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Subjective Sensibility

A handshake agreement and a 2500 mile drive later, I have my work cut out for me. The goal is a reliable camping and hunting truck with good off road capability and potential for a daily driver.
Overview Gallery Discussion
The fan shroud actually works fine with some longer bolts to hit the bottom clip nuts, or just flip the clip nuts around and the screws will catch alright.
I split my fan shroud by ripping out the staples, drilling some holes, and using clip nuts to attach the shells together. Makes it so much easier to deal with the fan install.
I used some padding and loosely clamped the top of the radiator to the support so it wouldn't wobble, started it up, and let it idle for over 30 minutes. It might have reached 155 or 160 but never got close to the 180 thermostat rating. I'm thinking the fan clutch may be locking up too much even though it looked like a recently replaced part compared to the rest of the motor. The fan will still move easily if pushed by hand but wont spin more than a blade's distance from a good fling when it's all cold.

fan shroud split.JPG
 
As for the upper support mounts, I already have the longer isolator pads but i'm having trouble finding longer single mount brackets. LMC shows a full one-piece plate going across the top for the 454. Will that one piece mount work on the core supports from the 5.0 / 5.7 blazers? I'm assuming it might because the core supports appear to be the same part for blazers and burbans. Part 5 below is what i'm referring to for the 454. Part 8 only lists for the 305/350. Neither specify blazer or burban, just the motor size.

I'm all for making/fixing versus buying new parts but for the $35 shipped that part 5 will cost me, it's hard to justify spending more than a half hour screwing with the hack saw and the welder.

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Another question that has me puzzled...
This blazer had the 4pin weatherpack for the OEM distributor so I assume it was computer controlled timing, also assuming that because there are no timing marks to check timing with.
I merely eyeballed the distributor to get it running and I can turn it a good bit in any direction and it still runs fine. So what gives? Shouldn't it be running on "manual" timing?
 
Polymath said:
As for the upper support mounts, I already have the longer isolator pads but i'm having trouble finding longer single mount brackets. LMC shows a full one-piece plate going across the top for the 454. Will that one piece mount work on the core supports from the 5.0 / 5.7 blazers? I'm assuming it might because the core supports appear to be the same part for blazers and burbans. Part 5 below is what i'm referring to for the 454. Part 8 only lists for the 305/350. Neither specify blazer or burban, just the motor size.

I'm all for making/fixing versus buying new parts but for the $35 shipped that part 5 will cost me, it's hard to justify spending more than a half hour screwing with the hack saw and the welder.

View attachment 462776
Click to expand...
1981-87/91 has the same core support no matter what model or engine size. It should have all the mounting rivnuts for all of the radiator options. The 454 radiator mounts is the same bolt locations as the 350 version. The 6.2L diesel uses one of the same locations and one offset farther over.

Polymath said:
Another question that has me puzzled...
This blazer had the 4pin weatherpack for the OEM distributor so I assume it was computer controlled timing, also assuming that because there are no timing marks to check timing with.
I merely eyeballed the distributor to get it running and I can turn it a good bit in any direction and it still runs fine. So what gives? Shouldn't it be running on "manual" timing?
Click to expand...
You still need timing marks to set base timing, but that system is called electronic spark control (ESC). Most people replace those distributors with the older, standard HEI and bypass the ESC stuff entirely.
 
Thanks for the info! I don't really need this motor to run perfect so i'm not going to bother with timing so long as it can drive around the property so I can get it in and out of the garage easier. Motor swap will cancel out any current problems, and likely create more problems but that's the fun of it I guess.
 
Well, looks like the trans is leaking from the front seal. Basically just pissing out all the fluid I put in it. So this brick aint' movin under its own power any time soon. :mad2:
 
Been reviewing options for transmission here. Seems I can rebuild the 700r4 with a kit and some tools for less than $1k and it might be okay behind the mild BBC build some day. Or I can scavenge the 700r4 from my suburban, maybe swap in that 350 motor too, and leave the suburban sitting useless until I can finish the BBC build and source a 4l80 for it.
Around here it seems a 4l80e core is about $400 and a running sub-100k mile is $1500 or more.
 
Been spending some time on the interior for a while. A roof leak caused water to stream into the garage directly on top of the rear window which has no glass in it, and soaked everything. That carpet got torn out and tossed, so I started tearing out the front carpet too and found more rust than I was hoping for, but nothing crazy. Mostly surface rust save for one big bubble where water used to puddle under the rubber crap. Didn't go all the way through the floor but sure made a mess of the top layer of sheet metal.

