Looks good. I think slightly darker pockets and arm rest are in order.
CK5
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Atl-atl's K5 Blazer Four Wheel Camper "The Crawlin Cabin" documentation thread!
- Thread starter Atl-atl
- Start date
I'm working up a list for you at home. Should cover what you need.
I agree. I was hoping to find dark brown ones but I cant. I have a friend of a friend that has an upholstery shop so I might have him redo them when he does my seats!
Sweet, thanks, you've got monies btw...
Gotcha! Truck is in the operating room awaiting surgery tomorrow.I agree. I was hoping to find dark brown ones but I cant. I have a friend of a friend that has an upholstery shop so I might have him redo them when he does my seats!
Sweet, thanks, you've got monies btw...
Nice! I should probably advertise my motor for sale since its in the truck running right now.
Kept on rollin in the stupid heat again today. Ripped out the dashboard. There was about an inch of dirt/dust everywhere. 40 years worth of living in Arizona, probably with the windows down the whole time ha! I think this is what native Arizonan's lungs look like. I ordered a bunch of new parts but not everything. I cant decide if I want to replace the vents, dash trim and a few other items. I kind of like the patina. I dont want it to be too perfect. I kept my original gauges but got a new surround, bezel and lens. Gauges cleaned up really well, they will eventually be replaced when I get a tach and/or do my engine swap but they look really good for now.
The stock dash is the "buckskin" color which is hard to find. I wound up getting a "signature series" dash pad from LMC. Im not sure how I feel about it for the money but its staying I guess. The white stitching is kinda weird, theres no provision for the center dash speaker, it doesnt use the factory style clips to "mount" the top of it to the metal structure underneath. The stock dash was so beat up and cracked though that anything would be better.
Deteriorating stock bezel.
Dirt, dirt and more dirt.
I sprayed all the stock sound/heat deadening material with 3M Super 77 and stuck it back into place. Also retaped all the wiring to protect it. For the most part the wiring is minimal and in much better shape than whats under the hood and what was in the camper.
There are some modern modifications that I havent figured out yet.
Stereo wiring is very minimal and will be cleaned up when the new radio gets installed.
Too many pictures, had to split up the last post hahaha
This is the HVAC blend controller thingy, it mounts to the back of the temp control assembly, it has one broken vacuum line nipple. I cant seem to find this particular part online anywhere. Anybody have a line on one?
Gear selector connection broke off the plastic trim piece that moves when you move the shift lever. Didnt realize this or I would have ordered that new piece. I drilled a new hole and remounted it but I dont know how long it will hold up like this.
Gauges cleaned up really well!
New trim
New lens
Reinstalled
Test fitting the new bezel and dash pad. I got the silver aluminum trim that you add to the bezel but I kind of like it just black with the thin silver outline.
This is the HVAC blend controller thingy, it mounts to the back of the temp control assembly, it has one broken vacuum line nipple. I cant seem to find this particular part online anywhere. Anybody have a line on one?
Gear selector connection broke off the plastic trim piece that moves when you move the shift lever. Didnt realize this or I would have ordered that new piece. I drilled a new hole and remounted it but I dont know how long it will hold up like this.
Gauges cleaned up really well!
New trim
New lens
Reinstalled
Test fitting the new bezel and dash pad. I got the silver aluminum trim that you add to the bezel but I kind of like it just black with the thin silver outline.
I spent the morning installing a Retrosound "Hermosa Beach" head unit. This is the cheapest one they make that is bluetooth capable. I got it completely blacked out and really like how stealth it is. Its rad having streaming capability, handsfree calling and not losing the look and feel of the original style radio. Its slightly more complicated to install than a typical single DIN head unit but it only took a few hours to figure it all out and hook everything up. When I do new carpet Ill run all new wiring to the rear speakers and replace them (since whatever is in there is sh*t) and install some kind of speakers in front now that I had to delete my center dash speaker. For now it looks good and it works and thats fine with me! I got the gauge bezel and all accompanying trim installed in a somewhat permanent manner, it came out really good. Now the melting steering wheel with a horrible cover is sticking out like a seriously sore thumb...
Crappy pic, sorry.
Ran the handsfree mic up the a-pillar to the visor. I dont have the trim on the a-pillar right now because the headliner is out. Once its done Ill reinstall it in a more discreet way.
Ran the USB plug to the cigarette lighter/ash tray door. Tucks in nicely and the door still opens and closes just fine.
Crappy pic, sorry.
