1973 K20 Build Thread

[dccarpenter]

Great photography and thread, please keep up with it. I'm trying to do a similar on-the semi cheap build of my '75 K5 Blazer and this is helping out with some ideas.

I'm assuming your doing so much replacement of parts for reliability reasons? Have you compression tested the engine to assess it's internal health? Anything you did to test the transmission?

[TheWhiteElephant]

Originally Posted by dccarpenter

Great photography and thread, please keep up with it. I'm trying to do a similar on-the semi cheap build of my '75 K5 Blazer and this is helping out with some ideas.

I'm assuming your doing so much replacement of parts for reliability reasons? Have you compression tested the engine to assess it's internal health? Anything you did to test the transmission?

Thanks for the kind words. Great questions, too. To be honest, I only drove it a few times after I bought it. I was surprised that it idled really, really smoothly and wouldn't smoke. It would start right up with no issues. It definitely needed a complete tune-up. In retrospect (and this is something I have thought about many times since I started), I probably should have just done a complete tune up, ran it for a good few weeks to see if any issues came up, and then started with the refurbishing.

On the plus side, the rockers, crank/rods, and oil looked in very nice shape with absolutely no sludge when I removed the covers and oil pan, so I was happy. The transmission was rebuilt a few years ago and driven very little after that. I did remove the transmission pan and replaced the filter and noticed that the oil was nice and red, didn't seem burned at all.

You are correct, I am replacing the starter, alternator, belts, and hoses all for reliability reasons. I do this on all the "new" cars I buy just so that I may have peace of mind and a date of replacement for my personal records.

I'm going to look at a possible parts '73 this weekend.