro Comp kit a couple of years ago, and finally got to the point I could put it on. This pretty much gets the build up to date. These are from about 2 weeks ago.

6 lug axle and stock springs coming out.



4" springs and 8 lug axle in.




And then................the moment I had been waiting for since 2009!!!












As you can see from the pics, it's far from complete......e brake lines laying on the driveway.........it still needs fluids, body panels put back on, drive shafts installed, bed bolted down, trans lines run, alignment.......I know I'm forgetting stuff, but I had to roll it out and take some pics of it. Can't wait till it'll move on it own. That's the next goal!!!

[Greenlee]

Looks good! I like the wheels. The paint looks pretty good in these pics.

What's the story on the K5 in your profile?
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[Greenlee]

Is this the truck you are painting two tone silver? I just realized you had asked the color code of my 89' parts Suburban. I removed the glove box with the paint codes when I was taking out all the wiring for my truck. I'm not sure what the heck I did with the glove box door.
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[Big Tex]

Greenlee-
Yes, this is the one i was considering the two tone silver on. That's ok about the glove box, I'm still undecided on paint. If I had to paint it today, it'd get sprayed a navy blue. I can't rule out going back with red though. So who knows where that'll end up. There's quite a bit of body work to be done before that decision really has to be made.

On the K5, which I need to change out now that my truck looks like i want it to, I bought it after I sold an '02 3/4 ton 4x4 GMC the first time gas went to $4/gallon. We were in the middle of building our house, and it was a really wet spring/early summer, I realized real quick that i needed a 4x4 to get material from the street to the house. This was my main excuse, and I'd always wanted a Blazer, so I found that one. Other than the paint job, it was stock as could be. The guy I bought it from was probably 60 years old. I kind of liked the paint job in a - '90s matches a motor home - kind of way. My wife didn't like it at all. She would always joke that it was an old man's paint job. She laughed all the way home one night after getting gas and an "older gentleman" came over and told me how nice it was, and that he really liked the paint job!!

I sold it later to a guy that took the lift off, and put stock wheels back on it. He daily drove it, may still be.....

[duallyjams]

That's looks great.

[Big Tex]

Thank you James.

A little update:

I've done a few little things lately like installed a ORD Steering Brace, got the diff covers on, and diffs filled with fluid.

I set a deadline of the week after Thanksgiving to have it far enough along to drive it up on a trailer to take it to the muffler shop. I was off this week, and figured the neighbors maybe tired of listening to the open headers when I fired it up. So got the driveshafts in, and the rear hitch and bumper on, so the muffler guys wouldn't run the pipes in the way of those. So the Wednesday after Thanksgiving, I backed it down the driveway, and pulled it back in the garage. First time it moved under it's own power in three years!!



Did I mention it's only run in short bursts when I've started it over the last couple of years due to the open exhaust. It had actually not been started in about 6 or 7 months, so when i went to start it, it wouldn't. I figured out I wasn't getting fuel, but the fuel pump was pumping. I took the top off the carb, and it was black inside. Looked like mold growing in it. Cleaned it up, and it started, but wouldn't idle. So I two footed it to get it loaded onto the trailer.

Next morning, at the muffler shop I, was ready to shoot the dang truck. It was about 29 degrees when I got there at 8:00, and the truck would not stay running. As soon as I put it in gear it would die. The shop guys came out and we actually had to push it onto the rack. Talk about Embarrasing! They tried to make me feel better, and said they do that all the time becuase they work on hot rods, and street rods that don't run yet....ok. Finally got started on it.



After about 3 hours it was done.



That's when the fun began! Due to how well it was running that morning the guys told me to go get my truck and trailer and pull it up close to the shop, so it wouldn't have to go very far. They backed it off the rack, and by now, it's about 50 degrees out side. They tell me, it's running better now, should load up easy. I was still having to two foot it to keep it running, but started up the ramps. As the front tires hit the trailer, the ramps folded up, their stabilizing legs acted as a fulcrum, and I didn't know it. I'm giving it gas to climb the ramps. The truck comes to an abrupt stop, and the shop guys are yelling "turn it off! turn it off!" I can't tell why it won't move, and why do I smell gas?

In the time it took me to turn the key off, and open the door, and see the ramps pointing at my gas tanks, I notice there is gas all over the ground, and only a tiny little trickle coming from the tank. Luckily each tank only had a couple of gallons in it, but the gas from the driver side tank had left the building! This is what I saw when i looked at the tank.



Never mind that "drain plug" that was already in the bottom of that tank. My dad put that in there to stop a pin hole leak back in the 90s.

So, I'm standing there with the shop guys throwing kitty litter all over the ground, my truck is half on the trailer, and the rest of the shop guys are giving me the stink eye thinking about how they are going to push this thing up onto the trailer. The other customers are all staring out the window, I'm thinking....seriously?.....So, we brace the back of the trailer with some floor jacks, and shop guy starts yelling to other shop guys to come push. I say, wait a minute, it does have dual tanks. One of the first things I did to the frame was put on a new tank selector switch. I hadn't tested it yet, but there's a chance I could switch tanks, and drive it up on the trailer. I don't know why it would work, since nothing else was going my way, but it did. We got it loaded, and I hauled ass out of there with my tail between my legs and embarrassed.

Got it home, unloaded without incident and put in the garage. Here's some pics of how it turned out.





...and my little buddy helping me

[survivingalone]

pictures of the exaust. what mufflers?

[Big Tex]

They are Thrush Turbo mufflers. I hope they sound good. I've only heard them at 3000 RPM, and revving it to keep it running. I need to clean the carb so I can hear how it sounds at idle.

[Greenlee]

Wow, sorry about the bad luck at the exhaust shop! The exhaust looks good though! The funny thing is, I'm planning to do the same thing in the next few days. I want to get my exhaust done while I have some time off work for the Christmas holiday. I don't have a trailer so I'm thinking about driving it up there with open headers. I could be in for some surprises also since this will be its maiden voyage.
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[Zane M]

Great progress so far. Sorry about the misfortune at the exhaust shop.

[trout]

This is awesome going to do hout the same with my 78
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[Big Tex]

Greenlee - Thanks! Did you get your exhaust done? How did the "open headers" trip go? I did that when I went from the 6.2 to the 350. I happened to pass an elementary school that had just let out, and people were breaking their necks to see what in the world was coming down the street. he-he, still makes me laugh....

Zane - That's ok. some days are just like that I guess.

Trout - Good luck on your '78. Do you have a thread started?

[LEEVON]

This is a cool conversion. I think it gets better with each identity crisis. You sound like me with your "that guy" at the exhaust shop story. I've been there too, more times than I care to admit and about half of them involve a trailer and non-running vehicle LOL.

I fretted all summer about getting my truck up to the exhaust shop. We're a little outclassed in our neighborhood and there are alot of folks who stare strangely at old trucks, let alone those with open exhaust. The truck is literally too low to get onto a trailer and if I had a roll back come get it I'm sure they would jack something up. So early on a Saturday morning I fired her up and hit the street...only to discover...it wasn't actually that loud! Not much louder than the other neighbor's Harleys. All that worry for no reason really.

LOVE the swb 4x4's!