Blazer retractable convertible top

[zammer]

I think you boyz are right.... lets cut those boxsides up!
It will take me most likey 3-4 months extra to get the drivers side bed side trimed and welded up to the door pillar ( from a swb not an actual blazer side ) and the windows all working properly on 12 volts and room for seals, glass cut, yada yada.. If i cut too much i can always get repo boxsides again i guess
- i also still need to make the new the boxsides level with the doors and get rid of the step down. I have tops of old doors cut and ready to tack on with the same contour of the doors to follow through to the tailgate as well. This will give me 2" more to tuck the top of the rear window away as well...
Man i wanna start cutting!

[zammer]

Hey YBnorml,
its a small world forsure. Yeah Quinn is a cool guy, i had to meet with him 2/3 times for the second top and parts etc. as soon as I started cutting and welding i realized i was in for as many extra top parts as possible! He;s a welder as you probably know and does crazy nice custom work on his cars.. You should check out the sweet 81/82 El Camino he has..

[YBNORML]

Originally Posted by zammer

Hey YBnorml,
its a small world forsure. Yeah Quinn is a cool guy, i had to meet with him 2/3 times for the second top and parts etc. as soon as I started cutting and welding i realized i was in for as many extra top parts as possible! He;s a welder as you probably know and does crazy nice custom work on his cars.. You should check out the sweet 81/82 El Camino he has..

Haha, I have known Quinn for 10+ years. The Elky sure was sweet, unfortunately he wrote it off. He's in the process of building a 63 impala convertible now. It is insanely clean.

[tubbedII]

Glad to see your back on this and the house is done! I'm glad you're going with the power windows, that "cool factor" is well worth the effort if you ask me.

[zammer]

So today i rolled the blazer out of the corner to clean the area out in prep for the hoist and took some pictures to show what stage its at now with the new passenger boxside and soon to be done drivers boxside intacked to the door pillar. In case anyones wondering what that red thing is next to the front passenger side of the truck up here in canada we call it a snowblower
6/7 weeks from now we will be done with them up north here not like we needed them much this winter but after last year many people ran out this fall and scooped one..
The other red thiing on the drivers side is a 04 vfr i aquired a couple weeks ago. It seems that now that i have the garage cleaned up from the house build i can't help but have the dirty need to fill it!

[ColoradoK5]

thats a great work space you got there, the Blazer looks great sittin in there. cant wait to see more work on your top!!!

[zammer]

Hey thanks,, since i was able to build my own house it help freed up funds with the sweat equity put in to build my dream garage also mainly with the blazer and future projects in mind and to have a cave to hang out in.. Here's a picture i think is pretty cool with just framing ( From 6 months ago , Mid August ) which shows the 1400 feet of 1/2" pex tubing i laid under the slab to keep the toes warm in the winter.. The radient heat is pretty amazing and has huge efficiency benefits.

[ColoradoK5]

man you sure did it right just dont drill into your system putting up your lift

[zammer]

I bet some guys do... That would suck man..
The main thing i'm going to like about the 4 post lift is the casters to move the pig around if I need to, i was reading some guys move the lift with the vehicles still on them too should be able to do that with the light blazer on it hopefully.

[ColoradoK5]

Yeah I've those castors they work pretty slick you will like that lift!!
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[mustardjimmy71]

i worked at 2 shops where they decomisioned the heated floor by cutting it up. I couldnt believe it. When its below 0c outside it is the bomb

[zammer]

geeze eh, i would think if a guy did chop it up in a couple spots you could try to carefully break away existing concrete and get to the cut and do some sort of repair on it using shark bite fittings and re pour the area.. Most systems have many loops for mainly even heating and efficiency but if you did chop up a section you couldn't repair you can just block it in. The layout for for garage design has 6 separate loops, hard to tell unless you are looking directly down on the footprint.. IN the summer i'm going to try and reverse the system and use the cool garage/basement slabs and circulate the water through at night etc. as the nights here are cool enabling this. Thats another project on the list lol.. I'm never without things to do thats for sure.

[RustyBucket]

[QUOTE=zammer;5187302]Hey thanks,, since i was able to build my own house it help freed up funds with the sweat equity put in to build my dream garage also mainly with the blazer and future projects in mind and to have a cave to hang out in.. Here's a picture i think is pretty cool with just framing ( From 6 months ago , Mid August ) which shows the 1400 feet of 1/2" pex tubing i laid under the slab to keep the toes warm in the winter.. The radient heat is pretty amazing and has huge efficiency benefits.
Attachment 872407[/Q

interesting read & picture of your shop floor heating system under const. ... alien concept for a Miami Fl. native that's never lived much N. of Orlando. QUESTION?: If you loose power to circulate/heat water does the system freeze and bust the floor? OR do you circulate something that won't freeze?

I've got castors for my 4 post lift and only tried 'em once right after I assembled the lift. It's been a few years ago but I remember it not working very well. The 4 upright posts are loosely attached to the ramps and crossbars. I was by myself but as I recall the posts kinda wanted to go in 4 different directions. Took the castors off and haven't moved it since. Never bolted it down but it seems secure.... hasn't squashed me yet.

Re: the retractable convt. top... hurry up and make a nice easy to bolt on kit.

