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Roll Cage vs Rocker Box on '74 Blazer

The front most black section was the kick panel for my repair.... you can see how it extends down and gets the lower fender bolt mount.
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But I added a slider into my rocker rebuild.... because its a wheeler and I've already bent up enough sheet metal. Not the prettiest thing in the world, but strong enough to lift one side of the truck from now.

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Oh and since you have the doors off right now, look at your hinge bushings. I had 3 of 4 trashed and replaced them at the same time, doors operate a lot smoother now.
 
Based on that picture I am missing the lower part of the footwell/kick panel , where it overlaps the inner rocker. good thing I ordered them.
 
It really bums me out how crusty your truck is underneath, while otherwise appearing so nice.
 
79rustyk10 said:
It really bums me out how crusty your truck is underneath, while otherwise appearing so nice.
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Same here! It really could be worse though. The previous owner did cut out most the rust and sprayed it with rust convertor whenever they did these "repairs". Although the innards were left unrepaired, the shoddy cover up prevented the floor pan and other areas from getting worse I guess. It's a lot of work, but so far nothing has ventured past cut, replace and weld territory.

I have owned it now for a year, I have been doing other repairs and upgrades. Driving around town, nothing rattled or otherwise appeared out of norm. Doors close excellent and don't scrape the rockers. One day I noticed some rusty chunks/crumbles on my garage floor after parking it after a drive. Started investigating and found this mess.

Good news is over the last year I totally fell in love with the truck and its full convertible. Which means I am willing to dive head first into repairing it for the long haul.

My daily driver is a 1993 K1500 Blazer. I have a lofty goal of one day owning a Blazer from each generation ( except for the s10)
 
Did some more tear down today. Took out the seats and carpet and took the riveted in patch off the driver side. Found two riveted in patches in the cargo area by the tailgate post. Luckily, the post were changed over to pickup style and welded in, so those have zero rust. The floor pan patches in the rear will be easily fixable and are 3"x7"

I am absolutely dumbfounded at this point. After pulling the riveted in floor patch on the driver side, I found a brand new body mount support and what appears to be Rust Bullet paint. But there is one big problem, The support brace is 2-3'' rear of the body mount! Which was the only spot left that had a piece of inner rocker panel to attach it to. And of course its not welded in but was riveted.

Other then missing complete rockers, and having some normal rusty spots in the floor pan. I am quite happy with what I found. It could have been far worse and it turned out to be a fairly simple cut, patch, weld repair.

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So... someone went to a lot of effort... but they didnt have access to a welder, and thus they hacked it back together. About standard for a 45 year old vehicle. There is always something horribly wrong with these trucks.
Sounds like you have a solid plan of attack and are well motivated! Look forward to updates.
 
mechted said:
So... someone went to a lot of effort... but they didnt have access to a welder, and thus they hacked it back together. About standard for a 45 year old vehicle. There is always something horribly wrong with these trucks.
Sounds like you have a solid plan of attack and are well motivated! Look forward to updates.
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I am going to assume this hack job was done prior to the previous owner buying it. There is Grecian Bronze paint on the repairs. The previous owner only ever repainted the truck according to records that came with it. He was also the one who installed the rear tailgate post, which was done correctly. He owned it for about 6-10 years. Perhaps back when this job was done there was more non rusty metal under there and it was decent? haha who knows.

Now we wait for sheet metal/parts and then hack away at it. Then I will have to bust out my paint gun and get accustomed to it again.
 
Making slow progress but cutting out the rust. Got the cab mount support out and found out the reinforced floor pan section over the body mount was rusting from between the floor pan and reinforcement plate. So it has to be rebuilt. Looks like just extra 20gauge sheet metal under the floor pan. The body mount bolt needs to come out, but its seized and more then likely will have to be cut out. What does a clean captive nut looks like at the front cab mount? I have a rusted mound and can not decipher what goes where.

