82 K5-Texas4x4rebels. Thinking about parting out the K5

[texas4x4rebel]

I decided to give this a try since I finally got my blazer home and to my house where I can work on it anytime. Some of the first pics of my blazer are about 7 years old and had to scan them in so they kinda suck but they will get better .

Used my high school graduation money to pick my blazer up in 2003. When I got it it had a flaking pearl white paint job unknown 4inch kit with off brand 33's.
They engine was smoking and trans wasn't much better, but it was running and driving.It also had rust in the usual spots.

first thing I did was get a rebuilt motor and trans

Of course I had to climb under while everyone watched

And its in.

After getting it running I drove it for a while and started to sand the peeling paint off and prime it.
Then a guy I worked with made me a great deal on a set of 38/12.5 tsl
and i couldn't resist.

But they wouldn't fit so I through on a three inch body lift.

Then the top came off and I drove it for a few years in this condition made a few offroad trips to some small areas around dfw.

After a Trip to marshal creak with my bro.

My brothers blazer which got stuck alot that day MT bajas suck.

I have more pics to come just trying to get them all uploaded more detailed updates also.

 

[smier]

Nice, keep the pics coming!!! Got any more pics of your brothers GMC? I've wondered what my 91 would look like if I painted it yellow...

 

[texas4x4rebel]

Nice, keep the pics coming!!! Got any more pics of your brothers GMC? I've wondered what my 91 would look like if I painted it yellow...

Ya i got more just got to get them loaded.

 

[magik235]

Nice

 

[texas4x4rebel]

More old pics

Got these pics out one night in the river bottoms found a stolen car the was wrecked and some guy was stealing the seats out of it.

Some time shortly after this i went out to start my blazer one morning and all i heard was the starter spining crawled under and a starter bolt was gone pulled the starter off to take a look and the outer bolt hole on the block was broken off.
So the block was trash after that I decided to finish painting it and swap tires, wheels, and lift.Previous lift was 4in suspension and 3in body swapped it to 8in springs front with ord shackle flip and 4in block in the rear.Also gonna install a rebuilt 350.

Test fitting the tires before lift went on.

39.5 boggers on 15x12 wheels.
Well now my external harddrive has crashed so more pics to come when i resolve this issue.

 

[texas4x4rebel]

Heres another of my bros blazer let me know if you would like a more specific pic

 

[chalet2506]

those are a couple of badass looking rigs.

 

[texas4x4rebel]

Pics of the paint

Managed to get some more pics loaded from another computer.
After a full day of three people sanding got the primer and one half the blazer primed before it got too dark.

Finished up the paint the next day and installed the wheels and tires that i had at the time either the wheels or tires were back ordered so for a while I only had two.

Now looking back wish i would of stuck with the small lift and just trimmed the crap out of it.
I dont have any pics of putting the lift on new engine in but i have some after pics.
Mine and my bros parked nose to nose.

The 2nd engine efter being installed.

Wish I would of cleaned up the engine bay and wiring between the two engine replacements but I was young and dumb.
The top on and the start of a winch bumper.

Notice the holes in the rocker still hadn't fixed the rust.


If someone calls you up on valentines day and ask to pull them out say no. I went to pull this guy out with a half done bumper and riped the winch off my bumper and then got stuck and had to leave it out there for the night.

This was the second time he got stuck the first time I pulled him out it ripped the winch off the second try got me stuck. Pulled up in front of him to see what the problem was and when I got back in my truck it had already started to sink and it just wouldn't move after that.

This side didnt look bad but on the other side the right front was almost gone and it was down to the axle in the rear.

Had to get a high lift jack on a sheet of plywood in the front and my buddy pulling almost 90 deg to the left to get out only place he could stop and not get stuck himself.

After that all was good for awhile till some jerk slashed two of my tires in front of the house so at the time I could only afford two tsls of the same size so it now has tsls up front and boggers in the rear.

The next project after finding out the heater core was bad was to pull the old nasty carpet out.

After I pulled it out i found the floor board on the passanger side was rusted much worse than I had thought. So i got some new pans from LMC and started cutting out the rust.

Hello rear tire.

Ended up going all the way to the trans tunnel on the passanger side.

 

[texas4x4rebel]

New rocker

I realized last night i had no after pics so i took some late last night trucks a little dirty.

Floor board replaced.

 

[COCHEV]

Nice looking mud trucks. Certainly wont lose them in a parking lot...

I know the main theme around here is low lift, cut n' stuffed. But I will always like the look of a big ol mud truck with boggers

I'd say time for an axle upgrade soon tho...

 

[texas4x4rebel]

After Finishing the the floorboard I took it out every once and awhile but the engine was always running funny and had to replace plugs and wires way too many times to get it to run right for the low amount of driving I was doing.

I would say that I let it sit for about a year without touching it. The paint looked faded, engine wasn't running right, it still had the the crummy exhaust on it, the wiring was all messed up by the previous owner, Dash was cracked and had the awesome dash cover installed by the previous owner that has given my blazer the forever nick name of SNOWFLAKE by all my freinds.

So I decide to start working out all the problems slowly first thing was to install a universal EZ wiring kit which i had bought a few years back didnt get any pics at the time. Heres a pic of the fuse block.

After that i pulled the dash pad out and removed all the old padding to get it down to bare metal.

Them i ordered a small peice of vinyl wrap to test out.

It looks pretty good and hides all the holes with out having to weld the whole thing up.