Ran the handsfree mic up the a-pillar to the visor. I dont have the trim on the a-pillar right now because the headliner is out. Once its done Ill reinstall it in a more discreet way.
Ran the USB plug to the cigarette lighter/ash tray door. Tucks in nicely and the door still opens and closes just fine.
I used the classic Auto sound usa 630
With add on bluetooth. Love it. Think it needs a bump with an amp.
Bluetooth mic is great I can stand at the back of my suburban and talk on the bluetooth, other party can here me fine. Is great.
With add on bluetooth. Love it. Think it needs a bump with an amp.
Bluetooth mic is great I can stand at the back of my suburban and talk on the bluetooth, other party can here me fine. Is great.
Nice, I havent tried the talking functions yet, hopefully it works as good as yours.
Haven't done any work to the Blazer because I spent the last week moving and closed on the sale of my house today. Im officially (somewhat, temporarily) homeless so the Blazer is parked on the street at the moment. On a positive note, I should be making my way to Colorado to pick up the LS this weekend. On another positive note, one of my best friends and camping/offroading buddies is married to my Realtor. They got me a "congrats for selling your house" gift hahaha. Its a hand painted picture of my Blazer that you might recognize because its based off a picture he took on its inaugural camping trip! One of the coolest gifts Ive ever gotten.
I did manage to order new kick panels with speakers built in, some other misc. parts and new carpet! Im excited to get the carpet in and some other stuff done so I can get the seats/headliner/door pockets reupholstered. I think Im going to have them professionally done. I dont have the space or the time to do that stuff myself right now. I dont even know where Im going to put the LS and trans when I get it back to AZ. My storage unit is completely full.
I did manage to order new kick panels with speakers built in, some other misc. parts and new carpet! Im excited to get the carpet in and some other stuff done so I can get the seats/headliner/door pockets reupholstered. I think Im going to have them professionally done. I dont have the space or the time to do that stuff myself right now. I dont even know where Im going to put the LS and trans when I get it back to AZ. My storage unit is completely full.
That's a killer gift. Now you just need a house to hang it on a wall in! Sending a PM.Haven't done any work to the Blazer because I spent the last week moving and closed on the sale of my house today. Im officially (somewhat, temporarily) homeless so the Blazer is parked on the street at the moment. On a positive note, I should be making my way to Colorado to pick up the LS this weekend. On another positive note, one of my best friends and camping/offroading buddies is married to my Realtor. They got me a "congrats for selling your house" gift hahaha. Its a hand painted picture of my Blazer that you might recognize because its based off a picture he took on its inaugural camping trip! One of the coolest gifts Ive ever gotten.
I did manage to order new kick panels with speakers built in, some other misc. parts and new carpet! Im excited to get the carpet in and some other stuff done so I can get the seats/headliner/door pockets reupholstered. I think Im going to have them professionally done. I dont have the space or the time to do that stuff myself right now. I dont even know where Im going to put the LS and trans when I get it back to AZ. My storage unit is completely full.
Congrats
Or a Shop
I like the way you think!
And with all the cylinders and gears I still bet the Taco is slower right now!
Alright, things are starting to get interesting!
From what Ive gathered, the easiest setup to run an SM465 behind an "LS" is an LS7 pilot bearing, a stock 4.8/6.0 gas engine clutch and a stock 70's c/k truck flywheel. Its so funny because low RPM use can get away with basically any crappy stock replacement clutch. Even with all the gear reduction you can imagine and torque that comes along with it. I went ahead and ordered all three parts today so we shall eventually see. Speaking of ordering parts, Ive been on a bit of a rampage. I either have in my possession or have ordered everything I need to finish the engine swap, as well as other things. The only exception is a cooling fan setup. I havent yet decided on crank or electric. I did decide I needed to grab a harbor freight engine hoist so I could get everything out of the back of the truck and into the garage to get started, so that happened. Also my new carpet showed up, I ordered "buckskin" color hoping it would be the same dark brown as my current carpet, it is not. Its lighter but its fine and Ill use it. I was too impatient to get samples first. New carpet is sooooo nice. I want to drive around barefoot.
I cruised to bumblef**k Arizona today and picked up a man pedal set off craigslist. Its in pretty good shape, just some surface rust, should clean up pretty easily. Ive decided Im 100% going manual. I havent even started trying to figure out the slave/master cylinder situation. That is a complete mystery to me right now. Apparently you can make manual linkages or hydraulic linkages work. Anyone have an opinion about that?
Shift fork and throwout bearing on the SM465 seem to be in good shape.
Pivot ball seems to have some wear. I need to figure out the clutch system before deciding if this needs to be replaced.
