Thread: Brand Spankin' New!

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Originally Posted by rspears

Just to be clear, I'm not totally "Anti Frame Swap", and we've seen some examples where doing a body drop onto a modern frame turned out amazing - johnboy's bus being a prime example, where he had the old school bus body grafted onto a shortened Chevy dually chassis and it turned out great! In this case though, the lead post sets the stage, in my mind -

Now I'm making some assumptions, but it seems to me that maybe you don't have a large shop filled with power tools, big compressor for air tools, welder(s), floor jack, big jack stands, maybe even a lift to help get that body off of the frame, an S10 frame rolled into place beneath, and then positioned to figure out how to marry the two together. Sure, there are other ways to do it, but a frame swap on a fat fendered (HEAVY) old Dodge isn't going to be a walk in the park, and trying to do it in a driveway or small garage would be a killer, in my mind.

I'm not trying to rain on your project approach, but before you jump into a project like this you need to have it fully planned and budgeted. Going into a frame swap build with a budget of $3000 (including "about $1750 for the car & frame....) is simply not realistic, IMO, and it seems more like you're setting yourself up to spend your $3000 and end up stalled, advertising on Craigslist for someone to come haul it away for dimes on dollars.

It's a neat old car, and you can have a lot of fun building it into something better than it is today, but plan your work, then work your plan. Best of luck, whichever way you go.

I have access to my dads body shop. We have a lift and room to work and compressors and tools but we mainly do body work on cars, Never done an engine swap. I took a year long course at a technical school for mechanics but that was over 5 years ago and I never did anything with it. What worries me most about a frame swap is that I've read that dropping a V8 in a s10 frame (1999-00) needs a lot of converting.

Originally Posted by PoorInMiami

What worries me most about a frame swap is that I've read that dropping a V8 in a s10 frame (1999-00) needs a lot of converting.

It'll only cost you 30 bucks to learn how to do it with a Gen 3
V8 TPI & TPI Engine Swap, JTR V8 conversion manual

Or 35 bucks with a Gen I
JTR Chevrolet S-10 Truck V-8 Conversion

.