Progress on the RestoRod

[71RestoRod]

Lots of progress to catch up on. Got the frame stripped down and cleaned up. First I took the chassis to the frame shop to check the alignment. The Blazer used to sit a little cockeyed in the rear and I wanted to see if the frame was tweaked. Fortunately, the frame checked out great and I got a nice little color printout and peace of mind for the (cough) $80 setup fee. With that out of the way I stripped the chassis down.

The new front springs are military wrapped so I had to grind off the safety straps from the driver side front spring hanger. (I don’t think everyone has this, I heard somewhere that the straps were dealer installed as a safety recall??) I also ground the hanger rivets down just a tad for a little extra clearance at the wrapped end..

Having the frame apart made it really easy to move the engine crossmember forward for the 700R4 conversion. I flipped the crossmember upside down and bolted it in the stock holes on the frame. After scribing witness marks in the stock location, I measured and scribed marks for the new location, centered the crossmember in the frame, clamped it and drilled the new holes using the now upside down crossmember as the template. On the top side of the frame I had to clamp the two ends of the crossmember to the frame and then remove the center section to give clearance for the drill. As a note, I ended up filling the two forward holes on the top of the driver’s side frame rail. They were close but not quite right for where I needed to relocate the crossmember.