1990 Suburban body on One Ton Frame?

[darkroad]

Hi Has anyone tried putting a suburban body on a one ton chevy truck frame. I know there will be a wheelbase difference but not a problem. I can lengthen or shorten it to make the wheels fit the openings. Already have done a 72 chevy 2wd truck on a 69 3/4 ton 4x4 suburban frame. I really need the one ton weight capacity but hate to give up my vintage suburban body style. And don't need a truck with bed. If I did I would get a 91 4 door chevy diesel. Are the one ton frames narrower in the back? I know there is a spring perch center to center difference ( at least on the military cucvs) If it's narower it may force me to fab a new fuel tank as the old one may not fit between the openings. My old 90 body ( from upstate NY) is starting to fall apart and I hate to spend another two thousand dollars fighting body rot. My last fix lasted 4 years. Have a pristine 1988 3/4 2wd 454 silverado suburban body 75k miles with no visable rust underneith. Owner only used it in the summer to pull camper and pontoon. Ordered with all optins then he added several coolers, temp operated electric fans everything someone towing could want. Took a whole year to talk him out of it. But got it for about half of what he wanted when I first started trying to get it. Been outside since then and has some light paint peel and surface rust but my PA soda blaster will take care of that. Take body off and build rotating frame jig to really deep clean and seal whole underside. May even get it Rhinolined underneath.
I love my little 6.2 turbo diesel but may find a rolled dodge and do a cummins swap. It takes a whole lot of effort and money to get a 18 to 1 6.5 turbo to make the power I could get from the cummins. A lot of work but would be a really cool swap. Would love to do a dmax swap but not real computer savy getting everything to talk and would have to raise body to clear trans or build a custom trans hump. A lot more bucks too. I figure I could muster about 10k for the project. I already have the body so it would be the rolling frame and power train.


Thanks Darkroad

[ccatlett1984]

the frames are not narrower I will post a link that has the truck frame measurements when i get home. IIRC it aslo has the burb measurements.

[ccatlett1984]

here are the specs for the truck frames
http://www.chuckschevytruckpages.com/framespecs.html

i was wrong about it having the dimensions for the burb.

[darkroad]

Thanks for the info but he doesn't list 1 ton frames. I am going to save it for future reference. I had a set of really low milage ( 5K ) 1985 M1008 axles in the shop a couple of years ago and the spring perches were a different width than on my 1990 3/4 4x4 suburban. I had already cut off the old ones and welded on the new ones when a friend made me an offer for the axles that I couldn't pass up. I can't remember if the difference was because of different frame widths or if one set of springs were mounted directly under the frame and the other set was mounted outside the frame. I'll keep digging Again thanks. Looked at your truck pics, cool truck.



Darkroad

[ccatlett1984]

If you need i could measure my truck.

[Robyn]

The shape of the frame is different between the Burb and the trucks.
It can be done but you are going to have some rework to do on the body mounts.
The rise in the back where the bed mounts is different and also under the cab area.
A club cab frame may be the best choice.
With a torch and a welder almost anything is possible.

Robyn