I have written to GM on several occasions asking for a front wheel drive pickup truck. A rear wheel drive gets next to zero traction in the snow because most of the weight is on the front axle. I have heard it said that a front wheel drive truck won’t work because the weight in the bed takes weight off the front axle. First— most of the time I don’t have any load in the bed so with the engine/ transmit ion over the front drive wheels you gain a lot of traction. Second when you load the bed, there is about 4 feet of bed in front of the rear axle. Weight in that area will be distributed about 50/50 front axle and rear axle. Then yes you get a little weight taken off the front when you load the back 4 feet of bed. Get me going on this and I will have to send Mrs. Bura a personal letter. ( kidding, I tried that but she doesn’t receive mail at her house ) TomC
Thats right MR TOM C, the gasifier weight would help in front of the rear axel,Then the weight behind the rear axel would be less harmfull to front steer drive axel traction.still do they get that much better milege,maybe depending on the model and condition i suppose.Maybe something like front wheel drive would be easyer to get parts for as time rolls on.
To me it is all about the traction. A truck with no load is pitiful in the snow. Most everyone pays $800 more for a truck for the 4 wd. They use the 4wd for a day or so each time it snow — until the road graders get through. That is a big expense for the little use you get out of it. TomC
I’m sure that some of you remember the Subaru BRAT. They were nice and light and stayed on top of the mud pretty well. There is an Aussie company selling plans and complete vehicles based on the early subaru. I bought the plans. I also bought a lot of Subaru parts and a bunch of box tubing. They have one version with a small truck bed in the back. The buggy is normally front wheel drive and engages the rear axle for 4 wd. It has front independent suspension which is super important for traction. The “Hummbug” by Rhino looks like this;
If you buy the correct year for a donor, it also comes with LOW transfer case. Good mileage and 4 whl independent suspension. Low case is important because you need some tire height for ground clearance. Something like this;
Looks like room for a back porch for little gasifier?That one really looks adgile,must have used some lighter tubing.
It has a back porch all right. I built it with 1 1/2 Sq box, about .090 wall. The roll cage is thicker. I built it longer than the plans called for.
Im starring this project back up. A little late I was hoping to get to this sooner, but was just unable to be in a position to get this going. So anyways, I picked up an 83’ Toyota solid front axle a few weeks ago. The guy I got this from gave me some good advise with swapping some of my existing IFS parts over this axle as well. He was pretty knowledgeable about this sort of thing. I just finished the tear down of my rotted out Toyota, cut it all a part and salvaged the drive train, steering box and linkages and few other minor things. Just chop, cut, snip, and yank really hard 
haha. We are going to chop the frame down a bit to fit on our trailer and haul it away tomorrow.
So I should be able to begin the next phase of this project next weekend. This will entail reconditioning both the front and rear axle’s. Ill need to acquire new shackles, shocks, brakes, bushings, a set of leafs for the front axle ( early 90’s Jeep CJ) and steering components. Then we will bring in the S10 and begin swapping all this stuff over and get this part complete with all new lines installed, steering linkages etc.
The next phase after this is adapting the LS engine to the Toyota transmission and then the RnR of this.
After this a quick paint job and then we will begin a gasifier project for it
So much more to come hopefully I can stay on this steady, Im very motivated to get this project complete.
Matt, I was wondering when you were going to get back on this project. Looking forward in following it along to completion.
Bob