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Sold the 80 K5, buying a 93 S10 Blazer... Need opinions.

PhoenixZorn

PhoenixZorn

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I'm getting a repo'ed S10 Blazer for about $450.00 It has 166k miles, but everything works and it has the 4.3L Vortec V6 motor. Not a power house, but I could always swap my 355 into it if I get ambitious. My question lies in what the largest tire size I can put under it with a stock lift. I'd look at my "What Hits, What Fits" chart, but it burned in my 86 K5. It currently has 235x75xR15 A/T tires, 5 lug rims, and electronic transfer case. Can I take the axles off my K5 (or a jeep for the correct width axles) and drop them under the S10, or do I need to somehow keep the solenoid working for the 4wd to kick in?

While I'm doing an SAS, I might as well convert the front end to leaf springs since I have a full set available, can I just do a shackle flip in the rear and use the rear springs from the 86, or are 52" springs way too long for an S10?

I'm not trying to build the ultimate trail S10, but I'd like something more capable than what it is now. For under $500, I can't go wrong with this, so I want to know what you guys would do with it. In past posts about this, I've been aligned with all the responses that say just buy an SFA truck... but since I have everything I need already, it shouldn't cost too much on the parts end of things.

Does all that electronic stuff under the front end prevent an "easy" transfer of axles, or can it all be disconnected with the proper parts and tools? What transfer case do 93 S10s have, and would I be able to put a bigger (NP208 or NP205) under it?
 
I've seen quite a few S-dimes around here running YJ and XJ cast off diff's. D30, and D35. Width is near enough to correct, pumpkin is on the 'correct' side too. The YJ D30 front is already leaf sprung, the XJ is coil sprung...so keep that in mind depending on which way you want to go.

I've seen those diff's break with 32's, but they'd been getting beat on pretty hard. With a 4.3 and auto and 32's you could make a reasonably capable wheeler.

I used to have an 89 S-dime, and I ran 31x10.5's on it after cranking the torsion bars approx 1 1/4" and running longer shackles in the rear. Just going spring over in the rear should gain you 3-5".

Rene
 
I'm pretty sure the 4.3 v6 has the same bolt pattern as the 350, so it would be an easy swap, excluding the electronics.
And I THINK you could bolt up a 1/2 ton x-case with matching splines or whatever for the tranny. Is it the th-700r4 or a different auto?
 
also, the axles from your blazer won't bolt to the s- the k5 axles are much wider, and the s- they are much narrower if memory serves me correct...
 
Yup steve, the axles of a K truck are about 6" wider than a S truck if my memory serves... so a relocation of the springs would be required, as would fender extensions, which I have no problem with. My biggest issue is with using the K5 rear springs in the back of the S-10, and the rear S-10 springs up front with the 10 bolt, and making the 32" tires fit. I know that moving a stock K5 rear spring to the front nets about 4" of lift, so I'd assume the same holds true for moving the rear springs of an s-10 to the front (I understand I'll have to fabricate or find spring perches for a front axle swap.) I'm probably not going to wheel this truck super hard, I just want something to have fun in.

What's the deal with all the 4x4 rags not having any info/product on S-dimes, but you can lift a fricken Jeep Liberty up to 8 inches with a bolt on kit...... Unreal...

So keep the suggestions flowing, and I don't want to hear any crap about buying a K5 to wheel... because while I love the hell out of them, I'm not buying another one until I can afford to throw a few extra greenbacks into it. I want to do an easy lift that won't cost me $1700+ because of the IFS, which is why I'd be looking to use the K5 axles. On the other hand, there are currently 5 cherokees in the lockup at work, all of which were in collisions, and I could likely rob them of their Solid axles for my project...

Rusty, a 93 S-dime has spring under?? I didn't look, but I thought jeep was the only company that made that idiot mistake... =) Before anyone quotes my comment on a spring under conversion for a k5... I was kidding.
 
well im doing a SAS on my 92 s10 pickup.

id recomend finding a dana 30 and 35 from a heep and using those, ihave a full width d60 front and 14bff rear in mine, and the tires stick out a good 3-4 inches with 245-75r 16's on stock chevy 8 lug wheels.

as for the motor and trans/t-case, id leave them.

i got a tbi 4.3 with an edlebrock intake and crane powermax cam, tb spacer and hedders, and shes got plenty of power.
also the electric stuff shouldnt cause any problems with the 4wd unless you mess around with the tcase.

and as far as cheap goes

doing a sas on an s10 isnt cheap. i thought the same way you did " oh i have all the stuff already so it shouldnt cost much", i was wrong. im not done with mine yet and ive already spent about 2 grand on stuff that i needed
 
the s10 rear springs are very close to 52". as for a lift, i only found 1 for sale for the price of $1500 for 4-5" and that was on ebay. ive seen plenty of lifted s10s but i don;t know where they are getting the lift.

my cousin has a 88 s10 that he wants to lift. but doens't have the money for the IFS lift or a SAS. what we are going to do is go to my buddys junk yard and borrow the front half of a s10 and design and build a 5" IFS lift for it to match the rear doing a spring over, then take it off that and put it on his blazer. shouldn't cost more than a few hundred.

i know my cousin had 32s on his and rubbed on the street, i think the 31s he has now rub a little when stuffed.
 
Seems to me that you want everything off your K5 but the body. So do what I'm doing... do a chassis swap. I've got a 54 Chevy Pickup going onto a 77 K5 chassis. In all seriousness... I think it'd be easier to do that body swap than to basically piece by piece change out the chassis. Just a thought
 
One of the problems w/ the S-10 is the extremely small wheel openings. You are going to need to do some serious trimming.. However, the small openings wok great with the minisucule amount of travel that the s-10s IFS provides.

If you just want to get out on the trails this is what I would do: Crank the torsion bars up, spring over in the rear, 3" body lift and w/ some generous triming slap on some narrow 33s (something like a 33x10.50). I'd also recomend a radial tire on an aluminum wheel to keep the breakage down. You will most likely want to add a lunch-box locker in the rear to compensate for the lack of travel up front. Throw a spare shaft in back, along w/ a good yank strap and call it done.

If you are dead set on doing an SAS, the D30s in YJs, & IIRC XJs, are high-pinion while ZJs are low-pinion. YJs are the only one of the 3 that used leafsprings. Whatever front you use, get a Ford 8.8" rear. The ones in Explorers are similar in width to the Jeep rears and share the 5 on 4.5" pattern.
 
84gmcjimmy said:
I'm pretty sure the 4.3 v6 has the same bolt pattern as the 350
Click to expand...

Correct! Both are 90 degree bolt patterns. When the R4 in my previous S-10 went out (4.3L TBI), I get a boneyard tranny to go in. It was from a full size rig, I had to trim some of a tab off for it to fit but all else bolted right up exactly like the factory R4.

HTH!
Andrew
 
Need more ideas, pictures, walkthrough, parts list... please. I'd like to be able to use my 6 lug wagon wheels with 32" BFG A/Ts on this swap, front and rear... Where can i get a 5 to 6 lug conversion plate for all four wheels?
 
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