73 k5 blazer restoration-Transmission is in, Time for wiring

[gotblazers]

Start with a little history

A Farmer bought it new back in 73 and gave it to his son which blew up the motor at 70k miles . The Farmer put it in a barn and it got buried under hay for 20 somethin years just sitting. The farmer finally passed and the son was cleaning out the barn and found it and sold it to my uncle who put a new motor in it rebuilt by some of my grandpas friends who built it wrong and it blew up after 10k miles lighting the engine well on fire and destroying most of the wiring inside. He then sold it to us a few years ago and we've been makin slow progress on it but now that ive taken more of an interest in trucks its getting a 3rd revival and im hoping the 3rd times the charm .

Time for pix!

They like to hang out together alot

check out that rust creeping out from under the convertible top a few feet in front of the taillight

factory options sticker, pretty cool to see it intact imo

some stuff to fill up all that space under the hood

 

[str8axle55]

Looks nice and solid origional. Still has the option sticker on the fenderwell. Are you going stock with the drivetrain?

 

[gotblazers]

Looks nice and solid origional. Still has the option sticker on the fenderwell. Are you going stock with the drivetrain?

thanks,i'll get a close up on that later it has stock posi in the rear too bad its not a wheeler rig. Im staying all stock just beefing up the 350 engine and the 350 tranny and transfer case were already rebuilt so i just gotta finish up the motor and drop everything in and start er up hopefully

 

[gotblazers]

first stupid question of the day

which cross member goes to what? i know its silly but my dad and my uncle pulled em out years ago and he cant remember and this is my first major job putting a tranny/transfercase/engine in. I didnt see obvious indicators of which would go to what as they are almost identical except for the metal plate coming out of one of em.

Unfortunately i cant use my 76 as a model for this because when it was lifted they did a cross member swap and now i have one crossmember on my transfer case and my transmission is being held up by my engine and transfer case.

 

[tRustyK5]

Drill out the rivets on the sheet metal tab, mount everything up and if you see an obvious reason for that tab in any of the four possible locations...bolt it back up and call it good. It looks like a heat shield of some sort to me.

Rene

 

[gotblazers]

Drill out the rivets on the sheet metal tab, mount everything up and if you see an obvious reason for that tab in any of the four possible locations...bolt it back up and call it good. It looks like a heat shield of some sort to me.

Rene

Now that you say that a heatshield makes alot of sense and will help me to make some progress tomorrow. Thanks a bunch man that silly problem was drivin me wild .

Progress today
.got the cross member mounts but i only got 2/4

.learned how to and adjusted the e brake cable on my 73 and 76 blazer the 73's cable was stretched to hell from having the cable overstretched with the pedal sitting on the floor for years i barely had enough threading to adjust it snug.

.got the double roller timing chain on the motor installed properly

.got all the spiderwebs and wasps nest out of the 73 , its been too long

.took off old crappy header on passenger side

.with some steel wool cleaned the rust off my supposedly chrome plated edelbrock valve covers. (made in taiwan ).

.most importantly i gained a much better understanding of my 2 blazers and how everything is put together which is pretty important for me as im only 18 right now with less than 2 years of really being into working on trucks and i got aloooooooooooot to learn.

------------

hopefully tomorrow i can actually get the tranny and transfer case bolted up i was hoping to get that done today but its my first real project so im not gonna sweat if things dont always go as fast as i'd like

 

[79rustyk10]

You'll learn, we all gotta start somewhere. I look back at what I knew when I was 16 and what I can do now at 24, and it amazes me. Granted my right foot inflicted alot of damage that I coudnt afford to pay to fix, so I had to figure it out.

