Grizz's Redneck Express 1966 Chevy Short Fleetside RESTO-GO!

[Grizz1963]

This morning at one point, mate Martin called me to say he had been to his mums home and found VW Polo Towbar

Knowing that I was looking for something to convert to fit to the Blazer, he put it in his work van and took it with him.

Tonight we were about a mile apart on the motorway , both headed down the M2 when he called to see how my day had gone, we realised a rendezvous was in order, so met up on the roadside next to the Medway river on the Cuxton road bypass.

Nice new work van.



Wooooohoooo.... Bounty.



Came home, fed the security cat, then quick trip to the garage to offer the Towbar up yo the chassis mounting points

Extension to be removed.

Mounting plate 300mm off the ground.



Chassis mounts are at 800mm
Towbar is at 900mm
Perfect.



To be mounted in top of chassis tabs.




Security cat helped and then came up to the house to wait for me.

[Indian113]

Rian, I see the Cat Scan is going extremely Well!

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Indian113

Rian, I see the Cat Scan is going extremely Well!

Security cat too.

Like a little Klingon




May have found a previous owner from a long time ago.

Below some comments from him.


Did that come from a guy in Kent? It looks like one I had years ago. Also 2WD

Not sure Rian long time ago sold to a guy in kent and never seen since it was original 2wd from California was all in primer apart from removable top in cream, i had a heavy duty tow bar welded on as used to pull large trailer pulling yanks from Belgium, have a pic will try and find, same grill though.

Rian Kemp as said not sure if that's the same one but looks like it, but i remember when i registered mine i had to take it to Ashford kent for some reason to have it checked always had mine done local, verry hard to find in original 2wd today, the only reason i sold it i had a 70 3 door suburban from Texas arrive couple months later.

[Grizz1963]

Take two.

iPad 1 Grizz 0

Been a busy week, and tonight I had a report deadline, after a conversation with my new manager, we booked a half day for Thursday so that he could help me understand the process and activity to deliver a new monthly report, which all his reportees think is a waste of time, but hey..... what do we know?


So at 6pm before light failedI went to the garage and lifted the Blazer up high.




Remember this piece?



Clamped in.



Done.

Good enough for me.

Glued in place.



Then the seam sealer, thinking it would be the end of the day.

But of course not, Ehhh?



900mm of welding done in the dark, using an LED torch to show me where to go.......




Bird poop welding on the inner sill panel, without a doubt,

Grinding back in the morning, and some seam sealer later.

This is not at all structural but needed to be done.

Kraken Rum no 2 is history too, so gp era near bedtime for me.


I am also almost out of gas, and interestingly, Imam getting a free delivery from Sam tomorrow.

Old skool service with a smile.

[Grizz1963]

Nice way to wake up after a night of not sleeping again.


Good morning,
Been a while!
I have a set of spring compressors and am free tomorrow if you still need help with your new truck.
Am heading off to work now so won't pick up any messages for an hour or so.
Good to see you back at it even if a different truck!

Henry.


Of course I agreed to him coming over.

[Grizz1963]

I texted my welding gas supply guy well after hours on Friday evening and he replied that he would have a new bottle of Argon/CO2 gas delivered on Saturday morning,by 08.00 I had a call to say the gas would be here by 09.00
True to his word, Steve was here on time, retired mechanic and general nice guy who works three days a week as volunteer at the British Heart Foundation furniture shop and then does deliveries for Sam in exchange for beer tokens, likes three sugars in his tea, we ended up chatting for an hour before I kicked him out and headed to the garage.


Saturday saw some side panel action.

Based on this photoshop, it may be a bit bright, so in the back of my head there is a plan involving some satin black paint and masking tape......

Just to reduce the eye searingly red of the carpet.



I cut small scross slots in the carpet that would be invisible, but allow a screwdriver tip in, to secure the screws to the bedsides.



Spray glue, bought cheaply at a Bootfair last year or longer agoworked beautifully

Mickey came around to give a hand on the mounting job and photo credits to him.







