Long wheelbase to short wheel base 94 gmc 1500 reg cab

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It appears I’ve found myself in the lovely process of Shortening my frame on my 1994 GMC Sierra regular cab. I’ve found a few threads on the subject but it seems most people take the route of moving leaf spring mounts, shock mounts, cross member forward 14” on the frame then cutting the back portion of the frame off. Personally I don’t like that way. The main reason being the frame tapering inward at the rear of frame but no need to get into that right now. I wanted to make my long wheelbase frame look exactly like a short wheel base frame upon completion. In order to do that I had to pull the cab. Once I did that I cut of the front bed mounts off the frames along with the rear cab mount. I used a cutting wheel on the cab mounts so I would lose as little metal as possible. It took about an hour per mount. Also I measured the original distance between the mounts and the distance from the top flat part to the ground. Then I picked which area of the frame I wanted to take out then started making measurements. I spent quite a bit of time on this for several reasons. One being my dad, every time I discuss the project with him he is very adiment about me getting the frame perfect. Basically any error here will mess it all up. So I got her all marked up then whacked out 14”. Slammed the frame together supported it then c clamped the heck out of it, made measurements again to verify, then tacked it together. My buddy who happens to be a certified welder volunteered to come weld it up. He said he wanted to kno for sure I had good welds underneath me, I guess that means my welds aren’t up to par lol. He came through and laid down some great welds but that wasn’t the end. Everybody says now there is a weak spot in the frame right there now so I took the piece of the frame I cut out and scabbed the weld. 4 bolts on the side and 2 on the bottom. That’s where I currently stand. I’m about to start shortening lines and all that good stuff. I have plenty of pictures just gotta figure out how to upload them. I just created an account 5 minutes ago so bare with me.
 
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This is right after I cut the 14” out and closed the gap
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These pics are right after I got it welded. I took the section of frame that was cut out and used it for extra support. Tomorrow I’m gonna weld the outsides of the scab In addition to the 4 bolts on side and 2 on bottom
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One thing I didn’t do was measure my actual wheelbase distance before I cut. I Had the frame specs so I didn’t need to. But just cause it had to be perfect I searched and searched for exactly how much I needed to cut out every place I looked said 14” so I was pretty positive it was 14”. I landed on one page where a guy said it was 14.5” that needed to be cut out. That’s one guy against like 25 other people so I went with the more viable option. 14”. After it was all said and done my dad shows up with a tape measure.. I was like dude! I don’t even wanna kno let’s just not check it and say we did.. he ignored me and handed me the tape cause his eyes are kinda bad he had the end of the tape measure. We measured an area on the passenger side of the axles that was a little closer together than the actual way to measure wheelbase which is center of wheel to center of wheel. Passenger side was 114&15/16” we hopped over to the driver side and it was 114&31/32”.. im sure there is a few people on this forum who are gonna disagree with me on this but that’s perfect in my book. And get this, after all that searching and deciding on 14” and not goin with the 1 random guy saying 14.5” i figures since we were measuring might as well see what the actual wheel base ended up being... it was 118” one half inch longer than the short wheel base. If I would’ve cut 14.5 like the one random guy said, it would’ve landed exactly on 117.5 and been identical to a factory wheel base. I couldn’t believe it... All in all I couldn’t be happier with the turn out of this section of the job. Now Im shortening fuel lines, break lines, etc.. after this I gotta look at how I wanna do my duel exhaust and what size to use I’m bending the pipe myself. Suggestions are incouraged.
 

smdk2500

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A suggestion for the piece of metal that you are adding in for your extra strength i would change the way you have it. I would do what is called fish plating. it allows for more weld surface area. Google fish plate frame and you can see different ways of doing it.
 
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A suggestion for the piece of metal that you are adding in for your extra strength i would change the way you have it. I would do what is called fish plating. it allows for more weld surface area. Google fish plate frame and you can see different ways of doing it.
I just went and checked it out and it seems like it’s pretty much what I got goin already. I just haven’t made my welds around the support plate yet.
 
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