Much appreciated Les! Good to hear from you as always. I have been working around the clock on the blazer now, since the last post I have cut all the plywood for the fridge and stove slide and secured the slides. I also got a pocket hole jig to assemble the slide this time to make a much cleaner 90 degree joint. Hopefully in a few days I will be able to assemble it. I got the old head unit out, along with the back carpet, trim, seats, etc and my blazer looks all stripped down now lol. I managed to mount the 12v system using riv nuts and it turned out great, I also drilled the hole to pass the wire from the starter battery through and put the waterproof seal in.


After that was done, I moved onto the big 3 upgrade and upgraded all the ground wires and the alt wire to 0 awg, I connected the engine and frame ground to the battery and rad support to the frame. I left the starter and fuse box wiring as is and just cut out the alt wire as I didn't see a need in replacing those.



Today I got the stereo wiring harness ready for install and fabricated the battery hold down, unfortunately, the stop that holds the wheel in place on the grinder broke right as I was going to sand it and finish up so I had to take a minute and fix that. Picture below shows the hold down so far, it fits tight to the width of the battery with only 1/16th of clearance between the "bolts" and battery on each side. I say "bolts" because they are really threaded rod cut to length and I will weld the wing nuts flush on the top to make them act like a bolt when I thread them into the riv nuts. Next step is drilling more holes in my floor I guess...


I also forgot to say I have found and fixed the problem that I believe made my head unit die in the first place. It was resetting at high volume and I had thought one of my tweeters was blown before so I got some new ones, when I pulled them out I found one of them was shorted with my multimeter! New tweeters below.

 

Nice work!!

 

Thanks Les! It's nice to see some progress being made, especially when I have dreamed of this for so long! Sometimes I take a minute and step back while I'm working away in the garage and just remember the big picture, very soon I'll be hitting the open road to overland across the country in a car I have built completely myself. It's a good feeling! I am definitely getting a little anxious and find it hard to take myself away from working on the blazer now because there's so much to get done in a short amount of time. Once I have the battery in and wiring done (acc, ground to second battery) for the stereo and other accessories (tent power, interior lights, tablet constant charge wire, rock lights) I'll be feeling better, I still have the cv axles/bearing and radiator/support to deal with! Both of the inner boots are already ripped on the axles and I replaced them last year, so I may need to modify the new boots a bit before installing. I'll keep you updated.

 

Very nice all the details your putting into it. Reminds me of my build . It’s been going on forever. I get into it and then get tired of spending money or something comes up and I just never seem to return to it. Hopefully soon I’ll at least have the frame and drivetrain complete. So may have to steel some of your detailing though and add it to my ideas. Hope you don’t mind. I am curious if you painted your cylinder heads aluminum or bought aluminum heads for your engine?

 

Very nice all the details your putting into it. Reminds me of my build . It’s been going on forever. I get into it and then get tired of spending money or something comes up and I just never seem to return to it. Hopefully soon I’ll at least have the frame and drivetrain complete. So may have to steel some of your detailing though and add it to my ideas. Hope you don’t mind. I am curious if you painted your cylinder heads aluminum or bought aluminum heads for your engine?

 

Thanks man!

Holy smokes alot has been done since my last post! I "finished" off the 12v system with buttoning everything up that was left to do and added a last minute 60A ANL fuse right by the starter battery on the wire that passes under the vehicle to the charger as I only had a 100A breaker on the 12v box and that left the whole way under the vehicle unprotected. I also fabbed up a battery hold down and made up a custom switch bezel in SolidWorks then got a buddy to 3D print it for me, next I added a USB c socket in the glovebox that will be my tablet constant charger. Next got a new 140A AD244 alternator and put that in along with a 1" longer belt, with that in I was ready to start it up and see my charger work finally! Everything works flawlessly other than my cheap china 100A breaker that keeps tripping every few minutes at 40A with the charger running, I have new better quality breakers coming tomorrow to solve that issue.