Really pleased with how it turned out.

In the mean time, the original importer in 2004 of the Blazer sent me this photo.

His computer with all photos was stolen a few years ago, so evidence is scarce.

Originally a California truck,it came into the U.K. in primer and a white canopy.




Once started on the truck, my first job was to get the welding ground back just a little bit on the underside, then added another coat of weld through primer on all surfaces.



Through the day, Harley was on QC duty, and also vermin patrol.

She catches and releases (usually the release is live, and indoors)

On a trip up to the house, I saw her in the “I got one” position next to a garden bed, and found this little guy there, playing possum





Friend PaulF sent this pic yesterday.



More on the welding up of the floor later, time for tea and toast now.

I had a deadline of 5.30 yesterday, as I had a dinner date, the kind where you shave and shower and put on clean clothes for a Lady.

Really.

[Grizz1963]

With the underside primered, the next job was to fine tune the hole into which my previously made and primered panel would be fitted and welded up.

Amazing how everything takes more time than planned.

I did discover that the plastic sill plate had not survived my welding on the underside sill the night before.

So removed this one.

Possibly to be replaced with a cut to size and shape Mazda MX5 part donated by mate Martin.



New panel.



Glued in place.



Followed by a load of smaller patches, cut out, measure and make new piece and then weld in and grind back, look for missed spots or pin holes, weld up, grind and repeat.









Of course, the smaller the holes and patches, the bigger the effort, as I could not be bothered to go fetch and cut this thick steel with my Dremmel.

You cut with a big cutter and end up with cuts to close up too.





Around 3.00pm mate PaulF came around for a chat, cuppa, cookies and to check out my garage, as they have recently bought a new home and he is building a bigger garage.

He took a sneaky pic too.



More in a bit.

[Grizz1963]

When PaulF came over, he brought me an awesome little tool.

LED Inspection Light.

Perfect.




Cat Stevens sang that “The first cut is the deepest”

The last one was deep too.

I had poked and prodded everywhere to find any further holes, none.



Keeping this price methinks.



All done.

Ready for more primer, galvanising spray and the seam sealer.





Two coats on the underside.



Galvanised spray



Seam sealer inside and outside.

Job done.

Happy



Yes, really pleased with the outcome.



Dinner time, with a lady.

[Palf70Step]

Nice work Rian! It is also good you found out more history on the Blazer.

[flashed]

Man ,you are wasting no time at all on this rig . Im gathering parts for my next build but Im farming it all out so we can concentrate on the LS Swap in my other truck .

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Nice work Rian! It is also good you found out more history on the Blazer.

Yes, I am pleased.

Hope more comes up.

Originally Posted by flashed

Man ,you are wasting no time at all on this rig . Im gathering parts for my next build but Im farming it all out so we can concentrate on the LS Swap in my other truck .

Stuff needs to get done.

[ibrown50]

Well done Rian that looks like a good weekends work

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by ibrown50

Well done Rian that looks like a good weekends work

Thank you Ian.

Sunday got even better.



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]

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.

[Palf70Step]

Love the shotgun sheels.

Get rid of that old carpet, it'll end up smelling bad underneath the other.

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Love the shotgun sheels.

Get rid of that old carpet, it'll end up smelling bad underneath the other.

Trying to get some dark grey or black from my carpet guy, the blue is not ideal.


I will stash the old carpet.



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.

[Grizz1963]

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.

[tune_1]

If you keep it as not a project would that keep it out of project jail? Look like good progress.

Dwight

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by tune_1

If you keep it as not a project would that keep it out of project jail? Look like good progress.

Dwight

LOL.

Yes Dwight, you are right. That is the plan.

[Palf70Step]

Originally Posted by Grizz1963

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.

It will definitely add character to it. I like you idea, go fer it!

[Grizz1963]

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.

[Grizz1963]

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.

[ibrown50]

I like the Blazer one best, so when you sell it to me I won’t have to change my name

[Palf70Step]

That's how to plan it.