suburban body swap or?

[SICNICK]

Hey guys, Long time no talk but now im back at school and ready for another year of wheeling....

Anyway I wanted to get as many opinions as I could on my latest project. I pick up a cherry 1990 Suburban over the summer in So. California. It's perfect in every way, EXCEPT it gets barely 12 mpg in town and 13-14 on the highway.

As long as I've had it, I've wanted to swap in a turboe'd 6.2 diesel. I just picked up an 1983 Chevy Suburban that also has a 700r4 and the a bad 6.2, BUT it has a banks turbo already installed.

So do you guys think it would be easier to swap the bodies of the two subs since my body is in much better shape?

Or would it be easier to take all the diesel engine components out of the older truck to put into the newer one?

Key advantages of each:

If I could easily swap bopdies, I could drive the beat up, old body on my current chassis/drivetrain, while building the other setup....

OR

If the body swap is too much, I could just transfer the diesel tranny, radiator, shroud, fuel filter, hydroboost system etc. Into the 1990, though this way I'd be without a truck longer...

What do yall think?

 

[abig85]

a few other things you may have to swap if you swap the bodies, is the wiring harness, inside the engine comparment and inside the cab, i tried using a gas wiring harness under the hood with a diesal in the cab and nothing worked. also brakes systems too if they are different. i think swaping the engines would be way easier. you got somethin to lift a suburban body up with? let alone have two of them laying around? and well if your in cali you might not have to worry about it but out here everytime i ever mess with the bodys on trucks the bolts that hold them to the frame tend to snap off in the body

 

[chev4x4455]

body swap

I swaped bodies on two 1990 burbs. I had a tough 4x4 with rough as hell body, but mechanicaly perfect. I found a 2wd with a perfect body and a blown engine. I am a professional auto tech, so I just used two lifts at once, and rolled the frames out from under them. It was an easy swap. The only difference in the bodies is the transmission hump is much taller on the 4x4 body. I just cut the hump from the 4x4 body a little larger than the one from the 2wd body, used some calking and screwed the thing down. Of course they both had the same engines, so no wire harness swaping was needed. I did the whole swap in one weekend, had lots of parts to sell, and a body to sell to the crusher. I even made money on the deal and had a nice rig in the end. If you dont have a safe way to lift the bodies from the frames, i wouldnt recomend it. I have heard of guys using camper jacks to lift bodies, but it sounds scary. Wayne 801-661-3306