GRIZZ’s ‘79 - 2WD BLAZER Challenge over in London, England. “~It’s not a Project~”

[Wikid61]

BLIMEY! Small world. I stop at an Amish owned store & purchase food every now & then. And this trip to Oskaloosa I was there last fall several trips to purchase (3) 455 Buick, (1) 500 Cadillac & (1) 472 Cadillac engines. The 472 is likely going into said '81 Blaze. No build thread yet. But have made purchases of gas tank & sending unit, front brake overhaul kit. As a well as a PST front suspension kit. It was OG black w/a Highland interior. Amazing that your travels lead you here.

[Wikid61]

1970 El Dorado 500 motor in the foreground. The floor boards are SWISS CHEESE in all but the trans tunnel.

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Wikid61

BLIMEY! Small world. I stop at an Amish owned store & purchase food every now & then. And this trip to Oskaloosa I was there last fall several trips to purchase (3) 455 Buick, (1) 500 Cadillac & (1) 472 Cadillac engines. The 472 is likely going into said '81 Blaze. No build thread yet. But have made purchases of gas tank & sending unit, front brake overhaul kit. As a well as a PST front suspension kit. It was OG black w/a Highland interior. Amazing that your travels lead you here.

If you look at my road trip reports you will see that miles and geography does not stop me.

Been inside at Gas Monkey Garage for three hours visiting, managed to help for a day on a SEMA Truck (Boosted Bertha) and various other places I could only dream of.

This year I got invited to Kelderman Engineering in Oskaloosa, and also spent some time with my friend Ray and his wife Eve in Monroe, Iowa.


Looks like you have loads of good stuff stashed away though.

Over here everything is a battle and very costly to get.

Price you see, then add international shipping, taxes, and import duties on it all.

We pretty much work on double the price.

And to import a car over 40 years will cost an additional $3000.00 to get it on your driveway. Newer stuff is even more.

Originally Posted by Wikid61

1970 El Dorado 500 motor in the foreground. The floor boards are SWISS CHEESE in all but the trans tunnel.

Looks like you have space......

If I had more space here...ll

[Grizz1963]

Took a pic for Lee, my lawyer friend in St Louis last night while checking the trucks vitals, oil, water etc.....

Can you see what is wrong?



Just connecting the dots again.

Been looking at potential simple 80’s style graphics and at this point the winner seems to be this one.......

Who owned one of these in the Day???




Inspired.



Also this....




After work I walked down to the truck, as I seem to do every day.

Is this a good thing?

So I took a few pics of the paint.

For those who may be thinking it’s sacrilege to paint it or change things.

If you,look in the gas filler neck, it seems this was an orange truck in the past.


Anyway, welcome to 30 grit textured paint, it is right up ther with wood chip wall paper.



Fender




Roof





Side panel......

30 Grit anyone?






And lastly the hood.




So that concludes all the unpleasantlnes of this 40 year old survivor truck.

Still happy.


It is worth more than the sum of its parts.


Paint? Satin white with graphics??

[Grizz1963]

Well

Its not really a challenge.

The clever guys who can do this stuff have already done it. Repeatedly

I took two sets of pics earlier in the garden.

Suspension as it is now and one on the jack, raised to “Stock height”
Which is where I am headed.

I think for the moment, this is where I am headed.



Based on this.



I like the simplicity and chunkyness of this design.


However


The front and rear start and end may need to be on the samelevel or completely different.

I still like the idea of some simple bonnet action, subtle and either connected to the sides or seperate, in a U shape or L shape accentuating the slight raised area.
The tailgate also can do with a symmetric or asymmetric design.

I like the rear canopy black with shaded side glass, but also wonder if it can look good in white as it is now.


So below are a few pics to work with if you are interested in habing a go.

Thank you all for helping.


Low and “broken” as it is now.



Difference between now and future wheel arch height.

“Broken”



“Fixed”





Raised slightly as it will be once I get done.




Rear 3/4 view for the adventurous.




Tailgate.

Glass can be blacked out too.





I await your replies.

[Grizz1963]

[quote author="@colonelsponsz" source="/post/2454130/thread" timestamp="1539436592"]I've mucked about with @littlepixel's original....the front fender is all wrong on this rough mock-up but there's a way of getting the ribbon to run over the shoulder and onto and across the hood - it might mean taking the upright onto the hood about midway over the wheelarch?

[img src="http://img.retro-rides.org/i/v/colonelsponsz/535055599c61.jpg"]

[img src="http://img.retro-rides.org/i/v/colonelsponsz/9499e5ec05de.jpg"]

[/quote]


Quick bit of randomness.

