[mr48chev]

As far as ride and feel and handling to some degree a lot of what we see being done to these trucks comes from what we are used to from our years of driving an some of us have been driving for over 60 years and some have been driving for less than 20. We have members who can actually be in their mid 40's who may have never driven a vehicle without 4 wheel disk brakes and 4 corner independent suspension. A good number of those may have never driven a vehicle that didn't have factory power steering. When they climb into an AD that they just bought and go for that first real drive it steers harder, rides stiffer and doesn't take the corners like their daily driver does and they want changes.

A bit of independent front suspension on AD trucks history.

Back in the late 50's and 60's there were a number of AD trucks running around with 51/54 Chevy car front suspension and steering. It's actually a fairly easy swap.
Then some folks figured out that a 63/68 C10 drum brake front end would bolt under an AD real easy. To the point that it is pretty well a bolt in. Good width and matched the rear bolt pattern if you didn't want to change rear axles.

Then we went to the Camaro, Firebird, Nova subframes in the late 70's and they were the hot lick in the 80's because you could pick one up just about anywhere for 100 bucks. Then when you went to put the front end sheetmetal back on you found out that you had to cut a lot of the inner sheet metal up to get it to fit. Obsolete tech now as there are better ways to do it.

Mid/late 70's guys discovered that they could cut the front suspension out of a Mustang II, Pinto or Bobcat pretty easily and trim it up and stick them under these trucks or rods. A new MII front crossmember was 110 dollars over the counter at the Ford dealership saving the cutting if you wanted to spend that 110. A lot of kit cars including Cobra kits use those in the early 80's. The aftermarket MII based front end thing got started first with crossmembers that used stock pieces and then tube A arms and have kept advancing somewhat.
Then in the 90's guys figured out that those S10 long bed work trucks that were sitting around beside driveways with broken or worn out engines had a frame that was the right size to stick under and AD and were dirt cheap at the time. S-10 longbeds didn't have much value if they didn't run and do a day's work every day.

The S-10 swap even though it drives great and you can get replacement parts at any parts house has always been the "cheap swap" Joedoe is one of the smart ones as he builds affordable trucks for a certain market that the buyers love and enjoy and rack up miles on. He also starts with basic pieces or a truck that doesn't have a high dollar value on it's own. What I have never liked and what is a total turn off to me is the guy on Facebook who goes out and buys a 20K fully restored truck with a fairly fresh original chassis and posts photos and announces that he is ready to do a S-10 swap and asks how does he do it and where does he get the stuff to do it and the first answer says spend 1500 for the _____ kit and then swap rear axles and get the wide tube a arms to widen the front end. Then there is the guy who buys a well built truck with name brand MII, rear spring swap and camaro rear with a 350/350 and posts the chassis for sale because the guys at the spit and whittle club said that he had to have an S-10 chassis under it.

Still it all centers around what kind of rig you intend to build and how much money you have or intend to spend. If you can't build a running and safe driving S-10 swap patina truck for under 5 K you are doing something wrong. That won't be a fancy truck, it won't have a 400 hp LS and it won't be running 22 inch rims but it will be a solid truck that you can drive anywhere and have a blast with. the fancy stuff can come later or on the next build.