New Blazer - Build Thread

[cacahootie]

Howdy y'all. As you can see, I am new to CK5. Been trolling for a couple of weeks, decided to lose my CK5-ginity on this subject...

I recently purchased an 89 Blazer w/ 104K miles and a fresh 14bff swap. While 104K is not too many miles, it appears that 103.5K were off road... Aside from the rear-axle, the vehicle is basically as it came from the factory. Original hoses and all.

Since I've gotten it' i've tossed a new set of 31" BFG ATs on the 15" rims. Naturally, it's got a split personality right now -- 8 lug rear and 6 lug front. Brand new Monroe shocks all around as well, in addition to a K&N air filter, new power steering pump, 1 new motor mount and a bunch of adjustments. I have a new harmonic balancer, water pump, full set of radiator hoses and the other motor mount waiting to go on.

The vehicle is intended to be used as an expedition vehicle, 100-700 miles on the highway, then to the end of the earth (and I hope to god back). Naturally, the inclination is a little different than most Blazer rigs. I plan to keep the 31" tires and am doing no lift at all. The wheeling I do tends to be mild, typically poorly maintained dirt roads, logging roads and established 4x4 trails. My big concerns are fuel efficiency and highway drivability, along with enough ruggedness to bring me back home (hopefully every time). I chose a Blazer over something like a 4Runner because... well... I like my full size trucks and HP.

Problem is... this little son of a ***** has stranded me twice now. First time, 15 mins out wheeling the first time I SHRED a "brand new" tire. The tread was great - except the tires had dry rotted from sitting... 4 new tires later, I am rolling around happy as a clam, park the bad boy, come back and it won't start. Nothing. Well I had been doing some electrical, and I may have accidentally shorted something. Blew a fuse, replaced it. Except the bulkhead fusible link got sketchy. After KILLING every fusible link (and replacing with new of course), it works just fine again.

Plans for the bad-boy:

-Front End - in need of some serious assistance. Not sure what to do, am starting another thread after this specific to my conundrum here.
-All new power wiring. Silicon insulator, breaker protected system. Longer term plans include some serious on-board electrical for welder, compressor, refrigerator (!). Likely dual (or more) batteries and possibly an auxiliary generator. Planning on having some form of active monitoring of electronics as well to either cut off load or start engine when power is getting low. The idea here is 3-4 way redundancy...
-Swamp cooler... this one's a bit strange, but I live in Phoenix and no AC will compete with the heat topless in summer. I have plans to build a mist-cooled, blower driven swamp cooler which will pump cold, wet air at very high velocity. I realize that filling a water tank is a little silly, but if you've lived through a Phoenix summer it's no hassle at all. Besides, if I size everything right, I will be filling the water tank every gas tank.
-New Headers, Cat, Exhaust. My current setup leaks like a sieve, and will never pass emissions. Thinking flowmaster cat and muffler, undecided as far as headers go.
-Some mild TBI mods. The area seems a bit hocus-pocus to me right now, and it's basically irrelevant until I fix the exhaust and quit running so rich...
-Custom fabbed (by me) Roll cage, soft top, cargo rack. Also bumpers, with a big, bad winch and a sun's worth of light.
-Interior-->Exterior. Rhino lining the inside, weather-proof seats, marine canvas over where the existing panels are.
-Stereo, oh stereo. Marine speakers and subwoofers, 5 channel amplifier hooked up to...
-BUILT IN COMPUTER! I am a GIS analyst, and a computer nerd. I want to have really cool maps available on a floating, touchscreen LCD display inside the cab. This will also control all the music (and anything else I can imagine, perhaps some performance monitoring).


I posted a couple pics of the rig as it is now below. As you can see, I removed the shell already. The weather in Phoenix right now begs for no top. I'm looking forward to getting started on this bad boy and look forward to all of the problems y'all will help me solve

 

[Recon!]

Sounds like some cool ideas. Good luck with the build and welcome to CK5!

 

[tRustyK5]

With a full floater in the rear your ground clearance is gonna suck with 31's. At that tire size I'd say you don't need a 14 bolt FF at all, and would recomend finding a 10 bolt for the rear. Or, consider some 33's and shave the trail plow off the bottom of the 14 bolt.

I have a similar truck, but a '90 that I picked up cheap. Mine had rust and dents though.

