mstockton
Registered Member
Hey all,
Been a member here for a lil bit, finally tearing my K5 down to refresh her a bit...
Lost my original post with the story of my truck so here goes....
Bought the truck in September 06, for $600, its an 82 K5 diesel silverado with an awesome little brass plaque on the dash that says "Limited Edition 1982 diesel blazer especially built for Norman E. Kinsey". Not sure who the heck Norm was, but the plaque stays anyways. Purchased it from a crackhead, found the makings of spark plug crack pipes in the truck. Engine smoked, rear driveshaft was in the back of the bed. The owner had driven it 100 miles a few days before in 4wd (or FWD) on the freeway
. Oh well. It was pretty ugly; she was red, white, and lots o' surface rust. Whatever. I paid 600 cash, my cousin and I towed it back to his house in Sebastopol and started haulin' a## to get it roadworthy again.
That night and the following day, I got a new Ujoint for the rear d-shaft, new glow plugs, and we rattle canned it rustoleum metallic silver to cover the surface rust. The truck had no dents to speak of and no rust. And it was all orginal other than a crappy trailer brake controller (hitch had been removed before I got it).
A few weeks later a buddy helped me install a 6" Procomp lift and 35" BFG Muds, and it was lookin' pretty damned sweet to me. A big thank you to Justin Monroe and his mother for letting me a make a mess out of their side yard for the lift install.
Fast forward a month to october and my injection pump died after she carried me and a buddy 250 miles to go pig hunting. Made it within a mile of the house on the ranch. We towed it back and we weren't sure what the problem was at the time, and we stripped the heads off, and tore the slugs out to make sure there was no internal damage. I was currently in school for Caterpillar diesel equipment training, and after being back at work for a few months, I got in an accident at work.
Let me tell you right now, oily boots and climbing off of a D8 is not a good time. I was not paying enough attention to my hand holds and I slipped, I fell, but my leg got entangled in the push arm and I ended up hanging a few feet off the floor with my knee dislocated at about 60 degree angle to the side. Not very comfortable to say the least. When the damage was tallied up I had a blown ACL, a torn meniscus, a torn MCL and bone contusions and a hellova lot of swelling in my knee. I wasn't getting back to work any time soon. Oh well, I had lots of time to tear the engine down and rebuild it, just lacked the funds to do it in a timely manner.
It was now the middle of January and I finally got the engine back in (thanks to my two cousins for the assist of a cripple on the engine install) I still had two more months for surgery to put a cadaver acl in my knee. Carrying around 90 lb heads with a knee that has very little connective tissue left is quite an experience, I'll tell ya.
Well from then to now I have gone through the front brakes, new master cylinder, rebuilt the 208, and the rear 10 bolt has been slowing eating itself up, getting about ready to seize here pretty soon. I finally got back to work in June and now have decided to do my baby right. Over the last week, after my 11 hour shift, I've been gutting the truck top to bottom.
The interior is now gone, along with all the body trim and mouldings, bumpers are off, and I'm going to pull the engine/trans/tcase combo to replace a couple seals I screwed up during the rebuild, and to install a SM465 with a hydro clutch, repaint the truck completely and put an all new interior in it.
Also going to find a runnable 10 bolt in 3.08 for a 150 bones or so to run until I can get some one tons and a little more lift. Anyone anywhere close to me with one they want to sell, let me know.
Also installing an ORD engine crossmember, FUSH kit, and longer shackles, going to fix the horrible front shackle angle by moving the shackle hanger forward while I got the engine out, truck rides like a conestoga wagon in its current state. Going to do a DIY4x shackle flip for the rear in the near future to get rid of the blocks, and zero rates and a 1" body lift to clear some 40's when the one tons go in.
I finally acquired a digital camera from a buddy today, so I've got lots of pics of my progress to date, and I'll get 'em posted for ya'll tommorow.
Hope this provides some interesting reading material for those of you interested out there.
