Needed a new toy. Why a Blazer? Why NOT a Blazer?!?!

[2fast55]

Finally starting to get some new metal going in. I was starting to get tired of cutting and cutting, only to find more rust buried in the layers. I got enough of the B-pillar area rebuilt that tomorrow I'll throw some paint inside before I cover everything up with the new patch panels. There is some rust left above the bed floor, but I'll dig that out from the top side when I can pull the roll bar out of the way. Right now it has braces welded to it holding the windshield frame and firewall in place.



Also took an idea I saw in another build. I figure that dirt and water is going to get into the torsion boxes anyway, so I might as well give it a good way to get out. I punched some 2 1/4" holes and flared the edges by hand.

[chevy2racr]

gonna por15 or something the insides of the torsion boxes too? it'd be nice knowing when water and stuff gets in them that it will at minimum dry out, driving in salty winter roads I'd like knowing i can flush it out

[2fast55]

Not with por15, but the insides of the boxes did get painted. I removed most of the heavy scaly rust, then treated the rest with Ospho, a rust converter that forms an Iron phosphate coating, ready to paint right over. I painted it with some leftover Imron polyurethane I had on the shelf. This stuff has awesome adhesion, even with direct-to-metal application, and also has some pretty serious corrosion resistance. I don't know if it still is, but it used to be popular for aircraft and heavy trucks.



I spent all day today lining up, trimming, hammering, and re-shaping the front floor support, inner rocker/floor extension, and lower b-pillar patch to get them to fit. It would be nice if patch panels ever actually fit with no modifications. Got them all welded in, burned myself a few times, dropped the grinder while it was running, and still didn't break anything or even have to get a band aid.

[2fast55]

And of course I just figured out that I have my b-pillar patch in the wrong place. I need to cut it back out and move it down a little bit so that the outer rocker will fit correctly. I hate doing things twice, but at least I get to make all my mistakes on this side. Now the driver's side will go much faster and hopefully look better when it's done.

[2fast55]

Having heard the horror stories about people incorrectly installing the rockers and having the front way off or the door not fitting, I checked the alignment with both the door and fender installed before I welded the outer rocker in place. It fit almost perfect the first try. The way all the panels fit against each other, I'm not entirely sure how they can get as messed up as what I've heard about.



I finished up welding the floorpan back in where I cut to access the floor support. It only took about 287295024 tacks and lots of cool time to do it. Welding sheetmetal really sucks compared to heavy steel.



Once I got them welded back on from a previous partial hack job, I also cut the lower boxes off the front fenders for better tire clearance. I made sure to leave some metal below the body line to flow nicely with the lower part of the grille shell.



Lots of grinding left, but I should get this side in primer pretty soon. Then it's time to take a break from all the cutting and grinding, and rebuild the transmission before I tackle the driver's side.

[2fast55]

I have been working on the transmission, trying to build one that should last at least as long as any other part on this truck. There are some projects I am saving for later, but this is one of the things I only want to do once.

Emptied the case and got all my new parts ordered, and rebuilt the pump before I started on the internals. All new bushings, seals, thrust washers, and sprag roller assemblies. New red clutches and kolene steels, even though stock tan clutches will take a huge amount of power before they slip. I also machined the direct clutch piston down to add another clutch to the pack.







Hardened intermediate sprag race (on the right). This is the only part I've ever personally heard of someone breaking in a th350, so it got an upgrade too.







Got all the internals buttoned up and started on the valvebody. It was really gunked up and took forever to get clean. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out exactly which modifications I wanted to do, and which ones to leave out. I'm hoping I got it right, because I want nice firm shifts (firmer than stock), but I don't want it to slam every gear all the time like some high performance builds do. Now I just have to get a drain plug and temp sender bung for my pan and the trans will be done.

[Beat68CST]

I know a good chassis builder in Sweethome that also knows his way around Turbo 350's and 400's pretttty damn good. Let me know if ya need anything.



And, nice work man, looks good!

[2fast55]

It only took me a month, but I finally got primer on the passenger side. Everything was stripped to bare metal, all the big nasty wheeling craters hammered out, rust removed and/or treated, extra holes welded up, and everything coated with epoxy primer. Now I have to shove it over to repeat the whole process on the other side, then I can start on the interior and windshield frame.

[FRENCHBLUE72]

Looks nice and solid..

[DURRTY]

that looks really nice. I would never have thought the underside and inside of the rocker area would be so good to start with.
Its gotta be rare to see a lower rear door opening like that.

Good stuff.

[2fast55]

Fire wood anyone? This is kind of a big piece to have found its way in there by itself. I'm thinking someone stuffed it in there to make a rattle to screw with their buddy.



It's been slow progress, but I finally got the rocker area done on the drivers side. Now to patch in the seat belt mount and finish up the floor pan, then cut the fenders out a little to match what I did on the other side.



And finally some good news. I cut the windshield out today to find that the frame isn't nearly as rusty as I thought it might be. Pretty heavy surface rust and some pitting, but nothing that requires total replacement.

[mcmlxix]

nice work... Can you post more pics on how you modified the front fenders....

[2fast55]

I cut the rear of the front fender today and got some pics. I should get the front box cut off and reshaped in the next few days. I was hoping to have this thing on the road this summer, but summer is getting really close and I've got a long way to go. This thing eats hours so fast I'm not sure when I'm going to get it done. At least I have most of the drivetrain ready to go as soon as I get through the major time-suck of bodywork.

Laid out the new curve with a piece of masking tape.


