My kid and I co-owned a 2014 Hyundai that was his DD. It got totaled a couple weeks ago and he had always wanted a 4WD vehicle. He looked at one crappy built Blazer and I talked him out of it. I told him he'd be better off building from scratch. The built vehicle was $3800 asking and no where near worth it. We found this 200 Blazer in really good shape with about 150k on it for $1400.

I am pretty much the wrench and I'll be teaching him through this. I also build classic sports cars but he never got really into them. This is the first car he's had that he actually seems excited about and seems to care about. It had crap tires and soft shocks so first order of business will be tires and a lift.

 

Nice and clean, I'll be following...

 

First order of business is an RC lift kit. It will be his DD so I suggested he start off with 2.5 suspension and then a 2 inch body lift. We put the Blazer on jack stands Thursday night and pulled the wheels. We ordered Patagonia MT 31X10.5 and will they got mounted Friday on the stock rims. We ordered the RC 2 1/2 lift kit and it arrived Friday so after a bit of a slow start we dove in today.

I would give the instruction in the kit about a B- grade. You could probably do the job with their instruction but a shop manual is highly recommended. Maybe it's a few different hardware by model year but some of the wrench size callouts were wrong. Also - I think this is very important - pull the brake calibers off the fronts and wire them out of the way. They don't tell you to do that and when I dropped the upper ball joint the arm dropped and reached the limit of the brake hose.

We are about 6 hours in on day one and the front is all pulled apart except dropping the diff which we will do in the morning. I am pretty sure we'll finish tomorrow in 12 hours for a total of 18. We'll see.

Another hang up was driving the torsion bars forward. On this Blazer the cross member is held on by 4 nuts so when the passenger side bar would not be persuaded to move I just dropped the cross member - in fact if I had thought about it I would have not driven the driver's side out either.


Pax side torsion bar


Pax side wheel well - I hammered on the end of the t-bar and hammered on my vice grips - no joy...



Drivers side wheel well - The t-bar is shown pounded forward but the half shaft separated so I'll pick up a new one. The needles on one ball were spilled so better safe than sorry.



Six hours work to get so few bit out - LOL... Ball joint separator and torsion bar tool loaned from auto zone are a must have. Also an impact wrench and some good 1/2 inch drive gear helps on old frozen nuts. PLenty of PB Blaster is also recommended. We'll drop the diff this morning, clean up the wheel wells and start the build.

 

While the wheel wells are pretty much a one man job my kid started refinishing his wheels.

Wire brush, 400 grit paper, some generic primer and I usually use Engine enamel on rims. We would have dismounted the old ones and taken the rims to my bead blasting guy but we didn't have time so he had to finish then with the new rubber already on.

Wire brushing the old crap out...



Some say - Why paint the inside - I say Why not?



He planned to put the blackwall side out but forgot to tell his tire guy so whites it is. I think they are gonna look badass...

 

Here's a quick view of the shop. We are blessed to be renting a place with an attached 2 car garage and a detached 2 1/2. Total man cave set up. It's the first time I have had this kind of space to work on my cars.

This "bowling alley" bench was already in the place and the LL said I could have it! Definitely taking it when we move.



One of the MGBs getting some kind of work - prolly a spring tune up...



The bat cave - My V-Star is also a cheap toy - picked it up last year for $1800 - I never spend more than like $2k for toys. And always pay cash.
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Dam I hope I can get my ZR2 donor bars out that easy. I’m expecting to have completely cut them out..

 

Good start to the build! Let us know how those tires work out.

 

Looking good!!

 

I think if you drop the whole lower a-arm you can deal with it on the bench. Biggest sledge I could swing was a 3 pounder. Big sledge will make them move.

In fact if I did this again I would pull both lowers. It’only two more bolts and easy access for the impact gun.

 

That all looks pretty damn good!

I will say though that if $2000 is your upper limit for toys, don't ever get into firearms. My MP5 was over that...