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'90 K5 - The Nevada Blazer [Post 1437: School me on alternators)

colbystephens said:
Haven't had the truck on the freeway yet. I only drive 60 MPH on the freeway, would be terrified to have a truck like this one going 75 MPH! :yikes: I'm sure people do it all the time tho...
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I drove my big Blazer all the way from California to Nebraska. We had a GPS unit in it to make up for the lack of a speedometer. We did 75-80 consistently, and at one point hit 90mph.

Martin
 
82355 said:
I drove my big Blazer all the way from California to Nebraska. We had a GPS unit in it to make up for the lack of a speedometer. We did 75-80 consistently, and at one point hit 90mph.

Martin
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My burb is a lot more street worthy with only 33's, but 80-85 isn't out of the ordinary. Does wonders for the gas mileage :thumb:
 
I'm sure it could do it, I just don't want to have to stop it going that fast with such huge tires. :yikes:
 
I broke the tripple digit mark in my truck with the 35s on it. As long as your ujoints and bearings are up to par then the only worry you need to have is the speeding ticket :doah:
 
Chevy305 said:
I broke the tripple digit mark in my truck with the 35s on it. As long as your ujoints and bearings are up to par then the only worry you need to have is the speeding ticket :doah:
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Or your tires coming apart, or it shaking your fillings out :haha:
 
Tires seem to be the biggest issue at speed. My burb would run 90+ on the stock highway treads no problem.
 
My Michelin XML's don't seem to be the greatest off road tire, but they go down the highway damn nice.

Martin
 
Ok, so to clarify, I my Interco SSRs do great on the highway. However, I get uneasy about stopping that much rolling weight. So, it's not so much about driving that fast, as the fact that emergency maneuvers at such a speed would be pretty uncomfortable. ;)
 
Driving a truck like that on the highway, you just need one simple frame of mind....

 
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Got the truck back from the exhaust shop this morning.

He was a little reluctant yesterday to work with me on the price when I told him I was having clearance issues with my front driveshaft - even in stock form. In his defense, I didn't tell him that I intended to flex out the suspension when he originally built the exhaust, and in 99% of all normal situations that this truck was designed for, his routing would've been fine. However, when I grabbed my driveshaft and could show him where it had been scraping on the exhaust y-pipe, he seemed to come around. Was going to charge me $125 plus tax to reroute it. I thought that was real fair. Then he called me last night and said to just bring $80 cash. :woot:

He tucked the exhaust up tight to the transmission bell housing - plenty of clearance now. Also gave it a bit more of a y-angle when connecting to the rest of the system, which is an improvement over what y'all were pointing out before.

I was then able to measure and drop off my front driveshaft for lengthening afterwards. Should get it back in a couple of days - Friday at the latest. So, "alexsdad" and I are going out on Saturday to flex out the suspension and measure for shocks. :woot:

The new gears feel good. Hard to not stomp on the throttle, but the break-in instructions say to avoid hard throttle for the first 500 miles. I can tell my transmission likes these gears better. It's going to take some getting used to with regard to the noisy gears in the rear tho. Oh well. No biggie.
 
LOL I think I read somewhere sometime that all of intercos tires are only rated for 60MPH........ Most light truck tires are rated really low as far as speed goes. But anyway

Glad he cut ya a break on the exhaust Colby that was mighty human of him. Cant wait to see more progress!
 
Today I went up and checked my flex. Not bad. Unfortunately, it looks like my brake lines on the front are going to be my limiting factor on front droop. But, based on how "stuffed" the front tire is, I'm not sure I'd get much more. I didn't flex it out to the brake line's max, but I got it close. These pics are with a tire 2' off of the ground.

  • Shocks at ride height are looking to be 20" in the front, 24" in the rear.
  • Front shocks at full extension should be over 25" long, and shorter than 16" long at full compression.
  • Rear shocks at full extension should be at least 26" long, and shorter than 23" long in compression. Not much shock movement back there, but the shocks are further in-board.

