Sweet! Sounds like it's coming along nicely!

 

I thought tonight was going to be a bust, I called my local steel place today and they didn't have enough of the 1/4" plate steel I needed for the motor mounts and won't have it till Friday, but I went and worked on other stuff on the project anyway.. and surprisingly progress was good..

Pulled the drive shaft from the Benz and test fitted it and it will work out nicely.. need to make a hanger mount and then get the Chevy rear u-joint on the end of the benz shaft and it that will be that..

Then I worked on the factory gauges.. after some fiddling I figured out how to get the LCD gear selection display (PRND321) in the dash working that includes park to start and reverse lights ect.... Also worked on the temp and oil pressue senders and all I need is a thread adapter for the oil pressure sender and to drillout and retap the water temp sender hole.. didn't get a chance to work on the factory speedo much but, my Garmin GPS arrived today and I'd rather use that than the speedo anyway since it had speed and maps.. but I may putz with it the speedos magnetic sensor.. just for the challenge of it..

Other than that I pumped a 1/4 gallon of gas on the floor (woops) and played with the radio and steering wheel mounted audio controls and figured out a few features i didn't know the blazer had, since I had only driven it once before the drive line was yanked, its all new to me.. fun to explore it a bit.

I've decided the factory push button 4x4 controls will become my veggie system switches for switching over to veggie from diesel.

Every thing seems to be coming together really well!

 

tonight I made a bunch of progress..

First I made a new carrier bearing setup for the drive shaft , got ahold of a 45mm bearing and pillow block and fitted it, absolutely perfect!!


Then I putzed with the electrical system, also picked up a new Chevy oil pressure sender unit.. since the old one I busted when removing it from the old Chevy motor.. all the factory gauges, minus the speedo will be working

The i decided to make the throttle cable assembly, this consisted of hacking up some of the stock Chevy stuff and making the bits i needed to make the chevy throttle cable work with the Benz setup... worked out well.. I'll get a photo of it tomorrow.

Then I went to the old Benz shell and was looking at the kick down switch/solenoid setup for the tranny.. it consists of a solenoid at the rear of the tyranny and a switch on the throttle that when you press it to the boards it pushes the momentary switch and open the solenoid and the tranny kicks down.. Id like to move this switch into the engine bay on the new throttle linkage I setup today.. should be simple enough.

Tomorrow I'll be able to get the steel for the motor mounts, to bad I have a trip to go on this weekend.. or I could get them done this weekend.. We'll see how far I get tomorrow night on them.

 

Well since i was out of town this weekend not much got done on the project, however i did get over to the shop this afternoon, and totally finished the carrier bearing mount.. that's completed, and then after that i started looking at what it was going to take to get the radiator and oil cooler mounted.. started digging into that.. looks like it will all work..

Still waiting for my steel to come in for the motor mounts.. hopefully Tuesday.

More to come.

 

well not much to report to day besides working on the gauges.. i figured out how I'm going to setup the oil pressure sender, just got to get the bits for that tomorrow, and tomorrow hopefully my steel plate will be in for the motor mounts.

 

The Oil sender mount is made.. had to create a adapter from the nylon oil pressure hose to 1/2 pipe thread and add a ground for the blazers electric sender.. have 2 bits coming to finish this , a m12x1.5 to 1/8" thread adapter and some new nylon hose..

Next is the water temp sensor.. any one know what thread the stock benz sender is, I'm thinking its m16x1.5 but could not confirm that. any one know?

 

Just curious... are you a mechanic? You seem to be very knowledgeable and confident in taking on such a big project! Sounds like it's comin' along nicely! I enjoy reading the updates.

 

Nope, not a mechanic.. however I work on/maintain my own cars.. by profession I'm a multimedia/IT computer geek..

However cars are just another form of technology.. and actually I'm really intrigued by OLD technology, especially LOST OLD technology (like the fact you can run a diesel like the OM617 on virtually any oil you can get your hands on) and I like building /creating things.. so it fits perfectly.. and it's a nice change of pace from sitting behind a computer 12 - 16 hours a day.

I also like to challenge myself.. what better way than to build a unique vehicle.

 

Figured out the temp sender... need some more bits for it.. Ill try to get them tomorrow.

Next is the gear selection display and linkage to the benz tranny

 

No steel plate yet.. Grr this is starting to tick me off. Did pick up some bits, but didnt get over to the shop tonight but i got the whole weekend open.. so well see what i get done.