Project Blazilla
 

Been a member of this site for over a year now and found this a wealth of knowledge in addition a great resource for parts for my 72 K5 4x4 build and just wanted to say thanks to members that I have been in contact.

I purchased this truck about 2 years ago. What caught my attention was the Big Block in it with ¾ ton running gear. I looked past a lot of the rust on the structure and over all considering its 40+ years old, its more than restorable.

That’s about where the good stuff ends as it has had 40 years of mis-engineered and rigging. Everything has been touched and it is far from safe. I figured I would start a build thread and share it with others. I pulled the engine out about six months ago to remove the badly damaged engine cross member and replaced it with a DIY4X unit. Got some pictures of process.

Re: Project Blazilla
 

Welcome to the board! Looks like a nice start for your build. Been looking at the DIY4X4 crossmember for a long time. Need to pick one up before I swap in my 383 stroker motor. What are your plans for your build? Lift, tires/wheels, back to stock look or custom?

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Thanks for review! Currently building the 402 which I'll post some pics. It has 33's for tires now and I believe its a 6" inch Super lift as there is evidence of the name on some of the components. I would like to keep the 6 inch lift or what ever it is as I like the stance. May go with 35's but debating on that. Plan is for now is to finish the Big Block and going to replace the Turbo 350 with a 400 that I have. After that, make mechanically sound and move on to the structure of it.

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Sounds good! Keep us all posted and take lot's of pic's! Ran a 4" lift w 35" BFG's w trimmed fenders for a long time, and loved the way it worked.

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Finally finished the Big Block 402 assembly. Here are some pictures during the assembly:

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Engine looks Great !

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Thanks!!! Moving on to the next dilemma. Since I went with the drive belt system using a short water pump design the alternator is tucked back and doesn’t clear the tall valve covers I went with. So on to engineering a bracket to extend the alternator outward from the valve cover.

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Subd. Found ya. Nice engine. That should he a wholelotta fun.

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Started working on changing the body mounts before setting the engine back in. Found that every mount was rigged from the prevous owner. Like the cheap body lift kit made out of exhaust tubing?

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Found that the rear cross member was heavilly rotted along with the corner posts. Irippen6 hooked me up with a pair. Began removing the one quarter today and rear cross member. Found that the rott was well into the inner bed side. Rear posts aren't gonna fix it. At this point I will probably go with complete bedsides and sell the doner corner posts.

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Looks like mine. Your p o didn't even put rubber back in on his exhaust body mounts. That had to be s stuff ride. I did Polly mounts on mine. I had the original rubber on mine but there wasn't much left of them. I went around a corner and the whole ass end shifted off the mounts. Scary.

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WOW! Give a guy a torch and watch him ruin some stuff. Still amazed at how many unsafe rides may be headed right at you on the freeway etc. That looks like a real nice new member though. I have the same rust beginning on my rear section. How hard is it to get to?
Swapping out that th350 to a th400 will require some machining to the 205 case for a larger input bearing and th400 input shaft or a th400 case. 350's can be made to handle some good torque... Just sayin what you prolly already know.
Gonna be a nice ride if you keep this up.

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Here more pictures of the other body mounts:

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Nice mounts. Can't believe what some people will do sometimes.

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Agreed. I didn't snap a photo of the rad core support mounts but the Yahoo had 1/2 nuts threaded on the 7/16 carriage bolts. Structure underneath is worse than thought but I can fix it. Was hoping just to do the mounts for now and put the engine back in but this will have to be addressed first. Waiting for the weather to break and coming up with plan to start on the structure. Meanwhile got my headers installed on my mockup engine. These hooker headers fit well. Only area that I ran into was the passenger side spring hanger. Clearanced the collector today. Have about 5/8 clearance between the shackle bolt and the header collector. You really can't see from the picture but the hangers are badly twisted. Going to order some ORD heavy duty hangers and recheck the header clearance then send them off for coating.

