1985 S10 on 1985 full size Blazer frame

Here in Oklahoma they stopped doing state inspections years ago. The main requirements were the headlights could not be more than 55" from the ground and I had to have bumpers 22" from the ground. It is 55" to the center of the headlights. I added driving lights mounted lower so I could see at night and I made slide in bumpers for the receiver hitches front and rear so I could pull the pins and remove them for serious off roading to have a better approach angle.

This was my 85 blazer and the 85 2wd S10 I bought

First thing was to remove the body from the Blazer. A buddy of mine had a overhead hoist in his building so I got it down to the last few bolts. Trailered it over there and lifted the body off and brought the chassis back home.

I took the body off the S10 in my driveway using my engine hoist and a piece of 3/4" plywood in the cab so I didn't dent the roof

I didn't have anyone to tell me how to do this. I decided from my experiences off road to do a platform welded to the Blazer chassis to set the S10 body on. The goal was to keep the driveline angles stock for strength and a Blazer stock suspension has more droop in the front. I had seen people try to stick hd full size axles under a 4wd S10 with big tires but that required a big lift and weak driveshaft angles. I had already converted the blazer to stick shift with manual clutch linkage but the 85 S10 uses a hydraulic clutch.

So I had a platform fabricated I could set the cab on so I could attach a fender to it and slide it forward to center the wheelwell so I would know how much I was going to have to shorten the S10 longbed.

You can see that since the S10 cab and front end is shorter than a full size blazer I knew the distributor was going to wind up just behind the firewall inside the beginning of the transmission tunnel. I measured and made the platform tall enough that if I ever had to I could get the distributor out without removing the cab.

If I had to do it over again I think I could have built a lower platform and made a dog house in the cab to access the distributor. Not sure if the distributor is actually that far back though. I built this truck 20 years ago and it's still going strong. I have a 99 reg cab short bed complete truck and we have talked about putting a newer body on there and I could lower it then.

Next the bed had to be shortened to match the blazer 108" wheelbase and a platform built to mount it on. I relocated the fuel filler to the back of the bed floor and a new hose to connect it to the blazer gas tank.

of course we built something to bolt the front clip and core support to

The complete body finally mounted. I used 1/8" thick black plastic to fill the gap between the body and the frame.

I used a corvette radiator and dual electric fans which keeps it cool. The truck still starts right up and runs strong. Hard to believe its been finished 20 years. I used a crane cam ground on a 108 lobe center for a lopey idle. Its more of a midrange cam but the 108 lobe center makes it sound bigger than it is.

This is how I connected the steering wheel to the steering gearbox. The slip yoke is bolted to the steering gearbox and the ID of it is actually hexagon shaped. The hexagon shaped male part is welded to the end of the shaft that is bolted to the steering column with a ujoint there. When you turn the steering wheel the shaft moves in and out of the slip yoke maybe 3/8" but you do need the slip yoke because of that.

You have to zoom the 2nd pic to see the end bolted to the steering column. You can also see the tube I used to splice 2 radiator hoses together because of the dista ce from the engine to the radiator

I had to fab a tube to connect 2 radiator hoses for the lower radiator hose as well

The fuel filler mounted in the bed. easy to connect with a hose to the full size oem blazer gas tank and yes that is a 42" spare

There was plenty of space in front to weld in a plate and mount a winch to fill in that area