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[buddy350]

I have done a lot of reading on this topic and would say about 90% of the advice others put out on the topic is complete nonsense.

Really makes me think that a lot of the people who want to chime in with knowledge of how to convert a 2wd to 4wd square body have probably never even actually touched a hand tool and could not identify a pair of pliers in a tool box.


Any how
The 1986 crew cab 2wd Chevy frame is completely different than a standard cab 4wd frame.

Not even close to being the same frames.

I have just been welding in holes and making new holes. Even the bends in the frame are completely different.

Has been a decent challenge.
So Far I have about 3 days of actual fab work and labor into this build.

Nothing has been hard just time consuming.

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[ajd89]

Cool! Looks good! I had thought about doing this but ended up finding a 4x4 crew frame to put my 2 wheeler on!

 

[Honky Kong jr]

 

[bucket]

So I gotta ask, who said the frame stampings were the same?

There's basically 3 ways to do it. The convert way like you are doing and the frame swap method are most common it seems. But there's been at least a few folks that do a front frame splice.

 

[mavtricks71]

I commend the hard work, but boy I would of just boughten a 4x4 frame. My ex brother in law put a Cummins in a crew 4x4

 

[MrMarty51]

Nice build You have going there.
I`d like to find a nice CC body to convert My stuff over to.

 

[Wilburn Martin]

Watching this! I've got an 87 I'm going to do the same thing with. Only I couldn't find that good of a deal.

 

[buddy350]

Pulling the plug on the build.
Too many things are out of whack and the geometry is just not there.

The build had gotten to where I was trying to make certain things work that were just not supposed to be.
The frame is a factory 2wd long bed crew cab frame. I was hoping to use the long bed frame because it was about 3 inches taller than a 4wd standard cab frame. Just looked a lot stronger being 3 inches taller.

I came real close at the beginning to just doing a frame split on the standard cab truck.
Looking back on it that would have been a whole lot easier.

So tomorrow I'll start pulling parts back off, Clean and organize the shop then bring in the another 4wd donor truck and get it ready for a frame split.

Close to 70 hours of hard work down the tubes but thats the way it goes sometimes.

I really want this to be Right and the way I was going it was not correct.

 

[Wilburn Martin]

I'm wondering how difficult it would be to put my CC on the 78 4wd longbed I'm going to get for my drivetrain

 

[Honky Kong jr]

I'm wondering how difficult it would be to put my CC on the 78 4wd longbed I'm going to get for my drivetrain

If you already have a CC frame just swap the nessesary cross members into the long bed frame. The bed would be really short.

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[ajd89]

If you already have a CC frame just swap the nessesary cross members into the long bed frame. The bed would be really short.

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I wonder how he did that because the frame is lower under the cab then the box so on a crew the section of frame is twice as long. I would have thought the box would be even shorter on a regular cab long box frame

 

[ajd89]

Looks pretty good although I like having a decent sized bed

 

[Honky Kong jr]

I wonder how he did that because the frame is lower under the cab then the box so on a crew the section of frame is twice as long. I would have thought the box would be even shorter on a regular cab long box frame

Could be on a Burb frame.

 

[ajd89]

Could be on a Burb frame.

Was just gonna say that probably the easy way to do it. I think we've been over this before. Maybe the bed just looks longer then it is in the pic.

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[ajd89]

Pulling the plug on the build.
Too many things are out of whack and the geometry is just not there.

The build had gotten to where I was trying to make certain things work that were just not supposed to be.
The frame is a factory 2wd long bed crew cab frame. I was hoping to use the long bed frame because it was about 3 inches taller than a 4wd standard cab frame. Just looked a lot stronger being 3 inches taller.

I came real close at the beginning to just doing a frame split on the standard cab truck.
Looking back on it that would have been a whole lot easier.

So tomorrow I'll start pulling parts back off, Clean and organize the shop then bring in the another 4wd donor truck and get it ready for a frame split.

Close to 70 hours of hard work down the tubes but thats the way it goes sometimes.

I really want this to be Right and the way I was going it was not correct.

There's a couple guys on the 67 to 72 chevy forum that did the Conversion on there 2 wheel crew cabs nastybuzzard is the one that comes to mind. He had a lot of pics and info no pics now since they where on photobucket. He was gonna make a kit with everything you would need. He has an account on here too but don't see him much.