1986 Crew cab conversion

[Yukon6.2]

I started working on this project in February, i had been collecting parts for a few years.
I bought a stalled conversion project from a friend of mine who worked for me after he retired from his life job as the foreman of Public works of CAFN, Harold Kane. He sadly passed last fall.
He had a 93 Ford with a 7.3 that was a steam engine as he referred to it.It had porous cylinders and after re sleaving it the problems continued.Then he started a Cummins conversion.
I picked up a 94 Superduty frame for the diffs as they were heavier than 1 ton, it is a dually with disc brakes.
Last summer i picked up the truck which was a rust free cab,although nothing fancy and had been used hard for years it was rust free.red crew.jpgfranknframe.jpgnew frame 3.jpgnew frame 1.jpg
At first i was going to just use the diffs on the GM frame, then i decided to stretch the frame to match the wheelbase of the crewcab.

[More Power]

Nice job on the frame stretch!

There are a couple of Cummins conversion threads in this forum. There was a company here in Montana that did GM/Cummins conversions. I think they were in Great Falls - haven't heard from/about them in quite a while though.

[Yukon6.2]

Thanks, it was my first frame stretch so i spent a lot of time agonizing about doing it right.I did box the inside of the frame for about 18 inches extending past the welds on both sides by a good 6 inches.
Then came the ride height of the cab to the frame. I based it on what i wanted to do with the rad support.I used the center of the Ford rad support as the Ford rad is narrower and deeper that the Chev ones. I had an inter cooler that matched the rads profile.So i made a hybrid rad support.intercooler.jpgcrew rad support.jpgcrew intercooler.jpg
Of course when you are imaginering not all issues show up.Once the rad supports were mated up and i started the mounts for the inter cooler i found the hood latch needed room to come down into which was taken by the top of the Inter cooler.
So i cut off the top three rows and it is at a shop getting the tanks welded back up and installing a couple mounting tabs.I am not set up for aluminum welding yet.

[a5150nut]

So its GM frame with Ford axles and Ford body with Cummings power?

Or did I get lost reading. . . .

[Yukon6.2]

94 F Super duty frame 4x4 dually 10 bolt wheels
97 Cummins,5 speed
86 GMC crew cab body
Coming soon i think Dakota Digital gauges, an expense that will solve a few issues. The main one is a working speedo. With their gauge cluster i can add a pyro readout,it will have a tach and work with the GM tank gauges as i have transplanted the complete fuel system to the new frame.
Crew cab mounts 1.jpgcrew cab mounts 2.jpg
This was the set of cab mounts that took the most time to get designed and built as there was just enough room next to the frame rail to get the bolts in the original cab mounts.The bolts have a flange on them that i had to turn down a bit on the lathe so they wouldn't cross thread into the cab mounts.These cab mounts were the middle ones.
Even though the original cab on the frame was a regular cab,the cab height was determined by the hybrid rad support.The cab sits higher then it would on a GM frame.

[Yukon6.2]

Got the drive shafts yesterday.
Ordered them last Tuesday from Pat's Drive lines in Edmonton.
Just under $2000.00 Canadien dollars with the freight.
I could have probably built my own but didn't have any way to really balance them.
It was a bit higher than i imagined, but what isn't higher these days.crew driveshafts.jpg