Attempting my first build 72 K5

[72K5CSTDarkOlive]

Thanks, Pete look forward to those pics of your blazer.

[0311Chevy8152]

Just enjoyed scrolling through your build. I just started breaking down my 72 k10 today. I have a thread started if you want to check it out. Any advice you could give for someone just starting would be greatly appreciated. I grew up in San Jose until I joined the Marines in 98. I live just above Sacramento now. Your blazer is looking great. Glad to see a one man crew can tackle a project like this.

[jaros44sr]

Originally Posted by 0311Chevy8152

Just enjoyed scrolling through your build. I just started breaking down my 72 k10 today. I have a thread started if you want to check it out. Any advice you could give for someone just starting would be greatly appreciated. I grew up in San Jose until I joined the Marines in 98. I live just above Sacramento now. Your blazer is looking great. Glad to see a one man crew can tackle a project like this.

Wow, another grunt on the boards, what weapon did you carry in the squad. I carried the grenade launcher, maybe m-45, been awhile. Good luck on your build, i ve been watching

[0311Chevy8152]

Originally Posted by jaros44sr

Wow, another grunt on the boards, what weapon did you carry in the squad. I carried the grenade launcher, maybe m-45, been awhile. Good luck on your build, i ve been watching

I went in 0311 and in boot camp they offered me Yankee white security forces 8152 so I spent my time in DC and surrounding areas. But I am a grunt at heart. I think I'm going to be ok taking the truck apart, it's the putting back together I'm worried about.

[jaros44sr]

Originally Posted by 0311Chevy8152

I went in 0311 and in boot camp they offered me Yankee white security forces 8152 so I spent my time in DC and surrounding areas. But I am a grunt at heart. I think I'm going to be ok taking the truck apart, it's the putting back together I'm worried about.

We ll help with any problems getting it back together. Great duty, stateside!

[72K5CSTDarkOlive]

Originally Posted by 0311Chevy8152

Just enjoyed scrolling through your build. I just started breaking down my 72 k10 today. I have a thread started if you want to check it out. Any advice you could give for someone just starting would be greatly appreciated. I grew up in San Jose until I joined the Marines in 98. I live just above Sacramento now. Your blazer is looking great. Glad to see a one man crew can tackle a project like this.

Nice K10! Body looks solid. I like the look of the black painted grille insert. Thought about doing that to mine.

Since you are just starting the tear down, my first bit of advice

1. Take lots of pictures
2. Bag and tag every piece of hardware with correct name of the bolt and part it goes too. What the service manual refers to it as. When I bagged an tagged some bolts and wrote down descriptions to what I thought the part was instead of the correct part/description it will be confusing 6 months from now

Good luck on your build. I'll be following along

[DeadheadNM]

Glad that's worked out - you'll be cruising soon enough!

[IronCanine]

You can't beat a fix like that. Well done.

[72K5CSTDarkOlive]

My engine does not look like it's lined up correctly to me.. If anyone could chime in that would know, please do before I decide to remove the engine and remount it again.

The first picture is the passenger side mount. I measure from the front of the engine mount to the side of the frame rail and it is 2 3/4"



The second picture is the same side but from the rear of the mount and it measures at 3"



The third and fourth picture is the driver side. The front of the engine mount measured at 2 1/2" and the rear of the mount measured at 2 3/4"

[sockalaminski]

Overly anal much? That's within 1/8" of being dead center. It should be fine, but if you can't stand it, loosen the mount bolts and stick a crowbar between the mount and crossmember on the driver side and pry up slightly. You only need to move an 1/8". Tighten it up and your good to go.

[72K5CSTDarkOlive]

Originally Posted by sockalaminski

Overly anal much? That's within 1/8" of being dead center. It should be fine, but if you can't stand it, loosen the mount bolts and stick a crowbar between the mount and crossmember on the driver side and pry up slightly. You only need to move an 1/8". Tighten it up and your good to go.

I was hoping you would say that. I'm not touching it if it's fine. I'd say I'm more overly cautious because I don't know what I'm doing

The reason I even brought it up is because the engineers at Doug Thorley said the reason my header might not be fitting correctly is they noticed I had a new crate engine and that it could be miss-aligned.

