New Life for an Old Goose
 

Well guys, just about ready to perform heart replacement surgery on the old beast. Here is what is currently in the works.

Starting with a worn out 71 blazer with a gutted interior, cheap orange paint job, and worn out 350/350 combo. The cap is cracked and has been cut on also, so that will most likely disappear in lieu of a rag top.

First on the agenda...Heart Surgery with new legs to boot!

Just ordered a hi-po Turbo 400 with 2000 stall speed torque converter and Advanced Adapters setup to bolt up to my NP 205 Transfer case. Needed a setup that could handle lots of torque. This combo appears to be about 3.5" longer than the 350/205 combo, so I will have to shift some things, which will be needed for the big block anyways.

Next, figuring that the rear end will never handle my Goose's new heart, I ordered a Dana 60 rearend from DTS, complete with disc brakes, 4.56 gears, and a powerloc positrac diff. That should get the power to the tires at least. They are also making the rearend the same width as the front axle, which I believe will look alot better and stockier.

Now, as for the new heart. Scoggin Dickey, here in Lubbock, seems to have a new 502, 450 hp engine sitting in their warehouse with my name on it. With 550 ft-lbs of torque, this blazer should get up a boggie down the road. Planning on shifting the engine forward 2" to help clear the firewall while the transfer case is also gonna shift back by 1.5" due to the increase length of the transmission.

Of course, before measuring for the new driveshafts, I better install the 6" lift from Skyjacker and 35" tires.

The tranny and rear end should be here by the end of the month, but I really don't see tearing into this thing until Dec 1, due to traveling for work and holidays.

The way I see it.....I drive a company vehicle and my wife has a SUV, so I might as well build a beast for about half what it would cost to buy a new stock truck. I've dreamed about one of these blazers for over 18 years now and I'm finally going to get one!!!!!

I'll keep you posted and post a few pic's to show my progress, or lack of.

Sounds like it is going to be one heck of a nice rig when it is done! I wish I had just a few of your new goodies in my truck! We definately need pictures, even some "before" shots!

Have you considered running 37's. CK5 board member (not sure if he is on this board too) IGOR, has a nice set up on 37's with 17" wheels. If I was running 3/4 ton or greater, it would be my choice. Here's a pic of his rig - http://community.webshots.com/s/imag...6TfKnFZ_ph.jpg

I'm with bouncy...We love the before's almost as much as the afters!!!:)

I'll post pics to this thread throughout these upgrades. Keep watching. The first will be next week...Pic's of what I'm starting with!

I'm pretty excited. Should be interesting....Know just enough to be dangerous...But you have to learn somehow!!!

Sounds sweet, I want to see pictures of the 502 roasting all four tires.

Here is my starting point.....Poor, tired Goose. The paint job looks good from 20 ft. The transformation is soon to begin.

Current Status:

I have the transmission, rearend, lift kit, and tires in my garage....waiting.

They are starting work on the 502 on Monday and figure it will be complete after Thanksgiving(I'm in no hurry at this point).

[img]http://thumb9.webshots.com/s/thumb4/2/66/79/97426679zvbBhn_th.jpg

Ok...I'm finally figuring this out. Is there a way to make there pictures larger? First they were too big, now they are a little small.

Anyways....Here is some of the goodies, waiting to go on Goose!

http://thumb3.webshots.com/s/thumb4/...3cavybi_th.jpg

Tires and wheels, front seats, and the old 454 which I'm going to sell!

http://thumb7.webshots.com/s/thumb4/...7vOCMMJ_th.jpg

http://thumb0.webshots.com/s/thumb4/...0Jommlh_th.jpg

If you have trouble with the pics, e-mail them big to me and I will get them reduced and posted here for you.

Thanks Yukon.....I think I figured out a way to reduced them....I'm going to try it when I get home tonight...Using Paint!

It looks like you've tackled many of the same areas that I'm about ready to experience....Any insight as I proceed would be really appreciated.

Thanks,
Rick

Nice but hard on the ol eye's seein the pic's keep us posted..

Update on Goose's Status:

My wife isn't very that I have parts of the blazer laying EVERYWHERE, but she still loves me! LOL

The blazer has been completely stripped down to the frame, including removal off the bolted crossmembers. I did find a crack in the frame at the motor mount which has been repaired. The frame was water blasted and then wirebrushed before getting a coat of black enamel paint. Looks great

The frame and axles (old) were pushed into the garage and now the buildup begins. This week, I installed the 6" skyjacker springs on the front and will have the new S.S. brake lines on tonight. The front axle was wirebrushed and painted, from spring perch to spring perch. I will start on the rear end this weekend.

