"Baby" - My 79 Blazer Project

[N8B]

I have been a lurker for awhile and have finally decided to start a build thread on one of my rides.
This is my 79 blazer "Baby". It was named by my 4 year old because he thinks it is HIS baby.
The Blazer belonged to a club brother of mine and I had been storing it at my house for about 6 or 7 months. He called me one day and asked if I would like to trade it for a transmission I had lying around. I have always loved the full size Blazers and one can never have to many trucks, so I jumped at the opportunity.
I finally had some time off of work so I jumped into it and got her running, registered, got one solid color on her instead of the 5 different primer colors, fixed a few issues and got her on the road to replace my 34 ford pickup as my daily driver.

She has the factory 305 which has been rebuilt. Slight lowering in front via cut coils and the rest is pretty much stock.






My plans will be to take it slow as I have 11 other cars in my stable including a few AD Chevy pickups and a few hot rods to work on.
I am going to redo the drop with a static 5" - 5". I am going to run 20" AR Salt Flat Specials. I will put on a 3" cowl induction hood and shave as much of the external hardware as possible. I also plan on swapping out the engine to a 454 I have in my shop. I am sure there will be a ton more to do but I also need this to be my shop truck / parts chaser / push truck when I don't want to run my 2002 3500 dually.

Here is a quick photoshop sketch of the mods I have planned for the very near future.








I will keep this thread updated as I proceed.
Hope you enjoy.

Nate

[rocking chevy]

Sweet, should turn out great.

[VegasBruce]

Cool, and welcome.

[N8B]

Thanks guys.
Good to see you here to Bruce. Seems like we got too much in common!
Let me know if you know of a good gauge cluster, dash & gauge plate. I need some nice interior stuff.
I also need some pointers on bringing the AC back to life. It's murder right now and even worse for my little boy to drive in HIS blazer with no AC.

[VegasBruce]

Any updates?

[mooseknuckles]

I like it!

[N8B]

A bunch of small stuff.
It has now become my daily driver as I retired the 34 ford for that purpose.
I completely removed and cleaned and repaired the gauge cluster and got everything working.
I still have no air and will not until I hand out a bunch of coin to fix it.
I notice a left hand forward lean due to the front springs so I am looking for the lowering kit to get it even all the way around.
Being a designer and fabricator I am slow because I continue to have weird ideas on the rear suspension.
Do I do a 84 Jag IRS that I have back there or a short throw 4 link from a G body that I have or just do a static drop?
Like I said, I am a weird hot rodder and experiment a lot.

I changed the rear wheels to 255r/65/r15 Astro Supremes on the back because those were the only tries I had in my stash that would fit.
Now I am running 2 different sets of rims. Flashy ones in back and standard steelies w/ full slat flat / moon disks up front. I had 14" Astros but they wont fit over the rotors.
This could start a new trend OR just look completely stupid. Right now it works, buts looks completely stupid... LOL

I have a small issue with the rear window and the cable connecting the movement motor to the regulator gear drive sticks and does not transfer the movement.
I removed it, put PB blaster through it, got it moving via a drill and greased it BUT now it tries to curl & fold on itself. It will not transfer the rotation evenly unless it is perfect straight and even so it looks like I need a new cable.

Because of the lack of air I want to tint the windows to try to make it only slightly better.
I also need to get in there and check the distributor and vacuum because it seems my idle has fallen way down. But that is an easy fix.

Other than that I have just been driving the piss out of it. I pegged it out at 85 the other day and felt smooth to me but I am used to driving 70 year old cars so anything smoother than than is good for me of course not nearly as good as my wife's Passat but we can't expect that can we?

Tanks for the replies guys!

Nate

[VegasBruce]

Nate I have a pair of superior wheels laying around. They look a lot like cragars. I had a full set till the tire shop broke one.

[N8B]

Bruce,
When I get some free time I will have to check those out.
Do they look like these?


or these?





I have two other cragars in my stash.
I liked the steel wheels that were on there but the backs were 285/60/r15 but the offset would not allow me to lower the blazer much without rubbing.
I want to do as thick of a tire as I can back there but still be able to tuck them ya know.

[VegasBruce]

These, I only have 3. I am debating running two on the front and running the stock steelies on the rear of my pickup.

