1985 K5 Blazer: Added another one to the stable

[Captkaos]

Thursday, February 21st, 2013: Buddy called me and told me that he got the cab off the CUCV truck and I could come by and get what I needed.  Headed over to his house and picked up the fan shroud, fan shroud top, upper radiator brackets, Oil cooler hard lines, overflow tank and all the associated bolts.  Plan to get the trans lines but he didn't have the engine out, so next time.

[Captkaos]

Saturday, February 23rd, 2013: Mocked in the radiator and oil cooler lines, to make sure everything was working.  Gathered all the other parts necessary (fan, hoses, clamps etc).  Then it was time to make a decision on how to proceed with the bent radiator support on the drivers side.  Remembered I had a spare at the shop so I proceeded to pull the headlight trim, headlight buckets, grille, turn signals and ran out of daylight.

Sunday, February 24th, 2013: Removed the horns, lower valence, inner support, hood latch, release cable, battery tray and AC condensor and ended up with this:






After loosening the 2 inner fender to cab bolts per side, removing the core support to fender bolts per side (breaking 2 weld in nuts), the 3 inner fender to core support bolts per side and the 2 frame bolts and loosening the upper fender to cowl bolts I had this:





I then retrieved the spare core support and found that I actually had 2, and one had the label for a 6.2L diesel on it, so I chose that one.  Unfortunately it had some rust issues.  So I decided to do it the hard way and cut out the spot welds from both the wreck core support and the rusted one, straighten out the wreck one and had the body guy who wanted to make a piece weld it in. Now I have a repaired core support.





















Took everything home and still have to fix the inner fender that was bent on the Drivers side.  Jacked up the truck, removed the tire and pulled the inner fender out of the truck.  With a number of whacks with a hammer and re-installation I was able to get it to where I could bolt the inner fender to the core support once I got it back in.  Ran out of daylight and had to put everything up without the core support.  Hoping it doesn't get cold before I can get it back in.

[Captkaos]

Friday, March 1st, 2013: got a call that the 6.2L diesel trans lines were removed so I went and picked them up.






Also took a pic of the 6.2L label on the core support:

[Captkaos]

Monday, March 4th, 2013: Got home a little early and decided since the threat of snow was gone and it was warm I would remove the trans lines and swap them out.  That didn't last long as it appears I am going to have to lower the trans/transfer case (have to swap out the bent crossmember anyway) to get it out.. I hope.

[Captkaos]

Sunday, March 10th, 2013: Spent a couple hours with a 1/2" crows foot, a bent 1/2" line wrench and a stubby 1/2" wrench and finally got the transmission lines out without dropping the trans..
This is the difference between the gasser and diesel trans lines.  The diesel crosses behind the oil pan to go to the drivers side into the radiator...

[Captkaos]

Saturday, March 16th, 2013: Hooked up the supply lines while I still had room without the core support.




Reinstalled the core support.  1/2" socket, 3/8" drive.  5 bolts on the left, 5 on the right and 3 on the bottom to the inner fenders.



Reinstalled the lower Valence panel.  1/2" socket, 3/8" drive, 2 bolts to the fenders on either side and one in the middle.



Installed (temporarily) the auxillary battery tray. 2 1/2" bolts seen.



Installed the AC condensor, 10mm socket for the upper isolators




Dropped in the new Diesel specific Radiator



Installed the Oil cooler lines that cross over the radiator specific to the Diesel and then hooked up the Transmission lines.



Put the fan shroud in place 1/2" socket with the 2 bolts at each upper bracket and then called it a night.

[Captkaos]

Sunday, March 17th, 2013: Started off pulling the Shroud, trans and oil cooler lines and radiator back out so I could mark and drill the new lower holes for the auxiliary Battery tray.
You can see them both here:



Then bolted the battery tray back in, MINUS the lower bolt as the inner fender needs some persuasion to meet up with it.



At this point I routed all of the front wiring harness back through and hooked up the grounds (note the rusted one in the above pic), snaked the hood latch cable back through, reinstalled the radiator, oil and trans cooler lines, fan shroud and then installed the fan.

[Captkaos]

Sunday, May 5th, 2013: started looking at the wiring for the glow control and sorting out the mounting of the filter to the firewall.  Removed some unnecessary pieces that went to the gas motor and mocked up where the holes would need to be drilled to put the filter in place.  Started looking at the glow control and couldn't find the pigtail to the new controller.  Finally found it Monday evening.

Wednesday, May 8th, 2013:  Pulled the Diesel glow wiring out of the box and started sorting through it, removed the old controller wiring out of the loom and traced all the necessary connections, now I just need to get it all spliced back together to put it in the truck.

[Captkaos]

Saturday, October 27th, 2013: Spent a couple hours to pull the cowl off the Blazer to clean it out and get access to mount the filter.

[Captkaos]

Saturday, November 9th, 2013: Cleaned out the cowl to get all the leaves and dirt out and the sprayed down the engine bay with Super Clean to get all the dirt and grime off.

[Captkaos]

Sunday, November 10th, 2013: Used the dimples in the firewall to locate the the filter holes, marked them and then drilled them out.  Mounted the filter to the firewall and hooked up the fuel lines.  Pulled out the main engine harness and layed it out to measure and loom it up and ran out of time. 

[nlauffer]

What do you mean by "fulltop"?  Is that like the older ones that even removed the portion all the way to the windshield?

[Captkaos]

Yes as in 1973-1975 top.  I got 2 of these upper window frames few years back along with a halftop shell (for a fulltop truck) and a fulltop shell.

[nlauffer]

What does the half top shell look like.  If it's what I think it is that would be pretty cool.

[Captkaos]

Wow, I don't have any pictures of it here, but it looks like the one Mike Phillips has here: