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RE-Build Thread: 1989 K5 Trazer "The Dirty Girl"

muddermilitia

muddermilitia

ThatTrazerGuy
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After getting the Ok from Rene, I'm going to make a re-build thread for my 1989 Chevy K5 blazer. My original build thread can be seen here: http://coloradok5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=195380

That thread is many years old and unfortunately, the picture hosting site I was using, reformatted or something and most of my pictures were lost. Thankfully, I still had the pictures saved on a disc. So here we go:

FROM BLAZER TO TRAZER: The story of "The Dirty Girl"

I have been into lifted 4x4's since I was about 14 years old (I'm 29 now) I started out with an interest in show trucks. After I talked a friend into getting an XJ Cherokee, we took it to the Badlands offroad park in Attica Indiana. I quickly realized I wanted a trail rig. I had always liked the look of squarebody chevys, my 1st being a 2wd k5 blazer.

The word was put out that I was looking for a 4x4 project and in late October 2005, my cousin spotted a k5 blazer for sale near a relatives house. My dad and I went to go check it out. The truck was pretty beat up but it was cheap and it ran/drove pretty good. After handing over the $850, I became the proud owner of a 1989 k5 blazer.

First mod to the truck was replacing the bald 31" tires. I decided on a set of 35" TruXs MTs. We trimmed a little of the front fenders and put them on the truck with no lift:



After fixing a few minor electrical issues, we took it to the Badlands Offroad park less than 1 month after I bought the truck, wheeled it, and drove it all the way back home (6 hour drive roundtrip) The truck worked quite well, considering it was basically stock.



 
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The first real mod I did to the truck was a 4" suspension lift kit. I went with 4" Tuff Country EZ ride springs and a rear shackle flip from Offroad Design.







Those are the only pics I have of the truck with the 4" lift. Most of the wheeling I did during this stage was at local little spots, usually at night. Everytime I took the truck out, it became more apparent that the body was in bad shape. The floors were very rotted out and at least two body mounts were broken. It got so bad, that the headrests of the seats practically touched the interior panel by the upper seatbelt mount. I even had the passenger side rocker panel fall off one day while I was driving to college!
 
So while trying to decide what to do with the body, a guy who worked at the local 4x4 shop, Attitude Performance, suggested I just put a pickup cab on it and build a little flatbed. I had never heard of this being done before. He hooked me up with a cab for $100 and then the swap began.

As you can see, the floors were in beautiful shape....



My brother always gets a little too excited to use the sawzall, especially when it involves my truck...







Brushed on some black rustoleum paint while we had the body off:



Then brushed the firewall and bottom of the new cab:



The rear cab body mounts are in a different location than what the k5's have. Pickups have the mounts on the inside, while k5s have them on the outside. Also the frame is lower at this point on a k5 than a pickup frame. Now if you are using a 73-77 k5 that doesn't have the rear passenger footwell, a pickup cab will swap right on to one of those frames with no mods. We decided to incorporate the rear cab crossmember from the pickup in our swap.



My brother then made uprights that were welded to the frame and then the cab crossmember would bolt to them.





Cab now bolted to the frame, front sheetmetal back on (new fenders) and "custom" rear window installed :D

 
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Now I never ended up doing this, but at one point I actually thought of mounting a pair of front fenders flipped around in the back. If I kept my wheelbase, it would have worked perfect.



I took the truck to Badlands and was somewhat happy with it except for the rear suspension. With very little weight on the back, I would lift a rear tire when going over even the smallest obstacles. I spent half the trip on three wheels lol. So I sought out how to gain some flex in the back. I located a free pair of 64" long chevy springs from the local 4x4 shop and began the rear 64" spring swap.

I decided to keep the front mount in the stock location and just move the rear shackle hanger back. The blazer frame has this little bump in it, which prevented me from just simply bolting the shackle hanger farther back. We used a cutoff wheel and cut a slice horizontally in the frame, ground a little out, hammered the bottom of the frame up, then re-welded it back up.



So I flipped the shackle hangers side-to-side so that they were angled back, then moved them farther back on the frame. I used DIY4X 7" long shackles too.





Rear axle ended up getting moved 5.5"s back



Poser flex, stopped when the driver's front tire hit the fender

 
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Since the rear axle was moved back, I would have to do something about a driveshaft. So then I started debating if I should SYE the np241 t-case. Right about here is when the build started taking on a life of its own. A local guy sold me a pair of 3/4 ton axles, I scored a super cheap np203 t-case, I worked out a deal to trade my brother for a np205 t-case, and the final deal was when I scored a rebuilt dana 60 front axle for $1100 that already had brand new brakes, 5.13 gears and a detroit locker.

First thing I started working on was a 52" front spring swap and swapping in the front dana 60 axle.

Removed the old junk:



Cleaned up the frame a little:



Painted some goodies I got from DIY4X:



Then I drilled for the new location of the front shackle hanger. I used the old, upper, forward bolt hole to bolt the new shackle hanger on the outside of the frame. I then marked where the remaining 3 bolt holes had to go as well as marking the large hole for part of the bracket to fit through the frame.



