My K5 Blazer Story.

[Zoomad75]

Exhaust is done. At last. Got to say Dan at Canon Tire did a great job following what I wanted in this system. High, tight and sounds awesome.



So stoked!

[MTCK]

That looks and sounds great. My last system I had installed on my k10 hung way too low.

[Zoomad75]

Didn't get to spray the raptor liner today, but I did have one of my Tech's sort out my TV cable issue. It was wayyy to tight. Fired it up and took it for a spin and it finally hits all 4 gears!

It actually moves out really well. Still has a stumble off idle but then it starts hauling the mail. That little 5.3 will roast the tires if you want it to. Yee haw! I was able to throw a dealer plate on it and run it down the street to put some fuel in it. But its first time I've driven on the street in my k5 in a year one month and thirteen days since the 75 shelled the 12 bolt. Words can't express my happiness.
I will say this the truck is tight. As in no weird rattles, squeeks or other odd noises. It just feels solid even going over bumps. So different from a swiss cheese 75 with worn out body bushings and flexy body. Plus the top isn't rattling at the windshield header since its not a full top.
Next phase interior and tuning.

[Zoomad75]

Decided to grab lunch today by taking the K5.3 to go get it. Hopped in and grabbed a sammich from Jimmy Johns. Took a quick video on the way back. It's a little shaky since I'm trying to drive, hold onto my iced tea and take the video. Also, the major clanging noise is the back glass rattling in the gate. You can hear the stumble and what sounds to be a new issue, hunting idle when you come to stop. Without a tach on it, it's hard to say how much the idle moves, but you can hear it.

https://youtu.be/r4Lz-4meSD0

[Zoomad75]

This just in from the booth! Raptor liner is done! Big kudo's for my body shop manager to knock this out of the park! He sent some pics for me to drool over until I come back to work Monday!

[Zoomad75]

Haven't updated here in a while.

Since the raptor liner was done at the shop, I had been driving at lunch while at work. What I found on the last couple of runs with it was that once it got up to temp the engine would start cutting out like mad. To keep it brief, I discovered the coolant was low and causing it to start running hot. This forced the mefi4 system into a self protection mode. Filled it back up and it went back to normal. The loss of the coolant came from the radiator. There was a spot on the tank where it is soldered to the core that it was leaking from.

So with the leak happening the plan was scrapped for me to drive it home from Canon City. Larry came up and snatched it with the trailer and brought it back to his place. I pulled the radiator over there and had a local shop in Canon repair it. Larry stuffed it back in this week as he's been on a bit of a wrench bender for the last few days.

Plan is to drive it back to my place tomorrow to let me start picking away at my list of stuff to do. Thank goodness the sun is staying up later every day so I can have some light to work by when I get home from the shop.

[MTCK]

Looks good. Glad you got the rad figured out. What all is on your list?

[Zoomad75]

Originally Posted by MTCK

Looks good. Glad you got the rad figured out. What all is on your list?

Oh, the short version is everything..LOL.

Seriously though here's some of what needs to be done in no particular order:

Secure front seats.
Wire in tcc circuit for trans.
Address inop speedo and oil pressure gauges.
Install Stereo.
Wire in aux input for stereo.
Start tuning.
Fab bracket for tuffy console.
Build harness for sending power to console.
Install vinyl flooring (need hot day though).


There is more, but that's a good start for now. Like everything else, it's never ending.

[MTCK]

Hey that's not too bad of a list. You got it right on the floor covering. I got mine roughly unfolded and let the truck run about an hour with heater wide open and windows up. We don't really get hot days in AK though.

[DirtyLarry]

ZooK5.3 went home today!



Runs pretty good for an off the shelf tune someone emailed me for a 6.0L that is running a 5.3L

Youtubers....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbtrpI54dCQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv8ft8SSayI

[Zoomad75]

Managed to get the radio installed with the aux input this weekend. Nothing groundbreaking there. I drove it over to Larry's to grab the other seat and the old console. I did notice a weird resonance coming in when I let of the throttle, but it sounded like it was coming from the exhaust so I didn't think to much about it.

So today I take it over to my in-law's house to do some yard work which is maybe a mile from my place so no problems felt. I get done over there and decide to go out to show the truck to my buddy John with the yellow TJ heep. Motoring down the Boulevard and the resonance I heard before just changed to a major vibration as I slow down for a stoplight. Uh-oh.

I pull over into a safe spot and get out to find this:



Son of beach!

