Stink 10 Two my second Blazer.

[vcho455]

After some careful grinding with my Dremel (On low speed, so it didn't get away from me! ) I got most of the casting flash removed. To finish I used some narrow strips of 100 grit emery paper and pulled them back and forth while holding the T-bolt down to make a fairly smooth surface that matched the shape of the T-bolt. (Photo #1) Then finished up with some 220 grit on both saddles the T-bolt sits in.

During the comparison of the two forks I noticed a difference in thickness (Or height.) of the tangs that contact the throwout bearing. (Photo #3) Hopefully the difference is just the wear the old one has and the new one doesn't have a clearance problem when installed. I will have to check that clearance once the transmission is in place. I pretty sure that's going entail some curse words as there's very little room to access the fork and only slightly more to just see what is going on.



To attach the spring clip I tapped the hole for a 10-24 screw. An Allen head screw is going to be much tougher than the factory rivet. Part of the factory rivet is sitting next to the Allen screw I installed. (Photo #4)

After I Loctited the screw and tightened it down. I center punched the end of it distorting the treads. I'm confident it won't be working loose. (Photo #5)

Now that little detour was over I was able to lift the transmission back into place and start on the next project.

[vcho455]

Good fortune blessed me back in April! I was unaware of it till doing some imagengineering on how to install a driveshaft loop. When I unpacked the driveline safety loop I scored at the swap meet in April I was surprised to find it contained two complete loops! The Blazer will need one if I decide to bolt some sticky tires on it for some trips down the track. Good piece of mind for hot rod stick cars.

The loops were new, in an opened box, and I scored it for only $20 bucks on the first day of the swap meet. Over the next three days of the swap meet, I had hoped to find a second loop, as I need one for my Firebird project. The only other one I found I passed on. It was chromed and they wanted a C-note for it. No thanks!

Needless to say I was quite surprised when the box was completely unpacked it actually contained two complete driveshaft loops. I've never seen driveshaft loops packaged that way before. Now I'm glad I didn't find and buy a second driveshaft loop.

Woo hoo! Today I chalk one up in the win column.

To start I needed to modify the crossmember a bit to correct an interference issue. The top of the transmission mount rubbed the crossmember. Circled in photos 2 & 3.

I cut 3 three sides around the area that rubbed and then ground the 4th side down. After some hammer action I got the clearance I wanted. Then it was time to weld it back together and do some clean up with the grinder. (Photo #6)

And a half day later the rest of the crossmember is now complete with a drive shaft loop and ready for final installation! (Photo #7) The missus said it looks like a prop from Star Trek.

The PO had these three shims under transmission mount. (Photo #8 on the left) I assumed they were used to set the drive line angle but, to be sure I checked the angles. With the shims installed I measured 4 degrees at the transmission yoke and the pinon yoke. (Photo #9) That seems like a win to me. To clean up the re-installation I made a 7/16" shim out a piece of UHMW to replace the three shims. (Gray rectangle on the right photo #8)

The last poorly framed photo is the loop in position ready to catch the driveshaft if needed.

[vcho455]

When I bought the truck the PO mentioned I might want to change the crossmember, at time I didn't ask why however I did take a look at it later and didn't find anything glaringly wrong. Having completed this much of the project I believe I know what he was referring to.

The 4 bolts that hold the crossmember to the frame are about 5 inches long and go through the bottom of the frame and then the top of the frame after going though the crossmember. (See the arrow photo #1) The frame isn't truely boxed so the top part of the frame seems to flex down when the bolts are torqued down. The frame in the area the of the crossmember is in the shape of a capital G. I'm not sure that it's a problem as the truck has been on the road this way for 20 years and the bolts weren't loose when I removed them but, ideally there probably should internal stiffener that keeps the frame from compressing when the bolts are torqued down.

However I'm not excited about the holes in the bottom of the frame they are at least 1inch in diameter. (Photo #2) During the 15 or so times I installed and removed the crossmember I realized that the large lower holes allowed the crossmember to move around quite a bit. The crossmember is the factory unit that has been modified and it is possible that it left the factory using this combination of holes. The next time I'm at the U-pull-it yard I should remember to look at how GM did it.

To securely attach the crossmember to the bottom of the frame that I decided to install a NutSert in each each side of the crossmember. That way the crossmember will be indexed and not be able move around. Photo #3 shows the finished installation.

I got this nice NutSert installation tool from McMaster Carr a while back and this is the first time I've had a chance to use it. I must say it works much better than the hillbilly way I've installed them in the past.

[vcho455]

Before I went any further assembling the engine I wanted to replace the lower steering column bearing. It was worn to the point that it had a good 1/8" of side to side play at the base of the column. Occasionally on big bumps I could feel the wheel jump but for the most part it was just rattled going over bumps.

