My Nameless 79 Blazer Project

[RockhoundII]

My project of 11 years is now coming back from the dead, so I decided it would be a good idea to finally start a build thread and document the process.

I'll start with a little history on the truck. It's a 1979 2wd Chevy Blazer.
It became my first car when I was about old enough to get my permit and my dad said to me "If you can make it run, you can have it."
I have never stopped loving this thing ever since. It was my big square hot rod. I drove it all through high school and for several years after. I've hopped up a few different 350's for it over that time. I did some freshening up of the suspension and brakes. Even tried my hand at some interior work.

Fast forward a few years and after browsing this forum I decided I really wanted to try an LS conversion on this thing. It seemed like every time I started the swap, life happened and I'd have to hit the brakes on the project before I ever managed to get the ball rolling.

As of right now my Blazer has been sitting unused for about 2 or 3 years. It currently has no engine or transmission. I have gutted the interior as well. So I have a fairly clean slate to start with right now.

My short term goals for it are mainly to get it on the road again. I am going to continue where I left off and try to swap in something LS based, and hopefully make some decent power with it. I'd like to get ahold of a 4l80e to back it as well. I also need to finish the brakes I started working on a few years ago, and give the suspension a once over to make sure it's road worthy. I also need to make the interior driveable, but will probably keep it very bare bones until I'm happy with the motor and trans.

Long term I am shooting for a daily driveable race car that looks like a beat up old Blazer.

Now for the pics! First is from when I parked it for storage a few years ago, nothing really has changed since then. After that is the engine bay the last time there was a motor in it. Followed by the engine bay in it's current state.