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'90 K5 'Barney'

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Scribbles

Scribbles

Paul
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Joined
Aug 26, 2017
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Waco Tx
Scribbles submitted a new Build:

'90 K5 'Blazer'

On 08/27/17 I purchased 'Barney' a 1990 Chevrolet Blazer for $3,300 with 145,900 miles on the clock.
Day 1

Day 1

First day, picked it up and drove it to work!
I had been watching this truck on Craigslist that was originally listed for $7,000 at a used car lot, over a couple months the price dropped several times and once under $5,000 I started kicking tires. I plan to give you the good, bad and ugly as it comes up.
First day

First day

Dry rotten tires and all!
Successfully made it home

Successfully made it home

Barney was originally sold to the Texas Parks and Wildlife department with a build date of 06/90 and then was sold 04/94 to the Falls County Sheriffs Department where they sprayed a terrible Gold paint job over it and slapped some D.A.R.E. stickers in the windows and because of his service to the Sheriff Dept is why my wife and I have dubbed him Barney Fife (hopefully everyone gets the reference).
Apparently Barney was deadlined in 2003, the latest maintenance record I found while cleaning out the truck was from Walmart in 5/03 and the mileage on the ticket was 145,668 for a battery replacement. Either something happened to the odometer or this thing only made it less than 300 miles in just over 14 years! The dealer I bought him from said that he purchased the truck not running and it had obviously been sitting for a long time, he slapped a new fuel tank, pump, distributor cap, wires, plugs and air filter and put him up for sale, dry rotten tires and all! Because of how long Barney has sat I expect issues so the best way to find those I believe will be to drive them out. :woot:

I have been reading through so many awesome builds I feel like I've watched many of your trucks come together and it's inspired me to start my own. Progress will be slow but it may help me stay on track and I hope you all enjoy watching and advising on this one!
Click to expand...

Read more about this build here...
 
My goals for Barney are to end up with a reliable daily driver. I do have one rule for the truck, it must stay under 7ft in total height (Has to fit in garage).
Once I bought the truck it pretty well exhausted the truck fund, the tires on it were a complete set of maypops (They may pop any second) so I only drove the truck on my days off when I didn't mind walking, it didn't move much since I was working 6 days a week and I wasn't walking to work. I got tires (Cooper Discoverer AT3 32/11.50R15) at the end of September and it's first 10 mile drive the water pump went out. :surepal: So $40 later I threw a new lifetime warranty pump on the truck and we were back in business. :woot:
New tires!

New tires!

Cooper Discoverer AT3 32x12.50r15
My Dad runs an exhaust shop and had a take off 50 series Flowmaster, the existing muffler on the truck was blown out and rattling like crazy so we lobbed off the muffler and some other weird pancake looking thing :whistle:and dumped it over the axle so I can get some more miles on him and see what else falls off.
Flowmaster

Flowmaster

50 Series
Dumps

Dumps

Exhaust

Exhaust

Right now the to do list is:
-Fix the back window that doesn't work.
-Replace the sloppy steering box
-XJ or Express van steering shaft
-Steering box brace
-Front window track replacement
 
weird pancake looking thing:whistle:
Don't they have smog in Texas??
 
for the most part, no.

Testing is required only in the following areas/counties:
  • Austin-Round Rock: Travis. Williamson.
  • Houston-Galveston-Brazoria: Brazoria. Fort Bend. Galveston. Harris. Montgomery.
  • Dallas-Fort Worth: Collin. Dallas. Denton. Ellis. Johnson. Kaufman. Parker. Rockwall. Tarrant.
  • El Paso: El Paso.
 
I'd like to do some easy stuff, but I don't want to wreck it, just enjoy it for its originally intended purpose. I need to do some looking and see if there are any places in central Texas, as of now I don't really know any but until recently I've never had any reason to care.
 
Since I first looked at this thing the tailgate window hasn't worked, the dealer I bought it from told me 'if you hit the window switch enough times it will go down'. It never went down, I did some looking and found the cable was seized up, ordered a new one from LMC and I finally got time to install it yesterday. I've lost a lot of sleep worrying about how much rust might be hiding under there but was pleased to not see any once I got the tailgate down.
No rust

No rust

No rust

No rust

Here is the wiring for the window motor, obviously it wasn't ever going down, I don't for the life of me understand why you would feel the need to be dishonest about it.
Shady car dealer

Shady car dealer

The old motor worked but it went up very slowly and needed help to roll it up all the way, I bought a new one and now it runs up and down smoothly!