The new engine was dyno'd on Tuesday. I ended up switching gears a little, and opt'd for a 454 H.O. that had only 500 miles on it. The previous owner had balanced, line bored, decked, and blueprinted the internals. The dyno results were: 458 hp @ 5000 RPM and 495 ft-lbs @ 4000 RPM. The torque curve is nice and flat with over 470 ft-lbs generated from 2500 rpm and up.

The 205 transfer case is being rebuilt at a local shop. The crossmembers and engine mounts are being powder coated.

I'll keep everyone posted on my progress!

Progress Report on Goose:

Tore into the rearend over the weekend. Stripped off all the old goodies (springs, rear axle, etc.) and started installing new unit. I'm installing a Dana 60, semi-floating rear end with locker and disc brakes. There are a few of the obstacles I encountered.

#1 Since the truck is stripped down to the bare frame, I could only tack the spring perches in place. I will line up the rearend once I get the engine, transmission, and transfer case installed.

#2 The hydraulic brake lines off the old unit will not fit on the new axle. I plan on using a coat hanger to fab a new brake line route then have a local shop fabricate. I MAY try to use the old line, and just have it adjusted to fit my application.

#3 The parking brake cable will need to be modified. I should be able to use the old line, but it will require two modifications. First, the end will need to be shortened by 4.5" in order to fit the new disc brake configuration. Second, the bracket on the frame will need to be lowered to prevent binding when the axle drops down....A couple of inches should be more than enough.

#4 While not really a obstacle, I did have to weld the shock brackets onto the axle. Of course, I messed up the first time and had to remove it and re-weld it in place. Shame on me for not measuring twice!!

I have discovered that my welding is a little rough....Ok, it down right sucks!!! I'm way out of practice. But it is amazing how good things look after you hit it with an angle grinder. I only knock off the high points, but with that and a fresh coat of paint, things look awesome!

What else did I do this weekend. I installed the new steering box from AGR on the frame. Started cleaning up the skid shield for the gas tank (I guess that is what it is called). New tank straps are a must. When I started wire brushing off all the grime, they were just too brittle and within a few minutes one broke in half. So, the last think I want to do is drop the gas tank the first time I hit a bump.

Until next time,
Rick

Here are a few pictures for you.

Here is what I accomplished this weekend. I worked on making some new hard brake lines for the rear axle. I finished the template and I'll have a local shop bend them for me on Monday. I painted the engine and set it in place. Everything seems to fit perfectly so far.

Now that I've figured out how to post pictures, here is one from it being out on the driveway. Just after I finished prepping and painting the frame. My wife isn't too happy about having a big chunk of car laying in the driveway, but she's being a good sport!

Here is a picture of the rear disc brakes. I did get the parking brakes hooked up ok, but I'm still working on the hard lines from the power brakes. I'll also have to fab a bracket to attach the smaller brake hoses which come directly off the brakes themselves. DTS (the manufacturer I used for the rear axle) said that the disc brake conversion is actually from a Ford Explorer.

And one last picture for now....The is where it all started. I just resized the picture so it is a little easier on the eyes!

P.S. If there are any particular areas that you would like to see more detail, just ask and I will see what I can do.

WOW!
 

Very nice K5! Yours looks better before rehab than mine ever will after! Color me jealous...:whine:

Blazerholic....Appearances are deceiving. The engine was totally shot. I used a two pound hammer to remove the exhaust manifolds since they were already spider cracked. The frame was broke in two locations. The wiring was completely gone. Some of the cross members were missing bolts in addition to the front seats! The previous owner had wrecked it and had a buddy install the 70 model front clip from a local wrecking yard with a fresh coat of paint over LOTS of bondo! In other words, I have my work cut out for me....But that is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the compliment!

Nice to see somebody getting some progress done! It is lots of work, eh? I respect the guys that do the work themselves - it is tough! I didn't do a frame off restore like you are, but am trying to get a nice ALMOST show blazer as a end result. Keep the pics coming! We love it!

Here is the latest and greatest on what I have accomplished this week in the evenings:

1) Engine Installation: I removed and reinstalled the engine on mounts that I purchased from Brothers. These are Heavy Duty mounts that sit in the smallblock location. They are designed to handle high torque/big block engines. But that lead to another problem. I purchased a set of headers from Hedman that were suppose to fit my application. NOT EVEN CLOSE! After calling Hedman's tech line and being completely frustrated with their attitude, I decided I will never purchase another Hedman product. I called Hooker, Dynomax, JBA, and Sanderson tech lines, with no avail. All of them had similar designs, with none of them taking into account the front engine crossmember. I cleaned up my cast iron exhaust manifolds, applied a coat of high temp. black paint, and bolted then in place. They look pretty good and I'll do the trial and error fitting of headers later on.