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Looks good. I have the ord shackles as well. They are tough. And I like that they are using a bigger bolt through them. Seems much stronger. Can't believe how week the stock ones look next to them. Don't even seem strong enough but after 40 years they were still hanging on.

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Definitly weak when you have em lifted. Did you get the greasable ones? I am going to go with the non greasable because of the collector on th pass side. I'll probably need to reverse the bolt the opposite way.

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I got the non greasable and forgot to turn the bolt on mine. I just used my sawzall and cut off the extra threads so it wasn't so close to the collector. Lifted or stock it just kinda seems Chevy should have put in a tougher shackle than what they did.

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Well it has been some since I’ve posted. Completed the engine and wanted drop it in a drive it for some time before moving onto the next phase of the project however the body structure was in very poor shape as you can see from some of the photos above. As I ripped into it I found I need to go all the way. I’ve been waiting for a while for a complete cab floor for the Blazer to come out however it doesn’t appear it will be out any time soon so I began reinforcing the structure to begin sheet metal work. Last week in June I made the trip down to Bowling Green Kentucky and visited Southern Kentucky Classics and picked up a Cab and Bed Floor, Windshield Header Set and a Bed Floor Set up Plate. SOKYClassics staff is super. Conversed with Mike Oliver via email and telephone multiple times since the beginning of this year. He is very helpful and very patient! I’m blown away at the quality of the reproduction metal. This will make my job much easier to complete this project. Here are some pictures of the progress.

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A few more pictures.

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OMG, you got your hands full. Please post up lots of pics as I m contemplating same thing

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Hi, thats serious work! I am working on replacing the bed on my 70. About to set the new bed, but I couldnt get an aftermarket Blazer Bed. Using a short pickup bed.
If you can, can you take a pictures showing the bed where the "B" Pillar goes? I am looking to make sure I set the bed sides properly.

Thank You!

Frank

Re: Project Blazilla
 

Man you don't see a blazer tore down that far too often. You are doing it the right way and will last longer than my patch job I'm sure. I need the back 2 feet of bed righ before the tailgate roll pan. My rear quarters are good but where they connect to the floor is not. So it lets the bed wobble a bit and the top pulls the sides out so the tailgate to bed has a quarter inch gap. I got it close enough to close it and keep it closed but I need to put some plates between the two and weld it fast to keep it from flexing. You goy some great progress so far. Looks by good.

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Scary.

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Really not scary at. Just a matter of coming up with a plan and executing it and problem solve as you move forward. Over the last month I’ve been working on the pickup truck floor modifying it to be similar to the K5 Blazer floor pan. Here are some pictures of the initial work:

Re: Project Blazilla
 

Made a first attempt to fit the floor pan in along with the rear step up plate. Very impressed with the initial fit and the overall fit and finish of reproduction pickup cab floor. Definitely will need some additional attention for final fit before burning it in however considering the K5 structure was heavily compromised along with modifying a sheet metal part not intended for this application I am very impressed with the overall fit and progress.

Re: Project Blazilla
 

Nice work, keep the pics coming!

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Looks like it sits pretty good. You're gettin there.

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Long way to go still. Next up rework the firewall seam to floor. Good portion of the seam is rotted. Need to dial in the rear attachment to step-up plate but I'm about 85% there. I'll post some detailed pictures as I move along. I'm slow going at it. Many projects around the house to do but Sunday's I dedicate to the truck!

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I had to shape my front floor Pans as well. They are close but not perfect. With that passenger side you have to figure out the holes for the rear mount as well if you plan on using the stock seats.

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I noticed that as well with the new pan. I figured between the floor stamping and the sagging of the structure on the truck these tolerances stacked up where it would not meet correctly. Most of the gaps will be easily fixed this I have to cut out the seam and fab some new metal to the firewall. For the seat mounting, my pan was setup for a bench seat so the holes will need to be moved. I removed the center support brace from my old pan to install on the new one. The passenger side seat bracket on the bottom of the cab floor for the rear was badly compromised with rust. I will need to fab a new support plate for this. Figured once I get the cab floor mounting dialed in. There will be a lot of hole filling and relocating, support plates added before I burn the pan into the chassis.

