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Bandito

Restoring a 79 Blazer with some mild mods
You can test that tach with three jumper wires before installing.

Martin
 
Yep, tach is labeled too if you look closely on the cluster. Positive, Negative, Coil. I had it hooked up and tested a little before I bolted it in. Temp gauge was still giving me problems but the sensor must have been the wrong one for the temp gauge itself. It required a 78 and older sensor. I posted some info on this on another thread. Popped in the older sensor and now it reads correctly. SO nice having working gauges now and can get rid of the ones below. Everything was great until I took it for a test drive and as I pulled in the garage, the tach is now stuck on 3500 RPM and not moving. Sigh... Not sure if a wire came loose but looking into it.

Edit... It was a loose positive wire. Whew! Thought the tach went bad for a second. That would suck if I had to go back to the giant factory fuel gauge on the right.

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Get rid of these now... The factory oil pressure is accurate with the autometer too.
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BTW- This is how most high end optioned trucks should have come from the factory. I don't understand why GM was so stingie with the tachometer option on the trucks even in the Silverado, Sierra Classic, Cheyenne higher optioned trucks/SUV's. They could have sold more well optioned trucks if they included the tach IMO.
 
Also... If anyone is looking to touch up their faded factory needles, this fluorescent orange paint matches perfectly and is not glossy. I sprayed some into the lid and used a small model paint brush and covered the black gauge part with a paper towel and a slit cut into it. Its a little thin when you do that so it requires a few coats. I think spraying the needles might give better results but you need to make sure the black face covered well. Tape will take the numbers off so only use paper or paper towel. Alum foil might work too. I only painted the speedo and tach needles. The needles on the left (fuel, oil, temp, volts) were fine. You can see how the the speedo and tach needles match with the ones that were not touched.

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Some updates on Bandito!

I got the dash cover on. I was very impressed with at first but after it being in the sun, it bubbled up in the middle. So not sure if I would buy this again.

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Got the new bezel, new passenger dash trim, new vents, new blue tooth stereo installed. What a difference!
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Door panels came in the wrong color so I had to paint them with SEM and its adhesion promoter (Sand Free). Picture is old panel on left, new wrong color panel on right.
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New panels with correct SEM installed. Color is Napa Red . LMC door trim forces you to use a top strap where the stock panels do not have those straps. This means having to buy extra hardware for this along with painting the straps since they only come black. My drivers side had busted trim so I had to go this route including the brackets needed behind the door panels. Dice door locks were eventually replaced with factory style.
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Old and new panels so you can see how well they match

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New headliner installed. Also painted the off-white headliner trim to Napa red as well. Visors I had bought from someone locally.
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Interior almost done!
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Had a slight issue with the cowl hood hitting the stock wipers. Also the cowl hood did not allow any provisions for the squirters. WTF! I installed these new arms from a 89-91 Blazer/Suburban and they include the washers in the wiper. With the bend in the wiper arm, it cleared the cowl hood. 2 birds with one stone!
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Looking good.
Thanks!! Its been a longer journey than I expected but every project is always WAY longer than anticipated. Working full time gets in the way of getting things done but just happy to get it to this finished point. For now Bandito is going to be left alone and no other mods for now since I need to focus on the 89 Blazer (Project Bone Stock) next. My glass guy has had it for 4-5 months and no excuse other than he has been too busy. Sigh...
 
That hitch looks like the one that was on my old 77 K5. I pulled a car trailer with it once.
 

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