72 Blazer build
 

Hey Everyone, so after using this forum for a few years now and having a complete addiction to the 1st gen Jimmy/Blazer I though I should post my current Blazer build project but first a bit of history on my Jimmy/blazer addiction...
About 5 years ago I bought my first 1970 Jimmy. I bought it as a partially started project, the PO had purchased a crap load of parts so it made buying it a no-brainer.I should mention that I am a red seal journeyman Autobody tech that quit doing body about 7 years ago..my job now lets me have a little more free time so I actually enjoy doing it now and so rust and bodywork doesn’t really scare me.(back to the Jimmy now). The Jimmy was tore completely apart and over the course of about 2 years is was completely redone..

I sold that Jimmy at the Barrett Jackson auction in Scottsdale last January and it sold for 34k..After I sold it there seemed to be a bit of a hole and I was looking for a new project but everything I looked at just wasn’t a 1st gen Blazer/Jimmy. The itch for another one wouldn’t go away,lol.

I bought a 72 blazer across the country sight unseen and had it shipped to me. This one was a 15 year old resto that was a nice driver and my family and I banged around in it all spring but after a a guy that worked for me wouldn’t leave me alone about it I ended up selling it to him and the hunt was back on....

Sure enough another one popped up on a Canadian wide used car site and my dad and I took the 10 hour drive to go look at it.. I purchased it and made our way back home with it.

The Orange Jimmy is the one that I rebuilt and sold at auction, the green one is the one I flipped.

Re: 72 Blazer build
 

This is what she looked like when we picked it up, Is a 72 CST, the PO had attempted to start on it but was in WAY over his head. He too had purchased pretty much all new metal for it. Double wall top.. was a complete rust bucket, all new metal required..

He had done some work to the frame and attempted to paint it (not good enough for me)

Brought the body into the shop and started bagging and tagging what I was going to keep, the only piece that was going to be usable was the firewall/cowl so it was cut off and everything else was dragged outside, at this point it’s pretty questionable what I had gotten myself into..

Ordered a truck floor, blazer bed floor, rocker boxes, bed sides and everything else I could think I would need,

Re: 72 Blazer build
 

The Blazer came with a rebuilt 350/350 trans and np205 transfer case.
I had purchased a 2008 GMC Yukon Denali from a salvage site about a year ago and gutted the Powertrain out of it and sold the rest so I was wanting to put the L92 6.2l with a 6 speed trans into the project. I found a np241c trans case at a wrecking yard and mated it all together. I thinned the harness myself and sent the ECM to Lt1swap.com and had it reflashed.

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I really wish I would have taken more pics of the build up but I’ll post what I have..

Once the new floors arrived I set the rear floor on the frame with the new body bushings and also put on new bed sides..

Trimmed truck floor to what I thought looked close.. I put it all together using sheet metal screws because I couldn’t weld anything until I was sure everything else was going to fit

Firewall, top, doors and fender also had to go on to make sure things were going to line up.

After probably 100 hours of trimming,twisting, shimming and plain screwing around I was happy that I had the floors in the proper place so it could all come apart again and weld the floors in where they needed to be..

Also set the motor in there to be sure frame was flexed to where it was going to be.

Bought a engine crossmeber from Pacific Fab to make life easier for mounting the LS motor.

This all happened over the course of a couple months.

More to come....

Re: 72 Blazer build
 

Welcome aboard, great looking blazers, we can always use your insight on our builds, hope you stick around, this is a great forum, filled with lots of knowledge, but minus attitudes!

I, for one will have lots of questions for you as I am now at a point in my build where I want to make it look good

Thanks for posting up and a great build, hoping to see more

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Looks familiar! Great work so far. Always nice to see another one restored and back on the road.

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LKS DCVN your project look great too.. I can appreciate how much time it takes to make the aftermarket metal work.. keep it up!

I would be happy to try to answer questions for anyone that has them, that’s the beauty of this site, so much info..

Re: 72 Blazer build
 

After the floor was welded where it needed to be and rocker boxes all tacked in I made some cross-bracing in the door pillar areas to keep everything solid so I could take it off the frame again.

When I bought the blazer the PO had a brand new rotisserie that he threw in with the deal so I put the whole tub on there to make welding underneath a breeze.

New rear floor pan didn’t have any crossmembers for the rear seat so I had to remove that crossmememberfrom the old floor and sandblast it and then re weld it onto the new tub.

Finished welding everything underneath and seam sealed where it was needed..

Re: 72 Blazer build
 

Both projects look good , how do the aftermarket bedsides fit and where did you purchase them ?

Re: 72 Blazer build
 

on your bedside bolts was there any certain torque spec that you went to?

Re: 72 Blazer build
 

They were the tri-plus bed sides. Most of the metal came from southern Kentucky classics including both floors.

Re: 72 Blazer build
 

No sorry, no certain specs. Just good and tight.

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I had the frame sand blasted and painted in gloss black endura. Turned out real nice.

One the frame was back I installed the motor for the last time. Had driveshafts built at a local machine shop.

Used speed engineering shortie headers on the ls motor.. also built a complete stainless exhaust from a do it yourself kit from jegs.. used flow master flow fx mufflers.