[sockalaminski]

Any progress on this?

[jaros44sr]

Ditto, me too.....

[72K5CSTDarkOlive]

I know of been hiatus with the updates but I've been waiting for something worthy of pics to post.

I moved out of my place that had a 1 car garage into a new place with a 2 car garage to give me more room to work with and it took some time setting up the man cave / shop.

I also needed to take a break and carefully think everything through in terms of assembling the rest of the motor and buying the right parts that will work with my application. I had to remove some parts that came with my motor and a few other items that wouldn't work either.

I'll list it out in order and then post pics..

1. Factory Air Conditioning System
.......I sent my AC components to Classic Auto Air. They refurbished my compressor and converted it to R134A. Replaced the hoses and Crimps to be compatible for R134A and refurbished my POA Valve and Expansion Valve.

The brackets that came equipped with my blazer had that big funky looking piece that almost covered the entire pass side intake. California trucks with factory air had to be equipped with the A.I.R system which is why you some times see this hideous looking bracket. I looked around and found the other "original" style and located the lower side mount bracket too.

The lower side mount bracket wouldn't fit because of those darn headers. I cut the center piece of this bracket out and made it into now, tow pieces. I used 1" spacers with a set of longer ARP style header bolts to hold this piece in place just like it would from the factory.

2. The valve covers that came with my motor are the "Tall Style" and those would not clear with A/C or the Alternator on the Driver side unless I wanted to some how use a different style set of after market brackets.. I wasn't going to even bother risking that chance so I swapped out the Tall Valve covers and put the original style ones back on.

3. The water pump was a long style and of course that wasn't going to work either. The long style throws off the alignent with all the pulleys. Ditched that part and put on the correct short style water pump.


4. Fuel Pump - I wanted to run a hard line from the pump to the carb and the only way to do that with an after market fuel pump / carb is to make your own.. I went through about 10 lines before I got it right.. I acually think there was only one way to bend it to work. The fuel inlet on the Holley 4160 is on the driver side and it makes it little more challenging and the AC doesn't help mcuh either with clearance.

5. Fuel Filter - Don't ask me why but I thought this fuel filter from holley would look cool with my setup, but it needed a compression style fitting.. Instead of using an adapter with a flarenuts, I bought a set of Summit AN - Tube fitting adapters and 6AN male to 3/8 NPT to thread into the fuel filter. This allowed me to only have to run to flare nuts... one from the carb inlet and the other to fuel pump.

6. Spark Plug Wires of course where rubbing against the headers and I got a set of these Chevy Proform Wire Loom Seperators / Brackets and I was fortunate enough that the MSD street fighter wires where long enough because most of the wire loom seperator / brackets wont work with pre-assembled spark plug wires. Usually you have to cut them to length.

7. Air cleaner spacer - I tried a couple of the off the shelf ones from AutoZone and O'reillys and of course those dont work.. The float bowl gets stuck when you release the throttle. The one made by Holley, part #17-14 has the correct cut out needed to keep it from getting stuck and if you look I barely cleared the hard line I made.. Got lucky again!

8. I lost my Trans Modulator line during the move and ordered a new one from InlineTube.. Talk about rolling the dice! This time, I ordered it in original steel material in case I needed to make a adjustments..

As much as the Stainless Steel lines look great, they are the biggest PIA to get them to fit.. They have absolutley no give to them.. If I had to do it all over I might have just gone with original steel for the brake and fuel lines.

9. Driveshafts are in as well and she's rolling nice!

I plan to use cross ventilation because my valve covers both have baffles on each of them. For the driver side I plan to run the PCV valve to the port on the front of the carb. The pass side I'm going to run the hose to the air cleaner. Brake Booster will go directly to the back of the port on the Carb and the fitting on the back of the intake will be used for the trans modulator line and AC vacumm. I spent hours of researching how to do this and why it matters.

The one thing I can't seem to figure out is if the hose going from the pass valve cover to the air cleaner requires a special filter between the grommet and the hose.. Could anybody help me out on this one?

