'82 K5 Blazer Build

[Outlaw86]

New guy here....figured my first post might as well be the start (and recap) of my build log. You guys may of seen me post up on other sites.

My dad had an 86 K5 which he got rid of for a s10 jimmy in the early 90s. I loved that K5, went through a series of some pretty badass and fun cars and never really seemed to care for any as much as I did the old K5.

With some thought and a touch of reminiscing, I'd realized I wanted my own K5 and set out to find one, days turned into weeks and they turned into months of scouring craigslist and word of mouth. I live in the south-east, farm country, anything 4wd is "hot" right now, mid 90s Z71s, ragged out are selling upwards of 4 or 5 grand. Every teenager is driving one and every old guy doesn't wanna sell his "old truck" he gonna fix up one day. So finding a K5 that wasn't ragged out or hacked up and priced reasonably made the search tough. I'd inquired about several and things always fell through.

One Friday evening Im surfing the local craigslist areas and come across an 1982 K5, looks pretty clean, body looks straight and its at a dealership...$1800. Monday rolls around and I call first thing, 8am, ask them the initial questions, trying to get a feel if its worth my time to drive the hour to look at it. By lunchtime Im walking into the dealership asking for the salesman who posted the ad. Shake hands and walk around to the back, he hands me the keys, give it a 10-15 minute test drive, get back, check the 4WD, check all the fluids, everything checks out pretty good. Talk him down to 1400, (1700 w/ taxes/tags/titles). I pay cash and drive it home, 72 miles and it didn't skip a beat, idled a little high but quieted down once she warmed up.

Here she is the day I got'er home.


MeMa's Blazer...(Im not MeMa, and that plate is gone) hopefully that means it was babied by an older woman.





Pretty rough, but I felt was priced right and it seemed to be in bone stock, babied condition. The driver's seat, is worn but the rear bench, center flip up seat/console and the passenger seat look brand new. Dash was cracked but un-molested.

The week I got it home I picked up a set of 20" wheels and 33" nitto mud grapplers from a friend who was dodging a debt for the better part of 2 years. So for an extra 50 bucks (and his debt cleared) I got the wheels. While not the wheel/tire setup I wanted, I didnt want to pass the deal up and it was something a little more aggressive for the hunting season.



Paint was an absolute must, I starting on prepping it for paint almost immediately, and installed a phantom grill during that process.



After a week or so of sanding, primering and prepping I feel ready to spray. At this point I'd planned on getting a new hood and new tailgate so I neglected prepping them for paint. Since then I've decided "f it" got other things to get/do first so I just sprayed them. Went with a flat black:





And new tail lights


I run a small decal business for a living, mostly custom boat lettering and related work but had some left over carbon fiber vinyl from wrapping some dash pieces, did a set of 4x4 decals featuring Jake (the corvette skull) for a kind of "ghost" look on the flat black. Looks more shiny here though.







Since then, I turned my attention mostly to my garage/man cave. Its full of other family member's crap. Was using it for storage as I didn't really have a use for a full out garage then. Building work benches, organizing and re-arranging stuff. Still no where close to being done but I cleared out enough room to work.

Ended up selling the 20s/33s to a friend for what I had in'em, turned around and bought another set of wheels/tires, this time with something a little easier for the daily commute. Other small touches, new mirrors, white/clear side markers with LED bulbs. Replaced the factory 6x9s, added a set of 6.5"s in the back seat region, added tweeters to the a-pillars and installed a cheap flip-out single din unit. Got a speaker grounding out somewhere I guess, speakers (but not amp/sub) are cutting out at high volume.

I was pretty sold on the truck being a 350 truck, turned out to be a 305, I can't even tell you weak that felt with the factory 3.08s. Started a search for a 400 sbc. Ended up with two 2bolt blocks, both 817 castings, both bored .040 over, one virtually fresh out the machine shop the other is a essentially a short block, doesn't look like many...if any miles one. Two sets of heads, 624s (not cracked....yet) and a set of 993s. The rotating assembly in one block as well as another set of pistons, pushrods, extra rockers, literally a tote full of extra stuff, water pump, starter, intake, stock 2 bbl.

So my main focus is to replace the 10bolts for 14s, regear it, 6" lift and 38s (cut fenders if needed) and build one of the 400s to somewhere in the 450hp range with a forged bottom end (probably going juice) ditch the 700r4 for something else. Something to play with in a local sand drag.

Tons of little projects I want to do too, replace the rear interior panels with anodized black diamond plate. Swap in newer bucket seats and a center console. Want to do something with the dash too, toying with a couple ideas there...

And this is how she sits;

[DBLSPRT68]

I like it!

[Outlaw86]

Originally Posted by DBLSPRT68

I like it!

Appreciated!

Went out yesterday evening and tore off the seat covers to get a better look at the seats. I actually assumed they were swapped out of another vehicle. I knew they weren't original to K5 but didnt realize they were complete aftermarket units from Qualitex. The drivers seat (after tearing off some duct tape 'patchwork') was a lot worse than I'd suspected. I plan on swapping in buckets from a newer model truck or SUV and a console. With the condition of the drivers seat, is it worth even saving these to be recovered? Any market for them to sell? I looked over Qualitex's site to see about maybe just a recover for the drivers seat but it seems they dont offer this model anymore.






Also turns out the dashpad/cover was superglued to the actual dash and of course not original either. So that got ripped off in preparation to pull the actual dash and toy with fiberglassing it or welding in a race inspired diamond plate dash.


After failing to find replacement manual doors (my power ones both have shot motors) locally at a decent price. The cheapest I found was from a pick n pull at $250 for the pair with no glass, even though the corners were literally rusted away. I bit the bullet and ordered replacement motors. Let me tell you, theres a special place in hell for the guy who designed the installation of those window motors.

While I had the panel off I "reconditioned" it, painted some of it flat black (you can see how it looked previous in the pictures above)




Also noticed a little bubbling under the paint below the drivers door ...passenger side still not showing any.


Since black is obviously the theme here...added this fella to my family today!

[motornut]

looks good ,like the grill,lenses too
don't offer that model( but prob still have the pattern),I'd call otherwise
I'd put the seats up for sale,can't hurt