1986 GMC S-15

[Andrew_S]

^ When I was about 16 I started working on my red truck & reading S10 forum. Since that time I've had this dream of having a street truck & a SAS'd bush truck. It's very cool to see this one coming together after 20 years of "dreaming" haha.

It's been a slow week.
Buddy came over to change out his rear drums,

Pretty cooked...
2 lessons were learned this night;
- Buddy learned how drum brakes work very well
- I learned never to overestimate anyone's knowledge of vehicle mechanics
Short story, I fought so hard to get the drums off the passenger side, nearly 30 mins of messing around. Finally get it off, completely destroy the wheel cylinder, and start looking at the internals. I ask buddy "Is this e-brake on?" - he responds " yeah why?"........

Shocks came in, and so did the front wheel spacers.

I started modifying them to make them work with the mounts.

Shortly after this I picked up a cold and haven't been up to much for a week now.

 

[Buddha.]

^ When I was about 16 I started working on my red truck & reading S10 forum. Since that time I've had this dream of having a street truck & a SAS'd bush truck. It's very cool to see this one coming together after 20 years of "dreaming" haha.

It's been a slow week.
Buddy came over to change out his rear drums,

Pretty cooked...
2 lessons were learned this night;
- Buddy learned how drum brakes work very well
- I learned never to overestimate anyone's knowledge of vehicle mechanics
Short story, I fought so hard to get the drums off the passenger side, nearly 30 mins of messing around. Finally get it off, completely destroy the wheel cylinder, and start looking at the internals. I ask buddy "Is this e-brake on?" - he responds " yeah why?"........

Shocks came in, and so did the front wheel spacers.

I started modifying them to make them work with the mounts.

Shortly after this I picked up a cold and haven't been up to much for a week now.

I was on s10 forum. I had three s10s. A ‘94 zr2, a ‘99 2wd, and a ‘01 4 door blazer.

 

[jbaucom]

My first truck was a ‘91 S10 - 2WD RCSB with the 4.3. This thread brings back memories and makes me wish I still had it.

 

[Andrew_S]

^ & ^^, that's awesome. I feel like almost everyone born before the 2000's has owned an S-series at some point.

Made some good progress yesterday/tonight.

Bench seat out

This bench is so comfy but the material is really starting to breakdown.

Disassembled and brought it over to an upholstery guy in the area. He's redoing the foam & all of the failing material. Figured there is no better time then now while the truck is completely out of the service

This is definitely the first time that seats ever been out of the truck. I found almost an entire box of .22 rounds under it.

Turning my attention back towards the rear end. I'm going to have to get a jack extension or a different jack all together by the time this is done.

Finish welded the shock mounts and time for paint.

Even though this truck is gaining a couple hundred pounds of steel I swear it's going to be lighter by the time I'm done. I've lost track of how many times I've swept the floor now.

I had to convert from a T-bar style shock mount, I could have bought this.

I didn't want to wait (shipping) so I made my own out of some stock I had laying around.

Uppers mounted

Track bar mounted welded out

Comparing the stock shock vs the new units. I gain 1"ish of travel with the 5100's and 3" overall length.

Quick mock up in the front

Picked up some extras to finish up the rear.

Snagged these used off marketplace. I'll need to modify the upper frame portion but they should work really nice. Big upgrade over the stock bumps.

Modified both the front & rears to make them work a bit better.

Rear end is complete minus end links & a flex hose extension.

 

[Todd780]

That's looking awesome! Bet you can't wait to get out there and try it out. Any trips planned?

 

[Andrew_S]

^ Definitely on both fronts. I can't wait to see the camper on the new setup.
Well..... I had promised I would have this done by May long for wifey's birthday, but it's not looking good at the moment...



One downside of pre-buying all of your swap parts a year+ in advance is when you mess up and order the wrong parts... I don't know how or why but I ended up w/ the wrong conversion u-joint.

All is right in the world again.

I went around the world and back again trying to find a flex line extension. Here is the final setup. It adapts from gm hard lines, to ford explorer lines w/ a bit of extra slack at full droop & it's just stock off-the-shelf parts. Total cost $15

I've dubbed this the farmer cross member. I need to widen it out to catch both rails fully, & support the trans. This took some serious imagination. It bolts in with 8 - 1/2" fasteners.

A coat of por15 makes everything look better haha

I reused the stock mount and braced it on the back. This is nice because the more I keep "stock" the easier it will be to find parts on the road.

I had to redo my control arm/truss rework. Note to self, stop trying to make everything such a perfect fit. As soon as I started adjusting my caster, it conflicted with the arm... All good now.

Braced up this cross member after cutting a good chunk of it out of the way for steering & track bar clearance.

Sitting fully on it's own weight. I'm going to order some 3" lift coils for the front. Just a bit too much rake with the stock xj coils I had on hand.

 

[N.Penley]

Now would be a good time to upgrade the stereo since the seat is out and you have plenty of room to work in the cab.
Just trying to help you spend more money. Lol.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Andrew_S]

^ funny enough we never listen to the stereo. Typically we are chatting and trying to figure out where to go next when we are camping.

Made some good headway today
Setting my track bar angle, double checking to make sure bump steer is not an issue.

This IRO drop bracket drops wayyy too much for my setup.

Cut down and reworked, now it's perfect.

Everything burned into place for good,

Stuff's the front tire pretty good still

Making some shock mount brackets

Final product

Full roller now!

Next up is front brakes and sway bar.

 

[YetiX]

You have mad skills Andrew!

 

[Kingsize24]

You have mad skills Andrew!

Agreed! Such an amazing build.

 

[Andrew_S]

You have mad skills Andrew!

Agreed! Such an amazing build.

Thanks guys, it's starting to get close.
Had a buddy over a night ago who needed some welding on his f350 camper tie-downs. Managed to get the bare frame painted when he was here.

Had enough left over to do both sides front to back. It's just brushed on por15, it'll look a lot better with some dirt on it.

I've just been doing mock-up with some junkyard stock xj springs til now. Ordered some metal cloak 4.5" lift dual rate springs for the final set up.

The best thing about jeep parts is that the community has figured out a lot of info on parts interchangeability. A quick google search put me on '94 chev 1500 front brake hoses that worked absolutely perfectly for the amount of droop I need.

Front brake lines are done! That being said all brake lines are done and ready to be bled.

This was such a nice surprise, I can actually see the oil filter for servicing now! Previously I had to yank it out sideways through the wheel well making a mess of everything. Now it's a direct drop-down. With the stock diff and IFS stuff, there was no way to go down at all before.

Going to put the 5th leaf back in the rear to bring it up a hair more, but this is it.

Can't wait to get the camper on it.

 

[Kingsize24]

That looks ridiculously good. Can't wait to see it out in the muck again.

 

[ITTOG]

It looks great. How was the ride in the first test drive?

 

[Andrew_S]

That looks ridiculously good. Can't wait to see it out in the muck again.

Thanks! You & I both. Now I'm looking at it saying "huh, I could easily stuff 35's...."

It looks great. How was the ride in the first test drive?

Thanks, no test drive just yet. Need to bleed the brakes and do a rough alignment first. Maybe later today.

 

[Kingsize24]

Thanks! You & I both. Now I'm looking at it saying "huh, I could easily stuff 35's...."



Thanks, no test drive just yet. Need to bleed the brakes and do a rough alignment first. Maybe later today.

You could. But I think what you have may be a perfect middle ground. 35s would look amazing however. Not that it doesn't already.

I think once the suspension settles in everything will be perfect.