Still waiting on a radiator from RND.. this has been quite a painful process.. going on 9 weeks since it was ordered and no sign of it yet..

Re: 72 Blazer build
 

Following

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Don't mind me I'm just watching.;)

Re: 72 Blazer build
 

How did the bedsides and doors fit?

Re: 72 Blazer build
 

They fit “ok”. The bedsides were actually fairly heavy gauge metal.. I’ve defiantly seen a lot worse.

The doors to bed sides body lines are a little goofy at the top lines.. I was able to get it pretty close but I actually wore the threds out on the A pillar from having them on and off so many times.. patience,patience and more patience oh and a few swear words..ha.

Re: 72 Blazer build
 

:agree: the bedside slope (from the top down the side) and the door slope above body line do not match up exactly so there is some tweaking to be done to make it look OEM. Very nice work though!

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Once the welding and metal work was finished up I started on the bodywork. Even though most of the panel were new they were still far from perfect. I again put the doors and fenders back on to double check the gaps and make sure fitment to the adjacent panels was good.

I ended up using a hood off of another old truck I had because the one off of the blazer was simply going to need a lot of work to get it where I wanted it.

After a few weeks of applying and sanding filler I was satisfied and applied d 3 heavy coats of Matrix 2k high build primer. I then let it sit for a couple weeks before attempting to final sand

Re: 72 Blazer build
 

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So after about 60-80 hours of final sanding the primer I finished everything with 400 grit. I spent lots of extra time making sure I could get as straight as possible for the black paint.

Next up was reassembling my paint booth.. I had built this paint booth to paint my other Jimmy and I made it in 5 foot sections so that it could be disassembled and reassembled. It works pretty decent. I force in air via a double squirrel cage fan through the top and front and the air exits at the lower rear. Gave it a good wash down once it was up and it was ready to hang panels..

Sorry about the sideways pics

Re: 72 Blazer build
 

That's pretty awesome! Flipped the pix right side up for you.

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Thanks, how do you do that??

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If you are using a phone to upload them - it usually loads them sideways for some reason. I saved the pix to my desktop - rotated them in MS paint and then resaved and upped them to the site.

Re: 72 Blazer build
 

First batch of parts hung in the booth and painted,
Did the inside of the hood, inner fender liners,glove box door,ash tray door, rear seat armrests,
Once everything was sealed and painted I gave it a couple days and masked off and raptor lined the rest of the inside of the hood and inside of the liners. This Black is going to look sweet.

Using Matrix Sealer, Base coat and their more expensive Euro Clear, sprays really nice.

Re: 72 Blazer build
 

looks like you are making some great progress. i really like the paint booth, looks like a great idea, i might have to steal that one

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Where did you get the front floor pan with the 4x4 tunnel?

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Nevermind I just saw Southern Kentucky Classics

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Up next was a bunch more parts, painted the doors,fenders,tailgate and the hood. Everything turned out pretty good. Had some dust specs on the hood but it will all be Color sanded and polished anyways.

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Slippy and lks dcvn ! After seeing what you guys did with the metal work I have decided to do the same on mine! Looks great keep up the good work.

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Started polishing and sanding all the painted parts before putting them in a shed to keep them safe before final assembly. Sanded out all orange peel and dust nibs with 1500grit on the orbital and then 3000 grit. I use 3m 3 stage polishes and get pretty good results. Probably have over 100 hours in polishing. Slow and steady.

Also My helper and I washed the body and got it ready to paint. Up first I masked it to spray the bed liner on the bottom. 2 coats of black raptor liner.

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After the raptor liner dried for a few days I masked off the bed liner and gave the outside of the body it’s new coat of shiny black..
it was quite a marathon of painting because I did the inside and outside of the body all at one time. My dad suited up and came in the booth with me and ran the rotisserie while I painted, made life a little easier for me. My anxiety about painting this blazer black and having the body straight has finally went away after seeing the black on it. I’m loving it and pretty happy with how it looks.

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Wow looks great!! Nice Work!!

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Very Nice!

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Looks fantastic!

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I don’t know if there is a real finesse way of putting the body back on the frame but this is how we did it. Outside in the snow at 20 degrees.

Again sorry for the sideways pics but with my IPad I don’t know how to fix them.

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flipped right side up. I would have been nervous to do that with fresh black paint.

I used the lift in my garage to slap an empty tub down on a 2wd frame and it was nerve racking with old paint. Nicely done!

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So after finally getting my paint booth back out of my shop it gave me some breathing room and I have been working pretty steady at reassembly. I’ve been taking it fairly slow and steady as to not scratch anything. Started laying out some of the American auto wire wiring harness and finished up my relay/fuse box for the engine wiring harness.

Also bought a lokar shift linkage and installed rebuilt steering column and then the new shift linkage. Seems to work really nice. 4wd shifter wasn’t so easy. Looks like we have come up with a design to make it work. With the np241c the shift pattern is completely different than the np208 so the shifter will sit in a different position when in 2wd but it is what it is. I will get some more pics when it’s finished.

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Nice work! Let me know how that American Autowire kit works out. Which one did you get?

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Amazing work! The Black looks slick!