BLAZERS DRIVE LINE IS OUT!!!

and Yes I'm shouting it, that was the biggest pain in the rear!! I'll be very glad to get a much simpler drive line in this thing... took 4 hours to get that thing out. mainly because of having to deal with all the electronics and other stuff the newer cars have, and not to mention that drive line is shoehorned into the blazer.. Glad its out!!

Here is a picture deer hunter style!!!


Any ways tomorrow will be allot of clean up and putting back together of the blazer.. getting it ready for a test fit of the Benz motor.

 

haha its amazing how that motors fit in there somehow. Cool build. cant wait to see it finished

 

yeah its amazing how big the trany and transfer case are.. once you see it vertical like that it really is a very large drive train... thats fine however fitting the smaller displacement engine and smaller trany from the Benz will be very easy.. Ive doen some shoe horn jobs in the past, this will be a pleasant change.

 

Todays progress was small, I decided to get the Blazer ready for the new motor, worked on getting the front axle/differential out of the truck... didn't get it out but made some progress however I have the entire day tomorrow to work on it..

 

F'n right doggy. I cant tell you how glad I am to see somebody actually doing something with their truck. Maybee im just an Ahole, but i get so sick of all these P-tangs who buy a bunch of lame crap then stick or screw it on to their truck and call it CUSTOM. Anyway rock on and good luck with the swap.

 

Progress today.. got the front diff and axles out of the blazer, cleaned up the engine bay of useless mounts and other stuff that wasn't needed.. put back in the wiring harness in the blazer, put the battery mount tray back in, hooked up the computer ect, that runs all the electric windows and accessories on the blazer.. also ripped the gear sensing unit front the blazer tranny (this shows what gear you are in on the led screen on the dash), and the speed sensor from it and the temp and oil sensor from the motor. I'm going to try to get all the stock gauges to work.. that should be interesting.... notably the speedo..

Then I pulled the blazer out of the shop, I want to turn it around so its facing the other way so I have better room to maneuver the OM617 into its engine bay.. Also did a load of cleanup in the shop once I pulled the blazer out..

Next step
get the blazer in the shop, the other way around, and then test fit the OM617.. to find out what i got to do for engine mounts ect..

 

Wahoo!! loads of progress today.. the big question... Will it fit? Yes it will!!



Now, to do this i needed to remove the AC compressor from the benz motor, that was planned anyway.. don't need air in MN that often and windows do the job well.

I did cut down one cross member under the oil pan to get it to sit nice in the engine bay, that was after this photo was taken..

Surprisingly I wont need to redo any steering linkages, its a close fit but it all worked out well, the benz motor and tranny are a bit lighter than the stock drive train.. so it sits a bit higher up front now and I like the added height up front now, but shackle extensions in the rear will take car of leveling it all out..

I also pulled the mechanical clutch fan, I'll be running a electric fan in front of the radiator

Now my one BIG question, can I take the stock oil filter out and add a remote filter inline in the oil cooler lines.. I'm having a problem will pulling the stock oil filter from the benz motor when its in place.. it was always a problem in the benz also , but this wont work in the blazer. Lucky the stock blazer had its oil filter mounted remotely so I have all the bits to do this already.

 

Well today I solved the filter issue.. solution make the center shaft disconnected fromt he lid.. after looking at it it was quite simple, that center shaft was pounded out of the lid and then I drilled out the hole in the lid slightly just enough to make the shaft removeable and then welded the top of the shaft solid so no oil could crossflow.. simple easy and makes removing the filter far far far easier.. I wish I would have thought of this when it was in the benz.. that was always a pain in the rear to change.. in the blazer it was impossible, but now its far easier than it was in the benz..

So next ill be order in new seals for the motor, new trans filter kit ect.. get those on order and then make some engine mounts... I have two methods of doing this, they will be solid mounts.. not messing around with rubber mounts.. so method 1 would be to fab up the mounts in wood and take it to the blacksmith and have him recreate it in steel, 2 would be just fab it all in steel, however this makes it a challenge as I don't have the best equipment for steel fab (welder and angle grinder saws-all ect) However this build isn't about being easy, its about the challenge

 

Tonight I worked on the transmission mount on the cross member between the frame rails.. Made a bit of progress but need a few bits to finish it up. So hopefully I'll finish it up tomorrow.

 

Tonight I finished up the transmission mount.. and got the motor in position where it will finally sit and measured up what I need for motor mounts.. Last night I ordered a speedometer (aka a Garmin GPS unit ) for the blazer, way simpler and more functional than just a speedometer.. Tried removing the blazer oil pressure sender from the blazer motor and it was siezed in the fitting and busted.. so now I'm thinking aftermarket gauges may be the way to go I'll know more when I investigate the rest of the senders.. looks like the coolant sensor will just require drilling out and tapping the hole a bit bigger.. I messed with gettng the throttle cable mount setup and that looks pretty easy, However these are all minor issues that will come after the motor mounts, drive shaft, and radiators ect. are all fabed up and it runs and drives.. However its coming along steadly and the end of the tunnel is in sight..

Its really exciting to see the motor sitting in the truck.. and everything looking like its going to work well, once motor mounts are done and the drive shaft is in the rest is just tinkering stuff..