[N8B]

Well I just took her down to rip the front end apart.
Brakes are starting to go and the front was getting a little wobbly.
I figured it would be a good time to order new springs, spindles and all new bushings.
So tomorrow I should have the 2" dropped springs and the 3" dropped spindles show up and be able to pick up the bushing here in town.
Wonder if it will be low enough.
The rotors feel fine, smooth with no ridges, but I am going to replace the pads while I am in there.
Everything is Beltech so it should come together nicely other than the crooked front lean I'm going to have until I can do the rear.

[VegasBruce]

Cool, when ya gonna be done? Looking forward to pics. I just dropped the front of my '80 shortbed, gonna start the rear tomorrow.

[N8B]

Bruce,

The spindles were delivered today.
I also picked up a set of Energy Suspension graphite control arm bushings today.
I didn't want the squeak of the red bushings on the control arms.
I'm not sure when the springs will be here.
I also need to measure and find bushings for the sway bar.
Then I have to grab a new set of ball joints and break pads.
I am trying to decide if I want to do some new drilled rotors too.

Man, how does this s*#t escalate like this????????
I can't leave anything alone!!

I want to see some pictures of your truck to. How did you lower it?

[VegasBruce]

Nate, I used 2 1/2" drop spindles and cut 1 coil off the springs, 4.25" drop in the front. For the rear I flipped it by welding new perches on, 5.75" drop.

Before



After

[N8B]

Well,
I got into it and decided to do an entire front end rebuild.
Things were starting to get pretty loose and all of my dust caps were torn.
Everything I can remove will be removed, cleaned and painted black.

I am going to replace the ball joints and all the hardware while I am under there too.

Here are a few shots.

[N8B]

Here is the new bushing set:



And the new 3" dropped spindles:



I still don't have the damn springs yet and apparently new ball joints are hard to find in Vegas.

[VegasBruce]

As long as you've waited for parts, you could have ordered the ball joints from Rock Auto. when you get it back together, we'll have to invade Cars & Coffee.

[N8B]

That sounds cool Bruce. But we don't have to wait for this puppy to be back together. I could always head down in my 34 Ford Pickup, If I could ever get a Saturday morning off.

I don't mind the wait though. It has given me time to clean off (POWER HAMMER) the 32 years of Utah red clay off of it.

[N8B]

So I have been having issues with the springs.
Primarily with the fact that they have up until this point not showed up.
I called and emailed several time and no response.


Out of the blue I get a tracking number this morning. I check the tracking number and it says the springs were delivered today. ?????

Aren't you supposed to get tracking numbers BEFORE they deliver parts?

I won't mention names on WHO NOT TO ORDER STUFF FROM unless you mind waiting 16 or so days.

Anyway rant over.

Should be able to make some progress soon now.

[VegasBruce]

That is a long wait for springs, makes me glad I just cut a coil off mine.

[N8B]

O.K. as you have noticed with work and all the other stuff in my life I am a little slow with progress.
Last night I finally got a lot of work done.
I am going overboard and I have disassembled everything and have been cleaning it all and replacing almost everything with new parts. (minus steering, tie rods etc.)
It just makes me more comfortable.

Today I have the A arms at work and will be blasting them to bare metal so I can repaint them.
I had to make my own ball joint extractor. I bought one because of the amount of work I do but turns out it did not fit my application.
I have a great trick now if anyone is interested that is 1/10 the cost of a standard ball joint service kit.
Cost me 9 bucks for a large C clamp and a little cutting and welding.

I will get the arms blasted today, painted tonight and get the bastard back together!!!

[VegasBruce]

[N8B]

Bruce your killin me man!

[VegasBruce]

LOL No problem Nate, shes gonna look a lot better than mine when its done. I haven't been cleaning anything. As a matter of fact, I need to find one of the DIY car washes, without mud in the brushes. Mine is dirtier now, than before the washing.

[N8B]

um yeah.. So I'm not dead.
Been working like a fool and have taken some time and done a lot more on the Blazer than I anticipated.

Here are some progress shots.

Front Lowered..




I could not take the stink bug stance so...
I lowered the rear too.




I think I am right about 5" up front and 6" in the rear total lowering.
More to come.