My 79 K5 Blazer

[lloydrage]

Well I finally figured I would pay the 25 bucks. So I here is my build

I picked it up from a guy out of San Antonio for 2600 in Oct 2012. Sadly the PO lied about the motor. He told me it was a rebuilt 350. Turned out it was a worn out 305. Big difference. Well here are the PO pictures from CL.

 

[lloydrage]

As you may notice it has an interior from a 83

Okay so there were some things I had to fix. For one the passenger floor board was gone, in its place a street sign. Got a floor pan from LMC and used rivets to replace it.

Before

Here is piece from LMC

I also replaced the 31" tires and bad rims, with 33"

 

[lloydrage]

Drives side has a little rust but that will be easy to fix, see what we did below...

Also as you can see I found another issue.

The good news is my friend had an extra drivers side and passenger side front axle. Also he had a new set of spark plug wires and a few other things.

 

[lloydrage]

The auto window regulators were out so I put in manual ones

before

After




Then came the 350 engine. I went with a GM Goodwrench









I also did a 4 inch lift.





Took it to mudfest

Then I Picked up a bumper from u pull it,

old bumper

new one

 

[lloydrage]

First time at the beach

Also put speakers in the doors









Added speakers to the dash and then put dash mat

 

[lloydrage]

Havent started on headliner yet, but have started on tail gate.

Before Pictures...








Pretty easy to see the surface rust. So I used a wire brush and cleaned it all up. Then taped it off to prevent over spray.











Here are pictures after I sprayed the Rust Reformer. It takes 24 hours to dry and I should only need 1 coat.










Its not perfect but there is truck liner going over it so should be okay.

Ok I put the truck liner on, using 3 total coats. Came out damn good if you ask me. It says let it sit for 72 hours before putting things on it. This weekend I will go fishing so we will see how it holds up. I still have about 1/3 of a can left too.

















Ok

we are up to date. This weekend I should be doing the headliner. I am currently trying to buy the swing out bumper thats for sale in the forums here. We are trying to figure out how to ship it to me without me paying an arm and a leg

 

[lloydrage]

Well I sent a photo into mud life mag back on spring break after mudfest and look whats in this months issue...

 

[2500hd4x]

Very cool Blazer. The interior on yours looks like mine used too...same color and everything. I love that Rustoleum truck bed coating-has many uses and holds up well.

 

[82355]

Those seats are from a 1986+, not a 1983.

Martin

 

[lloydrage]

Those seats are from a 1986+, not a 1983.

Martin

Your right, I was doing headliner and found a stamp paper that said 89. Very odd. I will post more soon.

Still cant believe I made it into Mud Life Magazine

 

[CaneyCat]

Love it! Awesome looking truck!

 

[lloydrage]

Big Update:

So the picture of my rig in Mud Life Magazine lit a fire under my ass and I finally did the head liner. In case anyone missed the Mud Life Magazine picture....



While working on it a small stamp paper came out. It seems the interior of my vehicle is actually from an 89 (dash, seats, carpet, door panels, trim, etc)

Here is a pic




That was pretty cool!



Alright on to the headliner....

 

[lloydrage]

I ordered my headliner from http://www.yourautotrim.com/ it came with the adhesive and since we have K5s we only need 1 yard of fabric. Total cost to get it shipped to my house with the factory blue color fabric was $33.96.

Here is what it looked like, it was really just dust/old glue on the cardboard, what an eye sore!!!





The first step was to take the trim off and get the cardboard on to a flat surface (a table for me) and then start using a wire brush to get off all of the grim. Dont press too hard or you could wreck the cardboard.






After you have cleaned it you need to get the left over dust, grim off of it. You can use an air compressor or your hands or a broom. either way it should be pretty easy, here are pics







What a difference 10 minutes can make! Just take your time...


Now you need to lay the headliner out on the card board and make sure it all lines up. You will also want to make sure the extra fabric is even on all four sides. Or as close to even as possible.





Then you fold over half of the fabric back on to itself. Spray the adhesive on the card board and the headliner. Lay flat and slowly work it out from center to edges using your hands. Do the same for the other side. Finally flip it over and over lap it on the back of the card board.





You should trim off the extra fabric to make it as flat as possible. Just take your time and its easy




Then back to the install, take your time here as well. You will need to move the board quite a bit. I did this by myself but an extra set of hands helping hold up the other side would have help. Then you are done....








It took me about an hour and 15 minutes to do everything and I am very happy with how it turned out. If you guys need to replace your headliner, I strongly suggest doing it. Its very easy!!!

 

[lloydrage]

This past two weekends I Installed my new Speedo cable and installed my off road LEDs. Pretty easy stuff.


Alrighty, speedocable has been replaced. They 1st gave me the wrong cable though. 80 inches long but didnt have the screw adapter.

Here is wrong one, this one is 80 inches and suppose to connect to the back of speedometer





So after checking it out I went back and got the correct one which is actually 83 inches. This connects to the bottom of the cruise control.





Pulling the old cable out is very easy, unscrew it from the transfer case and from the cruise control. Then you have to take off this nut, its right below the driver seat, above the transmission shifter




Here is after taking the connector off the cable and the nut slightly cleaned




Here is the piece that broke, the end of the of the cable






Comparison of old cable and new, the old cable is slightly thicker than the new.




After I reconnected everything it wasnt work still, so I connected a drill to where the cable connects to the transfer case and got it to move. Then I reconnected everything and its working again. Here you can see the cable connected to the cruise control.





Overall a pretty easy job for sure. I am very happy that speedo is working again. Easy fix for sure




As I said above I went to U-Pull It yesterday. I didnt actually NEED anything but I would like to replace my wind shield wiper switch and would love to find a grill guard from an old K5 or K truck. Anyways my buddy was looking for stuff for his 92 burb. In the whole lot there was 1 Blazer, 0 Jimmys, 5 Ramchargers, 4 Broncos, & 4 Bronco IIs. What the hell is up with that?

Here is one of the Ramchargers, its a Plymouth Trail Duster. I guess in 78 they were still full verts. Looks like it was pretty sweet in its day, I liked the old school running stripes on the bottom.








Here is the one Blazer I found, the top was trimmed to make it feel more like a full vert. I have seen someone else do this here but cant remember who is was. Also they made a weird tail gate but I forgot to get a pic of that. I think this was an 85 Blazer






Now to the LED OFF Road Lights install. Not sure if you guys remember but I got these off of Ebay for cheap. They are from China but after reading the reviews online it sounded like a good idea. I got to tell you guys, these things are bright!! I cant believe the difference 50 bucks can make to lighting.



The first thing I did was cut up the panel to put a switch in place. As you can see the PO had a few round switches in here before. If you look closely you can see my mark to cut. I used my dremel with some gloves and trimmed it up




After trim




Then I decided nows a great time to paint so I did a quick couple of coats and let it dry while I worked on the wiring. You might recognize the Pizza Wrapper. Its from the best frozen pizza in the world. Pizza Corner. You can find it in the midwest but I shipped 10 pizza down here. Worth the 100 bucks for sure!!




With switch installed, looks clean to me!







Lights Finally mounted




And lets see them on with my headlights on, look at the difference in day light alone.





Very easy to do guys and I suggest getting the lights if you are wishing you had more light on your rig.