Fitzgerald inspired: K5 Blazer pic post

[ChampTrucking]

I will start with a pic of my winter vehicle,a 78 GMC High Sierra K5.
Look forward to reading more of Craigs project.

[Grumpy]

I will start with a pic of my winter vehicle,a 78 GMC High Sierra K5.
Look forward to reading more of Craigs project.

Hey Rich, I'm guessing this picture wasn't taken yesterday, he lives in Northern Indiana!

[Loren]

Ah, K5 Blazers.

I always liked Blazers, in the late-'90s Gail wanted one and we thought that might make a good tow vehicle for our small travel trailer. So we picked up an '82 that was said to be in fair condition and we were on our way.

The first trip out, the 700R4 trans started acting up. Out of sixty miles home the last forty were done in 2nd gear. As the previous owner said they'd just had it rebuilt, I wanted to know who did it but could not get an answer. Finally I took it to a shop in town, they pulled the pan and it was all metal chips inside. He said he would have it done in a week...

Three months and many phone calls later I walked back into the shop and personally gathered up my transmission in the exact condition I had left it there in. Oddly, the previous owner chose at that point to say who "rebuilt" the trans, it was some guy who came to their house and pulled it to take to that same shop I'd left it at. Then a friend came along and said nooo, don't ever take anything there, he has no idea how to rebuild one of those. I see.

I'd heard by then that all early 700R4's are, well, "unreliable" and thought maybe I'd put in a manual trans instead. I picked up an A833 OD/NP208 combo in "good condition" from the son of the local Snap-On man. I took that home and pulled it apart...it was beat to crap. I bought a rebuilt kit and went through it myself, new bearings/synchros etc. Then I figured out I could not get a heavy trailer started up a hill...the first gear ratio was not bad but axle ratios in that Blazer were 2.73! In a four-wheel drive! Somehow it had never occurred to me to actually check what the gears were.

I guy in town was parting out an seventies 3/4-ton Chevy with the SM465 with "granny" first gear and the tougher 205 transfer case. I spent the afternoon in the dirt at an emu farm removing it and put that in the Blazer instead. Then the motor was acting a little weird...really it had never ran right. I pulled a head and it was cracked, they both were.

So I figured I'd rebuild the whole engine with a basic cast-piston kit and of-course new heads, and put in a big-block radiator while I was at it. To get it smog-certifiable I spent most of an entire day just working out vacuum lines and all the little devices. Then, off to the DMV...wait, where is the pink slip?

We could not find it, not anywhere. The previous owner would need to sign both her name and her ex-husbands to a lost title form and she wouldn't do it. We needed to get together with him also and that simply could not be done...

In the meanwhile I came across a 9.5 rear axle with 3.73s and thought that would make a better diff for towing. I spent seven hundred bucks on an ARB air locker so it would work in the sand, $600 to have a guy set it up and rebuild everything and another $500 setting up a Dana 44 front to match, instead of the original 2.73 ten-bolt. Then I really got a wild hair and bought a gallon of bronze-metallic enamel and another gallon of clear. It took days and days to paint that thing, doing work like sanding the rough-texture fiberglass finish on the rear cap smooth so it would look better. The metallic laid down perfectly, and all finished and buffed it looked great.

But somehow it got driven around the block to the baby sitter's with no oil in the diff. That's all it took to wipe out the pinion bearings. After fixing that, I was using it to move a trailer in the yard and while maneuvering that I caught the open driver door on a gate that had been left partly open and swinging in the breeze. With less than five highway miles on my new paint job, the door was wasted and the area it bolts to got a good twist as well.

So I chained a ten-foot wood beam to the body and used a tractor to un-twist it (it really didn't require much force), and bolted on a different door and banged the gaps into alignment. I bought another quart of paint.

We had put perhaps 120 miles total on the Blazer. I still didn't have title to the thing.

At this point a buddy came along and decided he wanted the bad-luck Blazer and I decided to give it to him. He traded me an El Camino and a Cherokee...it was not a good deal, for me. I put a set of huge wheels and tires on it, stuff I had from another truck, as I wanted to keep the Alcoa copies. He re-painted the entire truck, I don't know why. He got clear ownership title one way or another, and then...traded it away himself.

I don't know whatever happened to it. My Alcoas were later stolen out of the back yard.

[Deaf Bob]

Loren, some times things are not meant to be..
Got a couple titles I'm trying to get.. I feel your pain!
One is a lowered dualie like the blazer and the other is a front clipped with a chevy IH crew cab . Once titles were painful, they got dragged to the "back 40"

[low-psi]

I know I love my 1980 k5 2wd.

[Barry Donovan]

I used to bomb around in one, no mater what the guy did with exhaust, it needed more...finally ended up two straight shots right out the back. maine brakes the k5, right off the cab mounts...no cure until brain virbating weld jobs.

lorens story is as bad as me and my first ea series subaru, restored myelf.

zero errors, one day after paint..totalled.(non fault and then railroaded).

I avoid the k5, there is facts when workload has to happen here, they are not even close to good enough in many ways. Soft, hard.. it is too damn short.

the 2wd is a dream to look at low-psi. I drove a havy half ton p/u, 1979, same colors, metal trim all the way around, silver and black. loved that truck..noisy power windows included.

[Grumpy]

I've had some terrible luck with Vehicles but nothing to match Loren's, Ok let me think about that for a while!

[SSChevyManiac]

Man I miss this thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIdD1ZY1C1c