Now here's the fun stuff, my custom fridge and stove slide is complete! I had to make longer tailgate straps to allow the tailgate to drop closer to flat because I ran out of room at the top, but it all fits like a glove now. 10 M6 bolts hold this thing to the floor so it surely isn't going anywhere! The fridge wiring is also done and plugged into the 12v box with an Anderson connector.


Now for that tent... Well I will say I had a slight setback, that is the roof rack snapped when I was lifting it with the tent attached. So I'm going to whip up a unistrut rack as soon as the strut gets here then throw the tent on, I expect that will be the last thing before I leave for my trip.


I have also changed plans a bit as judgment day is coming soon and I don't have enough time to do all I wished for, I picked up a swing out tire carrier a few weeks ago that unfortunately wont make it on for the trip. Also since I feel I'm already maxing the AD244 at idle with my 40A charger I dont want to add e fans that will take another 40A on max load, so those have been scratched for now too. I'm also going to scratch hardwiring the tent with drilling holes in my roof and tent for now and just run a wire through the back glass everytime I set up camp, I'll have it on an Anderson connector for easy plug in.

I'm now working on the final mechanical stuff that needs doing, I have the radiator removed, steering box on the way to being replaced, steering lines getting replaced, along with both cv axles. I got the steering box out today, I was held up for a long time as when I went to take off the pressure line from the pump, the fitting came with it. So I had to go down and get a 1" wrench all to take that line off! I chose to go with a new Edelmann steering box, I have it all lined up with the pitman arm in the center link, input shaft on, and box bolted in, everything seems like it lines up how it should so tomorrow I will get on final torque and putting the new lines in. I also decided not to install the hooker blackheart steering shaft since it doesn't have the flat spot to line up center with the gearbox, my rag joint looks like it will last at least another 15k anyway!

 

Wow! looks like you have really been busy! Looks good!

good luck on your trip!

 

Wow. Great mods!

Where are you going on your trip?

 

Thanks Les and Christine! I have spent an absurd amount of time working on her in the last month and a half, it felt amazing to drive it around a bit with the charger and battery working. Now it's just a matter of replacing some parts which I should be able to do pretty quick. To answer you Christine I'm going on a grad trip overlanding across Canada, I have been long imagining myself pulling into St. Johns with the Atlantic Ocean right there, I'll be very proud to say I have taken her coast to coast!

 

The days are flying by too fast lately! I spent my first all-nighter working on the blazer last night, the stress is definitely getting to me especially with everything being so close now. It was relaxing as I was buttoning up the headliner and interior trim with the sun coming out around 4am lol. Anyways, in the last few days I buttoned up that steering box install and filled her back up with fluid, still need to turn lock to lock a few times with the engine running but other than that it should be all set. One thing I will mention is the alignment was way off after I got it all back together, but since the input shaft and pitman arm are keyed everything can only go back in one way? I adjusted the tie rods a bit so the steering wheel is centered again and going for an alignment right when I get everything else back together. I also got both cv axles replaced relatively smoothly, the inner shaft didn't come out this time on the passenger side so that was a major win.


I got the new rad in, I've been letting the sealant dry for a few days on the oil cooler line fittings but tomorrow I'll be finishing that up. I'm really excited to see how this rad does, the core size compared to the old one is much bigger, it was a little tight fitting it in but pretty much dropped right in, I'll use zip ties to keep it to the rad support at the top as it doesn't fit in the factory shroud holder very well.


Now the big project that's missing, I got the roof rack all made! 60" bars to run length-wise with 40" crossbars, and I shaved down some nuts to use as spacers on the back mounts to keep it all level with the roof. To take the weight on the roof I made rectangular pieces out of aluminum flat that match the body curve and sit flush with the roof (pictured). For mounting the tent to crossbars of course I had to make my own mounting solution too, I measured the center distance between the struts attached to the tent that run lengthwise and drilled some holes in the crossbars so the tent should sit perfectly center, this was instead of using the normal clamp style mounting brackets that would clamp around the crossbars. To finish it off I painted it with POR last night then top coated and clear on top of that, tomorrow it will be ready to bolt on whenever I am.