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It's definitely a process.

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Meanwhile got my headers installed on my mockup engine. These hooker headers fit well. Only area that I ran into was the passenger side spring hanger. Clearanced the collector today. Have about 5/8 clearance between the shackle bolt and the header collector. You really can't see from the picture but the hangers are badly twisted. Going to order some ORD heavy duty hangers and recheck the header clearance then send them off for coating.[/QUOTE]

I'm running a set of Doug Thorley's and a set of ORD shackles. The pass side shackle hanger (lower bolt) rubbed directly up against my collector.. It was too late to send them back so I cut about 1 an 1/2" of the end of the collector and then rotated the collector about 45 degrees to make sure the point that sticks out the furthest away from the collector.

Keep in mind the ORD shackles are much thcker than stock so with 5/8 clearance you might be cutting it close. Hopefully you don't run into the same issue as I.

Will be following along. Nice build so far

Re: Project Blazilla
 

Thanks for watching and reading. I knew at one point that I would walk down this road doing a restoration however I figured I would do it in smaller stages. After building the engine I was going just spruce the engine bay up and change the body mounts. Things were far too ugly so here we are. It will be a fun journey. I enjoy documenting it on this website as much as working on it.

You are definitely correct with the clearance on the ORD Hangers. At the time I made that statement I hadn’t received them yet but figured that there would more work here. I ended up adding addition clearance for the header collector to hanger right around a 1 ¼ total. I don’t have any pictures of my procedure but what I did was forming a small pocket in the collector with heat and a socket/hammer. Then I mounted the header flipped up on my mock-up engine in the truck like in a drag boat. Put a 3” web ratchet strap around the header right at the bend going to the collector and strapped to the truck frame. Took another strap around the collector and across to the other side of the frame. Headed the pipes and started ratcheting the strap to the collector slowly. Took a while but worked out well. I’ll eventually get the headers coated when I do I finally fit on the restored chassis.

Re: Project Blazilla
 

Nice work on the floor board, what tool did you use to bend the flange.

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Thanks. I used several tools to get the flange bent up after removing the pickup truck rear cab support.

• Started with building a support and fastened it to the pan to use as a backer for bending as you can see in the picture.

• Next I used a ball peen hammer to start forming the bend to the backer.

• Followed up with a homemade striking punch with a 5lb mall and torch. Gently heating and striking small area’s then cooling and repeating until I shrunk (took the wave out) the metal and created a clean bend.

• I trimmed the excess metal from the flange to the rough size of the original pan.

• I then followed up with a hand bender to massage the flange to meet the rear step.

I have big hammers, torch and a welder. It doesn’t make me a fabricator but I’m learning….

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Don't matter what you use as long as it gets the job done. I've used a adjustable wrench to bend the steel on my front floors. Sometimes you just use what you got. Definitely coming along.

Re: Project Blazilla
 

Good answer to my reply, thanks for the details. Still considering this mod. For my build. Building a backer could be the answer for me

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Had a productive day yesterday massaging the rear flange on the floor pan and the floor supports (out riggers?) to meet the rear step plate as seen in the photos. Improved the firewall to floor pan meeting seem but didn’t capture any photos of this. I will need to cut some of the firewall seem out and make some patch repairs. I’ll follow up with some new photos of this at that time. Next up, need to plug welding the extra holes in the pickup floor and repair the spot weld damage I created removing the rear cab mount that was used on the pickup floors. Then I will need to relocate the holes for the bucket seats and add in the necessary braces and prepare the floor for the console. Still a lot of work ahead before burning the floor in permanently but getting closer.

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Great work, I am doing the same thing but using a truck cab and cutting off the back just wondering how you got the height measurement from the step up panel to the truck cab floor flange ? I have a straight edge on the third rib (at the lowest point ) beside the step up panel body mount bolt
Any chance you remember the height measurement from the rear cargo floor to the cab floor ? Would be greatly appreciated I'm guessing 5.25 inches