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Am I crazy? 1986 K5 Blazer “rustoration”
- Thread starter K5Canuck
- Start date
Mild restoration. Primarily rust repair
Bought this Blazer this spring in Nova Scotia Canada and hauled it back home to southern New Brunswick.
These K5s are getting pretty scarce in eastern Canada. This is the fourth one I’ve owned over the years. Never had a garage to work on previous ones.
I am not a body guy by trade, so a lot of this is trial and error, as well as tips and tricks i’ve picked up over the years from friends and good old google. Any pointers are greatly appreciated.
I started out with the front floors, supports, rockers.
Bought all the floor pans and supports I could get from AMD. Fitment seems to be pretty good and steel gauge is close to oem.
Theres been a lot of supports on this thing I have had to fabricate along the way.
These K5s are getting pretty scarce in eastern Canada. This is the fourth one I’ve owned over the years. Never had a garage to work on previous ones.
I am not a body guy by trade, so a lot of this is trial and error, as well as tips and tricks i’ve picked up over the years from friends and good old google. Any pointers are greatly appreciated.
I started out with the front floors, supports, rockers.
Bought all the floor pans and supports I could get from AMD. Fitment seems to be pretty good and steel gauge is close to oem.
Theres been a lot of supports on this thing I have had to fabricate along the way.
So much for not being a body work guy.
You seem to be doing just fine.
Thank you. I am a heavy equipment/ truck and trailer mechanic by day. Auto body's been a hobby for a good 10 years now. Had to do a lot of research to fab some pieces up on this as they had rotted away to nothing. Goal is to try and make the metal work look as OEM as possible without putting myself in the poor house.
Cheers
Cheers
Wow, that's a lot of rust but it looks like you're well on your way to having it repaired! I'm on the tail end of this on my truck too, although less severe than yours. I don't have any pointers for you, because it looks like you're already doing a really great job, but I do have a lot of pictures in my build thread in case you find any of them helpful to see how stuff fits together. I also have a lot of in-progress pics of the rust repair that I haven't posted (just to avoid spamming, I have hundreds), so if there are any areas you want pics of for reference, I may have them so please feel free to ask.
I'm looking forward to watching your progress!
I'm looking forward to watching your progress!
Thanks! I checked out your build quickly. Nice to see I am not the only one with a case of the rusties!Wow, that's a lot of rust but it looks like you're well on your way to having it repaired! I'm on the tail end of this on my truck too, although less severe than yours. I don't have any pointers for you, because it looks like you're already doing a really great job, but I do have a lot of pictures in my build thread in case you find any of them helpful to see how stuff fits together. I also have a lot of in-progress pics of the rust repair that I haven't posted (just to avoid spamming, I have hundreds), so if there are any areas you want pics of for reference, I may have them so please feel free to ask.
I'm looking forward to watching your progress!
Sure wish i could have found a better tub to build than this one but they are rare in my area these days. Everybody used these as plow trucks and hunting rigs back in the day. Very hard to find a rust free one.
Good thing I like a challenge
Yeah I grew up in the middle east so not unfamiliar with rust but I have been in California for 25 years and I can't complain about the rust free trucks here
Interestingly enough in the 80's we were planning on moving to Nova Scotia but then waited, eventually came to the states and settled in California
Nova Scotia is a nice province but I’m sure California is beautiful, and the lack of rust is a huge bonus.
planning bed liner? carpet? or both?
Planning to do carpet. Gotta track down some sort of front seats. Been on the hunt for some oem ones but they seem to be pretty rare in my part of the world sadly. Im sure I will find some eventually. I think i am a long ways out from needing them anyway.
Yea was thinking 00-06 possibly. I don’t even have the seat bases unfortunately. This thing is a bit of a basket case interior wise. I got a set of seats out of a Jeep TJ I may try to use as well, will probably have to make some seat bases adapters of some sort.
Find you a newer suburban and use the fronts and the third row seat as the back seat in the K5. After body work, making seat brackets should be easy for you. Not sure who else makes brackets for installing newer seat but merricks garage does and he is proud of them.
Small progress today. Made up a brace to hold up the back end of the Blazer. Used a junk of 2x12 I had kickin around. I then proceeded to cut out what was left of the rear support. 
I began to try and remove the passenger side tailgate post and tai light backing plate. After drilling most of the spot welds out i realized there are 2 under where the topper is
.
Guess I will have to brace it up more securely so I can pull it out and remove the topper. Garage space is very limited, this project is being done in a 14x24 garage.
Cheers
I began to try and remove the passenger side tailgate post and tai light backing plate. After drilling most of the spot welds out i realized there are 2 under where the topper is
.Guess I will have to brace it up more securely so I can pull it out and remove the topper. Garage space is very limited, this project is being done in a 14x24 garage.
Cheers
I braced my bedsides very similarly (with the topper still on) and it seemed sketchy at first but was surprisingly solid when shoving on things to see if anything moved. I like the plan of extra bracing if the topper is coming off. I don't think you truly need it, but over-bracing is definitely better than under-bracing.
Looking good man!
Looking good man!
Got the tail gate posts/ tail light backing plates out the other night. Decided to make it mobile again so I can pull it out of the garage to clean up the rust mountain on the floor.
The quarters are gonna need a pile of work. I am very on the fence about ordering full quarters. I guess the only real obstacle with that plan is the cost. 3300$ CDN. Ouch. I already have the biggest patch panels available so I will most likely work with what I have.
Heres some shots of tail gate posts removed, and a few of the whole truck out in the day light.
The quarters are gonna need a pile of work. I am very on the fence about ordering full quarters. I guess the only real obstacle with that plan is the cost. 3300$ CDN. Ouch. I already have the biggest patch panels available so I will most likely work with what I have.
Heres some shots of tail gate posts removed, and a few of the whole truck out in the day light.
Looks like you are on the right track. I also like LMC Truck (Blazer Suburban SUV). They have just a specific catalog for them. Make sure you chassis has chassis saver ever where with the sounder deadening and heat insulting too. LIZARD SKIN
