Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

I am by no means an expert, but I believe if you are changing you torsion boxes then you FOR SURE need to support things as much as possible. They along with the floor pan itself keeps the middle of the tub (somewhat) stiff. The reason I am not doing more supporting that I am is because the Tboxes and 80% of the floor will remain untouched. Hopefully others will chime in for both our sakes. ;)

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

I started cutting a couple of spots out of the firewall today. I expected to find “trash” in there and of course I did. The vent door is toast…gonna have to do something about that.

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

I have been thinking about areas like this in my Blazer. Has anyone ever sprayed a rust encapsulator in an area like this that likely won’t get any regular paint? The other area that crossed my mind was inside the rocker boxes before I welded the floor back up. Any thoughts?

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

Keep at it, you can take care of that. I admire the heck out of you for bringing back your K5. I've always liked the dark green Blazers.

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

Shame it's that bad in the cowl area, but it's to be expected as all the crap falls into it. I would take more metal out back to the seams, then you can really get a handle on it. If you leave the forward edge, where the curve starts, you should be able to fix it with a flat sheet of metal. When mine go bad, I want to put in a piece of stainless and screw it in so I can check it from time to time. Also this will allow you to put a sealer between the seam and metal

Whats the inside area look like(kick panel)

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

That's what I plan to do this weekend. I was a little scared to it, but then I read this.

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...ad.php?t=72472

It gave me the false sense of confidence I need to start cutting ;)....pics to follow.

Oh, and my kick panel has some rot along the bottom 1 inch where it meets the floor board, no better or worse than most of the others you see around here.

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

Have fun this weekend and take lots of pics for us to look at, I'm a junkie for people's progress:lol:

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

Day 12…
ordered drivers side patch panels from Tri-Pro yesterday…
found more rust around the firewall today…I’m scared…
starting to freak out…

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

Dude, your knee deep in it now. A little more work and the Critter will be on the road in no time. Gimme a shout if you need a hand. Way to go so far though. Later.

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

Well I really don’t have any good progress pics to post so I thought I would at least put up one of the parts I got from Tri-Pro (Thanks Jon!). They arrived Friday and haven’t made it out of my spare bed room since. So far I only purchased the driver's side stuff. Lower A pillar, lower B pillar, outer rocker, outer floor strip, outer floor brace, and lower kick panel.

Me and Jtrux spent the weekend getting the parts truck back to my place and tearing into it a little more so I guess technically I did make a little progress. :sexy:

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

awwwww...... what happened next?? I hate it when a good thread comes to an end.

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

Subscribed...what next?

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

Yeah, I agree. What happened?

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

Dude you still working on it? Hopefully mine will be on the road soon. Post more pics of the critter soon. Later.

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

It's probably rusted to pieces by now.

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

Critter, sent you a PM! Thanks

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

Alright, alright, alright. Sorry, I haven’t been on the board much lately. I got laid off from my job a few months ago like a lot of others have. I haven’t had any money to dump into the Blazer pit and to be honest getting on here just kind of depressed me. I’m kidding a little. Sometimes it’s hard to see others finished projects when I can’t make progress on mine. (I’m a little childish, I know :o ) Not to mention I was also in the process of building a little shop when all this happened so that got put on hold as well. ALSO, an uninsured motorist rear ended my DD Dodge back in April so I had to come up with a deductible for that. Anyway, I’m NOT trying to throw a sob story on anyone, but y'all asked for it ;) just letting you know what the deal is. Luckily my wife has a decent job and after making some adjustments we are keeping our heads above water while I go on interviews/look for work, so all is good.

Back to the Blazer. I really haven’t done a lot lately other than a little tinkering on things here and there. Also, I have been pulling a few things off the parts truck as I get around to it. One of the things I am working on is getting the inner kick panel out of the parts truck and grafting it into the Blazer. You might ask yourself, “Self, why would this guy pull a kick panel out of a parts truck when he could just buy an aftermarket patch panel from a vendor?” Well, I pulled the dash and windshield out of the Critter and it had a little rust in the lower driver’s corner of the windshield frame. That along with the rust that you have seen around the kick panel vent door made me want to graft a whole new piece in there. So I have been busy chopping things up to get at the desired pieces. Here are a couple pics showing the area to help “tame the beast” that loves pics.

By the way, don’t think for a minute that this project is dead. It is VERY much on my mind. I am just taking a break for a little bit. Thanks for the interest guys.

71Jimmy, PM sent back.

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

Keep your head up dude. Things will start looking up soon. Let me know if you need any help. Later.

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

Right on Bro! Keep on pushing on! You got a great thread going here, and if it has to take a little "pause" so be it! K5 to to stay alive!

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

Sorry to hear about the lay off, bin there many times thru my career. It really puts a hold on projects. Good luck to you on your search for a job. Good thing about projects, they don't care how long they take...but, they help keep your mind off of problems

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

Yeah I agree, to be honest me and my coworkers kinda saw it coming, but it happened a little sooner than expected.

Anyway, thanks for the kind words guys. Reading all this again has definitly motivated me to get back into the swing of things. There are pleanty of things I can do that don't cost money so I will get back to tackling them.

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

Critter sorry to hear about the recent job loss. Here's to an opening in the near futuer.

The build was really taking shape, it will be quite nice when complete. Best of lucK!

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

I felt the need to update with something. I told myself I wasn't going to spend any more cash on the Blazer till I got my shop/garage...but we all know how that goes ;) I verbally purchased a single wall top from Teeitup a few months back and I finally got around to picking it up a couple weeks ago. I snapped some pics for the heck of it. I took one of the Kansas border sign also, but it was too blurry to make out. Anyway, the top is in great shape, and had a decent hatch with it. I don't know why I am obsessed with having a single wall top (I have a nice double) I just couldn't stand it. Plus my K5 is a 72 and already has both sets of holes in the bedsides. I think the main reason I wanted one was because I plan to have a decent interior one day and don't like the idea of taking the inner panels off every time i want to remove the top. Oh yeah, and I like interior lights.

The top itself is in better shape than it looks. No cracks to speak of, just some resealing to do around the seam areas. It looks like it has been sanded some in the past and has some old white paint on it. I would eventually like to do a full top restoration ala BobbyK...but there is a lot of other things to be done to the Critter before she needs a top. Anyway, thanks for checking in.

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

Thanks for letting us know how things are going with the blazer! Hopefully your job condition is improving.

Re: The Great Critter Revival ‘09
 

I actually had a pretty good interview the other day. It sounded promising but I don't wan't to get my hopes up just yet. ;)