The throw of the shifter is about 24 inches. Its super common for the factory tack welds on the base of the shifter where it enters the trans to break over the years. Mine is definitely one that has worn out and broken, even though it appears solid. There is about 12" of side to side play when in gear and 18" when in neutral so its really hard to tell what gear its in hahahah. The solution is to pull the shifter and weld the actual shift rod onto the pivot ball. I will probably attempt to do this myself, screw it up and wind up having to buy a new shifter assembly.
NP205 ID tag is worn. Hard to tell in pictures but the stampings are all there. 1974 New Process 205. For the most part it appears to be dry, in good shape and shifts through the gears without unusual amounts of effort.
Im not sure what the blue stuff is around the yoke, some kind of 1970s vintage threadlocker that squeezed out?
But wait, theres more!!!
On my way home from Bumblef**k I stopped by Dirty Dingo Motorsports which is a relatively well known company in the LS engine swap world. They make motor mounts, accessory brackets and other misc. stuff. They happen to be in Mesa AZ and had exactly what I need to finish my A/C setup. So I dropped an unfortunate amount of cash on fancy billet stuff and a brand new compressor. Before you say it, I know you can find a pre-vortex 4.3 V6 compressor bracket, chop it up, make some custom support brackets blah blah blah. I want to bolt it on and have it work, so I paid for it.
Started taking pictures of the existing condition of the engine so I can remember what the hell happened at some point in the future when Im confused hahaha. The idler pulley at the top left will be replaced by the Dirty Dingo parts. The alternator goes on the top right bracket. More on that later. Everything else is what it is. Stock power steering, stock cam/water pump, stock crank pulley.
This flex plate will go away when the new manual flywheel shows up.
Intake ports on the heads are VERY dirty. You'd think it was direct injection. Not sure if this is normal.
Dirty under the intake manifold.
Started prepping to clean.
Vortec truck intake manifold, fuel rails, throttle body. Fuel pressure regulator is built into the driver side fuel rail. These engines are so simple. Makes me want to swap everything for aftermarket stuff to make more power. I think Ill save that for after the truck is running and driving.
From what Ive gathered, the easiest setup to run an SM465 behind an "LS" is an LS7 pilot bearing, a stock 4.8/6.0 gas engine clutch and a stock 70's c/k truck flywheel. Its so funny because low RPM use can get away with basically any crappy stock replacement clutch. Even with all the gear reduction you can imagine and torque that comes along with it. I went ahead and ordered all three parts today so we shall eventually see. Speaking of ordering parts, Ive been on a bit of a rampage. I either have in my possession or have ordered everything I need to finish the engine swap, as well as other things. The only exception is a cooling fan setup. I havent yet decided on crank or electric. I did decide I needed to grab a harbor freight engine hoist so I could get everything out of the back of the truck and into the garage to get started, so that happened. Also my new carpet showed up, I ordered "buckskin" color hoping it would be the same dark brown as my current carpet, it is not. Its lighter but its fine and Ill use it. I was too impatient to get samples first. New carpet is sooooo nice. I want to drive around barefoot.
I cruised to bumblef**k Arizona today and picked up a man pedal set off craigslist. Its in pretty good shape, just some surface rust, should clean up pretty easily. Ive decided Im 100% going manual. I havent even started trying to figure out the slave/master cylinder situation. That is a complete mystery to me right now. Apparently you can make manual linkages or hydraulic linkages work. Anyone have an opinion about that?
Shift fork and throwout bearing on the SM465 seem to be in good shape.
Pivot ball seems to have some wear. I need to figure out the clutch system before deciding if this needs to be replaced.
The throw of the shifter is about 24 inches. Its super common for the factory tack welds on the base of the shifter where it enters the trans to break over the years. Mine is definitely one that has worn out and broken, even though it appears solid. There is about 12" of side to side play when in gear and 18" when in neutral so its really hard to tell what gear its in hahahah. The solution is to pull the shifter and weld the actual shift rod onto the pivot ball. I will probably attempt to do this myself, screw it up and wind up having to buy a new shifter assembly.
NP205 ID tag is worn. Hard to tell in pictures but the stampings are all there. 1974 New Process 205. For the most part it appears to be dry, in good shape and shifts through the gears without unusual amounts of effort.
Im not sure what the blue stuff is around the yoke, some kind of 1970s vintage threadlocker that squeezed out?
But wait, theres more!!!
