72/68 blazer 4x4 dream/nightmare

[Chulisohombre]

A lot of mine has already been done. I don't have a ton of pics as much of the stuff I did was way before I posted a lot on the Internet. MY main thing now is to get it back legal again now that it's in the garage since I just bought another house. Then drive it and enjoy it most of the summer until I have to pack her away for winter again.i had a tree fall on it during hurricane sandy so I still need to repair that mess as well.

[Brimmy1]

Looking great more pics

[Chulisohombre]

The biggest thing I'm worried about is the caddy calipers I used for the disk bake rear setup ony 14 bolt. It doesn't pull hard enough to fully engage. Rocker boxes need some help as well. I did some body work but I'm no pro. Anything specific you wanna see let me know.

[Madtrucker]

Sorry to hear about the tree, just curious about what you're building. There's always something to learn from other builds, and there doesn't seem to be that many blazer build threads around. And as much as I appreciate the #'s matching builds I like to see people trying to make something old better then it ever was.

[Chulisohombre]

I hear Ya man. A lot of earlier stuff I did just because everyone was doing it or if I broke it, I upgraded it so I wouldn't break it again. Numbers matching would be nice but mine was pulled out of a junkyard and had nothing in it when I bought it. I've been slowly trying to find stockish stuff to throw back in it while making it stronger underneath.

[Madtrucker]

Not much progress, but the trans jack worked out nice. I was able to get the t-case in by myself with a little bit of wrestling. I also got the 1 ton booster and new master cylinder installed, and cleaned up a few other things.

[Chulisohombre]

Glad it worked for you. My buddy had one that only went up half as high so we were stuck. It's not fun trying to wrestle one in by hand.

[Madtrucker]

The trans and motor are back in, I did need to let the air out of the front tires for the trans jack to work. That jack has been worth the time saved waiting for help, even if i never use it again. Chances are the jeep will need it soon though. I also cleaned up the power steering pump and bracket, I still need to shim it with the right spacers though. I plan to get a new heater core and hopefully go through some of the wiring. After it's all plumbed and I hear it run I'll patch up the small core support rust issue. I'd also like to get a quart of paint to match as close as possible to touch up some old issues til I do final body and paint. I'm hoping a guy down the street can tint it, I'm sure painter supply will be a few shades off.

[Madtrucker]

I was able to patch and clean up the core support, and add new mounts. Then I took a trip up north to pick up the jeep, and that's when everything stopped. We were about to list our house for sale the next day, til our youngest daughter went from urgent care to er to an ambulance ride to U of M children's hospital. That was a rough couple weeks, I'm hoping to get my mind right and get back in the garage agian. Gonna try to list the house again next week then get moving on the blazer again. I missed the best driving weather, hopefully I'll make some of the cruises.

[Bladeboy1998]

Sorry about your daughter man. She is in good hands at the U of M, some of the best! Go blue! Can't wait to see more progress on the blazer!

[GMaholic]

What number oil seal did you find to replace the speedo sleeve seal, thanks !!

[mcmlxix]

Originally Posted by Madtrucker

I found a nice pair of 08 trailblazer ss seats to go with the rears. I just wish the 08 suv models would've used the same upholstery patterns. Eventually I plan to reshape the headrest and and have them reupholstered to match. Hopefully they're not to difficult to bolt in.

I vote for black grey and red plaid inserts.....

[Madtrucker]

I believe it was Metric Oil Shaft Seal 10 x 16 x 4 10x16x4 10mm x 16mm x 4mm Single Lip from ultimate industrial solutions. Haven't driven it much but so far no leaks.

Those inserts would look like a pretty cool custom highlander package.

[mud.man.rj]

Nice build, to bad so many problems with it but good thing is now you know what's there front to back so can trust it being your work, sure has come along from the start, Blazers and Jimmy's are my fav truck..

[GMaholic]

Thanks for the help with the oil seal info, nice build post !!! Great job.

