CK5
Register an account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members.

The return of the Bizznatch. Now, with Monstaliner!

utherjorge

1/2 ton status
Joined
Mar 29, 2010
Posts
407
Reaction score
0
Location
Pennsylvania
I bought an '87 K5 off of eBay in November of 2009,and it's been kinda' sitting since then.

Quick background: I had an insurance settlement some years ago, and bought a 1967 Impala. Loved the car, but I didn't understand a manual choke (I still don't), and there were some ticky-tack problems I didn't understand, and some holes I never did find that let exhaust into the cabin. Between the exhaust and the fact that I got stranded too many times with it...and kids, it went away. I sold it to a guy in Colorado that was looking for one to restore, and out west, all Impalas get cut up to be lowriders. I think it went to a good home.

I called it "the bizznatch". I missed that car the second it went on the truck.

So, living in PA as I do, I wanted something I could enjoy for four seasons. Including and especially summer, but as my wife and I keep having babies, it would need to seat six. That rules out just about everything that can have its top off, except for perhaps a Bronco, and obviously a Blazer. I was always a Chevy guy. So...I chose the Blazer. The new Bizznatch.

I got my K for $1300, I think, knowing it needed work, but it also came with one of those Bestops in great shape, and mechanically, it was in very good shape.

Since I've had it, I've done some minor work on it or to it, but first we had a baby, then I had shoulder surgery. This is the summer I want it on the road.

I tried to have a floor put in the back to replace the rotted one. I don't know how to weld, so I was going to have someone do it. It went poorly. I will leave it to your imagination.

I have a student who owns a Blazer and has rebuilt his own. He was begging me to work on mine since his is basically done, and so I let him have at it, and he's done a lot, but now he's done, and it's time to go to work on it on my behalf.

When I get some sun, I'll throw pics up. I've occasionally pestered you all up here for advice and you've never failed, so I'l eager to get into some work and get her legal for fun this summer.
 
Last edited:
Dueling, believe it or not, mine looks just about like yours. I actually just grabbed a pic of your grille because I want to do mine like yours.
 
Dueling, believe it or not, mine looks just about like yours. I actually just grabbed a pic of your grille because I want to do mine like yours.

Cool man! Love me some black k5s. And there should be a pic after i did a fresh paint job on the grill. I masked off all the chrome first.
 
Now with pics!

Let's start with the pictures. First: the front of the truck, minus the grill guard it came with.

picture.php
 
Next, here's the driver's side. Both sides are pretty straight, which scares the hell out of me. I was going to replace the doors, but after reading Ryoken and Chief Brody have at Brody's K, I'm not so sure now.

picture.php
 
Both rockers have been replaced, but the work is long from done. Started to DA sand the side, as you can see, and began to find unpleasantness.

picture.php
 
I just sprayed mine this weekend with liner extreeme and it turned out freekin sweet. Check them outxat sprayonbedliners.info
 
I've got to finish prepping the bed (see my thread on the main forum about grinding welds: ain't never done it before) and that includes grinding, seam-sealing, stripping old carpet off,and THEN bedlining, but I will indeed be doing that.

Do you (or does anyone) know how far forward the bolts get mounted for the rear bench?
 
The floor ones up front? Like 5 or 6 inch back from the ledge, and i wanna say maybe a foot from the wall... But im just guessing my blazers a half hour away

And my vote is sandblast if at all possible. Its better on the pitted metal where sanding wont get deep enough. I also bought a gallon of eastwoods ez etch acid based rust desolver that really seemed to work well with a little help from a wire brush and it was only like $26 a gallon.
 
I have a new floor with perhaps one or two locations without new coverage...perhaps a quarter-square foot max. I also would prefer not to sandblast because, well, I have none of the equipment.

Also, I need to figure out how I'm mounting the rear bench: I would prefer it to be hard-mounted anyway, but with the new floor, the old bolt-pockets went bye bye, so I need to figure something out anyway.

Also not noted: I have several new crossbeams in there that are larger than the original, for strength, of course. 1"x3" left to right, five of them across that the floor is mounted to.
 
OK, see, right now, I just have the holes where the bolts get attached.

Also, the little pocket in the rear for the seat to attach to is just a hole as well: the pockets from the old floor were swiss cheese.

Yours looks real good.
 
The pockets in the back also have a bar going across for the rear seat mount. Do you have a rear seat? Also my tailpan was surprisingly solid which was awesome. All of my trouble was up front. Its not perfect but its solid and thay bedliner sure does look nice on top of it all. Really hides welds pretty well lol.
 
I do have a rear seat. The seat it came with was not very well-attached to the floor, and never could latch down...likely due to the swiss cheese mounts.

My tailpan was a wreck. The first attempt (which shall not be mentioned again...and wasn't by me) to put a new floor in simply cut through it at the top, misaligning the tailgate...but not by much.

Here are the bars that now go across the floor as a support, and I deliberately placed those bars across the pocket to install something, as I had no idea how to recreate those pockets, and never saw them sold somewhere.

picture.php


picture.php


This is the size bar that I used in multiple places:

picture.php
 
Top Bottom