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Ready for a road trip

Entropy

Entropy

1971 K5 Blazer w/350
 Premium
Joined
Feb 8, 2001
Posts
87
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19
Location
Colorado
Well, got my new exhaust. Here's what's been done in addition over the last couple of months to make the vehicle safe for a cross-country move:

Added a complete power steering system (had a shot manual gearbox before)
New shocks (bilsteins!) and steering stabilizer.
New ball joints and tie-rod ends.
Basically a new brake system - new rotors & drums, rebuilt calipers, etc., new master cylinder.
Did not really need to, but got new front bearings and front axle u-joints as "might as wells" since everything else was getting done.
New HD radiator.
New 33" tires
Full tune-up.
And the always important, new windshield wipers! :D

It may not look like a new K5, but it feels like one! I'm so used to a loose-unresponsive front end that I have to basically relearn to drive it!
 
Sounds like you've done a lot of good work. Now...where's the pics??!?
 
Did you end of going with the single exhaust? I'd like to see how they routed it. I'm thinking about doing a single 3" on mine when the time comes.
 
I'll take some pics tomorrow and post them, including the exhaust routing - I did go with a single exhaust.
 
Ok, got some pictures - not the best with no lift and a crappy camera:

First some on exhaust routing. The exhaust guy asked me about the tranny and I told him not to worry about it. I didn't plan on taking the tranny out anytime soon so didn't mind having to make some cuts if the need arose.

343668490_D4K2c-L.jpg


343668750_ABpHs-L.jpg


Tailpipe comes out at about a 45 degree angle behind the driver-side rear wheel. The nice new chrome tip makes the rest of the truck look bad!
343669139_iXMRu-L.jpg



Some of the front-end work. Note the springs. They were on there and have always been on there as far back as I can remember. I put them back, but I'm not sure if they serve any useful purpose:
343669058_qfTWX-L.jpg


And the other side:

343669110_YvHHq-L.jpg


Let me know if there's anything you'd like a specific shot of.
 
Yukon Jack said:
Did you do the ball joints and wheel bearings yourself?
Click to expand...

No, in the interest of time (I'm moving here in a few days) I had a shop do it, though I already had the parts. I'd never done it before, so I didn't want to end up with an undrivable truck on moving day. :)

Some of the brake work I had done too, like flushing and pressure testing the lines (because I suspected leaks - fortunately, the lines were good). The brake shop also did the final adjustments, flushed out the lines and filled and bled the system.
 
I got a quote of about $700 I believe to do my upper and lower ball joints and the wheel bearings - alot of money but I've never done that type of work before and my free time is so slim that I almost want to hand the job off to someone else. Would you mind letting me know what your rough cost was to get that work done?
 
$700 probably isn't bad. The wheel bearings are really easy to do. The ball joints are tougher, but if you get one of those 4-wheel drive ball joint presses and have an impact wrench they are pretty easy.
 
Yeah, I think $700 is about right. The shop I used charged 5 hours of labor at $85 an hour - so $425. I don't recall offhand since I had ordered the parts a while ago, but I think the ball joints were about $75 each, so that's another $300. All that labor is a big reason I had them just go ahead and put new u-joints and bearings in - both of those only cost another hour of labor, plus parts, of course.

BTW, does anyone know if those silly-looking springs in my pictures above are doing anything useful?
 
Entropy said:
BTW, does anyone know if those silly-looking springs in my pictures above are doing anything useful?
Click to expand...


I had that same question when I saw them. Never see that setup before. All I can figure is it was some "hack" way of calming bump steer. :confused:
 
Someone either put them there in place of a steering stabilizer or they were trying to help the return to center for some reason. Who knows, maybe it was something to help with the manual steering box. You could/should take them off and if it drives ok then just forget about them, at worst case remove them and install a steering stabilizer.
 
It did have a steering stabilizer which I did replace. I think I'll take them off and see if the steering feels any different.
 
Took those springs off today and they didn't seem to make much difference that I can tell.

I did get on the highway and drive around at speed for a while and the truck feels completely different from before the work was done, especially the power steering. It feels too sensitive to me - a small movement on the steering wheel and the truck wants to veer one direction or the other. Other than that, it tracks straight and feels solid. I'm not really familiar with power steering - is the amount of assist adjustable or is that something that's inherent to the gearbox? If it is adjustable, I'd like to tone it down a bit. Any ideas?
 
Most people complain about the wandering the truck does at speed. I wish I could get mine to act like yours. :D
 
bp71k5 said:
Most people complain about the wandering the truck does at speed. I wish I could get mine to act like yours. :D
Click to expand...

Hehe, I know! My old manual gearbox was so shot I could turn the steering wheel a 1/4 turn back and forth with no effect on the wheels. Probably a lot of it is me - I so used to making these big steering wheel movements to make small corrections in travel.
 
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