Maybe weld a thick grade 8 flat washer in place - one that fits the OD of the pin nicely? Might be hard to drill but a machine shop could easily make something appropriate. I'll try to look and see what the OD of the pin and hole size in different washers are.

Does anyone make oversize pins and bushings? That would be even simpler. They all you would have to do is drill out the holes in your door hinge. Or use pin/bushing kit for other vehicle that happens to be oversize for you? See what I am getting at?

Standard hole in a 5/16 washer is 0.344"

 

Actually the pin doesn't (shouldn't) need to turn on the outer hole. Is the lower hole also worn oversize? The ridges on the pin bottom should have prevented the pin from turning in the softer metal. I've never messed with these before so I'm learning as I talk! A new pin could just be tacked in place on the top if the bottom hole isn't too far gone.

If holes are too far gone (and it sounds like they are), I would take it all apart, JB weld both upper and lower holes shut- then drill them back to proper size for the pin. After installation, I would add further JB weld the top of the pin to effectively prevent turning in that part of the hinge.

In any case that's all I got! Good luck and keep us posted!!

 

Well, I had a whole reply typed on here a while back, but the blazer hasn't been treating me so good lately making this update longer and longer lol...

Thanks for the ideas on the hinge Les, I'm still not exactly sure what I will do for the bottom hole. When I replaced the pins and bushings a bit ago that top pin was badly seized to the bushing like it had not turned in a long time, it took a lot of hammering to get it free. The bottom hole is definitely oversized and the splines of the pin have nothing to grab on anymore. I don't think I would be able to locate where to re-drill the holes after filling them completely to maintain proper alignment, but as I was typing this I had an idea. On the top hole I could use a piece of steel welded to the top, and the bottom go around the inside of the hole with JB weld to make the diameter slightly smaller so I can hammer the pin back in tight. This is the working idea for now.

Now, one day last week I was getting gas after work and the gas door broke when I opened it. I drove home with it flapping in the wind thinking the spring was broken, so I got one of those too. After taking it apart I noticed the spring was fine but the slot that holds the spring in tension had rusted out and finally broke, it has been so cold here lately maybe that had something to do with it too. I took the whole gas door apart and cleaned up the area then welded the part that broke off, finished up with some paint and put it all back together, some pictures of the repair below.


Just to my luck the blazer had me out doing another annoying repair last week, the door panel has been cracking worse and worse for a while now and it started rattling so I finally decided to fix it. The whole corner piece of where the panel bolts to the door was broken off so I cut out some scrap plastic to fit and covered the area with some epoxy. Followed it up with a second coat over the whole area a bit later then redrilled the hole, pictures of this repair below as well.


This one is a bit sad, the blazer started misfiring on cylinder 5... I've been feeling it misfire sometimes while idling lately and a few days ago it seemed like it was misfiring so I pulled up the tablet and sure enough cylinder 5 was misfiring a bit. I could distinctly feel every time it misfired then it would add a few on the counter, it counted over 160 misfires while I was idling for a few minutes. It seems like it's an intermittent problem only at idle and it wasn't misfiring as bad the next day, but it still would sometimes. I checked around and changed the spark plug a few days ago, I have only driven it once since changing the plug and I couldn't get it to misfire so I'll continue to monitor it.

 

I finally found some time to fix up the blazer this week, but I'll start from where the last post left off.

Replacing the cylinder 6 spark plug fixed the intermittent misfire issue (lucky!), I haven't had any more problems since. With that all fixed I got up in the snow again a few weeks ago before it all melted, I couldn't be happier that I hit 300000kms on the old girl while I was out having fun in the snow.


That takes me to what I'm working on now, I started with taking out the upper control arms to replace the bushings and ball joints. There was pretty much nothing left of the driver side bushings, the air hammer helped a lot for removing those. I also found out the Moog K6540 ball joints DO NOT fit the new RC arms, you need to purchase the ball joints directly from RC, so I'm currently waiting for those to come in. I've taken these few days to clean the frame in preparation to POR up to the body mount under the door, it has taken a lot of elbow grease to get all the old rubber coating off, it will definitely be worth it though. Using a pick in the hard to reach areas and paint thinner seemed to work the best so far, I plan to do the metal prep today after work then finally paint it with 2 coats, it will be another late one tonight lol. I was also able to squeeze in replacing the pitman arm yesterday too, it should be driving nice again when its all back together!

 

Loved reading through your build thread. I’m currently installing the rc 2.5” lift and the pa 2” body lift on my blazer right now. Progress is slow since I only have one day a week to work on it right now. Just wondering did you have to trim to fit the 31s? I’m hoping to be able to fit 32s without any trimming needed.

 

Thanks for the kind words, Asimon! I have a few things that I wish I knew before putting those lifts on, first, I'll say I've had to trim a fair amount from the front fenders, I was able to get away with only taking the corners off the part closest to the tires at first but to get no rubbing even when flexed out I've had to cut a fair bit and push that whole bit of the fender in. If you stay with the factory offset, you can fit 31's with the 2.5 lift only, so I think you'll be able to fit 32's at least with another 2" and maybe minimal trimming. Now when you get the rc lift in, make sure the driver side inner tie rod grease nipple has ample clearance on the modified front diff, and make sure you're cv axles can rotate without binding at full droop when it's all back together. It's common for the passenger side to bind and need a spacer on the bump stop. For the PA lift, make sure those body mounts are good and tight! I think they recommend red Loctite on those, I'd use blue maximum, more important to torque them to spec as I didn't the first time and had problems with them coming loose.

It has been a very long haul to get the blazer back on the road. After painting the frame, I put some new rear callipers in since I was having an issue with one side sticking. Well, I liked the powder coat so much I went ahead and ordered the fronts too! I also replaced the front brake hoses while I had things apart. I took some time off work to get it all back together, just to my luck, after I put it all back together and replaced all four callipers, bled the brakes and did an eye alignment so I could go for a test drive, I hopped in and the brake pedal went to the floor with absolutely no resistance. So I was off to replace the master cylinder. Finally, after replacing the master cylinder I was back on the road! I got an alignment, and it's driving great again.



This weekend I got to deleting the rag joint in the steering shaft, I've had the hooker steering shaft sitting around for over a year now. I wasn't sure if I would install it because this one isn't keyed with a flat spot like the rag joint, and Holly tells you to file a section of the splines off the gearbox for the set screw which I wasn't willing to do. I originally installed it 2 teeth off then bumped it back one, then one more, I'm happy with where it is now. I had the stud on the u joint break with all that tightening and adjusting, so off I went to get some threaded rod and make a new stud, some jam nuts to put it in opposed to the nice allan head it had before, all works the same in the end though! After a few test drives with the new shaft I'm very happy with it; it tightened up the steering more than I thought it would, since my rag joint didn't seem bad.

Next up I'm looking to make a new upper shaft now using the 1" DD on the OEM lower shaft and a 3/4"DD to 1"DD coupler with a 1"DD to 1"DD u joint that will be modified to fit the OEM through bolt on the column. While I have the column out I'll also replace the notorious plastic lower steering column bearing with a wolf engineering CNC bearing. I have a new plastic bearing waiting to go in, but I have since found these upgraded bearings, and for the work of taking out the column I may as well upgrade and never worry about it again.