2) Transmission/Transfer Case: Both units are installed, the torque converter is bolted up the the flywheel, and the torque mount on the transfer case has been rebuild with poly bushings and installed. I've ordered an electronic kickdown kit from Lokar for the transmission. The 400 transmission is 3.5" longer than the 350 it replaced, therefore the crossmember had to be relocated. Since I slid the engine forward 2" to clear the firewall, the crossmember actually only shifted back by 1.5". Good thing because the rear driveshaft on these short wheelbases are already steep with 6" of lift.

3) Rear Axle: Now that the transfer case is positioned, I cut loose the tack welds on the rear spring perches and angled up the rear axle to reduce the driveshaft angle. There is alot of guessing in this area. Since the body isn't installed yet, the springs aren't compressed to normal ride height. I guessed that the springs would settle a couple of inches with the body in place. I'm going to use a constant velocity rear driveshaft, so I angled the axle so that it aimed about 3" below the transfer case yoke. This makes up for 2" of body drop and another 1" for torquing of the axle.

4) Gas Tank: Installed the new poly gas tank. Tried to use the old straps, but found out quickly that they were fatigued. Trying to get those straps in position and keep the tank positioned was more of a challenge that I anticipated. But it is done.

As for this weekend:

Bending the hard brake lines for the rear axle and installing brackets to hold all the lines.

Clean up the gas tank skid plate and mount it.

Start installing the engine accessories.

Rick

Update time with pictures:

Engine accessories are about complete. Took awhile to figure out all the brackets, since I had some big block, some small block, and some that I have no idea where they came from. The power steering pump is from AGR and is matched up to their high performance steering gear. Just waiting on the alternator and an AC compressor (once I decide on a brand) and that portion should be complete. So far, so good.

Here is a picture of my exhaust manifold. As you can see, it is very tight to the frame and also you can see the potential conflict that a set of headers would probably have with the small block crossmember. For now, I'm just going to use my old cast iron manifolds and will fix this problem at a later date.

It is starting to resemble a truck again! The rear end is up off the shipping crate, the brakes are installed, the shocks are installed. I need to have longer u-bolts made. I purchased the u-bolt flip kit from Offroad Unlimited, but the u-bolts ended up being about 1/2" too short. A buddy at a local shop can fab up four new ones for me pretty easily. I also need to finish the gas tank installation. Having problems with the sending unit fitting into the new poly tank. For some reason, the retainer ring will not hold the float assembly in place. I'm still working on this and will have it resolved soon.

Here is the back end of the engine/transmission/transfer case. Looks pretty good. All the linkages are ready and I should be complete with this part of the installation. It is just all the small things that I'm working on right now....Such as getting a transmission filler tube, etc.

looking good can't wait for it to warm up just a bit so I can start work on mine

wow goose,, looks gorgeous

Looks like sand racing time.......

Very nice. When your done with yours, you can come make mine nice like that!

Thanks for the support guys. I've dreamed of doing a complete rebuild for many years. This is my first and most likely the first of many. This has been a great confidence builder in my abilities and hope to build a 32' Roadster somewhere down the road. Gotta love that big tire look in the back!

Well, it's time for an update on the progress of Goose. This was one of those bitter sweet weekends. I've had the chassis ready for the body for a few weeks now, but I didn't want to put the body back on until I had cleaned up the underside a little. The last few weekends have been spend lying on my back under Goose scraping, wire brushing, and painting. The good news about this weekend was that I called in a few favors and with the help of a friend and a subcontractor's crane, we set the body back in position. Everything went very well and shifting the engine forward 2" left my plenty of space between the firewall and HEI distributor. With the help of my friend and our two wives, we shoved the truck back into the garage (my driveway is pretty steep and yes, the girls jumped in and pushed). I was flying on cloud nine at this point.

Feeling like I had accomplished so much, I decided to pull off one of the rocker pans from under the body. This is the one area that I hadn't tackled during my initial clean and painting. The PO had welded the rocker pans in position and I didn't want to pull them off until I had the body back on the frame. After three hours of grinding, prying, and cussing, the pan finally came off....WHAT A MESS!!!! The PO had cut a few holes inside the rocker pan and injected spray foam inside to seal off mud and moisture from getting inside. Well, it didn't work very well, and about 25% of the foam was soaked.

Hmmm....What do you think is hiding behind all that foam??? :banghead:

As I started removing foam from under the flooring, since only about half came out with the rocker pan, I started discovering things......bad things. As you can see from the picture, the front support member isn't just rusted through, it is completely gone! The flooring looks good from above and the PO said that he had a backyard body man do some work on a few rust areas. Well, all he did was cover everything up with fiberglass. There's a hole in the floor near the outside of the driver's side that is about the size of a football. The metal all around the driver's floor area is paper thin if it does exist.