After the new harness I tryed to get the engine running right and carb adjusted but Im just not that good at working on carbs.
So i decided it was time for fuel injection I looked at my differnt options and weight the pros and cons of differnt things such as TBI, Ram jet, and LS based engines.
Well i decided to go with the LS engine after a buddy of mine told me he had a 5.3 that he was selling for $400 it came with complete engine, all the assories minus the alternator, and a complete harness that was missing a few plugs that he chopped off befor he knew I was buying it.

At the same time as the engine swap I was working on getting the blazer painted but didnt want to spend big bucks on the paint job since I knew it was going to take a beating. I decided to paint it like the M1009 CUCV blazer so I got to sanding. Also in this pic I had takin the 4in block out of the rear and went to a 2in.

After this I got to painting found the military camo pattern on a web site steel soldiers.

After getting the paint done I yanked the old 350 out and sold it. Started on doing the wiring harness on the 5.3 since i didnt get the trans in the deal I decide to just stay with the turbo 350. Dont have any pics of the harness being modded to run as stand alone but heres what i pulled out of the harness thats not needed.

To bolt the engine and trans up the patterns are the same just had to get a spacer to go from the crankshaft to the torque converter snout since the LS series engine crank is shorter than the old 350. I got the spacer from gm
its the same one they use on the 6.0l with the 4l80e. Then just enlongated the flywheel holes to line up with the torque converter.
Next was the matter of getting the motor mount adaptors there are many different chocies out there for this but I didnt want to move the trans crossmember like you have to with most. I did some searching around and found a company Dirty Dingo that make a adjust mount so i ordered those up.

Installed the 5.3 in the blazer and with these adjusted all the way to the rear it Bolts right into the same position as the old 350 and clears the engine crossmember for the most part. There is one little tab on the corner of the block behind the assesorie bracket that hit but it has not structual bearing on the motor so i trimed it off.

Thats all for tonight headed out with some freinds more to come.

 

[GMC1977]

So you installed it without changin the crossmember? Im lookin into this swap and that was really the only part i didnt wanna change. Could you snap some pics of the clearance?

 

[texas4x4rebel]

So you installed it without changin the crossmember? Im lookin into this swap and that was really the only part i didnt wanna change. Could you snap some pics of the clearance?

Yes both crossmebers engine and trans are in the stock location and uncut. Im working at the FD today but I'll get the rest of the install pics up tomorrow hopefully and some of the clearance on the cross member.

 

[GMC1977]

Thanks bud

 

[stockk5]

how much did one of these motors run you? w/ the wiring harness?

 

[texas4x4rebel]

how much did one of these motors run you? w/ the wiring harness?

I was able to pick this one up from afreind who was parting out a 2001 silverado with the stock harness for $400

 

[texas4x4rebel]

More 5.3 pics.

Got more pics of the 5.3 install. Most of these pics have been takin with my cell phone cause I never had the good camera with me while working on it.
Here is another pic of the motor mount adapter looking down the passenger side frame rail.

After getting the motor dropped in and bolted to the trans I had one clearance issue to deal with at the drivers front of the motor with the small tab I talked about. Looking at it I found that it was not used for anything and has not structural bearing on the engine so i decide to trim it rather that cut up the engine cross member.
Since the engine rolls to the passenger side it didn't need to go far and if need be i can still trim more but i don't see any reason to.

Its hard to see in the second pic cause the sun is right on the spot but its looking down from the top.

Here is a pic of the clearance for the crankshaft.

The clearance on the right side is no problem theres plenty of room between the engine and cross member.

Now that its sitting in the blazer I had to finish the wiring for the stand alone engine harness. I had already remove all the wiring for the emissions and trans so all that was left was fuses and relays. I didn't want to build my own fuse block so I found a company current performance wiring. They sell a complete harness or just a diy fuse block.

This is a very nice piece has all the relays and fuse I need and even a extra switched and constant 12v, relays for dual fans installed all the wires are labeled. The instructions are easy to understand and even include diagrams for the relays. It took me like two weeks to get everything wired even after the two months prior that i had spent looking at diagrams of how to do it. Wiring is a pain in the butt.

I decided to move the battery to the drivers side and also mount the pcm in the corner near the fire wall so everything was close together.

Battery moved and the engine fues block mounted about half the wiring done. All the pink wires need 12v switched and the orange get constant.

Its a little sideways but you can see where the pcm is going to be located and the fuse block lots of wiring real looks bad with no loom.

Another shot of the wiring.

The DLC mount to the bottom of the dash. Didnt get one with the harness and didnt want to spend a ton and the dealer for a new one. While doing research for the swap I found a company that sells all the individual parts to make a DLC so I ordered that stuff ended up only costing me like $7.
It's easy to wire up Just a power wire, two grounds, and the data wire from the pcm.

The new pcm needs to have a brake signal so it dosen't stall when you stop. The only problems is the brake switch for the truck shows 12v with brakes applied and the pcm needs to see 12v with no brakes and 0v with the brakes appied opposite from what the truck does. After more research on the internet I found that a brake switch from a 96 fbody can do the trucks brake lights and the pcm. When I went to install the new brake switch I saw that my old switch had four terminals on it. I decided to test it just to see what the other two terminals where for I assume they where for the cruise befor I took it off. After testing it I found it works just like the fbody switch.

Gotta go feed the kiddo more pics and updates soon.

 

[GMC1977]

i like this build.

 

[76zimmer]

I like what you got going on here too, but if you could try to get some better pics....my eyes are bad enough.

 

[texas4x4rebel]

Thanks for the compliments.

Sorry about the bad pics most of the pics of the conversion where taken from my cell phone but I have digital pics of some more recent stuff.