I then mounted all the brackets and hung the springs into place:



I then swapped the Dana 60 into place:

 
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Here's some pics after the 52" spring swap:







We didn't flex it any more than that, since the engine hoist is kinda old and we were worried about breaking it lol
 
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The next project was getting the 14bff rear axle ready to swap in. I dragged it into the garage and started stripping it down



It's out of a 3/4 ton truck so the axle spring perches are right where I need them. Once I opened it up, I found out it had the Gov-loc diff and 4.10 gear. My brother had a van 14bff lying around with open diff in it. So I bought the diff from him since I was planning on running a Detroit Locker.

Before I took the axle to the offroad shop to have the diff and gears installed, we cut off the lower lip of the axle housing and ground it down smooth:







Got the axle back with 5.13 gears, a Detroit locker and a 1410 yoke installed. I then painted it, installed a DIY4X razorback diff cover, and installed it with a pair of 1" Zero-rates since the back of the truck was sitting a little low after 52" spring swap

 
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I ordered some more goodies from DIY4X. Got the Backbone axle truss and Wraptor anti-wrap bar.









I had Kert at DIY4X put shock mounts on the front of the backbone truss since I was going to inboard my rear shocks.

 
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Thanks, added some pics to a previous post.

After the truss was installed I realized that the anti-wrap bar wasn't going to work for my situation. I ordered a kit for a truck, instead of a blazer thinking it would work with my extra wheelbase, but it wouldn't. Later on in the build up, you will see how we were still able to use most of the traction bar system
 
Next, I went back to the front end of the truck to upgrade a few things. First, the dana 60 I bought was missing hubs and it still had 30-spline stub shafts. So I ordered a drive slug kit from Poly Performance and a pair of 35-spline Chromoly stub shafts from Yukon



Here is where I realized that ford d60's and chevy d60's have different length stub shafts. I just couldn't get one of the drive flanges fully installed. Just for the hell of it, I laid the axle shaft assemblies next to each other and found out that one was shorter than the other. Yukon accidentally mailed me 1 Ford and 1 GM stub shaft



Got the problem resolved and I was able to assemble everything back together



I started to upgrade to crossover steering as well. Ordered a steering box brace from ORD and a dropped pitman arm to use with a rebuilt 2wd gearbox



 
Around this time, the Indianapolis 4x4 jamboree was approaching. I knew that most of the tire dealers would give you free shipping if you ordered at the show. So I started researching tires. I didn't want a super wide tire since the trails I do are pretty narrow. The 38.5x15 bogger is what I was originally planning on. But just for the hell of it, I priced out 42x15 TSLs as well. I'm guessing the guy I talked to at 4wheel parts wholesalers was new on the job, cause he gave me a ridiculously low quote. I basically got free shipping and one of the tires was practically free

42x15x16 Super Swamper TSLs arrived at my door a few weeks later



The dog approves:



Next I got a set of 16x10 Procomp wheels. I also won a $100 gift certificate for Ruffstuff Specialties so I used that to get a set of beadlock rings. My brother then welded them onto the wheels.





They actually cleared the front fenders, but as you can see, trimming will definitely be needed

 
Now we started to try and figure out some sort of front shock mounts. I picked up a pair of 15" travel ProComp shocks, a pair of Ford f-250 shock towers, and some knuckle shock tabs/gussets from DIY4X

Stock F-250 shock mount:



Pie-cut taken out of the mount so that we can bend it over



"Ford" logo removed from mount. No ferd parts are going on this truck!



Test fit the mount and found that we had to make some clearance for the XJ steering shaft







Everything cleared so the passenger side mount was modified and everything was welded up.



Painted the mounts and bolted everything back up. Also comp-cut the front fenders for tire clearance. I believe with this setup, we had 3.5" of uptravel and 11.5" downtravel for the shocks

 
When I bought the front dana 60 axle from a machinist friend, it had a crossover steering arm that he made. We he originally planned on using Heim joints in his steering, I wanted to use 1-ton Tie Rod Ends. He took the arm back and re-machined it to accept a 1-ton TRE for me



I also had the local off-road shop bend up a draglink for me and my brother welded in the threaded bungs.



My brother started fabbing up the framework for the flatbed









 
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While my brother was working on that, I got to work on replacing the 700R4 and np-241 transfer case

Pulled out the transfer case. Then eventually removed the trans as well



Picked up this np-203 transfer case for about $25



Worked out a trade and got this NP-205 from my brother. It's from a 1986 K-30 so it's round pattern, which means it has the long 32-spline input shaft. I will have to swap that out for the short 32-spline input (found on the figure-8 style np-205s)



I ordered a 203/205 doubler kit from Northwest Fabworks. I also ordered a new short 32-spline input shaft for the np-205 as well as new gaskets and bearings for the t-cases. I ran into problems with this company, some parts were on back order. It took forever to get all the bearings, they gave me the run-around everytime I called, and made up lots of excuses.



While waiting for the rest of the parts. I removed the low range portion of the np-203 from the rest of the case. This is the only part you need for the doubler.



Finally got all the pieces I needed to rebuild the np-203 low range box. Cleaned the housing, painted it and assembled it with the new Billet doubler intermediate shaft from NWF.



While all of this was going on, I had a th-350 transmission rebuilt by a local trans shop. They upgraded damn near everything in it, including putting a reverse manual valve body. I was told it will handle 500hp. Somy bone stock TBI350 should be just fine lol.



I re-built the NP-205 with the new short 32-spline input from NWF. I also upgraded the front output shaft with a 32-spline unit from a Ford np-205.

 
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