New to me 1977 Crew Cab Short Bed
Boy, nobody warned me how addictive Square Body collecting can be! After many years of on/off '67-'72 ownership I finally got my first square a few years ago with a 2WD 1980 Blazer while living in Texas. I played around with it and rebuilt the engine but then moved back to California and left the Blazer behind. A couple years went by but the urge was too strong and I recently got another 2WD Blazer (1976, one-owner, all original- even paint). That led to plenty of parts hunting which led to an even nicer '76 Blazer I wanted to own. Put mine up for sale but was too late on the nice one. So I ended up buying a '99 Tahoe and and a '77 Short Bed. Got the '77 home and immediately started looking for parts to fix it up. Instead of finding parts I found a great deal on a super cool 1977 Chevy Crew Cab converted to a SWB. Checked and it was still for sale- but it was 400 miles away!! I would also have to sell the '77 Short Bed I had just picked up. Advertised it and had it sold Tuesday night. My next hurdle was finding a trailer to tow behind the Tahoe I had owned for less than a week to tow home the new truck 400 miles. Found out NO ONE in my area rents a trailer they will allow a truck to be carried on- and most don't even allow the trailer out of the local area. Finally a friend came through with one I could borrow. Early Saturday morning I loaded up and headed to the bay area with my son Blake. We took our time driving up and got there in the early afternoon. The cool owner Jay showed us the truck we were definitely buying and started loading it up. The truck hadn't run in 6 years so they drug it on the trailer with a chain. Strapped it down and headed toward the city for my son to see the bridges. Bad idea! Everywhere we went was a total traffic jam and not trailer friendly. Even so, we crossed all three bridges and decided to just head back home. Drove through the night and got back home at 7am on Sunday. The Tahoe worked great and I was told the '77 just needed a carb to be a runner. Luckilly the '76 I bought the month befor to part out had a freshly rebuilt Q-jet on it. Finished parting the '76 and a week later found time to swap out the carb on the '77. Swapped the carb, bolted in a new battery, poured in fresh gas and started cranking. Didn't fire so poured a little gas in the carb and the 454 fired up and idled. Next plans are to swap out the 8-lug for 5 lug and get it lowered down or Ralleys.
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