Paul came over today and helped me get a lot done on the blazer. First we tackled a bad wheel bearing, then we finally installed the motor mounts I made forever ago.








Then we installed a new metal engine skid I inherited after his SAS. After that we tackled getting the winch control box all wired up and installed.


First we had to make a bracket to mount the box.





Mounted and wired





Plugged in the controller and tested, everything works





Connected the power wire and fuse

 

Forgot some pictures.


I bought a 4x4x4 PVC Electrical box to use as the new solenoid housing.


Measured and cut holes for mounting and to run wires.








And test fit the controller plug and solenoid before painting it as seen in the previous post.

 

The box looks good in there. It looks like it is factory.

 

Been having some issues with the blazer now that it's back to DD duties. It's been having trouble starting.


First it would crank and crank and crank and get nowhere. It would start eventually, but after 10-15 minutes of trying. Felt like it wasn't getting gas, it would be ok if it was in the garage, but outside in the cold it wouldn't start. This made me think something in the gas lines was freezing up. Paul wasn't 100% convinced on my theory because it happened over multiple tanks of gas, he suggested that maybe it was the fuel filter holding on to moisture and freezing up. So we changed the fuel filter, and that problem seems to be gone now.


Now another problem has popped up, I go to crank the engine and it does nothing. The blazer actually sat at work for most of last week because it wouldn't start after work. We got it home on Saturday and found the signal wire was on the verge of breaking. So we fixed that wire, but it's still doing it. It seems to be worse the colder it is outside, so I'm thinking it's a bad starter solenoid. I'm pretty sure I have a spare started somewhere, so I'm going to try finding it and replace it to see if that fixes the problem.


In other news, I did my good deed for the year. Found a Ram 1500 in the ditch on my way home on Monday and pulled him out. So I got to use my winch for the first time

 

Winch use is fun

 

Picked up a bunch of goodies today.





Some stuff for the SAS, and some maintenance stuff.





All the joints for the 3 link. Link joints are the metalcloak duraflex joints, flex joint and bushing for the track bar. Gear intalls kits, D70 ring gear bolts for the 10.5, and weld in bungs for the joints. Also bought a new blower motor, steering pump and flaming river u-joint.


Steering pump from a 1 ton with hydraulic brakes and flaming river u-joint





Close up of the flaming river joint.. it's a nice piece, should help a lot.

 

Hurry up and start building this thing already my drool is waiting to drip from my mouth lol!

Where'd you get the pump from?

 

Lol tell me about it..... need to find a truck for a dd. Then I can start on this.

Got it off of Amazon. My pump is past its prime, and I'll need the extra power on 39's, and I want to convert to hydro boost so this pump checks off a lot of boxes.

 

Swapped out all the spark plug wires after breaking one while changing the spark plugs....

Since the steering shaft was out to change the spark plugs, I figured I should do the flaming river u-joint before I put the shaft back in.


Cutting the rag joint





I cut both sides to make taking it off really easy.





Then cut off the flared part of the shaft





Then put the u-joint on and tighten the set screws to mark where they are.





Then drilled some recesses for the set screws








Then installed the u-joint on the shaft with red Loctite on the set screws and jam nuts





Finally installed on the blazer, I used blue Loctite for the set screw on the steering box

 

So this is just me being curious and wanting to learn something new today, but what's the main advantages of the flaming river joint? Does it just give added strength or is there more to it? I've just not heard much of people replacing the joint on their steering shaft with, what seems like, a larger, heavy duty type joint.