I have been through the major fluids, cleaned up a bit of previous owner BS and am most of the way through rust repair and body work. The exhaust on mine was a joke. Stock 'Y' pipe(3") cat removed, 2 1/4" cherry bomb cobbled in, rotted tailpipe, horrible exhaust leak. It sounded wonderful.

I hacked it all off at the point where the cat should have been, robbed a 3" cat from my Crew Cab project and welded that in. Added a 2.5" 3 chamber Flowmaster, and used the CC's tailpipe too. Still had a horrible exhaust leak though. Found the retainer springs at the manifold had rotted...so i jacked up the exhaust until it was firmly seated against the donut, fired it up to check for leaks and tack welded the pipe to the flange. Good temp fix...I plan on headers and better exhaust in the near future.

Point is, it ran quite a bit better.

Focus on the little stupid things first, and get it reliable. Then go from there...

rene

 

[RollinKaos]

Rusty is right. Start small and work up to the big things. Most important is reliablity. Dont matter what gadgets you have if you cant trust the rig. You might want to get a 10 bolt like he said that is a big diff to drag around and the 2 bolt pattern wheels will be a PITA.

 

[andyblack]

You probably don't need the 14 bolt for what you plan to do. You can probably find someone on here that will trade you a 10 bolt and some cash for the 14ff. Or look in the give away section of the classified forum. Guys will often give 10 bolts away just to get rid of them after a swap. Put in the 10 bolt and keep the 14ff in case you want it in the future. You'll increase your ground clearance and loose a couple hundred pounds too.

 

[andyblack]

I think you're going in the right direction though. Lots of us have over-built our trucks and K5s for what we actually use them for and are wishing we could go back. I bet your Blazer with 31s will handle a lot better on rough roads than my truck on 35s will. Plus you don't have to worry about breaking shafts, u-joints and steering components.

 

[Burbdood 74]

I agree with everyone else here, for the type of off-roading you intend to do, a good 10 bolt will be just fine. If you find a 10 bolt and want to improve on it, then an Auburn limited slip or something like that would be a good choice.

My wife and I bought an 88 Suburban for family hauling and for the same kind of offroading you like to do on the weekends. I like to carry 2 spares with me on one of our trail rides so I have peace of mind. If you were to do the same thing, you'd have to carry 2 8-lug spares and 2 6-lug spares. That doesn't leave you any room for any other gear at all.

 

[cacahootie]

Wow.. resounding "ditch the 14bff"

I didn't expect such a chorus of "ditch the 14", but I can easily see the justification. I guess I am stuck between do the 8 lug conversion on the front or ditch the rear. My natural inclination in these circumstances is generally to overbuild, but in this case there may be enough pros to "downgrading" the rear to entertain going to a 10b. I am gonna be REALLY mad though, when I tank the 10b rear in the middle of nowhere and think to myself "why did I ever remove the big boy". But then again, when I tear the diff open on a pebble, I'll probably be pissed that I left the big boy on.

I am presently torn on my weekend work plans, I had intended to drop the front end and do some work on it... but it doesn't make sense to to that until I've made up my mind on axles. Looks like motor mount, harmonic, water pump and hoses, safe bet and I already have the parts.

Also, I hate my hood. No matter how many times I clean & lube, lube oil or white moly, the damn thing starts catching again. I got the rear gate and driver's door latches working smooth and pretty, but still no luck with hood

 

[Recon!]

I didn't expect such a chorus of "ditch the 14", but I can easily see the justification. I guess I am stuck between do the 8 lug conversion on the front or ditch the rear. My natural inclination in these circumstances is generally to overbuild, but in this case there may be enough pros to "downgrading" the rear to entertain going to a 10b. I am gonna be REALLY mad though, when I tank the 10b rear in the middle of nowhere and think to myself "why did I ever remove the big boy". But then again, when I tear the diff open on a pebble, I'll probably be pissed that I left the big boy on.

I am presently torn on my weekend work plans, I had intended to drop the front end and do some work on it... but it doesn't make sense to to that until I've made up my mind on axles. Looks like motor mount, harmonic, water pump and hoses, safe bet and I already have the parts.

Also, I hate my hood. No matter how many times I clean & lube, lube oil or white moly, the damn thing starts catching again. I got the rear gate and driver's door latches working smooth and pretty, but still no luck with hood

If you already have the 14 bolt in it, leave it. Change the front to 8 lug and be done. Less clearance? Yes. WAY WAY WAY stronger? YES YES YES. You can drag the 14 over anything and it will survive, the only thing you would have to worry about is the cover. You can always shave it down if you really want that extra room. Plus, you don't have to try and move almost 500 pounds of axle around. Change the front to 8 lug, way easier and cheaper and faster.
The hood is a problem here, as well. What did you do to the rear gate to help it out?

