This has probably been done to death here in the past but my searches aren't yielding much info. I've got a 40 Chevy truck cab that I'd like to put on a '80 model Blazer 2wd chassis that I also have. I want to drop the body over the rails and do a mild chop on the top. Are there any pics or threads around here that cover the frame swap or does anybody have any tips on what works best ? Thanks
A 1980 S10 blazer?? There is no such thing.. must be a typo? The actual S10 blazer wheelbase is way too short to put a pickup truck on, you need a long bed pickup or extended cab pickup if you don't want it to look like some kind of clown car. You can lengthen these frames pretty easy, but you need the length to work with - Beyond that, search the tech posts, I know there is at least one in there involving putting a '54 Chevy cab on an S10 frame.
This site is about putting an F-1 on a S-10 chassis but you might get some usefull info from it concerning S-10 frame measurements and such. http://www.geocities.com/lakota_circle_dancer/swap1
bill, for my 42 chevy i used a 68 c10 frame. the fronts of later model frames are usually butt ugly so i just chopped the front horns and crossmember off and made some frame horns that looked better, and made a crossmember to put in a ford style front end, it wasn't too hard and the chevy cab fit right over the frame fine. I channeled my body enough to cover the whole frame, and there's still enough room to run my mufflers between the door and frame.
you bet, here's a picture of the frame tonight i just smoothed the front horns and painted them, i cut the old horns off right in front of the motor mounts. you can see in the back i shortened the frame about a foot too, and z'd it while i was at it, but the rear suspensions for this truck are pretty nice with the long trailing arms and coil springs. the cab just set right on the frame so i just drilled holes in the frame and the subframe for the floor and mounted it on rubber right on the frame. for the bed it fit over the frame fine with a little cutting but i just made up a frame out of 1" box inside the bed with tabs going to the frame. if you have any questions let me know
sorry just a few minutes ago i thought "hey i should have put up a picture of the cab on there" so here it is. this was a few weeks ago with the frame set at ride height. i put bags in back so it comes down another 3 inches or so in back and sits almost on the ground. here's a picture of the inside of the frame before being boxed. you can see i took 1/8" plate, and made the frame horn shape i wanted, then took some 1.75" wide flat stock, and bent it to follow the shape piece i made, it was really easy to do and looks way better than the stock front for the chevy. and a little closer picture this last picture will give you an idea of what the original frame looked like.
Well...I think the value of old Chevy pickups just went up at least $500.00 a pop with this post! LOL That is one easy to find, period looking, tough and easy to construct frame. Wouldn't be too hard to use a later frame with leafs and adapt a different suspension to that end too. One interesting thing is that the various body styles of long and short wheelbase pickup/blazer/suburban etc often had different stock rear kickups and shapes that could be an advantage in some cases or make one frame style more adaptive to a given conversion than another. EG; the 8' box pickups had a frame step just back of the cab that might make a conversion a bit troublesome...but the Suburban has a straight frame in that area to allow for rear footwells in the stock body! Just something to consider when hitting the scrapper... VERY cool use of readily available parts there LRL! Lowriding 'lane = HOT RODDER in my book.
An S-10 frame is kinda funky actually, it bows out around the cowl area of the body, the front end dosn't look right at all without fenders, and they don't really look/fit too good under anything but latter trucks and some cars. I like the Chevy frame idea actually. There are some frames out there that have the right "look" to them. 50's car frames have nice rails, I'm thinking about using an '54 F-100 frame under my '46 cab. Already has the straight axle and looks clean, but has paralell leafs though. Which dosn't really bother me.
Howdy.... This may not apply, being that it covers a 1940 Ford P/U over a S/10 frame, but I thought I would throw it in here anyway, to give a different perspective.... We used a 1986 S-10 long bed S/10, under a 1940 Ford cab. Problem #1? Frame would push out the two vertical frameside door jamb areas at the lowest part of the door, push them out a couple of inches per side...we might have cut the cab, but it wouldn't have looked right. My idea? We cut the cab in half, right down the middle, and picked a second 1940 cab with rusted corners, and cut a 6" middle section out of the cab, thereby widening the cab 6". Before cutting the cabs, we also cut both rear window frames out of both cabs, as we made a super wide mail slot rear window out of both later. We then pie cut the stock hood, narrowing it down towards the front. We used the stock fenders, although we had to modify them to work with the new hood, and also rolled out the nose, where the 40 rolls under? We pulled it back out at the center, straight up and down, ala' a 1933 willy's coupe. The wider cab allowed for a stock bench seat from a early 1990's chevy full size truck. The bed? We cut down a mid-1970's stepside bed, and added the 1940's rear fenders to the box. The truck is sitting at around 70% finished, we had a 348 Chevy with a tri-power intake built for it.....it currently rests in body shop hell, waiting for the owner to get off of his butt to finish it....all stock suspension at this point, however. It sits perfectly with the v8 at this time...I will try to get pics of it later this summer (I am not there right now).....
ok LL i'm sold. the s-10 frame goes back in the bone pile and i'll go scrounge up a full size truck to chop. what did your front spring crossmember come from ?
thanks for all the kind words from everyone, i'm glad you like the idea. lilbill the front crossmember is out of i think a 42 ford, i had to cut the ends shorter to make it fit inside the frame rails, then i cut 2" off of the top and welded a new plate on there to lower the car 2 more inches. cheap solution and worked out good since it's wider than the chevy frame so you can cut it to fit with whatever horns you make.
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