I would be willing to bet that the other side looks about the same. I'm a little nervous about tackling these major repairs myself, so I've been talking to a local body shop that does classic Camaro and Mustang restorations. They are most likely going to replace the whole floor, front to back and any damaged supports. After that, I'll be good as new and with a good coat of Herculiner(or equiv) I should be in great shape for the future.

Talk about one step forward and two steps back!

Needless to say, my wife is very happy that we no longer have a car body laying on our driveway. :)

Man, that's a lot of work you're doing all at once! Keep up the good work!

Good job on getting so far that blazer is gonna be killer bummer about the floor though.... Great work keep us updated..

Wow, that is alot of work accomplished! I really enjoy seeing projects progress.

Too bad about the body problems. Ah, it's just money, right.

Here is a link to a page about the headers that I am using on my K20 with a 454. You may have seen this info before, but I wasn't sure. http://www.myoldtruck.com/modules.ph...&pid=12&page=2

Looks like it is coming along nicely. Too bad about the foam in the rockers. Sounds like it caused a lot of problems.

Well, progress has been very slow lately! But I made a new friend....the EQUALIZER (2 lb sledge hammer)!!! :) Sorry, no pictures at this time. Tried to take a few, but they really didn't show much and it was kinda hard to see anything.

The tilt steering has been installed. Surprisingly easier than I expected. Purchased the column from a member and after a few modifications and some TLC, the unit bolted right in place. Getting the slip shaft to slide was the most difficult part, but the EQUALIZER made short work of it!

Installed four patch panels in the bed portion of the floor. When I started wire brushing the floor area, started finding lots of bondo. Most of the bondo was used to reform the dented floor sections, but there were a few areas where the metal was completely gone. Magazine articles make it look really easy....Simple cut the panel to fit and weld it in place. Well, IT ISN'T THAT EASY! LOL Of course, the quality of the patch panels can make a big difference. I purchase panels from LMC, but unfortunately, the corrugations (I guess that is what you would call them) don't match the original flooring. They are slightly wider, so after the first couple, things don't match up well at all. So, I ended up cutting out the cancerous areas, then overlapping the patch panels by 1/2" all the way around. Since they didn't match perfectly, I used the EQUALIZER! :) Since they are going to get a coating of Herculiner then carpeting over that, I don't really care about having the overlap joint showing. I fully welded the top section, then spot welded the underside. After a little wire brushing, I sprayed on some rust preventative paint. On the underside, I sprayed a heavy layer of rubberized undercoating around the overlap joint area to keep moisture out.

After the flooring section was repaired, I installed new rear wheel tubs. They didn't snug up perfectly due to the patch panel overlaps, but a little caulking applied to both the inside and outside joints fixed me right up.

I also tore into the driver's floor area. Whew...That was a mess too! There WAS a section of flooring the size of a football completely gone, with fiberglass replacing it. I cut out the cancerous flooring section and then had to replace front body support with a slip on unit. Again, magazines make these types of repairs look so easy, but they really are a pain. I again overlapped the patch panels and replaced the flooring. And once again, the EQUALIZER came in very handy, since none of the panels really wanted to fit right.

I purchased a set of seats from a local wrecking yard. I found a set of 2000 GMC bucket seats, tan, with full power, fold down arm rests, and the seat belt built into the seat back. It also included the center console. All this for $450. They were a little dirty, but overall in great shape. I set them on the new drivers floorpan to see how things were going to fit. The EQUALIZER came into play again, since I needed to flatten out some of the raised portions around the drivers floor area to make the seat fit flat. I shifted the seat as far back as I could, to give more room for the driver to sit. This shift required new brackets/plates to be welded on the bottom side of the floor with nuts welded on for easy fastening of the seat at a later date.

With the repairs complete and the seat brackets welded in place, it was time to reinstall the rocker box. Overall, the rocker box was in good shape, except for two large holes the PO had cut into the bottom for access. I repaired these holes, then wire brushed the inside of the rocker box. After a coat of rust preventative paint and a heavy layer of rubberized undercoating to the inside, I was ready to reinstall. Surprisingly, the rocker installed fairly easily. All I have left is tack weld the rocker panels to the rocker box and that installation will be complete. The EQUALIZER was feeling a little left out on this repair, so I beat on the side of the rocker box for a little while. This made sure it was good and tight before welding and while releaving a little of my stress, also made the EQUALIZER feel better too! :)

I still need to pull off the rocker box on the passenger side and replaced the cancerous flooring. I figure that I will also need to replace the front cab support, since the passenger side will most likely look just like the drivers side.

I am SOOO looking forward to driving GOOSE this summer. But I still have a long ways to go!

Till next time,
Rick