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

[Grizz1963]

[quote author="@darkspeed" source="/post/2456238/thread" timestamp="1540231731"][font size="6"]Projekt paint [/font]- well it fecking made me chuckle.[/quote]

Remember this.....??

Looks like a world of pain to me.



Very few people got it.

So always good to see who reads the lines and between the lines.


Continuing on the food theme, once I was onto beer number two, the starters got to us.

Main course was even better and desert.......? A Twister each.



After a great day in the garage, pretty much on my own, the evening spent with Joy was lovely, eventually got to bed by midnight and my friend insomnia stayed away till 5.30 which was a good night, up by 06.00 to feed Harley and up reading and writing.

By 10.00 mate Henry got here from Romford,

As can be expected, he brought provisions and tools (spring compressors)



Earlier on, before Henry got here I did a few jobs.

Measured the wheels and body height.

Front



Rear.



Then a lot of, well, two generous coats of this gloop.

Over the primer and two coats of Zinc spray from Saturday, plus the seam sealer.



Resulting in this underside, a great improvement imho.



Getting back to the top of the truck, outer sills and floor.

I had destroyed the plastic sill with the welding heat, so pulled it off.

Then Martin to the rescue again.

Old MX5 sills, also needing some trimming to fit and rebadging.





And as mentioned.......

This is not a project.

I am super pleased with the final outcome of the floor.


Really pleased.





Did I mention I was pleased with that floor.....?

[Grizz1963]

I am not sure if any of you are actually interested in, or bothered with my posting up on here.

Hope the metal repairs for a non project truck, passes muster.




Once Henry and I had a coffee and a chat plus did a short list of tasks to get to for the day, we headed down to the garage.

Decided to raise the rear end and fit the new rear shocks.....

This is Henry’s happy face.

OCD (One Chance Dude)

When he came up for air after looking in under the truck.



So what have we got here....??

Next to the license plate.





Pipes....... WTF??



So it seems we have an adjustable rear air assisted shock combo with the springs fitted.

The whole rear end was upgraded so that the truck could tow when it was used by John to do European trips.

We dropped the rear and started on the front.

Plan was to lubricate all the nipples, replace the front springs and shocks and reassemble at a more decent ride height.



While under the front end, I measure the existing springs, they came up as 11 inches or about 280mm

The springs PaulY gave me we’re part of a performance upgrade pack, and measure in at 17 inches.

So surgery will certainly be on the books.

Here are the specifications of a standard spring, only 13 inches it seems.




Ultimately, we could not get the lower ball joint to release, hammers, splitter etc.....

So we eventually gave up, reassembled the front end and @PaulY will be over next weekend to help me again, possibly putting much more calculated force into splitting the ball joints.

So once the tools were cleaned up, front end on the ground, another coffee and chat, we decided to quickly tackle the rear side panels that I had made and prepared through the week.

Each fitted a side........




Thankful to say that Captain OCD went in with a cloth and a tin of furniture polish to liven up the vinyl.

Happy boy for sure.



Tailgate, glass, carpet and fabric cleaned up, thenspare wheel and great little tool bag for jack, fanbelts, pipes and a few spare bits back the rear.




I really do not think that the red looks that red in there now.


On Sunday evening Dez Stringer posted up this pic, in there was a spare part for the truck, kindly donated by Kerry From Wales.




So a great weekend all in and as far as I am concerned, a lot achieved.

Thank you all for looking in and your comments.

Roll on Saturday.

[Grizz1963]

Sunday evening I headed over to mate Martin to collect a table in Prozac.

From there it was over to Joys place for dinner and a dog walk.

200 meters up the street from her house was a pile of what looks like new carpet and foam underfelt.

Prozac of course hit the brakes without me even trying, so I loaded a piece of each.

Not the greatest colours........



Harley inspected and approved



So WTF and WHY ?

Looking at the original 40year old carpets in the truck, 98% of it is good.

But the drivers side has this damage and rot.



Looks like this if you lay it all flat.



So I have enough to cover the whole front half of the truck including the rear foot wells.

Do I just cut a wide strip to lay over the transmission hump and both front foot wells or remove the seats and lay it over all the existing carpet, or number three.... do I remove the original carpet and automotive underfelt, sound deadening and replace the 40year old sound deadening with some fresh new deadening pads? And then lay my residential underfelt and ugly blue carpet.
Or just leave it as it is?

Too many questions.

JohnnyBravo suggested I go ghetto with the valves on the truck.

I have a bunch of shotgun shells that will work on the wheel nuts too.






Some more Artsy-Fartsy thinking required.

The truck has a grey fabric roof liner in the front above driver and passenger section, held in place with a bunch of pins.

So, I bought this blanket last year some time at a Bootfair.

So do I sacrifice it or put it away?






The plan is to remove and spray the rear glassfibre canopy in white Rhino liner on the outside and black on the inside, keeping it as it is, and just adding texture.

Let’s see what you guys who know, think.


Got home from London tonight and found a box in front of the kitchen door

Wooooot !!

Unpacked it and looked at what £320.00 buys you when you are building a “Not a project” car.



