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Blue Bandit - My 1986 K5 Blazer

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Maroon_Madness94

Maroon_Madness94

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Maroon_Madness94 submitted a new Build:

Blue Bandit - My 1986 K5 Blazer

Well I have severely lacked in getting this going and really need to keep track of progress and have something I can look back on. In the process of starting this i realized I lost my pictures of when I first picked this thing up and it's really bumming me out. But anyways here goes it...

I have always wanted a K5 Blazer and when I moved out I got the itch and bought one out of Farmington, MN. After a 11hr round trip and $1800 bucks later I had my own 1986 K5 Blazer from Arizona. This is my second one but we wont mention the first one, lets just say it taught me what to look for haha. The oldest picture I have of him (yes it's a guy) is from July 18th, 2014

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So there bandit is next to my 94 blazer. I changed the fluids after I towed it home, put a battery in it and fixed a few connections/hoses. She ran great after that even though I was a little skeptical driving so far for a rig I didn't have a lot of info on. Worst thing I did then was take off the emissions equipment which in turn started me down the road I'm on now. It ran so crappy after that and being a farm truck it was kinda patched together all under the hood it was hard to make out what was wrong. Anyways a new intake from a coworker, plugs and wires, a rebuilt hei distributor and a old rebuilt carb and she was actually driveable!

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I drove bandit like this for awhile and enjoyed it until the number cylinder started hydrolocking with coolant. I put some block seal in it which stopped it but I knew that was only temporary whether it was a head gasket or cracked block or warped intake I will never know. The turbo 400 wasn't shifting great and I already had to rebuild the np208 that was in it and after scouring craigslist one night I came across a 90 K5 that a guy wrecked drunk.

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It had a brand new crate tbi 350 with 6000mi on it and a 700r4 with 3000mi on that. I couldn't pass up the deal and my truck desperately needed the parts. So I tore them both down and started swapping parts!

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Out with the good motor

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Out with the bad motor

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And this is where they were at. I should've gotten mine running and driving again but I let the project bug get to me and I decided to tear him all the way down. That part of the story is for another time though

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Read more about this build here...
 
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Well I think I fixed all of my pictures from the first post. I really wish I had more pictures for you guys so sorry if its jumpy. Now for part 2:

After I had everything out of the parts truck and my motor out of the 86 I decided that instead of getting mine going again I was gonna tear it down and do a frame off. Granted this is my first resto and I think I have a good idea how to go about doing it but like anything else, once you're into it everything changes. So my goal for the truck is to be a good driver, be something I can be proud of and my end goal is to venture out to moab with it. I am doing all of this by myself with little help from my dad when need be. Kinda sucks not having a lot of friends that are into cars/trucks. I got the body off and hauled the frame to work to mach up the shackle flip and disassemble it

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Being from wisconsin I am shocked by how clean an arizona frame is after a good pressure washing! This frame was really tweaked on the driver side from a past accident (reemed out holes on the front rail) so my boss showed me the ropes on pulling and straighting a frame. Unfortunately whilst pulling we pulled a crack in the frame by the steering box that I later welded up and put a brace in there. After this it was sent off to have everything blasted

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I taught myself how to disassemble a front 10 bolt

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Everything is set up ready to get two coats of black epoxy followed by two coats of hot rod satin black

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I lost some after pictures around this time but here is the finished core support

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I took the frame back up to my house and started putting the 4in lift on and the axles underneath it. I snagged a 3.42 posi to throw in the rear end and got rid of the 3.08s up front for 3.42s as well. At this point I installed ORD's sway bar disconnects and their shackle flip w/ greaseable bolts and it now has the shock braces on it and the steering box brace.
 
Nice progress. I have been through many projects where they turned into lots more than they should have. Hope you can get it going and enjoy it soon. Where you at in WI? I'm from there originally and the trucks from out west are so nice to work on when you are used to dealing with rusty crap.
 
Truckman4life said:
Nice progress. I have been through many projects where they turned into lots more than they should have. Hope you can get it going and enjoy it soon. Where you at in WI? I'm from there originally and the trucks from out west are so nice to work on when you are used to dealing with rusty crap.
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I'm located just outside of Milwaukee, there aren't to many squares running around up here anymore. I've been lucky with rust on my old trucks but nothing like my k5, it is super solid. My goal is to have it painted and at least running by spring. Just have to get past the body work.
 
man, i dont know if i could have gutted another blazer that clean unless there was alot of stuff hiding. Nice looking start!
 
Maroon_Madness94 said:
I'm located just outside of Milwaukee, there aren't to many squares running around up here anymore. I've been lucky with rust on my old trucks but nothing like my k5, it is super solid. My goal is to have it painted and at least running by spring. Just have to get past the body work.
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Nice, I am from Fort Atkinson but haven't been back that way since 2011. My sister lives in New Berlin and I got a buddy with two really nice square bodies in Oconomowoc.
 
RubberFloorMat said:
man, i dont know if i could have gutted another blazer that clean unless there was alot of stuff hiding. Nice looking start!
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Looks are deceiving, it had bed patched multiple times all over and it wasn't done right so it was all rotted again. Plus when he hit the tree, the frame rail kicked up and did a bunch of damage to the floor

Truckman4life said:
Nice, I am from Fort Atkinson but haven't been back that way since 2011. My sister lives in New Berlin and I got a buddy with two really nice square bodies in Oconomowoc.
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That's where I picked up my first K5! Maybe we'll run into each other some day
 
Sorry for being absent for awhile, I have been hard at work doing body work on the panels along with christmas yada yada yada. Anyways to continue where I left off. After I finished what I could on the frame I popped my new to me rims and tires on and dropped the new TBI 350 motor in it to get that off my garage floor. Theres nothing like seeing a chassis without a body on it haha. I also put the blue shock boot cover on instead of the red and the pumpkin covers are painted with the new toyota trd orange, such an awesome color in the sun!

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You should run a longer single front shock in the auxiliary shock mount.

Martin
 
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