Ratchet's Blazer - 1970 2wd with Original paint

[gringoloco]

Warning, non-slip rear end! This thing is sofa king badass

[smbrouss70]

One of the previous owners felt the need to label everything on the dash. I haven't been able to pull them all off since its a part of its character.

[smbrouss70]

Just realized that I hadn't put any pictures on here for a while.

I've gotten the Captainfab brackets and hydroboost mounted up. The brackets do a good job of hiding the mess on the firewall from old leaking master cylinders. I tried putting a vacuum booster to save myself some time of having to deal with power steering hoses, but was having issues with connecting the brake pedal to the booster, so I switched back to the hydroboost. I have some factory style lines for an 86 3/4 Ton for the hydroboost, but it turns out that they hit the proportioning valve. I ordered some PTFE AN hoses and ends this week and they should be in by Friday when I get home from TX, so HOPEFULLY, I can finally finish the brakes this weekend!

The other 2 pics are of my surprise visitor that was on the handle of the flaring tool that I grabbed before I noticed him! This was not long after I had a Brown Recluse crawl in between my legs, and after I tested the surface tension of the skin on my finger with a hacksaw blade... Hopefully, I'll get it together AND still be alive by the time HRPT gets here!

[Advanced Design]

Holy snakes Batman! What kind is that? Had one in my shop a couple years ago acting if he owned the place. A bit startling.

[smbrouss70]

No clue, I wasn't able to find anything quite like it on the internet. Probably a little rat snake of some kind. I do know that I didn't like him and he didn't like me!

[smbrouss70]

Last weekend, my buddy Chris came over to help me make some pretty brake lines to drop down to the frame rail from the prop valve. I'd say we nailed what I was looking to do.

[smbrouss70]

Last night and this morning, I started the tedious task of cutting down my wheel studs and assembling the billet hubs from Kore3. Spindles have been cut down, smoothed out and painted, so now I just need to pack the bearings and install them and I can finally finish mounting up the front brakes. Now that I'm done with lunch, I'll head back out there and get that done.

[Palf70Step]

So you think it will be done, so you can get a good night sleep before you have to head out for PowerTour?

[smbrouss70]

Hopefully I'll get it done in time to leave for HRPT on June 7th. If I can make it to the starting line in Bowling Green, I will acquire a passenger/driver and sleep then...

[smbrouss70]

Ran into an issue last night with the pad abutment bracket contacting the rotor. Fortunately, I know some awesome guys, so I had some spacers machined to fix the problem!

I have washers stacked holding that black pad abutment bracket in the correct position, but here's a pic of the spacers that Chris made for me that I am about to go pick up. These freakin' rotors are huge!

I couldn't figure out why my panhard bar adjustment changed after I put in the pinion shims to raise the pinion 3 degrees, until today. After moving the axle back and adding the pinion shims, my diff cover actually hit the panhard bar and tweaked it a bit. So I ripped it out and stole the No Limit panhard bar off of my other truck. I've got it most of the way in and it looks like it is going to work, and as an added benefit, the bar is much more level at ride height. I'll get some pics of it later.

[gringoloco]

That’s a little more than the shim mine required. Glad you got it sorted. Is that the 13.4 or 14” rotor?

[smbrouss70]

That picture makes the spacers look bigger than they are, they are only 3/16" thick. Those are the 14" Z06 rotors. It's Kore3's "Hybrid" setup. It uses a different bracket to move the 2 piston calipers out to fit on the 14" rotor.

[gringoloco]

Very nice. I’ve contemplated moving up to the 14” z06 front/13” z51 rear when its time for rotors.

Done yet?

[smbrouss70]

Fronts are all put together for the last time... at least. I finished up what I had left to do on the No Limit panhard bar, which included a lot of cutting, re-drilling, and re painting. Apparently the back of a 2wd Blazer frame is not exactly like a SWB truck. I've bent up 2 sets of brake lines for the rear axle and I'm still not happy with them. That might have to end up on the re-do list for this winter.

I have to leave for TX in the morning and won't be back until Friday night. I'm hoping to get a lot of sleep while I'm stuck in TX, because I won't have time for sleep next weekend.

[gringoloco]

Function over form! Any projects you can take with and pre-assemble in the hotel room? I once painted a console on a hotel room balcony. Bet the over-spray is still there

[smbrouss70]

I do still need to repaint the console!

[smbrouss70]

I feel like I am going backwards...

[Palf70Step]

Now what?

[smbrouss70]

Oh, just the fact that I'm running out of time and it seems like I am taking more stuff apart than what is going back together.

[gringoloco]

I see brakes front and rear. Just needs to go, steer, and stop. All else are luxuries

[smbrouss70]

I'll remind you that you said that when we are sweating our butts off!

[gringoloco]

Originally Posted by smbrouss70

I'll remind you that you said that when we are sweating our butts off!

I could stand to sweat off some of this waistline

[smbrouss70]

You and me both, brother.

[smbrouss70]

Well, the Blazer didn't make it to Power Tour, but not for a lack of trying. I pulled an all-nighter the night before I needed to leave and I had an alignment appt. for 8AM the day I needed to leave. After thrashing all night, around 6AM I could barely see anymore and I looked at the Blazer and knew that I wouldn't be able to drive it in another hour, so I took a shower and went to sleep for a few hours. When I woke up around noon, I cut the grass since I had been neglecting my husbandly duties for about a month, took another shower and drove my Duramax up north to meet my buddies. The next day we drove to Nashville so that we could pick up Chris (gringoloco) from the airport before we headed to Bowling Green for the start of the Power Tour.

I don't know about everybody else, but I had a blast being a passenger in every truck that we brought and even driving a few, including a big bad ass F@rd named "Bob."

We got to tour the Hendricks Heritage Center and the Race shops while we were in Concord, NC, but were not allowed to take pictures while we were in there.

I promised Chris that if he came to C10's in the Park, I would throw him the keys to the Blazer for the weekend, since I didn't get it to HRPT for him. So now I have a couple of months to finish the Blazer so that I don't miss that one too.

After taking a couple of weekends to recuperate, I went into the shop this morning and my shop A/C has decided to not work, it got up to 99 degrees in there today while I was trying to get it going again. I found some bad connections and rewired some other stuff to make the A/C work the way I want it to, and it is running again right now. I have a feeling that the compressor is going into thermal overload and shutting down in the hottest part of the day, but I won't know for sure until tomorrow. Hopefully, it will keep running so that I can get to work on the Blazer.

Here's a few pics from HRPT to tide you over until I have more pics of the Blazer...

[Palf70Step]

Glad you are re-cooperated. I know shop time here is rough too. Dang it is humid and HOT.