Went over to a long time friend with a salvage yard and noticed that his sign in front of the door that reads, "ANYTHING PARKED HERE WILL BE RUN THROUGH THE CRUSHER' still did its job even though he quit crushing a couple years ago do to the EPA (fluids sqeezed onto the ground out of crushed vehicles). Traded one of my S10's for a Caprice chassis which is supposed to be the cats meow for the 55-59 TF trucks. Will let you know how the frame swap goes and how it drives. If nothing else I scored a couple of new looking Flowmasters on the Caprice.
Caprice frame under 52 Chevy truck Evan, I put a 84 Caprice frame under my 52 truck, it has the same wheel base as the truck at 116 inches, the issues that i ran into was that I had to mod the frame with straight 2x4 tubes between the front and rear wheels since it was a B body frame. Then when doing the bed I added tubs over the rear coil mounts because they sit high in the bed, I could have raised the bed flooring to cover, figured it would look better with the tubs. The front wheel width is about an inch wider then the stock truck so you have to put offset rims if you want to lower the front any or the tires will rub the inside of the fenders, I like the way the front fills out the fenders better than the S-10 setup. My wife likes the way it rides, she says it's smoother than a lot of cars on the road. What year Caprice? Interested in how it fits the 55-59 truck.
Frame is from an early 90's Caprice and the word I have is the only mod, not including bed floor, is to the filler panels between running board and bed on a stepside. I have a short wide 59 Fleetside bed so this should be a non-factor. We used a Caprice frame under a 63 that made a great riding and driving truck. I like you tub idea as it would look better than a raised bed floor.
Would like to see a picture of your finished bed if possible. The kickup we did on the 63 is not that attractive so it now has a tonneau cover. Other than this it is a good truck. The fuel filler door is on the rear of the kickup and storage in front and behind. Steel floor topped with fiberglass covered wood makes console fabbing easy and also cuts noise and heat. Interior very dusty in pic.
Here's how the bed turned out, I found some old Chevy tubs at a swap meet, widened them about 3 inchs to fit and reworked the wood to fit around. The fuel filler is in the bed also, can't see it in the picture, just behind the tailgate. The 84 Caprice tank fit in its original place, had to refab the neck to point up to the bed instead of going to the rear.
That is a great way to do the bed, thanks for showing it. The C 10 can still be redone to look like that.
That looks a thousand times better. Did you do away with the steel plate that runs between the spring towers? Would like to see your truck in person. There is a truck pull during the winter in Chatanooga and I could hitch a ride with the gang; are you anywhere near there? They haul a tiny Suzuki Samari in the trailer with the pull tractor so one has wheels for a short trip.
Evan, I'm about a 2 hour drive NorthEast from Chatanooga, you're more than welcome to come up and look at the truck. I left the steel plate between the spring towers, I just trimed it down to fit underneath the bed, I figured since it was a support between the spring towers it needed to stay, you could also run some steel tubing between the towers if you wanted to get rid of the plate. Right now the truck is a diamond in the rough as I tell people, plan to put i back in the shop to finish up a few things and polish it some, have to get the 48 Chevy Stylmaster done first. Let me know if you come this way and I can send you my info in a PM.