On my way home from Bumblef**k I stopped by Dirty Dingo Motorsports which is a relatively well known company in the LS engine swap world. They make motor mounts, accessory brackets and other misc. stuff. They happen to be in Mesa AZ and had exactly what I need to finish my A/C setup. So I dropped an unfortunate amount of cash on fancy billet stuff and a brand new compressor. Before you say it, I know you can find a pre-vortex 4.3 V6 compressor bracket, chop it up, make some custom support brackets blah blah blah. I want to bolt it on and have it work, so I paid for it.
Started taking pictures of the existing condition of the engine so I can remember what the hell happened at some point in the future when Im confused hahaha. The idler pulley at the top left will be replaced by the Dirty Dingo parts. The alternator goes on the top right bracket. More on that later. Everything else is what it is. Stock power steering, stock cam/water pump, stock crank pulley.
This flex plate will go away when the new manual flywheel shows up.
Intake ports on the heads are VERY dirty. You'd think it was direct injection. Not sure if this is normal.
Dirty under the intake manifold.
Started prepping to clean.
Vortec truck intake manifold, fuel rails, throttle body. Fuel pressure regulator is built into the driver side fuel rail. These engines are so simple. Makes me want to swap everything for aftermarket stuff to make more power. I think Ill save that for after the truck is running and driving.
did you order flywheel bolts? the flex plate bolts won't work for the fly wheel. Yeah the intake ports look about right. for a motor with 5 figure mileage.
I did not order flywheel bolts. Are there certain ones I should order? As for the intake ports, Im afraid to ask because I think I know the answer, how do you clean them without getting crap down inside the heads/cylinders? Or should I ask, how do you get the crap out of the cylinders after it has fallen inside?
if you must clean them. I would wait till it's all together and running, use Seafoam, or similar. The thing to check is build up on the valves around the stems under the head of the valve. If the valves are very cruddy. Probably a good time to pull the heads, and clean and inspect valves, and new valve springs. The stock valve springs are weak and not long lasting.
Holy crap I thought I just went on a rampage through Summit and Amazon. Well done dude. The paint we used was VHT chevy orange. We did go with the VHT primer below it, but for touch up I'd clean it and throw more orange at it.
Honestly with the 465 and your manual pedal set I'd get a new pivot ball and the rest of the mechanical linkage. Just to keep it simple you know. That will do more to keep the engine mounting in the stock location so the clutch linkage will match up without crazy modifications. The frame Larry has coming to fix his K10 might have the other stuff on it, or at least the frame mounted parts you'll need. I'll check on that for you.
The throwout bearing on that one might have 5,000 miles on it as I put a new clutch in and within a year the 12b spit out a tooth and it didn't get driven again.
I wouldn't sweat the intake runners in the heads. You could seafoam it once it's running or GM top engine clean but look further down in the head and you'll see the valves are pretty clean and no nuggets of carbon build up on them. Or at least thats what I saw when I peeked down in there.
As far as the clutch flywheel situation goes I think you got it backwards. You won't be able to bolt up a gen 1 small block flywheel to a LS engine. But just get a Sachs 1050 flywheel and it is the .400" thicker version to allow the clutch to be in the stock location to the 465. You can use the stock 11" or 12" truck clutch that would have been used in your truck had it come with the manual to start with. Yes, you'll need to get the LS specific flywheel bolts. They are torque to yield so you need to by new,as they shouldn't be reused.
Honestly with the 465 and your manual pedal set I'd get a new pivot ball and the rest of the mechanical linkage. Just to keep it simple you know. That will do more to keep the engine mounting in the stock location so the clutch linkage will match up without crazy modifications. The frame Larry has coming to fix his K10 might have the other stuff on it, or at least the frame mounted parts you'll need. I'll check on that for you.
The throwout bearing on that one might have 5,000 miles on it as I put a new clutch in and within a year the 12b spit out a tooth and it didn't get driven again.
I wouldn't sweat the intake runners in the heads. You could seafoam it once it's running or GM top engine clean but look further down in the head and you'll see the valves are pretty clean and no nuggets of carbon build up on them. Or at least thats what I saw when I peeked down in there.
As far as the clutch flywheel situation goes I think you got it backwards. You won't be able to bolt up a gen 1 small block flywheel to a LS engine. But just get a Sachs 1050 flywheel and it is the .400" thicker version to allow the clutch to be in the stock location to the 465. You can use the stock 11" or 12" truck clutch that would have been used in your truck had it come with the manual to start with. Yes, you'll need to get the LS specific flywheel bolts. They are torque to yield so you need to by new,as they shouldn't be reused.