After a quick conversation with Larry via text and my niece and her hubby seeing me on the side of the road we got a plan together. I slammed down the last of my gatorade so I had something to shove over the tailshaft once the shaft is out. I had my niece pull it out of park to take the load off the shaft and was able to pull it off the rear yoke and out. I cut the end of the bottle off and shoved it over the output. I locked the hubs in and stuffed it into 4hi. The ride home was minus the resonance so that pretty much locks it down for me we got a driveline angle problem. To flipping stupid to recognize it before it broke, but live and learn right?

Closer shots of my stupidty-





Pretty sure by looking at the yoke on the shaft it's fubar'd. The groove is wiped out for the retaining clip. Need more bolts and straps for the axle yoke. I guess I'll take the shaft to work to send it off for repair. Then it's time to measure the driveline angles and get the adjustments made.

[y5mgisi]

How the heck did that happen?

[First c10]

What is the angle difference from the drive shaft to the pinion? Is the pinion angle less than the driveline?

[Zoomad75]

Originally Posted by First c10

What is the angle difference from the drive shaft to the pinion? Is the pinion angle less than the driveline?

It's off for sure. I grabbed some tools from work to measure it the GM way, but my measurements last night on my sloped driveway were 3 degrees at the t-case (down), 18 degrees on the shaft (down) and 11 degrees (down) at the rear axle. It's going to need adjustment at both ends to be able to pull it all together.

All I know is I got lucky. Dodged a bullet. Had that joint let go at highway speed the shaft would have beat up everything under the truck into oblivion.

Larry and I talked tonight and hatched a plan to get it back into shape.
Fear not, it will be fixed. It's just money anyway!

[bmchevy1979]

Well looks like me and you have about the same luck. Lol about 4months after my 4spd swap I grenaded the rear drive shaft on my 74 caving in the 2month old flowmaster 40s and ripping the ebrake cable out from under it.

does make my want to double check my pinion angle on my 14bolt though cause I do have a slight resonance or drone since the sea I'm not sure If it's the locker though first full-time locker I've used I've always been around 1/2tons with the g80

[LT7A]

This is a good read, just went through it all -- along for the ride now. Sorry about the 'shaft. You caught it before before it dropped and that counts for a lot in my book. At highway speeds if it dropped out, your trans loses it's juice at speed, you have no power, and that thing could be going end-over-end toward whoever is behind you. Nice catch.

I'm now trying not to want a K5. So feel free to stop making this one look so good.

[Zoomad75]

Thanks guys. It was a really dumb mistake to overlook it. Even more so since Larry saw daylight under the rear tires on it's maiden voyage home when it was hitting bumps. Could be the inverted shocks causing the ride, the driveshaft might be a touch too long and most certainly incorrect angles.

Just spent my one whole day off today getting my furnace running again, so nothing got done on the K5 today. Going to sleep with the temp being higher than the 54 degrees it was inside last night was worth it. As the way things go, it will be 80 here tomorrow so getting the furnace going has some of the best timing I've seen in a while.

A little mini update though. Late last week Eric in our body shop told me to bring the tuffy console back in as they were going to spray some more bedliner. So I did and our new painter did spray everything but the back panel. When I asked why and he told me he didn't paint the bottom. Huh? I showed him how it will sit and I saw the light bulb went off. Lesson everybody, paint fumes make you do dumb stuff. Use your respirator! Still what he got done looks good.

[Zoomad75]

Ok, it's been a while. I haven't been sitting on my tail end the whole time. I've gone almost insane overthinking the driveline issue. Measured and remeasured and then did it again. Thought about getting a replacement shaft with a CV added to it. Larry and I talked it out and figured we may not have to go to that extreme, yet. So I measured again. Using both the GM inclineometers and an app on my phone. Here's a look at the GM tools measuring.



Here's how this stuff works. The basic statement is you set the yokes so they are vertical at the diff and t-case. Put one at each u-joint cap and slide the indicator until the bubble is level. Read the scale where the indicator lines up. In this case it's 25.5 Degrees.



Then you take the second gauge at the t-case and take another reading. The reading here is 18 degrees. Yes the bubble is level, just didn't take the shot direct on to show it.


By using this form of driveline measurement, ideally we should have similar angles at each end. Subtract the smaller from the larger and it's off 7.5 degrees. I then remeasured using an inclineometer app on my phone as a double check. I got 3 at the t-case, 18 on the shaft and 11 at the pinion. Again subtracting the smaller from the larger between the t-case and the shaft and then the pinion to the shaft I ended up with a 15 degree working angle for the front and then a 7 degree working angle for the rear. Then subtracting the smaller from the larger and it's 8 degrees

Either way I do it the measurments it's within .5 of each other. The target is 8 degrees. After discussing with Larry the findings we plan on dropping the t-case crossmember to relax that front angle even if it's just a degree or two. I went ahead and ordered up a set of 8 degree shims from DIY4X as a kit with new center pins. The shims are steel and well built.


