Here is what the crossmember looks like. It hangs down below the frame on the passenger's side of the truck.	And on the driver's side there is a small plate that hangs down as well as the bolts holding it on.	Upon looking at the crossmember under the truck, I realized that most of the crossmember was barely above the frame, which is perfect. So after pulling it out, I simply used a straight edge and marked a line along the part of the crossmember that hangs below the frame. I then used a plasma cutter (a cut off wheel will work just as well) and cut on the line.
After removing the excess crossmember I took a grinder and took down the edge just a little bit so that the new piece that would be replacing it would sit level with stock crossmember.	You can see the new plate in here. I used a piece of 1/8" steel for this. Some choose to use 3/16" or even 1/4", but that is way overkill. If you want to easily make this plate, simply take the piece that you cut off the crossmember, place it on your steel plate, trace it, then cut. Then you can grind it as necessary to make it fit perfect.	Here is a side shot showing the plate 'flowing' with the stock crossmember.
I figure that you probably know how to weld, so I don't need to go into detail here. But here is a shot of the crossmember and plate welded up and painted. You may notice that I did not fully weld this in place. If you look at the stock welds, they are spaced every 6" or so, so I simply emulated what was already there to make it look as stock as possible.	Here is a 'frontal' shot of the newly painted crossmember.	Now, getting back to that small triangle plate. I didn't want that there anymore, but the problem is that if you simply remove it, the bolts still hang down below the frame. You can take a drill and do this, but I used a plasma cutter since it was quicker. I cut out some square holes, large enough for the bolt head to fit in.
Here is a shot from in front of the crossmember showing that it is now nicely above the frame on the passenger side. That triangular plate is also non-existant on the far right of the picture.	Here you can see the exhaust still fits right in place with no modifications.	On the driver's side, I've reversed the bolts from stock. The bolts now point up, so the threads are above the frame. I also used some nyloc nuts to keep this thing from coming loose anytime soon.
Here is a shot from below showing the recessed bolts. There is just enough room to get a socket in there to tighten or loosen the bolts.	And a shot from the side showing that they are in fact above the frame rails. This will prevent screwed up bolt heads that aren't possible to get off.

I gotta do this soon.   Great write up.

98SS on September 7th, 2006 - 9:44 PM

would this be the same on a 4cyl. 5 speed?? great write up btw!!!

dart_06 on June 30th, 2007 - 8:36 PM

I believe its the same on all S10s, regardless of engine or tranny. But I can't guarantee that statement.

98SS on July 1st, 2007 - 1:36 PM

i think the best way if to take your crossmember and flip it from the bottom of the frame to over the frame rail...its not to hard just a little fab work...i have done this on quite a few dimes for customers...

mjones3586 on July 30th, 2007 - 9:16 PM

I thought about that recently because I had seen someone with a crossmember that went over the exhaust instead of under, but I thought it was just because it was an '89 S10.
(broken link removed)

But this second one is a '95.

98SS on July 31st, 2007 - 9:09 AM

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