Pics are admittedly not very good due to harsh and uncooperative sunlight...


flex-2 by colbyjstephens, on Flickr


flex-1 by colbyjstephens, on Flickr

With the wheel turned, I'm just BARELY making contact with the inner fender. Those 1" EZ-Inch relocating blocks do wonders! I may find that I need to trim the rear of the front fenders a touch, but I'm waiting on that for now. I did have to trim the front of the front fenders significantly.


flex-3 by colbyjstephens, on Flickr

I'm sure it'll flex up more than this, but I don't want to get it more off camber than this till I get limiting straps on the front to protect the brake line.

6819477919_50f7c1ba5f_z.jpg
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flex-4 by colbyjstephens, on Flickr[/IMG]


flex-5 by colbyjstephens, on Flickr


flex-6 by colbyjstephens, on Flickr


flex-7 by colbyjstephens, on Flickr

Here's a pic I took next to the green truck. The green truck is sitting at a height where, when I lifted it from the body, the tires had just left the ground enough to remove the tires. As such, it's raised a couple inches above ride-height. So, the new truck is definitely taller by at least a couple inches.


flex-10 by colbyjstephens, on Flickr

A couple notes on more stuff:
1. I will have to trim a slight bit more off of the rear of the rear fenders.
2. I had originally hooked up just the driver's rear shock and forgot to remove it before testing flex in the first couple pictures. Since it was hooked up at full extension, there was no more travel on the rear. When I removed just that one (meaning none were left), my travel numbers changed by a good half-inch in the front. The droop decreased by 1/2" and the compression became longer by 1/2". Kind of interesting. So, what I'm saying is the body leveled out some - which is to be expected. Just interesting to see.
3. The shock length on the front of the green truck was 21" fully extended and 14.5" fully compressed. This means I only had one inch of droop at the shock tab on the green truck. :doah: I should be much more pleased with this set up with proper shocks. Now, I'll have a total of 5" of droop at the shock tab which translates more to something like 7" or maybe more at the tire. I should've measured that. Will have to do that next time. I had enough compression before, though.

So, to do:
1. Order shocks. I'm thinking Bilstein 5100, since they get such good reviews. I'll probably try to get something with a few more inches of droop than I need - maybe 2 inches - so that when I get longer brake lines down the road, I can not be limited by my shocks. BTW, my brake lines are 22" hoses. I think I can get another inch or so out of them, since they have a little bit of metal tube at the banjo bolt, about 3" long, which I am going to try to bend upwards. What do you think of me looking for a 27" Extended shock with a 14" compression? I guess that gives me 2" extra on either end and a 13" travel shock. In the rears, I'm thinking a 30" by 21" shock, so 9"? I think I can get more travel out of the rear than that 2 foot rock was allowing me....
2. Finish E-Brake.

I got the front driveline back yesterday, but forgot I don't have u-joint straps for the Dana 60 yet, so I need to pick those up this afternoon. :D
 
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Nice work man.


The pic of the two trucks next to each other didn't come through.

With the several comments on the brake lines being short...consider getting longer ones?
 
Oh yea, i was going to say something about that too! Yea so why are you hung up on the brake lines being the flex stop point when you could just get longer ones?
 
y5mgisi said:
Im not much help on the shocks, but that thing looks like its going to be quite capable!
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Thanks. :D I think it's going to be awesome. I felt like my green truck was damn capable. However, it's suspension didn't work very well, and the axle gears weren't very good for the tire size. Both of those things are done correctly on this truck, so it's going to be a big improvement, I think. :)

Green Truck: 52.72:1 crawl ratio.
'90: 42.5 x2(torque converter) = 85:1 crawl ratio.

Green: 2175 RPM on highway at 60 MPH.
'90: 1905 RPM on highway at 60 MPH.

Looking forward to crawlin and seeing how she does. :) I put it in 4 lo to drive up onto that rock, and that sucker is SLOW in 4 low. About like idling w/ my previous set up.
 
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