Remember last weekend Henry and I could not get the lower ball joint to release, despite loads of gentle and not so gentle wallops with big hammers.

So @PaulY volunteered to come over next Saturday and use his mechanical know how of hammer blows to remove the lower ball joints so that I could get the replacement springs in.

While chatting, we decided to replace the lower control arm ball joints, swiftly followed by me making a judegement call and deciding to replace upper control arm ball joints, tie rod ends, all the rubber bushes, wheel bearings, seals and front disc brake pads.

AS THESE HAVE MOSTLY NEVER BEEN REPLACED.

This should ensure an improved drive, handling and hopefully also the MOT for the next few years.

I am getting the feeling more and more that this truck has actually only done 105k miles in its life, and being from California the lack of terminal rust on sheetmetal, and all the chrome looking as good as it does points in that direction. I could also be completely wrong.

Anyway, hopefully, weather and rusted nuts permitting, we may have a rebuilt/serviced front end by Saturday evening.





So there you go.

A list and pile of parts to make this Blazer even better than it is now.





Maybe this is now becoming a Project.


Later.


Those of you following Dennis’ 1930’s gas station build on Prozacs thread may have wondered about it.

It continues for him, between day job and being variously occupied by life.

Inside, held up by electrician.





Back on the Blazer, Glen Anderson suggested I do the must do’s first and then the like to’s

So rather than do a whole bigncarpet job, I glued some of the thin red carpet under the torn pieces to keep it all together.



Then just cut some chunks of the house carpet to make runners and topped with a rubber mat.



QC passed.






Another small job done.




Got a WhatsApp message from mate Ricky who bought my 66 C10 Chrome Smoothies a few years ago today.

Hey mate, I have these rubber mats, would you like them for the Blazer?

For the cost of collection at Bluebell Hill tonight?


Hell Yeahhhhh!!!!

Quick scrub, bit of soap, dry them, furniture polish to bring back the like new sheen, and Bobs your Aunty.

Genuine GM items.

Chuffed with that, Thanks a lot mate.





And while we are at shiny stuff.....

Stainless, laser cut.



Or this one 🚐🦖




Off to go fetch some rubber mats.

I have taken the day off work tomorrow to stay home and play.

Anyone fancy a cuppa, you know where to find me...... PM.

[Grizz1963]

Went over to Robin Hood Pub and met up with some of the BHRA guys, along with Ricky.

Had a drink, few hours chat and then came home.

Of course scrubbing mats at 10.00pm out back is nothing unusual.

Came out good.




Tomorrow I will add a bit of furniture polish to make them pop and fit them.

Loving this non project truck.

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by sparkplug

Wow - that's quite a transformation!

I love how it's sometimes these simple tasks that give so much satisfaction.

I like the stainless laser cut idea. My vote would be with "GRIZZ" too.

Oh, and you should start doing merchandise...



:augie

Only sold in man sizes XXL up yo 4XL


Waiting for daylight so I can get on down to the shop.

1’C out there this morning.

May see me in an overall and shoes today.

[Grizz1963]

So last night, Ricky who brought me the mats for the truck, knowing I like a knife, and also that I love miniature items, brought me a serious dagger.





After adding a bit of shine to the mats, as well as cleaning the previous set I had, that then went in for the rear seat, it looked like this.

I love it for sure.



It rained intermittently today, typical of the day I chose to take off work.

So I did lots of little random jobs in the garage, moved stuff about, made some space.

Also grabbed a large can of satin black, and after cleaning the wheels, I sprayed the centres three coats of black.

Next will be Silver Hammerite paint along the edge.





One of today’s planned tasks was to modify the VW Polo Towbar to make it fit the Blazer chassis.





I believe this is where Lee, the previous owner had removed the old Towbar.

So it will be the new mounting point once I figure it all out.



Up it goes.

And yes, axle stands too.



Coffee break looked like this, and I got optimistic, only to be rained out 20 minutes later again.

Grrrrrrr....!!

[Grizz1963]

As isoften thecase, in this case the third time this week....

Prozac had ajob to do.

Headed over to PaulF’s tocollect his hydraulic press.

Will be needing that tomorrow.

His splits meeting Prozac,



Loaded along with a 1960 vintage table that was in the back of Prozac already



Back at home, security had to check.



Moving it from Prozac to garage.

Amazing how easy the wheels made it.




Waiting for tomorrow when @PaulY gets here.



Then back to the Towbar issue, needing to be mounted off the chassis.



Measure, visualise and



Cut



And finally trimmed to size,



Ready to be welded and fitted.

[Grizz1963]

Well.....

What a good day today turned out to be.

I discovered a supply of this........

One of my all time favourites, and I do not care about anyone else’s feelings, opinions, and advice, unless it is on where to find more

This is my emotional link with the USA



Got a message from a friend in Siberia.

Stas has sent me something by post, amazing weather they are having, yes I guess it is winter.



While this was what my car said when I got back to it in the afternoon.

Unseasonably warm weather for the first week of November




Had to spend a few hours at my desk this morning, working from home has its advantages too. Just not sure what they are.

But.... The doorbell went, usually I would be long gone by then.

Went downstairs to answer the door......

Wooohooo.

