1947 S10 4x4 Blazer swap

[msaintg]

week 77 - Didn't do to much on the truck this week.... except drive it all around town. I am very pleased with the performance. I still have a few things to finish up, like fan shroud and get the drivers door to close better (adding the weather stripping made closing it VERY hard). I was able to clean up the last bit of the wiring mess on the firewall (here are before and after pics). All I have to do now on the wiring is figure out how the knob on the headlight switch comes off so I can mount the switch (looks like an allen head screw down deep in the knob, but I don't have any allen wrenches the right size to fit it) Oh well, until then, I will just drive it!

Oh ya, I took care of the headlight issue by taking out the daytime running lights relay and just grounding the headlight wire. I never liked the daytime running lights anyway....... and the new drive shaft DID fix my vibration issue.

[rgunlock]

Your firewall area looks MUCH better! Glad to hear you are getting all the little gremlins worked out like transmission and driveshaft.

[msaintg]

week 78 (officially 1.5 years into the build) I guess I won't do weekly updates anymore since it is basically done. I managed to get my drivers door to close a little better, neither door closes real nice, but good enough.

I took the truck out on a small road trip to test it out a little. I took it up to a town called Payson which is about 70 miles north of me (about 5000' elevation). Truck ran perfect, pulled the hills with ease (never even dropped out of OD). I calculated almost 24mpg. Wow, that is better than I had hoped. I realize my odometer may be off a little bit because I am running shorter tires than stock, but even at 10%, that is very acceptable milage.

[msaintg]

Today I installed my door lock on the passenger side door (I never did that after putting on the EZ latches). I modified the shaft just like the instructions showed, put everything together and then used the key to lock the door. worked great, door locked. Then I turned the key the other way and 'crap', the door did NOT unlock. I had to remove all of the door panel stuff from the inside to unlock the door. I never did figure out why it doesn't work. Oh well, I am not going to lock it anyway. At least the door looks better with the lock pluging the hole.

[msaintg]

My truck came with some nice tie down hooks on it. I could not decide if I should put them back on or not. I finally decided to put them back on the bed. I am really glad I did. I also through together a make shift consol because all of my stuff is sliding around the cab. Everyone was checking it out this weekend…. even a preying mantis.

[msaintg]

I was cruising down the freeway yesterday and I wondered just how fast my truck would go before it got scary. Well, it never got scary… just nice and smooth. I did discover something though… S10s have a speed limiter / governor on them… who knew? It cut out at 95mph. I have never had a vehicle that did that before… took me by surprise. I found a device online that corrects the speedometer problems caused by oversized or undersized tires (it also eliminates the limiter) I don’t know if I care enough to spend $125 on it though.

[msaintg]

Guess what I got today..... my seats reupholstered!!

If you guys in AZ ever need your seats done, I highly recommend LarCar Upholstery (480-984-7484). Larry, the owner is a very cool car guy and he does great work for a very good price.

[Dan in Pasadena]

Mike,
You're an inspiration man! I spent probably a couple hours over yesterday and today reading through the entire thread. I am VERY impressed!

Can I ask a couple questions that I don't THINK were covered? My truck is just rattle-canned Rustoleum Oregano satin. It is a long term temporary paint job but it has occurred to me to spray it from a gun (or a color near it since they don't sell it other than is spray cans). Did you use an HVLP gun?

I have a set of them from TP Tools that I've never used yet. How are you filtering water out of your compressed air?
Did you add a hardener to the Rustoleum?
What name/brand is that insulation you used? Is it self-sticking or do you have to use a contact cement?

[msaintg]

Thanks, that means a lot to me.
As for the paint job..... I just used a gravity feed ($18) paint gun from HF. I did NOT filter (or even regulate) the air from my air compressor. NO hardener needed / used. It is just Rustoleum that comes in one quart cans. You just need to reduce it with acetone to thin it out to run through the paint gun. The directions say 15%, but I found it comes out smoother and shinyer if I reduced it more (I didn't even measure that... just eyeballed it).

I have tried rattle cans on vehicles in the past and found that the finish goes flat very fast (like within 6 months) here in the AZ sun.

As for the insulation.... I used 'EZ Cool'. It is a polyehylene microfoam core with aluminum facing. I bought a 4' X 50' roll of the stuff for $140 + $30 shipping from Harbour Supply (info@harboursupply.net). I put it everywhere (2 layers most places). I had to used one gallon of contact cement to put it on. I just used a paint roller to apply the contact cement. Went pretty easy and really seams to deaden the road noise as well as keep the inside of the cab cool. I do NOT have A/C installed yet, and I have been driving the truck on 100 deg days without it being too bad in the cab (as long as I keep moving)

[Dan in Pasadena]

Thanks Mike. All good info.

