This smokin’ 1950 Chevrolet Sedan Delivery will soon find its way on top of a 1993 Caprice Classic, a Craigslist purchase that will provide modern everything for this chassis / body swap build.
The goal is to fully swap the b-body chassis, floor, wiring harness, lighting, seats, and any other creature comforts for this build that will remain patina.
The late-model donor will be swapped in a way that makes it feel like the has always been this way, and not restored…
Our 1950 Chevrolet Sedan Delivery jewel of a project car is loaded up and ready to head back to the shop where it will get torn down with a quickness and the body pulled from the chassis. (The original chassis is going to a friend that is restoring a ’50 Chevrolet but has a messed up chassis due to a botched air-bag attempt.)
Chassis Swap a 1950 Chevrolet Sedan Delivery on to a 4th Gen B-Body 1993 Caprice Classic
Now in the shop, we can take a look at what we have…
The project car came without an engine or transmission, which is just fine in terms of this project.
We found it strange that this bumper guard was installed so that the rear door would not open. Hmm… We’ll move this to the front bumper anyway.
The original body tag from the ’50 Sedan Delivery.
CHEVROLET DIVISION
GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION
CORRESPONDENCE PERTAINING TO THE BODY MUST BEAR THESE NUMBERS
STYLE No. 50-1271
BODY No. CL 12123
TRIM No. 163
PAINT No. 429
TOP ACC
BODY BY FISHER
Wasting no time, the body mount bolts were cut and the sedan delivery body was off of the chassis in a 1/2 hour, and rolled it out of the way.
Wishing we had a lift, but what could go wrong here?
In preparation for being planted on the b-body chassis, the floor of the sedan delivery, instead of being repaired, will be replaced with the floor from the donor Caprice Classic.
And our victim: a 1993 Chevrolet Caprice Classic purchased via Craigslist for $600. We drove it back to the shop and verified that all systems function. The entire harness will be used to include power seats, courtesy lights, door jamb switches, stereo wiring, etc.
The tear-down of these cars takes our crew about 2 hours, with a focus on preserving the harness in its entirety.
The entire harness as it came out of the car. This will be fished into and through the Sedan delivery and nearly all functionality and features will be retained.
Even though the look we’re after for this build is as if Chevrolet put these new features in back in 1950, we figure a decent pressure wash will be time well used.
As initially dropped, close but needs minor adjustments to line up then we’ll weld on body mounts.
Some relief cuts were made in the rear wheel wells to allow the b-body chassis to fit.
This is as the body will sit. Body mounts are located to use the original Sedan Delivery holes with corresponding mounts with threaded bungs located accordingly with a single hockey puck at each of the six body mount locations.
The donor car radiator support and shroud will not be used, and the front frame horns need to be trimmed down…
Back to the donor car to harvest the floor. This will not only give us fresh steel on the floor of this ride but also provides seat mounts (including the back seat) as we’ll be using the donor car’s power seats.
The rough cut floor out of the donor car.
Some initial trimming…
And then cut in half so we can get it into the car. Had we a lift, we would have kept the floor whole, but the body was not coming off the chassis again if we could help it.
The passenger side floor getting fitted into place.
Both sides in place and tacked together, but a solid floor for this body / chassis conversion.
A little bit of tweaking was needed to get things welded back together, but in the end, fully welded and the seats bolted right in…