-Martin
Been a member here for a lil bit, finally tearing my K5 down to refresh her a bit...
Lost my original post with the story of my truck so here goes....
Bought the truck in September 06, for $600, its an 82 K5 diesel silverado with an awesome little brass plaque on the dash that says "Limited Edition 1982 diesel blazer especially built for Norman E. Kinsey". Not sure who the heck Norm was, but the plaque stays anyways. Purchased it from a crackhead, found the makings of spark plug crack pipes in the truck. Engine smoked, rear driveshaft was in the back of the bed. The owner had driven it 100 miles a few days before in 4wd (or FWD) on the freeway
. Oh well. It was pretty ugly; she was red, white, and lots o' surface rust. Whatever. I paid 600 cash, my cousin and I towed it back to his house in Sebastopol and started haulin' a## to get it roadworthy again. That night and the following day, I got a new Ujoint for the rear d-shaft, new glow plugs, and we rattle canned it rustoleum metallic silver to cover the surface rust. The truck had no dents to speak of and no rust. And it was all orginal other than a crappy trailer brake controller (hitch had been removed before I got it).
A few weeks later a buddy helped me install a 6" Procomp lift and 35" BFG Muds, and it was lookin' pretty damned sweet to me. A big thank you to Justin Monroe and his mother for letting me a make a mess out of their side yard for the lift install.
Fast forward a month to october and my injection pump died after she carried me and a buddy 250 miles to go pig hunting. Made it within a mile of the house on the ranch. We towed it back and we weren't sure what the problem was at the time, and we stripped the heads off, and tore the slugs out to make sure there was no internal damage. I was currently in school for Caterpillar diesel equipment training, and after being back at work for a few months, I got in an accident at work.
Let me tell you right now, oily boots and climbing off of a D8 is not a good time. I was not paying enough attention to my hand holds and I slipped, I fell, but my leg got entangled in the push arm and I ended up hanging a few feet off the floor with my knee dislocated at about 60 degree angle to the side. Not very comfortable to say the least. When the damage was tallied up I had a blown ACL, a torn meniscus, a torn MCL and bone contusions and a hellova lot of swelling in my knee. I wasn't getting back to work any time soon. Oh well, I had lots of time to tear the engine down and rebuild it, just lacked the funds to do it in a timely manner.
It was now the middle of January and I finally got the engine back in (thanks to my two cousins for the assist of a cripple on the engine install) I still had two more months for surgery to put a cadaver acl in my knee. Carrying around 90 lb heads with a knee that has very little connective tissue left is quite an experience, I'll tell ya.
Well from then to now I have gone through the front brakes, new master cylinder, rebuilt the 208, and the rear 10 bolt has been slowing eating itself up, getting about ready to seize here pretty soon. I finally got back to work in June and now have decided to do my baby right. Over the last week, after my 11 hour shift, I've been gutting the truck top to bottom.
The interior is now gone, along with all the body trim and mouldings, bumpers are off, and I'm going to pull the engine/trans/tcase combo to replace a couple seals I screwed up during the rebuild, and to install a SM465 with a hydro clutch, repaint the truck completely and put an all new interior in it.
Also going to find a runnable 10 bolt in 3.08 for a 150 bones or so to run until I can get some one tons and a little more lift. Anyone anywhere close to me with one they want to sell, let me know.
Also installing an ORD engine crossmember, FUSH kit, and longer shackles, going to fix the horrible front shackle angle by moving the shackle hanger forward while I got the engine out, truck rides like a conestoga wagon in its current state. Going to do a DIY4x shackle flip for the rear in the near future to get rid of the blocks, and zero rates and a 1" body lift to clear some 40's when the one tons go in.
I finally acquired a digital camera from a buddy today, so I've got lots of pics of my progress to date, and I'll get 'em posted for ya'll tommorow.
Hope this provides some interesting reading material for those of you interested out there.
-Martin
Glad you're back on your feet. (no pun intended!) Keep the build going and post plenty of pics! 
Diesels rock!