I'm surprised you used NO filtration at all on your air and didn't have bubbles or fisheyes. I don't think my gravity guns are any better than the Harbor Freight ones but I've never painted so the operator is inferior.

Agree totally on rattle can paint. I used it just to get one solid color on it. I used a satin paint because I knew it would flatten out soon enough. I just don't care for any of their colors for myself right out of the can. So I'll have to mix my own, but I don't know how much I'll need.
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[msaintg]

ya, I was very surprised that it turned out as well as it did. My brother used it on an old truck of his and then wet sanded it..... looked amazing. I think I used 6 or 7 quarts in all (everything two coats) I have scratched and chipped it so much already from assembly and accidents, I am very glad I went this route. I love that I can go into Lowes at anytime and pick up another quart and shoot it again.

ya, not the best color selection, that is why I picked the almond. It was close enough to what I wanted.

[Dan in Pasadena]

Mike,
Thanks again for the paint info.

I was looking at some of the photos in your thread of the carpet and the unfinished edges that show in some of your photos. If you've NOT done anything about those yet you might find this link of interest. I know I heard about this Insta-bind stuff on a thread here or maybe on the HAMB, regardless I saved it thinking I'd need to use it at some time. Hope it helps:

http://www.installersstore.com/cgi-b...rpet%20Binding

[msaintg]

thanks Dan,

I have a pic of the carpet trimmed out in post #303. I found some plastic carpet trim at Home Depot and I used a heat gun to make is soft enough to make the curve.

[msaintg]

This weekend I added a radiator overflow bottle and replaced my ugly steering wheel with a new one. I need to add an extension to the steering wheel because it is a little too close to the directional switch. I had a hard time sourcing a steering wheel because the old column had an air bag in it, and I could not get any help cross referencing one to fit.

[Truck Guy99]

I just found this thread and I'm amazed. You did a great job. Sorry if this was already mentioned, but what kind of tail lights did you use? Some afterburner lights like the old cadillacs had would be cool.

[msaintg]

thanks. This was my first and LAST build. I did not enjoy the build, but I really like having it now.

I bought reproduction original lights for that year truck. I made my own mounting brackets though, because I hate the original ones. there is a good pic back in post #152 (page 7)

[msaintg]

my wife came home with a little friend for my truck. She got it at 'Hobby Lobby', 50% OFF! Pretty cool. It is even stamped out of metal.... kinda 3D. They have a whole bunch of 'man cave' art 50% off right now. she got me a Texaco sign too.

[av8tr33337]

WOW that is cool as hell.

[msaintg]

small update. I haven't done anything new to the chevy..... just driving it as much as I can. I have put over 3300 miles on it in just 3 months. I added small fish eye mirrors to the already small mirrors and now my wife loves driving it too.

[rgunlock]

Best kind of update! Glad you are enjoying it.

[Truck Guy99]

Nice to see someone is enjoying it. Keep wrenching and enjoy your fly ride! It came out beautiful!

[msaintg]

thanks, My wife and I are really loving it. She has even gone to 4 car shows with me so far (before I built it, she said she would NEVER go to a car shows with me) I think she likes the attention she gets
My little brother brought his 54 Willies pickup over last weekend. He wants to do a lot of body work to it, but he lives about 3 hours away from me, so he is not going to get much done working on it just one weekend a month. He thinks I will work on it for him, once I get tired of looking at it sitting in my yard..... NOT!

[msaintg]

my steering has gotten very stiff and difficult to turn the steering wheel. I asked all of my friends for advise and I have checked everything I can think of that would cause the steering to bind up on me. Well, today as luck would have it, it got very hard to turn and I started to hear something from the floorboard area. This is what I found..... the steering column had grabbed a stand of carpet and wound it up and packed it down in the base enough to bind the steering wheel..... AND of course, it left a big mess in the carpeting. I never noticed it before because I had a piece of carpet in there as a floor mat. Rather than be mad that my carpet needs repair, I was sooooo happy that my truck steers great again! woo hoo, I like simple fixes.

[nvrdone]

Love reading the build thread.
Where did you buy the carpet?

[msaintg]

thanks, I tried to keep some kind of order to it.

the carpeting is just some 'commercial' carpeting from a local flooring store. I thought 'commercial' meant it would hold up better than 'residential', but I was wrong. My heal wore a spot in the carpet after just one week. Oh well, that is what floor mats are for.

I had to replace a strip 3" wide and 27" long, but it turned out OK. It is hard to hide seams with low nap carpeting. I had to hurry because the wife was waiting to drive it.