Never did get it to run great. Rebuilt the quadrajet, and that helped, but there is a long story involving timing lights, and I never actually got around to adjusting the timing.
Anyway, last night (technically not seeing as it is tomorrow already....) John (80'427) came up and drug a 1985? Suburban up to me. Then today (yesterday....) he hauled the 1975 K5 over to my buddy's shop, and I drove that 1979 K20 there.
Well here is what that 1979 K20 looks like now.
Here is the 396 hanging on the chain.
Then we pushed it outside, and pushed the K5 back in. Got it up on the hoist, and I yanked out the TH350/NP203 while John played around with the big block (few things in life make John as happy as Big Block Chevrolets). I also pulled the diff covers to see what gears were in it, and in what condition. Sadly they were 3.08:1. The Dana 44 looked fine, and the gear lube wasn't horrible considering it had been sitting for twenty-ish years. Then I pulled the rear cover on the 12 bolt. That was a different story. A LOT of water ran out before the gear lube came out. Then when I got the cover off, there was a bunch of ice chunks in it.
Chunks of ice in the drain pan.
Here it is up on the hoist with the 396 just sitting on the motor mounts.
Here is a picture where I accidentally lifted the Blazer on the front right by that silly camper step that was on it.
Martin