The last few weeks at work have been hectic.

Culminating on Friday in a marathon training, plractical and learning session. I was up at 04.00 because this sort of thing stresses and kills my head.

Headed to Cobham for the day by 07.00 and finished there at 5.45pm

All in all, it seems the boss and our trainers are still happy to let me loose amongst our customers in London and outskirts.


On the way back I stopped in at Craig and his family, Lorraine was doing steaks and desert, what’s not to like.

When I got there, she had just got home from scouts with their daughter and Kyle, their awesome son (I rarely like teenagers) was in the garage, painting up a a contraption Craig had designed and built to change the way the dogs access the house in winter.



While I was there, Craig worked on getting my 5500 photos from my old mobile and the 2500 onnthe new one into a saved file and will then try create a new super file for my iPhone

I left their place at about 9.30 and headed home, before I left, I noticed their daughters Halloween protector was outside her bedroom door.



Weirdly, also on the agenda last night was a chat with Mr Tiki whom I had not chatted with for a few weeks.

He was having some family time too.

Love the angle grinder inspired brazier





Back to the Chevy Blazer.


The playing with designs continues and a few more came through, I do like bits from ever one I see.

Do note, the rear glass has been shortened.





This was the surprise, and I also like the subtle reference to the year of manufacture



Yesterday, like most weekends, I had a load of other stuff to do.

One of the jobs was to cut back the access to the garage by another two wheel bins worth.

Now you can drive up and down that part without hugging the hedge in order to avoid the trees branches that overhanged the drive.

Less camouflage but more easy access.




It’s 04.00now, but been chatting to,Dennis since 03.00

He went to a car and Hotrod show and sent me loads of great pics.

I will only put this one up and say that he said it was a blast.

[Grizz1963]

Awake since 03.00

Insomnia sucks.

But 90 minutes later I just remembered that I did this short walk around for a certain friend in the USA who,asked about the motor in the truck.

CLICK LINK

https://youtu.be/rkdj0tMFBEM


Back to yesterday.

Once I had done all the yard and house work, it was time to take some photos of the truck formthe photoshop challenge of creating some designs to possibly use on it when the mechanical side meets my expectations.

http://forum.retro-rides.org/threads/recent/206591

Thank goodness for my Snap On low level jack, bought used years ago for £25.00 or $30.00 it certainly makes life a lot easier.

Up she goes. Or is it a he??



Made safe-ish.



I knew what was there.

Just not how much of it there was.

The rust is really weird, it seems to attack some parts and leaves others completely untouched.

Some hammer, chisel, and screwdriver action helped me find the starting points.



Flap wheel action.



When I had cleaned up the whole inside panel at the expense of one 40 grit flap wheel to tear off the thick layers of underseal, and a scotch wheel on my cordless drill on the lower spot welded seam, it became apparent that these inside panels were only spot welded every few inches, with drainage incorporated.
So I decided to remove the majority of the 900mm by 90mm strip, but to leave enough of the strong material to plug weld my repair and then randomly “spot weld” along the top and bottom of the patch, in order to allow drainage as before out of the sill area.
Before that I wire brushed the inside, applied Vactan rust converter and used one of my hot air guns to speed up the drying process before welding in the patch.

At this point it was 4.30 and progress had been much slower than planned, but of course I had all the yard work and a run to the gas station with four jerry to show. I had no idea how much gas was in the truck when Lee the seller delivered it for me, as he had told me he drove it basically between £10.00 to £20.00 fills, and never filled it up unnecessarily

Only the rear primered with the Weld through stuff as the front would get worked a bit after my ****tty welds, upside down with a large mask in that space had me swearing a lot, a really big lot of swearing, including blasphemy, which I never do.

Once prepped and ready, Mr Welder came out to play.





Bit of grinding will be needed to just top the welds and then primer, seam sealer at the top and finally some fresh underbody seal.



Mickey had come around earlier when I was cutting the trees back and had asked if I would let him insure Prozac for both of us and then we could share it, I had to be really nice to tell him no, not happening.
Not sure he understood.

He came around later around 5.30 to check up on progress and was impressed with the welded in plate.

He even took a pic of me crawling about.



At this point I was about to start on the outrigger patch panel that has aspects in all sorts of directions.

I had got some thicker steel from Craig on Friday evening that was going to be just right for the patch panel there.

More bending, hammering, cutting and swearing plus a bit of head scratching coming.