[hgs_notes]

The water used can be mixed with glycol to lower the freeze point, but that is usually just used when the water is heating a slab outside the building, like to melt the snow off the driveway or sidewalk. Once the slab in the garage is warmed up it would take several days below freezing before it would freeze, and with the pex tubing incased in cement, it shouldn't ever expand enough to damage the tubing, which is also flexible. I've seen large old buildings go without heat for a few days with temps below 0 F and be comfortable.

I'm a boiler inspector by trade and see these systems all the time, but I have never seen one run with cooled water through it. Maybe I misunderstood what you are planning. A cold slab will end up absorbing a lot of moisture and seem damp all the time. Could end up with mold problems. Can't say I would recommend it.

[zammer]

Yeah i'm running a 30/70 mix just for extra protection. 30% glycol 70% water If it does ever get cold enough around the edges of the slab in the garage it will ensure the pex doesn't burst.
- The idea i was going to do is in the summer use the slab when its cold in the garage during the summer (no heat on to the slab when its warm outside) and then circulate it through my water coil in my furnace. So this will then take cold water going out of the garage loops which will be chilled from circulating through the now cold garage pad and be used to cool the house with the air going though the furnace. SO the water going out of the furnace will be warmer then by the circulating air and then give off its heat to the water, then garage pad ( which will warm up the garage pad in a reverse mode) which is the same as what the boiler does. So then since the garage pad is used as the heat sink it can give off its heat to the outside ( i have a vent fan in the garage which will pull in cool air at night to cool off the garage and pad with windows open etc )
- This of course will all be dependent on how cool i can get the garage pad at night... I'll have to play with it when the weather changes to experiment.

[hgs_notes]

OK, curious how that works out for you.

[mustardjimmy71]

Your only going to be able to remove as much heat from your living space as your heat rejection area, your garage floor, can expell. As mentioned above, the concrete holds heat very well. It is not a good heat tranfer medium.

If your plan works at 100% effientcy for some strange reason, then congradulations! The inside of your house will be the same temperature as it is outside!!! You could have just opened all the windows

Now there is a way to achieve coolingwith a plumbed concrete, but you need the a high exhaust point and a low air intake point and the whole building is designed around it. This is to avoid the dampnes. There is no fans involved. Oh and you need a production and injection water well.

Here is a building in penticton i drilled the wells for that is using this technology. At the bottom http://www.penticton.ca/EN/main/depa...-building.html

[zammer]

If my house can be as cool as it is outside at night that would be perfect! Without having to use a whole house fan to exhaust all the air in the house that has been conditioned and trying to keep the indoor air as clean as possible. I thought i would try it and see what happens. I do have a high mounted industrial canarm exhaust fan @ the top of the ceiling good for 650 cfm and an itake that is 5' off the ground for fresh air while welding etc. It all depends on how cool i can get the slab temp at night until the morning. I just need to plumb in the garage water loop with the heating coil for the air handling unit and either use an existing circ pump or get a another separaste pump on a thermostat.. BUt your most likey right in the sense that it will be hard to do. I'm going to concentrate obviously on getting this top working and the cooling thing will be pushed back until 2015 at which time i will probably just put in a AC coil

[zammer]

OK update time.. a small one but a good point.
Spent the last two weeks finishing the drivers side bed side replacement, setting up the 4 post lift etc.. Then it was time to get to the driver side window
- So i started with cutting the top of the bedside to make room for the window and welded on the tops of 2 doors.
- then I cut out the section where the window will go down into the boxside so it will basically rest on top of the inner bedside were it gets bolted to the fender tub.
- I purchased a set of the Electric Life Universal street rod powered window regulators to try and use them to power the rear side windows and it looks like they will fit nice. I measured and cut the one side down which you will see in the pictures of what the before and after differences in the regulators

[zammer]

Also here is a pic of how i had to widen the back of the top rack a 1/2" so it would be the same angle as the drivers side window and also so it would be in the right spot for the rear window to fit into

[jeffg1010]

Are you going to use squared door glass (like Suburban) to allow both front and rear windows to sit flush against each other? I am very intrigued by what you have going on here. I cant wait to see it finished, but it is WAY over my head in regards to difficulty.

[zammer]

yeah i'll have to forsure get custom glass done. I was thinking about having the door window actually angled back say 10/15 degrees then meeting up with the rear window like the mid 70's eldorado caddies. makes the window look more sporty too?
yeah its quite the challenge to do this. The amount of time and $ i have into it now i must make it work lol.. its fun though and nice to be working on it again

[lyrikz]

Originally Posted by zammer

yeah i'll have to forsure get custom glass done. I was thinking about having the door window actually angled back say 10/15 degrees then meeting up with the rear window like the mid 70's eldorado caddies. makes the window look more sporty too?
yeah its quite the challenge to do this. The amount of time and $ i have into it now i must make it work lol.. its fun though and nice to be working on it again

In. This is sick.

[tubbedII]

I'm just glad your documenting all of this and I found it!!! All that time/$/effort is going to be well worth it! I think only true fabricators will be able to really appreciate the effort you put into this if they didn't read this thread, at least I know I wouldn't have been able to. Awesome work and keep it up!!!

[zammer]

thanks guys.. Its nice to hear that its looking ok as i have nothing to go by except cars really..
- another thing to mention is that this Custom window regulator is rated for 75 lbs which will hopefully be sufficient