'50 Chevy 3100

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fancyTBI

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@Stumpy I have not talked with you in a while. How’s the ‘50 going? Hope you had a good Christmas.

My dad and I were just talking about how we’d build a truck like this and when he mentioned the S10 frame conversion I thought of you.
 

Stumpy

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@fancyTBI Been picking at small projects. Got the old flooding carb swapped out, and seems to have fixed my issue, and it runs noticeably better.

Christmas was good, but spent the whole week at my son's place, redoing their kitchen, and installing vinyl plank flooring in most of his house. Great spending time with the family, but I wore out. We came back home today. I need a vacation, from my vacation.

One of my Christmas presents is enough medium gray composite deck boards, to do the bed floor of the truck with. Went with that color to match my wheels, and will probably do that color interior as well. I'm at a cross roads with the bed though, since it is shorter than stock, because it's sitting on a regular cab, short bed S10 frame. Been debating on keeping that setup, or putting a stock length bed on it, and making the mods neccessary to go with it. It's a can of worms, but there are a couple other things I want to do, that could go along, like moving the engine back a few inches, and I scored a 700r4 for stupid cheap, that's getting rebuilt soon. Which means driveshaft changes are in my future anyway.

Some of the "purest" frown upon the S10 swap, but having owned several S10s in the past, I'm a fan for sure. I have been keeping an eye out for a RCLB frame, to take care of my wheel base issue, but stretching the frame I have, isn't off the table.

I went with a truck that was already setup, because I work alone most of the time, but I'm finding that I'm wanting to change so much on this truck, I probably would have been better off, building my own.

Didn't mean for that to be so wordy.
 

Erik the Awful

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Until I went to the Lemons race at Road Atlanta a few weeks ago, I was certainly not an S-10 fan, but I discovered S-10 frames are fully boxed from the factory and they share parts with G-bodies, so race parts are dirt cheap.

Yes, Curt really moved an S-10 cab back one foot on the frame, put a Ford 302 with a stock front-sump pan behind the Chevy crossmember, and then threw a Firebird nose over it. The extremely experienced drivers who co-drove with him said that it was extremely well-balanced and that if it had better front tires it would have been freakishly good handling.

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Stumpy

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Finally got a chance to work on my own stuff, instead of everybody else.

Never been a fan of chains on the tailgate, so picked up some cables for a gmt900. Made a little clearance in the tailgate, and used a riv-nut on the bed side.

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No where to really hide any fasteners, so used the "nuts" from some old S10 sway bar links, that work great for holding the cable end, and the tube is threaded on the inside, for bolting it all down, while letting the cable still pivot.

This is what you see from the outside of the tailgate.

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I plan on getting another tailgate at some point. I'll weld that contraption on the inside, so it will be hidden then. For now that's good enough.

Got a wild hair, and started pulling the bed wood, to really see what I was working with.

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What a pain in the ass that was. They used what looked like 5/16", 3" long self taping bolts, with philips heads, and only about half would screw out. Grinding the heads off, didn't help, as they were threaded into the wood as well, so they wouldn't even slip off that way.

Recip saw to the rescue.

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Took way longer than it should have, but it's all out now.

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Still formulating a game plan for the replacement boards. I'll need to add a cross bar about middle ways, and also trying to consider how/where to mount a compressor and tank. My have to get a skinnier tank. I have a fat 5 gallon, and it takes up too much room. Need a long, skinny one.

Forgot to get a picture of the boards, but it's Trex composite stuff. Pebble Gray, if I remember correct.

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I'll be doing flat aluminum strips, and aluminum angle around the perimeter.

Got most of my son's bed done last week, before we had to leave.

This was the last pic I took of his. Those are 2" wide aluminum strips, he didn't like the width, bought 1.5". When I left, all he had to do was drill for the stainless button head bolts, and mount them.

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I've seen the 2" strips work, you just have to space the boards out, so it doesn't cover so much. I may use what he didn't.
 

Stumpy

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Had a couple parts show up this week, so got a little bit done.

To address where the bedsides were cut out, I ordered a couple aluminum flares for an enclose trailer.

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Stainless gas filler that's apparently for a boat.

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Went ahead and positioned the center board for the gas fill. Bummer that the filler neck is an inch off center, but I'll get over it.

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The inner flares/tubs, still need some tweaking, and they'll probably get filled in with some sheet metal, and maybe a couple dimple die holes. Although I have thought about filling them in with deck board. May mock both ways up, just to be sure.

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The boards will be spaced 3/4" apart, using some square tubing I have, and give the bolts something sturdy to push on, when I put down the aluminum strips. That's my real hold up now, since the bolts and strips are at my son's place, 3 hours away.
 

Stumpy

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Didn't work on mine, but made the trip to our son's place, and he hadn't touched his truck since I left last time. So we got his floor all squared away. Just got to do something for the tubs. What he has is a hacked up trailer fender, and neither halves ever fit well, and still don't. I've been pushing him to go another direction, but he's resistant.

Deck boards finished, and everything bolted down, minus the tubs.

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With that, I now have all the bolts, and aluminum strips to work on mine. Looking forward to it.
 

Stumpy

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Got a little bit done this weekend.

Compressor got a new home.

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My cousin gave me a piece of sheet aluminum, and let me borrow a 2" dimple die, so had to try it out.

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Cut a crap ton of spacers out of 3/4" tubing. Made a stop on my chop saw, and just started banging them out. Wasn't counting, and got carried away. Needed 40, but cut 56. You can never have too many, I guess.

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Center board perfectly centered, then laid out a few boards, to actually see how they are going to land.

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I knew by doing this, the two outer boards would be narrower, but I think it's going to be too much. I may take an inch or so off the 2 boards second from the outside, so the outer ones can be a little wider.

Another thought I had, is to router a rabbit into the boards, so the aluminum strips are flush with the tops of the boards. That would be some next level stuff for me, so will definitely try it on some test pieces first. Got to pick up a bit though, my widest one is 3/8, and my math says I need a 5/8" bit. Plus, if I do that, then I'll have to take an 1/8" off my spacers.
 
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