The rocker/torsion box needs some patched areas but is solid. I will have to do some creative cutting/spot weld drilling near where the rocker/torsion box welds to the floor pan. I need to cut floor support brace to replace it without detaching the rocker box.

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79rustyk10 said:
I think this is the nicest, most rot free 73-75 blazer I've seen on here. Lol
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"Rot free"......in 1-2 months! Its too nice to turn into an offroad buggy and not nice enough to do a perfect restoration. Which means its perfect for my "Skill" level. HA!
 
mechted said:
yep, came exactly as pictured... minus some dust
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I don't think the ones I ordered from LMC will have the nut. It seems to be an assembly not just the brace. I just found them from TABCO and ordered a set. Now I can just cut the old captives nut out. They also have a complete brace for front to back. So I ordered those too. It will be easier to replace the whole brace instead of trying to weld in sections.

Might have to return the smaller floor pans and order the full pans since I will have to cut away more floor to get access to the braces. But I wont have to cut off the rocker boxes for the repair (yet). If that fails, Plan B is to cut it all out and build a tube support box.
 
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Adventure in rust repair continues. Cut out the rocker panel to find....well....nothing!

Does anyone know how the inner rocker fits onto the floor pan and outer rocker? I have the inner and outer rocker panels from LMC.

I have no reference, and the parts are made for pickups mostly.

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Best picture I have of the area. Unfortunately, I dont think anyone makes the section I didnt cut out, its 73 to 77 only. You will have to create it from sheet steel yourself. And while it is a compound curve, it will never show with the rockers reassembled, so at least you can hide whatever crimes you will have to commit. I was able to wire wheel and use rust converter on mine to save this area.

You can see the multiple layers of steel used to create the profile of the door lip fairly clearly. And also how the innermost layer is heavier gauge.

Pass rear.jpg
 
Bigb55 said:
Adventure in rust repair continues. Cut out the rocker panel to find....well....nothing!

Does anyone know how the inner rocker fits onto the floor pan and outer rocker? I have the inner and outer rocker panels from LMC.

I have no reference, and the parts are made for pickups mostly.

View attachment 348855
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Wow, take a look at the build Plan-B. He did some really cool looking things to his rockers with sliders they look really good. Not saying you should go that direction. However with what you have basically nothing your options are unlimited.
 
I just Ordered what is called an outer floor pan section. From what I can tell it contains part of that rear hump, lip channel, and boxes in the lower part of the rocker panel. I have pin hole rust in the channel anyways that I was going to patch repair. They were 19.99 each, so if it gets me 2 inches of less metal to bed then its a good purchase.

There are no other pre fab parts I can purchase for this repair anymore! I bought pretty much every floor and rocker piece they make.

At this point I figure, even a crappy but solid repair job is better then having nothing there. Also it shows how much the rocker box actually does support the cab. IT was the only thing under there!
 
Cut off more of the old rockers today and the bottom portion of the kick panel. As of now I don't think I will need to replace the whole kick panel, just the bottom starting at floor pan. There appears to be enough of the rear hump portion of the rear curved wall, that I can add some 16gauge sheet straight down to the rocker box. Along with a few other areas. Its Not perfect but will add strength.

Also started drilling out the spot welds for the longitudinal floor brace. Cut some 16 gauge sheet to build a new floor brace support and test fit the new body mount brace.



Waiting on the last "rocker/floor" piece to arrive to come up with a plan of assembly. I should have enough pieces to build something! HA!

For anyone starting such a repair, initial cutting and seeing the rust creates huge anxiety and a feeling of a job thats to big. But when you get the rust cut out and start seeing the new pieces start to "fit" on the truck. Your anxiety levels drop instantly and it starts to make sense.

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Slowly making progress.

For anyone working with a missing inner rocker. The "outer floor board" panel that is sold replaces the inner rocker and channel on floor board. It's designed for a pickup but once you cut it to fit, it fits perfect.

Still cutting out rust in the kick panel and getting ready to install the new floor braces.

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