 

[gotblazers]

You'll learn, we all gotta start somewhere. I look back at what I knew when I was 16 and what I can do now at 24, and it amazes me. Granted my right foot inflicted alot of damage that I coudnt afford to pay to fix, so I had to figure it out.

thanks for stoppin in man, im learnin a little more all the time but this 73 project is really teaching me all kinds of stuff especially on how motors work ill be honest it was a bit of a mystery before but i have a pretty good basic understanding of em now and im surely only going to learn more as i take this ol 73 back to her original condition (with some modern performance of course ). Which is great because as soon as shes up shes gettin to be my DD so i can break in that 400HP 350 and the 76 begins its path towards gettin competition ready.

p.s as of yet my right foot has not inflicted any damage.... on my 73

 

[tRustyK5]

y'all are light years ahead of where I was at at 18 or so. I didn't know anyone that knew anything about cars, the interweb wasn't around, the library was pretty damn sparse...

I learned me a bunch by bugging the owner of the engine shop next to my Dad's business. I spent an assload of time there, probably driving them insane with all my dumb questions...

Rene

 

[gotblazers]

y'all are light years ahead of where I was at at 18 or so. I didn't know anyone that knew anything about cars, the interweb wasn't around, the library was pretty damn sparse...

I learned me a bunch by bugging the owner of the engine shop next to my Dad's business. I spent an assload of time there, probably driving them insane with all my dumb questions...

Rene

Well it all worked out in the end because here i am now at 18 drivin YOU insane with my dumb questions

p.s i dont plan on stoppin anytime soon

 

[gotblazers]

stupid question of day #2 of this restoration

theres one of those brackets on each side approximately where my crossmember should go and of course my dad conveniently ''forgot'' just about everything about this truck from when he pulled the motor/tranny/transfercase/front clip 3 years ago so im trying to puzzle the pieces back together

 

[tRustyK5]

Yup, the X-members you have should bolt to those pieces, and the frame rail. Safe to assume the X-member without the sheetmetal tab is the one that bolts to the drop pieces already on the truck.

Rene

 

[sweetk30]

that would be correct.

 

[gotblazers]

Yup, the X-members you have should bolt to those pieces, and the frame rail. Safe to assume the X-member without the sheetmetal tab is the one that bolts to the drop pieces already on the truck.

Rene

ah i see. I dont know what i would do without you guys ,probably curse alot more and get alot less done

that would be correct.

thanks a ton as well those pictures really clarified everything especially having the mounts on.

 

[rufusbooth]

Agreed, looking at the old witness marks it looks like the cross-member with the heat shield was the front cross-member and the one the transmission/transfer case adapter mounts to. the other cross-member is the rear one and holds up the back half of your skid plate. There are no trans/t-case mounts on it.

Cheers,

Rufus

 

[gotblazers]

Agreed, looking at the old witness marks it looks like the cross-member with the heat shield was the front cross-member and the one the transmission/transfer case adapter mounts to. the other cross-member is the rear one and holds up the back half of your skid plate. There are no trans/t-case mounts on it.

Cheers,

Rufus

thank you much . Can never have enough clarification especially on your first project!

does anyone know if theres supposed to be any gaskets between the np203 and the th350? i dont think there is but my dad is absolutely convinced there is and he wont stop moving at the speed of slooooooow until he has definitive proof that he is wrong

 

[sweetk30]

tcase adaptor to tranny = big round oring in the grove on the adaptor.

adaptor to tcase body = big gasket.

 

[gotblazers]

tcase adaptor to tranny = big round oring in the grove on the adaptor.

adaptor to tcase body = big gasket.

the transmission and t-case were professionally rebuilt so im not worried about the gasket going from the t case adaptor to tranny...

now i gotta take the adaptor off the t case and install that gasket

 

[gotblazers]

progress today
.get the other 2 mounts for the crossmember
.learned how the transmission and transfer case bolt together and how the x-member relates to that which took up a large part of my day
.bolted/splined the tranny/transfer case together but forgot the gasket so i gotta take that back apart

Progress is still slow because im learning all this while im doing it but at least everythin will go faster on my 76 . Im going to try and get a list made of all the lines that need to come out of the transfer case and transmission before i get it sitting on the cross member.

 

[gotblazers]

this build will be on hold for a while i get...

gasket for th350 adaptor to np203
motor mounts
tubing for tranny lines