Thinking about building a 1st gen...

[Bullet]

Ok, nothing is serious or set in stone here...


But, My Dad and I were scratching our heads and thinking of crazy idea of what to do with our Jimmy. I came up with the idea of buying a 1st gen and converting all of the running gear of the '90 and transplanting it into the 1st gen:

-383 with Edelbrock Pro Flow MPFI & Bigger cam and aluminum heads
-Built TH400
-NP 205, klune'd or doubled
-4-6" susp. lift, 1" ORD body lift
-35" to 38" tires
-Dana 60, 5.13 gears, Detriot locked, crossed and redneck ram
-Dana 14B, 5.13 gears, Detriot locked.

Basically try and restore the body and have a good paintjob and a rhino linned interior and a roll cage. What I am trying to say is that we'd have a sharp looking rig that can still wheel the moderate/hard trails and look badass cruising in with the top off in the summer.


Or am I just pissing in the wind?

 

[Greg72]

No reason why it couldn't work if you're willing to swap all the parts into an early frame, and not trying to simply drop a 1st Gen tub onto a late model frame.

It only takes time and money......(and plenty of both!)

 

[Bullet]

Yeah, I figured that both frames aren't the same.


Hey, how's that '69 project of yours doing?

 

[LucasJ03]

That's almost exactly what mine is now.

 

[Bullet]

DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN!

I LOVE IT!

DO you have any more pics, I think I have seen some in the members rides.

 

[Greg72]

Hey, how's that '69 project of yours doing?

Not bad....I don't have the space setup yet for actual construction, so I'm building the tube frame in 1/4-scale in my dining room! I've got a working 4-link rear suspension figured out, but need to finalize a way to mount the coilovers horizontally instead of vertically (see post in the CoG)

It's easy working with wooden dowels (1/2" dowel = 2" DOM) and just gluing things together. I've found a lot of problems that would have been expensive to fix in steel (especially with today's prices!)

I doubt that I'll start doing the real tubeframe work for at least another 6 months, but I am ALWAYS thinking and planning this project in my head and writing down ideas, and saving photos, links and articles that I find in the meantime. That should allow the actualy build to go pretty quickly, since the decision-making will have already been done ahead of time.

 

[LucasJ03]

DO you have any more pics, I think I have seen some in the members rides.

Most of my pics are in my gallery. If you want pics of certain things I can take them and email them to you, or post them in my gallery.

 

[4bynut]

That's almost exactly what mine is now.

LucasJ03 - How much suspension lift and/or body lift do you have to clear the 38's? Looks perfect by the way (very functional). Jason

 

[LucasJ03]

I have a body lowering kit(worn out bushings)lol. No body lift. As for suspension it's hard to say because I have switched out leaves in both my spring packs. If I had to guess I would say about 7-8" but I don't know for sure. In the rear I did the home made shackle flip and the springs started as 4" but I added a couple leaves to raise and make them more stiff, and then I have zero rates on them. In the front I have 4" springs with zero rates and 6 1/2" shackles. But the thing that made them fit the most is if you look close enough I'm missing alot of fender sheet metal.