1970 K5 Project

[Slinger60]

Ok here goes another build for me. First was my 71 K10 burb not finished yet but all it needs is body work and paint everything else is done. Bought this blazer a few months back. With the plans of doing a frame off. In the mean time I bought a 1970 c/20 pickup with a sweet front clip for a swap.The front diff. needed to be replaced, as it happens I have a dana 44 front diff. off a 1977 k/10 laying around. The disk brake upgrade will be nice.And I also had a rebuilt turbo 350 in the garage. The wiring is in very bad shape splices everywhere and all kinds of micky mouse stuff going on.So I bought a new wiring harness from painless. Plan on repainting her the stock medium blue.
Also bought a new 350 4 bolt from gm to drop in it also. My plan is to finish this project in 2 months (Hopefully) So today I started tearing her apart. but before I started doing that I had to debug her. Killed 4 black widows and found a few wasp nests in the process today. Here are a few pics of her when I brought her home and a few more from today during the tear down process.

[Slinger60]

A few more pics. And as you can see I had a little help from mans best freind.

[Slinger60]

And a few more pics. And a couple of my friendly flying buddies home.

[VA72C10]

looking forward to the build!

[Slinger60]

Update of progress after working on it for 2 days this weekend. Stripped the interior out and pulled all the wiring too. Floor seemed pretty solid nothing real bad that jumped out.Sunday I started cutting the rockers off and found a bit of rust nothing really bad but a little worse than I thought it was gonna be. But its always wishfull thinking that there isnt gonna be any rust under rockers when theres rust holes in them to start with. Little bit of a set back on my time frame to finish this project but nothing serious. I am going to cut the floor pan to replace the floor support, not sure if thats the right way but I dont want to mess with the rocker boxes.It seems a little easier to tackle it that way to me.I took out all the body mounts so the body is ready to pull off once I finish the repairs on the floor and both a and b pillers. Also looking for a set of Black belts to replace mine and both the K/5 fender emblems and a set of outer bumper brackets too.

[Slinger60]

It never ceases to amaze me how much dirt and rust get piled up inside the rockers. A few more pics of this weekends progress. Hope to have all cab repairs finished by next weekend.

[Slinger60]

Ok its been 3 months since my last post. I have been working on the blazer, I have just been to lazy to update my thread. Anyways after cutting all the rust out and replace both a and b pillers and part of the cab floor that I cut to get to everything. Here some pics of how it turned out. I am by no means an expert sheet metal guy but I think it will hold up.

[Slinger60]

It took me at least 50 or 60 hrs to cut and fit all the sheet metal in and get it all welded up. I put por15 inside the rocker boxes. And rust protected all the parts before they went in. I was honestly surprised at how long it took me to get this part of the project done. Here are some more pics.

[Slinger60]

After all the sheet metal work was done it was time to pull the body off. It took 5 guys to lift it off the chassis and set it on some saw horses that I made.

[Slinger60]

A couple more pics of the body and chassis

[Slinger60]

Once the body was off then it was time to start tearing down the chassis. And get ready to blast the frame and get it painted.

[Slinger60]

Once I had the frame stripped I swapped the front diff with a later model 1977 dana 44 with disc. brakes. Then it was time to power wash and blast the frame. I got lucky with the spring bushings the P.O. had already changed them out a couple years ago. So to save time I left the front and rear diff. on.

[Slinger60]

Next I power washed and took a putty knife to the frame to get most the the grime and grease off the frame before blasting

[Slinger60]

I used 700 lbs. of play sand to blast the frame it was cheap enough that I didnt reclaim any of it. I started with some safety googles but quickly learned that it wasnt going to work with them. So I took my welding helmet and took the lens out and used that, way better. Darn sand hurts when it hits your face.

[Slinger60]

Once the frame was blasted I gave her a good coat of primer the paint.Then on went my tires and rims and shocks. Then I put the fuel line back in and the brake lines. Bought the front steel brake line kit from Classic Industries to except the swap from drum to disk on the front. Had to drill new holes for the front brake lines.

[Slinger60]

Then it was back to the body since I was waiting for a buddy of mine to rebuild my transfer case. Had lots of holes to fill. Both rear quarters had these big holes from a P.O. that had put on whip antennas. Got one of before and one after. I wasnt to good at taking a lot of pictures.I would get on a roll and forget to take any pictures untill the end of the day.

[Slinger60]

After fixing the rear quarters and filling the trim holes on the body I had to take care of the windsheild frame. There was only one nut left on either side to hold the trim on so I had to cut out both sides and weld in new sections that I fabricated with new nuts welded on the back side.And of course I didnt take any pics of before so here are a couple after. I found one before I fixed the bad area I cropped it to fit so you can see a little bit of the area before I fixed it.

[Slinger60]

After I fixed a few hundred holes in the dash and all over the body it was time for a bit of primer. I didnt fix every little dent and ding in her I just tackled the major ones. I am going to use this blazer for camping, hunting and some four wheeling so I wasnt to concerned with making it totaly perfect.
Because if I did I wouldnt want to take it off road and scratch up all my work.
My main concern was making her weather tight and stopping as much rust as possible.

[Slinger60]

Here are a few pics of the body after I painted the inside of the tub.

[Slinger60]

I got my transfer case back so it was time to get back to the chassis.Time to put the new motor in. I modified the the original exhaust to work with my headers saved a little money on putting putting all new in.

[Slinger60]

Wet sanded body down one more time before I painted the outside. Here are a few pics of how the outside of the body turned out. I dont think it turned out to bad for painting in my driveway.

[Slinger60]

A few pics of the night before I put the body back on. I need to repaire the nose on the frame. Looks like somebody at one time pulled the bumper off jerking on something. But I have a doner truck for that.

[Slinger60]

Its been a long haul to get this project to this point I started on June 10 or so.
And the end is in sight now. My goal is to get it in driving condition by mid Nov. (hopefully) Here are a few pics of the body on with all the new mounts in. I am gonna try and update this a little more often now.

[boonedogs72]

looks real good!

[Slinger60]

Hey your from the same area. And thanks.