s10 frame adjusting

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old lady's mad

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 29, 2009
Messages
120
Location
luttrell, tn. union co.
been along time since i been on here. but i remember a good thread on adjusting the s10 frame and i cant find it now.
i am needing to know how much i can stretch the frame of a short wheel base truck. i nee the long wheel base of 118 but cant find a good donor truck. i can find shorts or extra cabs. im thinking of just shortning a extra cab .
 
you dont need to stretch the frame, you can make a 108" wheelbase S10 into a long wheelbase truck pretty easily as seen in this tech tip from 62ChevyII

62ChevyII said:
Normally what guys use for these swaps is a long bed regular cab S10 because the wheel base is almost perfectly matched to the 48 truck's 116" wheelbase. My donor is a short bed and only 108" so I had to correct this issue. The cool thing is that the front leaf spring mounts are riveted to the frame. I just popped the rivets out, moved teh mounts back 8" and drilled new holes and bolted them on with grade 8 bolts. the rear hole on the bottom could not be bolted due to interference with some bracing so I just plug welded that hole and welded around that end of the mount.

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Now for the rear mounts. The rear mount is kinda built into the frame:

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62ChevyII said:
...so I couldn't slide those back very easily. So after a little measuring I cut the last 11" off the frame on both sides and swaped them side to side effectively moving the rear mounts back 8".

1948Chevytruckproject030.jpg


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I have done this, my 62 chevy on S10 was done like this and there are a LOT of unintended benefits. for example: 1. it lowers the rear of the truck about an inch for free, sliding the mounts back also moves them up, lowering the truck. 2. if you are using the stock s10 gas tank it gives you a ton of extra room that you dont normally have for 4 link bars. 3. the leaf perches are usually the lowest part of the frame, meaning if you are really low on an s10 that is usually what catches the ground first, this moves them up in the chassis, which is ALSO 4. excellent for getting a good arc on a lower 4 link bar, usually when the bars are mounted at the stock perch location it has a really big angle at full drop and pulls the axle forward.

note in his writeup that this makes the wheelbase 116", not 118". you can use an extra 2" piece of frame in between the cut and the piece you flip and then move the perches back 10" giving you 118", but my guess is that 116" will work for you, you can split the extra inch between front and rear wheel arches and no one will ever notice.

also a tip he doesnt mention is that when you move the perches back 8" you measure that on the level, not along the frame, if you measure it on the angle of the frame it will be LESS than 8". use a straightedge and a level to make sure you get 8" of rearward move.
 
Seems to me that moving the front spring mount back an extra inch, and using a slightly longer rear shackle would pick up the other 2 inches if they are needed. This would likely give a drop that doesn't need blocks.

I also remember reading something about repositioning plates that are used to better center the axle on S10s. One could gain an inch or two making something like that.

What I did with my 38 is just shorten the bed and running boards to fit the short frame. Then I whacked off the end of the frame all the way to the spring hanger. I'm just like that. :D I did have to use three inch lowering blocks.

If I was doing something like a cheby II, I would be VERY tempted to just move the wheel wells forward 8". :D
 

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