I ordered an original temp sending unit and it's good quality (lectriclimited.com) but the cyclinder heads back in the early 70's had a 1/2 NPT thread and the newer style heads have a 3/8 NPT.. I hear all sorts of bad things about running aftermarket temp sending units with factory style gauges.. I'm going to have to figure something out again..


I promise to post pics tomorrow... I'm traveling for work and will be back in town tomorrow.

[IronCanine]

Waiting with baited breath....you know we go to bed earlier on this side of the country

[sockalaminski]

Ya OK, it doesn't sound like you've made any progress at all.......

Glad to hear you didn't give up or get completely stalled on the build.

[72K5CSTDarkOlive]

I know, I know, I thought I would have it ready but I ran into a couple modifications that I need to make and am I also wating for a couple of parts to come in.

[72K5CSTDarkOlive]

hey all, apologize for the lack of updates.. I've been holding out until I have most or almost everything assembled to the engine. Lot's of research, time, and a little bit of creativity I finally feel like I'm making positive progress.

I still have a few minor things that I will be adding / modifying to make it complete, I believe a few photos for now to share with all of the members that have been following along and supportive of my build is due for at least the progress I have made.

I ideally would like to do a complete write up with each step that I took for parts that I needed to either fabricate, modify or and additional parts I've added so in the event it could hopefully be useful for others to use.

For now, enjoy the pics and soon enough I will have the rest of the mods completed and thorough write up.

[IronCanine]

Pics!!! That looks outstanding Mike...very clean, very nice. Can't wait to hear the story.

[sockalaminski]

Looks really clean and your attention to detail is outstanding.

[DeadheadNM]

Looking great Mike!

[Sacramento70]

you do some incredible work man. im really digging your blazer. it looks sharp as hell

[72K5CSTDarkOlive]

Originally Posted by Sacramento70

you do some incredible work man. im really digging your blazer. it looks sharp as hell

Originally Posted by DeadheadNM

Looking great Mike!

Originally Posted by sockalaminski

Looks really clean and your attention to detail is outstanding.

Originally Posted by IronCanine

Pics!!! That looks outstanding Mike...very clean, very nice. Can't wait to hear the story.

Thanks a lot guys! I really apprecaite the compliments and that you're still following along even though I've been MIA for a while. It def keeps me motivated when I read these.

[72K5CSTDarkOlive]

I had change of heart with the look of the engine I was originally going for. Call me ANAL… All my friends and brother already gave me the nickname and bust my balls for all the “unnecessary extra work” I do, but hey, maybe they are right, but it’s my truck and I’ll do what I want.

I started out first with a vision in my head of the look I wanted and I am so happy with how it turned out, just the way I envisioned it. I really wanted the motor to look like it was custom built, which it is, but lacked the looked. I painted the cylinder head bolts aluminum to make it stand out with the orange paint on the block and heads. I then chemically stripped the paint from the air cleaner and valve covers using Jasco Paint remover. I suggest wearing a respirator, chemical resistant gloves, and glasses when using this stuff.

I went into a local auto parts store to pick up engine enamel paint and I was going to use a satin / matte black finish. I accidently read the label wrong and ended up buying this Black Wrinkle Plus by VHT. I searched the web to see what this stuff looks like and I didn’t see to many older cars with this type of paint applied to engine parts.. Mostly found on newer cars. Anyways, I thought it looked pretty good, but I wasn’t sure how it would turn out so I practiced on a few pieces.

The first thing I did was to make sure I was working with bare metal and clean parts. The second part that I think helps in the process is using a heat gun to warm up the part and soak the paint can in warm water for about 10 minutes. The instructions say to spray in 3 sequences 5 minutes apart; horizontally, vertically, and finish with a cross pattern.. To give it that extra texture and to cure the paint, I then baked the parts in the oven for an hour at 200 degrees. The baking part make a big difference in the overall outcome.

The Air cleaner was the hardest part. As you can see in the pics there was a lot of masking involved and penitence!!

[72K5CSTDarkOlive]

More pics