Cut a wedge out. I saved the removed piece to help lay out the second side. Run your cut higher than where you want to start changing the curve to help smooth the transition.


Cut off the lower section of fender edge and line it back up with the bottom of the fender. Make some relief cuts to help flex the rest of the edge back to where you cut out.


Make a piece to fill in the gap left from separating the edge.


A gazillion tack welds later, grind it all smooth. I don't have perfect metal working skills yet, so mine will take some body filler to make the work invisible.

[2fast55]

Done cutting fenders. Now I can get all the old paint and cracked filler ground off the drivers side and get some fresh epoxy primer on this side too.

Once I got the box welded back on from an unfinished hack job, I laid out the new bend and cut lines to match up with the bottom of the grille surround. Made relief cuts around the curve and in the ends to get everything to look like it was supposed to be that way, not just hacked off like all the other guys. I can't even count the number of "wheelin' rigs" around here that have been attacked by the sawzall warriors, when it's not that hard to go for a finished look.

[2fast55]

Hmm....I've been slacking on the updates. Of course, there hasn't really been much progress to report. Just hours and hours of grinding off old paint and repairing the metal underneath. The engine died in the truck that I've been driving, so I had to swap in the one that was supposed to go in the blazer just to finish race season. Then work got really busy, and I haven't had much time to work on the car that's currently taking up the best shop space I can paint in. Once the 56 gets done (teal/white pearl two-tone), the blazer will move in for its turn. I'm going with PPG Lime Twist and black on the top.

[2fast55]

It only took 5 months to start making progress again. Finally got some primer on the drivers side, now I'm cleaning out the garage so I can have the body indoors and work on it this winter. Hopefully I can get my hands on a bare 400 small block to build. All balanced internals and the right head/cam/intake combination and it should scoot along just fine.

[freakshow108]

Please keep the pics coming. I am 70%complete on my sons 71 K20, after that I am starting on my 71 K5 blazer. Your build thread is going to come in handy! She is looking sweeeeeet, stay with it!

[2fast55]

I have the blazer in the shop and the pellet stove running good, so I might actually make some decent progress this winter. I bought a 400 SBC to rebuild today, and already started stripping it down. Good thing I was already planning on replacing the crank as part of an internally balanced package. This #2 rod journal is so wasted that the piston skirt was grinding the counterweights at BDC. The guy I bought the engine from also has some brand new patriot 2180 heads he bought to put on this engine before he abandoned the project. I'm still calculating stuff, but I might just pick those up instead of trying to find something else that might work better.

[2fast55]

Well, progress is slow as usual. I picked up the aluminum heads from the guy I got the engine from. Paired with the right cam, I should have 90% of peak torque from below 2000-5000 rpm. Unfortunately the block is sitting bare until work picks back up again so I can buy some decent internals. I've been working on the body some more, and had to sand all the primer back off the drivers side because of adhesion problems.



Put in plates and new nuts to attach the top where the old ones had completely ripped out.



And deleted the radio recess because it had been hacked to death and I am not putting the stock radio back in anyway.

[2fast55]

Got the primer back on the driver's side yesterday, then decided to take a break from bodywork today and install my rear disc conversion. The lines even fit up with no cutting, I just need to fab a bracket to hold the E-brake cable in place.

[Beelzeburb]

Very nice work so far. I'm definitely going to use your pictures as a template when it comes time to trim my own fenders.

[2fast55]

Progress is again slow as usual, but I'm finally starting to get close to done prepping the tub for primer. I cut out the b-pillar areas from inside and replaced the rusted bits that are usually hidden, as well as the bottom few inches of the inner cover panel. The 2 bolts inside each pillar were rusted completely through.



I have also been scraping off the old DIY type bedliner that is all over the inside of this thing, working out some of the larger dents in the rear area, and welding up old holes that I won't be using.



I took a short break from metal work to buy all new top hardware and mount up the top to repair some big cracks in it. Every seam from the original construction had cracked from being dismounted and mishandled for an unknown amount of time before I bought it. As part of the repair process, I discovered that these things aren't actually fiberglass with a gel coat, but SMC (sheet molded composite) so I re-glued the seams with SMC adhesive, just like they were from the factory. Once I got it to hold its own shape, I hung it up out of the way so I could get back to working on the tub.



I also left my 400 block at the machine shop for a couple days to get cleaned and magnafluxed so I knew I had a decent start. Everything checked out, so I threw a little paint at it (custom mixed, way brighter than Chevy engine orange) and am waiting on more work so I can start the fun stuff.



I've got a 700r4 scattered all over the bench for another guy to put in his '54 Pontiac, and have been hearing of a few people looking for someone to paint their projects, so as soon as I get the 56 Chevy done, I might be able to pick up some good side work soon. Of course, race season starts soon too, so my weekends are about to get busy.

[Nothinghead]

Great looking build man. Can't wait to see more!

[2fast55]

I finally fabbed a body cart to roll around the shop without the extra length of frame in the way all the time. After seeing how blue69 (this thread) flipped his tub, and looking for more ideas, I took from toplesskayfiver's design (from this thread) for arms to flip the whole assembly on its side. I have all my measurements written down if anybody wants them to build one of their own. Apparently undercoating and grease don't get along very well. A few leaky seals have made the scraping operation incredibly easy in the affected areas.

[fxdxharley]

looking good! i like your tipper, i was eying the setup topless built too and was planning on building one. i would like to get those dimensions from you. pm them to me please. thanks and keep up the good work.