[Madtrucker]

So a lot has happened this summer, just not a lot to the blazer. After I brought the jeep home I put it up for sale thinking it would take all summer to sell. The 2nd person to show up gave me what I wanted, so SHE GONE! Then we listed the house 4th of july weekend, multiple offers immediately, so waiting for closing. Found another house with double the sqft but smaller garage , just waiting to close. I guess I need to learn to make sacrifices when it comes to having 4 kids, hopefully they end up being a good shop crew for me one day.

Anyway with all my spare time I managed to get the blazer back together and somewhat road ready. At least I thought so til a trans line blew and destroyed the alternator and soaked every inch under the hood. So now it has a new alternator, voltage regulator, and trans lines. All that led to fix the pulsing in the electrical that kept blowing stereo fuses, while fixing the trans lines I noticed the missing body ground. Happy to say I have tunes again, so I test wired an old amp and some 10's. After we move and settle in, and fix a few other problems I'd like to make some side panels to house some speakers.

As for now I need to remove the old electric fuel pump that seems like it'd cause problems. I have a mechanical pump, for some reason the previous owner left a dead electric pump inline. Seems like the mechanical pump would have to work to hard to pull fuel through. Hopefully I'll get another test run in soon, the Hines Park cruise is Sunday and one of the best imo.

[mud.man.rj]

What a difference looking from the Jeep to the Chevy...

[Madtrucker]

I built that jeep from stock with nowhere near as many problems, I'm starting to think I sold the wrong toy.

I went on a deeply disappointing shakedown run tonight. I pulled the old fuel pump off, double checked everything and took it out again. It cruised nicely around the neighborhood for a bit and all seemed well. I decided to get on it a bit and see what it's got and.......... Nothin! Still the exact same dog it was before the 355 roller motor, Trans swap and gear change. I still have the stock exhaust, but come on double the horsepower and no change. What the hell am I missing? Gonna check the plugs tomorrow and see what's going on there.

[mud.man.rj]

It's weird how some things just take quite a bit of pissin around to figure out, things that you may never thought of like one time had a torque convertor problem and had built another 454 with like 200 more hp and still guttless, ended up be torque convertor was crap, had to sort things at times.

[Madtrucker]

I had considered that, but I made sure I replaced the converter as well. What are the odds of getting a bad one. The only things that stayed the same are the carb and exhaust. I'm wondering if I missed something in the t-case.

[ClassicStyle]

Amazing what a bad ground can cause it this case a missing one. I hate trans leaks. Atf is a terrible fluid to clean haha.

I love the truck, Ive always loved 67-68 clips on 4x4 Blazers. Jealous you got her out of my home state

[mud.man.rj]

I love to find hard problems like your, a good challenge, to bad I wasn't closer, just to far away up here in the North.

[Madtrucker]

With everything going on right now I wish you were closer to, I'd love some help right now. I'm getting ready to move and packed most of the tools already, so that's not making it any easier. I'm hoping it's mostly a timing issue, it's set by ear right now.

[Madtrucker]

So I feel like I'm a small step closer. I dug the timing light out and realized the distributor hold down was a little loose. I reset the timing and the carb, but I'm not sure of what the total advance is at. I also put 10 gallons of fresh 93 in, probably had 8 gallons of 87 already in it. Anyway now the 35's bark loud off the line, chirp in 2nd then it loses all power like it's going through a mud pit. Rolling at 35mph hit the gas and it barely gets out of its own way. Not sure where to go from here, not a lot of time and money with the move coming. I'd really like to put it away for the season ready to go next year.

[Madtrucker]

Figure I'll post again in hope of some good advice. Finally somewhat settled in the new house, I started trouble shooting the power issue again. I started by running a new 12g wire to a new summit hei distributor. I also added a new summit 600 carb, fuel pump, and regulator. Drained the tank and started with fresh gas. New plugs, wires and pcv valve. Checked for vacuum leaks, and double checked tdc. All this and still hasn't solved the problem. In fact it worse now because now pop back through the carb while hard accelerating and run on when I shut it down. I'm so frustrated I listed it for sale last night.
I plan to check the compression after a little more carb tuning fails. Any insight would be greatly appreciated, I have little time to work on it and would love to start enjoying it.