Dweano's 1996 AND 2001 Front End Swaps

[Dweano]

nice. 'scribed.

Thanks man! Progress will be slow tho...I am not a dedicated worker. More a master of procrastination and no shop. Haha

yea man, no worries. I know they are welded on there pretty damn good, which is why i sent him an email asking him if he could help out. As soon as i hear something, I will let you know.

BTW, you will have to swap the hoods too.

Thanks man, because yeah the core support is holding me up right now and of course I will swap the hood! Sexy powderdome...I am just leaving them on for now until the last moment so I can close them overnight so the engines and everything don't get rained on

looking good D. Nice to see you getting elbows deep in there!

Haha yeah man, its kinda intimidating to see two trucks taken apart like that. I should be able to finish this up tho. After this I just gotta get my 4x4 back

 

[Dweano]

Any news? I am waiting on the best way to go about swapping core supports

 

[Josh40601]

nothing man. I have emailed that kid twice, and heard nothing. Shoot Bobby a PM. He is a tech advisor, so he might be able to help. Also try Whalstrom1. He is pretty savvy when it comes to these trucks.

 

[Dweano]

Done and done! I could go about starting but I do not want to hack it up so bad that I can't use it after if there is a better way of going about it. I kind of just want to cut the inner fender off an inch back and then reweld the inner fenders together. I would loose like..1/10 of a inch due to however I cut it. But that wouldn't be major. I dunno

 

[Josh40601]

or you could just do what i did.... To both trucks.

 

[bobbywalter]

i would be tempted to just swap the front cores in this case and make the bumper mounts

but splitting the difference at the cab rails is where i usually do this. i use to pull them all but just split the line at the cab horns now.

things i noticed from the various gens is the plastics all have slightly different mounting setups.


least amount of drilling will be to split it at the cab horns and carefully cut the inner fendr rail

when i first started doing that i took the whole assembly to the a piller but after installing some tilts and the time it takes to have all the bolts in place i find it much more effective to split them right at the cab horn. i have to mention this weakens the assembly to some degree in a crash situation, how much i wouldnt know or care to personally, but i hit lots of deer and mine has not even been bolted on through the sides in 3 years, just pins on and lifts off when the occasion for maintenance to the engine arises...like tomorrows hydroboost/steering revamp. real nice working on crap with room like this with a big v8 in the bay.

this will only leave you in need of making the front mounts work and the custom bumper brackets....and i am sure a few other minor irritations to deal with.


obviously i am not a looks guy so body work is not really something i should even give advice on


but thats what i got for ya..



on edit here.

the engine in the truck in this picture...IS NOT A BIG V8 obviously

 

[bobbywalter]

where the hole is in the pressed box out i would cut off wheel it diagonally just in front of where it starts to rise. this should leave ya like 8 welds per side to pop...and two on the top of the cab horn.


this way you know all the inner plastics etc will stay put.

 

[Dweano]

Hey Bobby, thanks for the input...but to be honest. I don't know what you are saying. I am a newb who is over his head haha. What are the cab rails and everything?

Josh-I would like to but I am selling the black truck after and I don't want the buyer to be scared off by it looking kinda hacked up. I think today I have some time I will go out and start drilling welds until the cores come off

 

[Dweano]

Hmm...Josh it appears I was being an ignorant newb. I read your magazine article awhile ago before I started taking things apart and seeing how they worked. It looks like the only things I would need to "modify" are the fenders? Then drill new holes so the header panels bolt on? Then the grill and lights just go into the header panel so that wouldn't be a problem. The hood latch would be an issue tho. Hmm...maybe I will leave the dang core support in...hmm...

 

[bobbywalter]

where the fender line meets the cab. look at the passenger side of my truck at that point in the pic above....the part protruding from the firewall is the area to make a cut and drill the welds.

its cake.

 

[Dweano]

Well decided to leave the core supports. Thank goodness I did! Its not even hard. I am such a noob...bolted the fenders on the 2001. First two holes lined up so I just did those and the one by the door and the one on the bottom fender, also the brackets worked just fine in the front so also bolted those on. Fenders looking good, also swapped the hoods today (maybe yesterday..I dunno...hoods got swapped at some point

Some pics:

Sexy Hood:

Fenders and Hood Swapped Over:

Fender...works and stuff:

Also spent yesterday putting this bad boy in...one piece!:

Also spent most of today getting this thing running...haha:

The header panel is being the real issue...96 and 2001 is different that is for sure. I did some grinding and cutting tonight so it will have the clearance. Tomorrow I will make the brackets work hopefully.

Does anyone have wiring diagrams for 1996 and 2001 Headlights? The connections are way different and I will need to swap those

 

[-Nathan-]

that driveshaft looks familiar you need to take it back out though, you didnt trim enough of your gas tank skid plate, youre going to scrape the crap out of it, or ruin it. You REALLY have to trim it back far.

 

[Dweano]

that driveshaft looks familiar you need to take it back out though, you didnt trim enough of your gas tank skid plate, youre going to scrape the crap out of it, or ruin it. You REALLY have to trim it back far.

Haha it should look familiar! Just with a new coat of paint haha. And I am just going to drop the gas tank skid plate off the truck then trim it and put it back on. I didn't do it yet because I won't be driving it until I have a complete front end on it

 

[Dweano]

Did a bunch of work on the 2001 today!

Had to modify the core support a bit to clear the 1996 header panel, I cut out the middle bit and also trimmed around the top so it would snug up, and I trimmed and flipped the brackets:

Ended up looking like this:

Managed to get the header panel bolted on semi tight and ended up with a truck that looked like this:

Lines are looking not bad:

I am still going to jiggle to hood around to try and get it looking a bit better, and the doors have to be moved back ever so slightly. The bumper will go on next and hopefully that will not be too hard. Then I have to figure out the wiring and get the lights working some how??? Also I will have to do some custom work on the hood latch mechanism

 

[Bennybooster]

you can also move the fender foward to get it lined up