The Blazer will need to spend some time back in it's birthplace for the shim-ectomy. Then we can address the driveshaft itself.

[MTCK]

Cool. Good plan. Science, I like it.

[ERASER5]

Drive shaft angles. So Geometry class wasn't a total waste after all...But I like this better.

If you use your mathmagician skills you'll find that roughly 117% of that is equal to 9/7th of the Canadian populous multiplexted by the amount of fiber contained in a giraffe fart. In laidmans turds that means flockulation of the specular moleculii. It's all pretty straight forward actualistically.

[Big Tex]

Originally Posted by ERASER5

Drive shaft angles. So Geometry class wasn't a total waste after all...But I like this better.

If you use your mathmagician skills you'll find that roughly 117% of that is equal to 9/7th of the Canadian populous multiplexted by the amount of fiber contained in a giraffe fart. In laidmans turds that means flockulation of the specular moleculii. It's all pretty straight forward actualistically.

...clearly Happy Hour has started in Indiana this fine Friday!

[Zoomad75]

No kidding...Where the heck did that comment come from?

[Zoomad75]

Since the wifey was too exhausted to do anything today I got a pass to go play outside today. Got one thing done on the list. Seats are mounted finally. Had to modify the plates I made for these seats from the 75 as the floor pan differs to the 91. Plus using the stock holes had the seat too far to the right. It was horribly obnoxious to drive sitting off center to the steering wheel. I ended up moving the seat just about an inch to the left. I made a run to the farm store for some grade 8 hardware and some flat stock for making backing plates under the floor. On to the pics..

Drivers side floor prior to drilling.






Front drivers side brackets. I managed to still use the stock holes on the front side to double up the top bracket mount with the seat. I'm a big boy and figured tying into the stock mount with it's reinforcement should help beef it up.


The rear mount on the drivers side. All the brackets top side and bottom side will get removed and painted prior to the final install after the flooring is put down.



Front mount on the passenger side. I was able to reuse the inside front hole so I didn't have to drill one hole at least.



Passenger side rear mount.



Passenger side egress to back seat shot. Not a lot of room, but still usable.


Drivers side final position. Mounting is very solid. I would say better than the '75 when I installed them in there.



I must have climbed in and out a dozen times checking and double checking the position to make sure I was lined up and had enough room to operate. I cheated to the rear for legroom as the Silverado tracks have a ton of movement. Where I mounted them, the seat goes far enough forward somebody a foot shorter could fit nicely. Also as others have noted doing this swap the Silverado buckets sit slightly lower than stock. For me being 6'1" and a bit on the large size, the lower position is perfect for me. Plus it makes hiking my butt inside a little bit easier. Still I think a grab handle on the a-pillar or roof might be needed or I see the tilt column getting loose from using it as a grab point to get in.

Still, it's a little bit of progress. The Tuffy console is going to need some more substantial fabrication for it's mounting. Still got to install the shims to the rear axle and get the driveshaft sorted out. Larry's got the plan, but is getting the burb ready for expo coming up and I don't want it to be in his way. We'll see about getting it back to the Bigassgas Garage once he gets back. Plus in the meantime I've got to get a 64 Impala ready to sell to add some cash back to the K5 coffers. It's an 1 owner survivor 4dr hardtop in excellent shape. Not as desirable as a 2dr, but a very nice stock cruiser that could take 6 to the drive-in and 6 more hiding in the trunk!

[MTCK]

Nice work. They look like they came in there. Sort out your driveline ?

[Zoomad75]

Originally Posted by MTCK

Nice work. They look like they came in there. Sort out your driveline ?

Thanks. Following Larry's lead to make it look like they could have came there. Plus the seat belts being integrated into the seat means the seat mounting is critical to safety. Larry's fixing of all the cracks in the floor that made it safe, plus I added backing support plates under the floor to help distribute the load. Had I just drilled some holes and not sandwiched the factory floor between the top/bottom plates the floor could just tear out if I wreck it.

Driveline is in a holding pattern. Waiting for my turn in the Bigassgas garage when Larry gets back from expo. We'll install the shims then remeasure the angles and then figure out what the shaft will need done.