Introducing my old '98 blazer as I bought it in October 2012. Still working on a proper name



Its my daily driver, and I use it for year round fun from snowboarding to camping. Also my first 4x4 and have bean enjoying the places I can now go. Ive mainly bean tryin to get all the neglected maintenance done to bring her back to former glory ever since I bought it. With that the build goals are to keep reliability and practicality priority, along with capability. I do have a few long road trips I plan on doing and Id like the blazer to be the truck to do it.

My other 'ride'...

A '99 model I bought new in 2000, Schwinn bmx. Its a heavy street cruiser that has never given me problems, only ever replaced seat, pedals, and break pads. With warm weather on its way Im thinking of re doing the barrings and realy giving it a good tune-up.

 

One of the first things I did was remove the broken valance and find a front skid plate at pick n pull, sill keeping eyes out for the others. Also did fluid changes in the diff's, engine oil, transfer case, and new batt. I bought a thule ski/board rack of kijiji for 120ish dollars, and a thule qest roof top bag on sale at canadian tire.

Had someone break in and try to steal the blazer twice. I replaced ignition after first time (couldnt start it was s mangled), second time I put in a 2-way alarm/starter.

I still have the GM Passlock bypass in a box ready to install for the start to work properly, but the rest of the alarm works great.

 

To continue what ive done up to now... I had found another front grill and repainted the black mesh part, fiber glassed any cracks from the back. makes the front end look alot better. The bolts broke off front sway bar links so i replaced them and the bushings too. I cooked the breaks last summer and had to do new pads all around and front bearings. Then the fuel pump went shortly after. Went out to the mountains for some snowboarding December and the blazer started running really rough throwing misfire and 02 codes. I was about to start school (7 week aprentiship) so I parked it. End of Feb I payed out insurance and got it back on the road, sorta. I found a good deal on some general grabber at2's, 500 installed slightly used. While it was parked a fuel like cracked so had to be towed in. Had the tire shop weld in a new cat while it was there, the miss fire was casing a real rich mix and in turn the cat was rattling and on its way out. Next was to get the engine running right. Ive bean discovering the previous owner didnt take good care of this truck. Not having any fun pulling the pugs and wires off in my driveway I decided to get a hand from a mechanic buddy with a garage. He discovered my problem was worse than either of us thought...


I decided to have him send both heads into a machine shop for a rebuild. Weeks later and parts have come back. yay!!



so new looking, just a matter of time now to re assemble things and some other incidental repairs. I will update a full list of repairs once its all done, I cant wait its bean so long. Also a little box in my basement has bean filling with a few things i ordered while at school

Ebay intake kit, I have an old better filter, and i used a breaker/ bender at school to make a heat shield. I found dimensions on another therad and will post some more details when I install it.

 

Did some looking up at GM-Trucks.com | RPO Code Lookup
found out my truck was made in Moraine Ohio...

 

So the blazers back! all fresh parts and fluids, its just running soo smooth. Went through some numbers in my head and I think im over $8000 into the truck thus far. With any luck my big expenses are over for a while, and maybe a bit better millage.


Its a shame most of the work is covered up. New rad, water pump, pulleys, belt, hoses for oil filter, all spark, and whatever could be was lubed flushed or cleaned.

so far bean loving the tires, havent really tried them off road yet but there quiet and fill the wheel wells much better. plus not expecting the sidewalls to explode is nice too.


Did a little clean and photo shoot. I thought this parkade at work looked pretty cool when it was empty.
I want to address the chipping paint with some bedliner soon, trying to decide if i want to make a straight line near the molding or follow the body crease and do the wheel arches too.

 

I see 3.42 gears also

 

It is always nice having a happy running engine.

 

There's a bit of noise I think may be from the rear dif. If that's the case I've spotted a couple g80's at the wreckers with the same ratio that may be a future project.

 

so, all happy having the blazer back went for a 4x4 rip with a work buddy. Fresh snow, a few flooded sections and a couple hills. stuck to the trails as both our suvs are stock but fun stuff.



after a day of fun with the blazer running like a champ she gave out on me going up a big hill just outside of town . Lost all power about half way up and just barely made it, after it was quite hot and has bean making a loud bad scraping noise since. had my mechanic drop by and look. best case maybe a flex plate or flywheel. worse case something in the motor... no codes, isnt misfiring, no fluids lost, still has oil pressure. Took the belt off and its not any of the external parts. It'll be about a week until he has time to pull it into his shop. anyone have some ideas? I really dont want to pay to have the motor pulled.

 

Its bean a while... The out look on the blazer is bleak. Should be putting it up in a garage next couple days and really find out. I've used my time to tare down my bike, never thought of it as a classic or anything but looking for some parts I realized its 15 years old and some things have changed lol.


All new bottom bracket. I bought new axles and stuff but the cones and bolts are a bit thicker and dont fit in the bike frame, also think i shod buy some new ball bearings. With the long weekend ive hit the wall on what I can do, few more days till its back together.

^ one of the old crank cones, lota miles on this bike.