I cleaned and ground out quite a bit then sprayed several round of PO15 rust neutralizer everywhere. Then gave it a good coating of POR15 black paint.

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Next up was the tinker with the 2014 Denali heated/cooled seats I picked out of the junk yard. Too good of a price to pass up, so I decided i'd stubborn my way through it, whatever it takes to make them fit. The height is just a touch low with it directly on the floor pan. Merricks mounts would make it WAY too high. Getting power to the motors was a cinch so I was able to move the seat all the way back and up to find the proper limits. I'm pretty tall so I will want to move it back even further than shown here. The driver side mount will be simple with some 1/2" x 3" flat bar steal and a crapload of holes. A horizontal strip for front and another for rear. I ordered some 3/8" wheel studs that are used for ATV's which i'll press in from the bottom of the flat bar. Bolt the mounts to the floor then slide the seat down onto the studs. Piece of cake. If I do some proper counter-sinking of all the bolts and studs, I think I can even hide the adapters under the carpet, only leaving studs protruding up through it. We'll see. The resulting tenting might be a a concern.

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Here are the schematics I drew up for the bolt patterns overlayed on top of each other. The far front four and two rear holes are the K5 floor pan. The other four holes that are anything but square are the GMT900 mounting holes. 0.40625 represents the size of hole to drill for a 3/8 bolt to slip through the top.

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The floor will be getting some Sileless liner. Not concerned with 100% rust removal. I know some will come back someday. Mostly looking for another 20 years of "good enough."
 
Did some work on the passenger seat brackets. I drilled out the rivets on the feet of the Denali seat and beat them out. Things came off pretty clean. I cut the upper pmounting points off the K5 OEM rear bracket and sliced a few flaps where I bent the metal open. It lines up great on the Denali seat. This will get cleaned up and welded to the Denali seat brackets. Should allow the OEM fold forward pivot and hook to work.

Denali seat - OEM passenger rear base cut off.JPG

Denali seat - passenger rear mockup.JPG

denali seat - passenger rear with flaps cut.JPG
 
Here's my final design for the driver front adapters. I'm moving the seat back a good bit since i'm pretty tall and it lines up all the holes to where I can use 3" flat bar both front and rear. Green rectangles are the flat bar. I overloaded the image with reference measurements so I can measure each hole from several places to make sure they get drilled in the correct spots. I'll press in the studs and bolt the flats to the floor. Carpet should cover it all up very nicely, only leaving the studs coming up through to drop the seat onto.

Denali seat - driver side adapters schematics.png
 
Driver seat installed. New brackets seam to be working great. I had to clearance cut the front OEM feet to not hit the bolts into the floor pan. Also had to cut a half inch off the rear bracket to clear the OEM seat belt hole but there was plenty of room to spare back there. Getting the power motors to work is easy. I haven't torn into these seats to the point where I can get the heat and vent fans going though. Plan is to find the direct power inputs to both and run dumb switches for simple on/off functionality on both the seat heaters and the vent fan. Hopefully bypassing all the computers that want so dearly to call home to the mothership and complain about their treatment in this foreign land.


Deanli seat installed.JPG

Front bracket
Denali seat front bracket view.JPG

Rear bracket with motors hooked up to power.
Denali seat rear bracket view.JPG
 
P.S. your average mini-mill like my Grizzly G0781 is NOT capable of counterboring a 3/4" hole in steel. It wobbled and chattered and scared me into quitting that effort. I got a couple of the front holes all the way counterbored and they are out of round from the chatter. The other two are slight surface cuts before I gave up on that idea. I will likely just lay some tape or thick plastic sheeting over the bolt heads so they don't rub their way through the carpet.
 
Pulled the old 305. It barely came out this way. The crane was 4" from the ceiling and the pan cleared the fender by about an inch.

motor removal (9)small.jpg
 
Managed to get the 305 shoved just off the side of the driveway. It was quite a wrestling match in the 10 degree weather on icy gravel.

motor removal (11)small.jpg
 
That bad patch was on the tailgate beneath the trim. Both door sills do have some tiny pinholes from rust though. You can't see through them but when I was cleaning the floor pan I flooded the mess with rust neutralizer and it dripped through to the floor. Then POR15 until that dripped through. Not the best fix, but not the worst.
 
Polymath said:
Pulled the old 305. It barely came out this way. The crane was 4" from the ceiling and the pan cleared the fender by about an inch.
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That's what we shadetree mechanics call "plenty of room".
 
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