Does anyone have any thoughts on the tailgate? It appears to be the factory color and was repainted at the same time as the rest of the truck but the emblems say GMC. Do you think they really just got lucky enough to find a GMC gate the same factory color?
 
Scribbles said:
I'd like to do some easy stuff, but I don't want to wreck it, just enjoy it for its originally intended purpose. I need to do some looking and see if there are any places in central Texas, as of now I don't really know any but until recently I've never had any reason to care.
Click to expand...

there are quite a few in Texas although most will cause body damage to your K5.
 
That's a bummer. I don't really want to pinstripe Barney up just yet.

I'm seriously thinking about plastidipping this whole truck, someone talk me out of it.
 
I finally stripped my old seals out of my doors and installed LMC window seal kit #38-5651, after I purchased them I stumbled across a couple people on this forum that didn't speak highly of them but I didn't have any issues and am happy. My old seals were so worn and rotten you had to guide the window up by hand, our Texas sun is no joke!
Old seal

Old seal

Old rotten seals

Old rotten seals

I haven't had a day off since the 9th and won't have a day off until 11/3 so doing anything has been a slow process but all this overtime should cover some parts money! Barney has been my DD this whole month without a hiccup so I'm happy! :woot:
 
awesome to hear
doing good and spending the money wisely
just make sure you are watching the vitals just as much as you watch door seals and such (fluid levels, u-joints, steering, etc)
 
Steering box is up there on the list, mine is sloppy as I've mentioned before that will probably be done before the first of the year. I know I need to get the tranny looked at, I found the TC lock up connection is disconnected and I'm assuming it's a workaround solution to a transmission problem. All fluids are staying up, doesn't even leave a drop of oil under it when parked.
 
If the transmission is a 700r4, and hasn't been swapped out for something else, you need the TV cable.
Everyone will echo this: stop driving the truck until the TV cable is reattached and properly adjusted.

Edit: TV lock up wiring isn't as important. Sorry. That's normally not something people talk about, it's always the cable is off and so that's what I read LOL. The lock up is for highway use or anything above 45mph. It will give you better mileage and keep the trans running cooler. It is not as important to fix immediately but should be up there maybe #1 or #2.
 
I know so far this build hasn't had much going on so here is a bump. We're still on track to have a visit with the transmission shop hopefully in January, but today I had an idea rather I saw an idea. Picture isn't pretty but let's be honest we are only in this for pics!
This is an old race car motor of mine, it was for a stockish race car, it's been run hard and put away wet. The cam is not TBI friendly but the rest is pretty generic and I believe will bolt right up? :dunno:
Specs; high nickel block .40 over 2bolt main, drilled stock? crank (some work was put into this), 993heads 2.02/1.5 valves, screw in studs, stock rods, and I'm guessing cast pistons, I don't know.

My options as I see them are #1 (which is kind of what I had started planning on) take the original Barney motor and do a top end only, with the summit heads attatched below, plus a mild TBI roller cam swap and see how long the bottom end holds up. Roughly $2,000 after tax + whatever shipping is.

Option #2, swap the cam out in motor #2 for a TBI friendly roller setup and see how long #2 keeps beating with the 993heads. $900ish dollars

Option #3, strip #2 and freshen the bottom end, throw heads, roller cam, chip, and go for as much as I can get but still keep it driveable, and under $4000 budget. TBI?

My goal is for Barney not to sit more than a 3 day weekend and I see all of this as doable in that time frame, I could see myself going with #2 and then using original motor to do #3, or just do 1 of the 3 listed options, all this being said I'm not afraid to spend some time swapping stuff back and forth. If #2 were to pop I've already far exceeded its life expectancy, this would just be a fun experiment to see how much more life I could get out of it. :doah:My head hurts, this is why there hasn't been much progress so far, I start one way then think of another way, then another. I'm also linking to a TBI mods link that I'm pretty sure I found off of this forum somewhere, it's where I'm getting my parts list and cam options from unless redirected by someone here that knows better.

All of this is subject to change directions without notice! :whistle: :woot:

http://tbichips.com/?page_id=73

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