 

[cacahootie]

Basically, on the actual mechanism that pulls the two rods in the center, there's a bolt which holds the two rods to the mechanism. There's a slot which allows you to loosen the bolt, then pull the rods as tight as possible and tighten the bolt in the middle back. Opens like a charm for me now, no more slamming and shaking.

 

[496truck]

I vote to keep the 14b as well. Swap in an 8 lug front. But, for the type of traveling and wheeling you intend to do, I would upgrade to a 33" tire. There may come a time when you are stuck in a washout wishing you had that extra height...

 

[rjpastor]

I vote for keeping the 14 bolt, since it's already there and for 33s. I had them on my Jimmy with a D44 & 12bolt without issue. If you have rubbing issue, a 2" lift should take care of it. I put a 4" on mine and got about 7" of lift because the original springs were so saggy.

 

[cacahootie]

I'm going to be keeping the 14b. There's just no good reason in my mind to go through the effort of finding a new rear axle and doing the swap. I'm gonna do the 8 lug swap on the front, after pulling the 10b off for a full rebuild. Although, I do have a lead on a FREE!!!!!!!! dana 60. My boss has been into high-perf chevy off-road for many years, and has a garage full of stuff he'll give me for free... every time I mention, "hey I am thinking of buying" his response is "i've got one I'll give you for free". Der, that's a tough choice.

As far as progress goes, my brother came over last night and we removed the radiator, hoses, water pump, harmonic balancer. We made a damn mess with the radiator though... I don't remember making such a mess last time I replaced a water pump. Maybe I'm just a moron.

I purchased an impact wrench at harbor freight for working on the harmonic, and it performed beautifully. Way easier than trying to jerry-rig something. Pulled it off with a HF bolt puller, and boom! No major problems until I go about trying to put the new one on. I don't really wanna pay 45 bucks for a harmonic balancer installer at AutoZone, so I'm gonna try to find a bolt of the same thread slightly longer to pull the balancer on enough to get the standard bolt on.

I also took off the front, passenger wheel to get a better idea of what's involved with the 8-lug swap. I'm a bit confused because it looks like the caliper is hard-mounted to the knuckle. This seems incongruent with the fact that the swap moves the caliper out... it seems like because of the mounting there's nowhere for it to go! Also, the ball joints are definately shot, there's a bunch of slop in them.

My 30 day tags run out here pretty soon, so I'm thinking I've got to get the exhaust done ASAP to either pass emissions or get a big spender waiver. So many things to do, so little time and money...

 

[cacahootie]

Whoops - Pics didn't post

Here are the pics I attempted to post...

 

[cacahootie]

Well, we finished her up today. Got the harmonic balancer, water pump, new hoses and passenger side motor mount installed.

It was amazing how much easier this motor mount was than the first. The first, I tried to do alone, and I tried to use a jack under the engine to lift. Basically useless. Last time, I figured out a trick. There's a slot next to the hood latch exactly the right size to stick the rod from my 60" hi-lift. Used the hole on the hi-lift as an anchor point for a come-along, and boom! Choose the right spot and you can rotate the engine and adjust to the heart's content. The passenger side was a bit tougher, as it required creating a lift point w/ a 7/16 bolt and some washers in an unused bolt-hole. This time, with a helper, took less than an hour. I was a bit concerned because the old mount was so degraded that the exhaust manifold was maybe 1/4" from the frame, making the top two bolts on the flat of the motor mount impossible to access. However, I removed the motor-to-mount bolt first, then lifted the motor out of the way and had easy access to the two top bolts.

Put everything back together with new hoses. Went to start 'er up... WHOOPS!!!!!!!!!!!!! Forgot to attach the return oil-cooler line. The radiator was spurting oil all over the motor!!!!!!!!!! Killed it, reattached the line, cleaned off the block.

Runs like a top now.

 

[K85 Octane]

ahahahah
sounds good man, interesting take on motor mount installation, and goofy WHOOPS' sometimes just happen, I have the same ground thats held on by a bolt that I always forget to put on during installation lol
So I'm kinda into the same type of build, or at least was until I found out the motor was garbage. doh