Brown Van Man.

Bearing gifts, well one gift, that I had ordered and paid for yesterday.

Less than 24 hrs delivery, certainly beat DPD and their four day overnight delivery.




Opened the parcel once I had done my admin and before I left.

More Steering parts.



After work tonight I got home and found an envelope that had been sent by Dale who hadnotived the truck was missing a knob (other than me)

Thank you mate.



So once I had changed into house clothes Iwent down to the garage.

Knob fitted and wipers and washer tested.



While down there, I noticed gauges were all showing different lies.

Ignition not on, but oil pressure, temp gauge showing life, and the clock broken completely

So more investigation to come,



I have to say that a few guys have been really helpful since I bought the Blazer.

Most of all has been Dennis in St Louis, he owned a few of there Square bodies and knows their deepest secrets, so he has been advising and ensuring I do not screw up completely from behind the scenes.

I love the internet.

Then the fun part.



All threads also covered in Copaslip..... future proofing the steering parts.



And of course all the grease nipples in place, primed and cleaned up.

Nothing like a DIY selfie to wrap up the evening.



Plan is to take the parts to a wheel and tyre shop to get the toe and allingnment set at the same time as fitting these parts.


Brakes still need to be bled, and because I do not know what type of brake fluid is in there, draining the system as well, is on the cards too. That way ensuring the brake fluid is both fresh as well as uniform.

[Grizz1963]

Been a long day.

Slept an hour in the chair downstairs, care of the Captain.

Anyway, put the word out that I was looking for a set of centre caps for the Rallye wheels on the Blazer.

Got a reply from Glasgow in Scotland.



These.



To go with these.



In other news.......

Dennis posted out the drop shackles today.

So soon we may see more action.

Working in London today, all the streets were blocked so I did a good walk after the cab driver gave up.



But it allowed me to see loads of beauty in the city I dislike so.



Late afternoon after we left the meeting and I got back to St Pancas for theb35 minute high speed trip back to my Station n, the weather had turned decidedly worse.





I will be honest, I had planned on taking the Blazer for a drive tonight but it will have to wait for tomorrow.

Armistice day

11/11,18


Looking forward to driving this truck and feeling it’s new constitution

[Grizz1963]

Woke at 04.30 again.....

Bugger.

Chatted with Dennis in St Louis as he does not always sleep.

Watched some recorded telly etc, then just as I was making brekkie, I noticed a massive rat down the bottom of the garden, eating at the soup I had put out for my visiting fox.

Grabbed the skip find .22 air rifle @CraigRK had found in a skip, some penetrating pellets and raced upstairs

Only one shot......

Rats are fast !!!

He was inside the bowl, I think I missed.



My shot trajectory.



Just after 10.00 mate Craig reversed in.

Bearing gifts, also to collect some stuff from our USA road trip that he left in my bag, and items Dennis had sent with the lowering shackles.



The cottage pane internal door is a future project.

The garden gate, along with some trestles will be the new BBQ table on the deck for 2019.



Headed out, mich smaller than the Blazer.



Thank you for the delivery.

[Grizz1963]

Well....

Old habits do die hard.

Bought some meat this weekend.

Really missed having some of my own made Chilli beef Biltong (almost like Jerky, but not)



Got a large box.



Made some bits up



Created a cover, drilled a large hole.



Fitted



Than made about 30 sharpened meat hooks.



Unpacked, washed, trimmed, sliced, salted, vinegar washed, spiced the meat,

Almost 5kg I guess.



Hooks all fitted through.



And hung up in the drying box, light turned on and box sealed after positioning.



Let’s see how this lot dries out.

Did I mention it is non traditional chilli/garlic?

Should be good.

[Grizz1963]

Went back to the rear fog lamp today.

Removed it all, including the fiddly wiring and plugs.

Then soldered some extensions and reassembled, and tested.



On Friday I also bought a much better quality toggle switch for the fogs to replace what was there, plan is to relocate up to the to[ of the dash.



.

Today I did quite a few little jobs.

Also removed the broken tail gate handle finger plate.



Leaving a gaping hole.



Disassembled, then glued the stainless outer to the new part.



@spacekadett sent me a pic and story of the truck at a show. Some more history came with his text.

I will just do a straight copy and paste.

Afternoon, it had been bugging me that I kind of recognised your truck from somewhere, just couldn’t remember where. Anyway I got a message from a friend who saw my post on the thread but couldn’t remember his login to reply himself 😂. I’ll see if I can copy and paste the message. He is Happy for you to share the info 🙂
I can’t remember my log in ... but this is my uncle Xxxx’s old truck, the lady is probably Xxxxx 😂 So yep Tom did all the work on it,
Xxxx bought it via Tom when one of Tom’s customers passed away
Yep it got caught up in the house / separating curse word with Xxxx and Xxxxx

But the chap that had it before had loads of yanks and Tom helped find new homes for them

It was very well looked after, it did get a light tap up the back when Xxxx had it as he had to have paint done on the bed and new lights if I remember right

@pauly may know the place.



And yesterday “The lady with the truck” also sent a couple from when she owned it, as well as a Camarillo she had at the time.







Right, bedtime.