According to the interweb's opinion polls the OE replacement version of the bearing doesn't fit (INCONCEIVABLE! ) so I went with the aftermarket upgrade version from Wolff Engineering instead. It's not exactly cheap but it's a quality product.

Since exhaust was off I convinced myself I might be able to replace the bearing without having to remove the steering column, and for once my figuring came out as planned. It took just under 60 minutes to finish the job.

The kit has an inner piece and an outer piece.(Photo #2 shows the old and the new) The inner piece is an actual bearing not a nylon bushing like GM used.



Fortunately the column in the STII is in good shape, with no rust or damage, so it was fairly easy to prepare it for installing the new bearing. If ones column is rusted or has badly damaged tabs it may be worth the effort to pull the column to make the replacement easier. Basically I traded the joy of removing the column for the tedious, patience testing, lying on my back while I slowly tightened up the five Allen screws.

The inner and outer pieces all fit well but, the instructions while being much better than most you get these days, they were some what misleading when it came to how to orient the outer piece before securing it. I also had to shorten up the supplied Allen wrench due to interference with my clutch master cylinder mount. The kit came with two Allen wrenches and some Emory paper to clean up the inner bore of the column.

In the third photo is the finished installation. Ignore the bunch of white pen marks, I used them to keep track of which Allen I was on as I tightened them up evenly an 1/8 turn at a time as per the instructions. Once I was done the shaft had zero play and it spins like a top.

Here's some pictures of the documentation that was included and a link to their site.

https://www.wolffeng.com/

Here are some more photos of how the aftermarket bearing for the steering column installs. These are from my 72 Firebird's column. (I did both columns at the same time.) The column for the Firebird is older has had a rougher life so it needed more clean up as well as tweaking of the 3 tabs that the inner bearing fits into.

I was fortunate to find a perfectly sized piece of aluminum bar stock to use as a mandrel to bend the tabs back in place. Once I had the tabs spread out so the bar fit inside I tapped the high parts down. See red arrows and circles.

Once that was done I checked that the tabs fit snuggly in both directions before slugging the Allen screws up. (Photos #9 & 10)

The original S10 gas pedal had a huge bracket as part the assembly so like any hotrodder I cut it off the unneeded parts to lighten things up. I must have chopped off a whole pound. Not to mention the amount of space that's been freed up!

[vcho455]

After a bunch of messing around I finally got the new cam degreed. It came in at 107.5 for a recommended 108 degree lobe centerline. I used the timing chain set that was previously installed. The engine has about 8k miles on the rebuild. The chain and gears looked like new.

The crank gear markings on the timing chain set were a bit odd in that the triangle mark retarded the timing and the rectangle mark advanced the timing. It took me several attempts before I figured out things were backwards. The gear set looked like a Cloyes set so I'm guessing that it's a China copy.

The timing cover shows signs that the chain has rubbed the cover. (Photo #3 arrow) The chain shows no indication that it has touched the cover so hopefully it was from before the rebuild.

The oil pump drive gear is definitely due for replacement. (Photo #2) I have no idea if it was replaced as part of the rebuild. The camshaft I removed was a factory cam and it may have been the original camshaft.

During my research for a new oil pump drive gear I became aware that the factory composite assembly was prone to failure as it aged. Mine looked good but I have no idea how old it is. These are no longer available from GM and haven't been for quite awhile. So I opted to replace it with a new billet one from Tick Performance. Not cheap but having the oil pump drive gear fail isn't cheap either. Unfortunately I failed to take any pictures of the drive housing.

https://www.tickperformance.com/gm-o...1-lt4-engines/

Tick doesn't sell the gear and billet housing as a complete assembly anymore so I had to disassemble the old one and reuse the shaft, spacer and washer on the new housing. This video shows the process better than I could explain it.

https://youtu.be/VthYE4lRyrM?si=YbTdLYbBEGTQqICh

I made a drive shaft to prime the oil pump and passages. (Photo #5 shown with GM drive housing) The 6th photo shows how the drive housing looks installed.

In the excitement of getting the oil pump assembly installed and the intake installed I forgot to prime the pump until after I started installing the intake manifold! Well at least I remembered before I got to torquing the bolts. (Last photo shows the priming action!)

Two steps forward one step back.

[vcho455]

You may have noticed I got out of order with the posts. I've been condensing and organizing my posts from my original thread on the 67-72chevytrucks.com forum so parts of the project are grouped together instead of all willy-nilly like my brain.

Some glamor shots of the heads complete with Lloyd Elliot porting. Woo Hoo!

I had a small oil leak from the rear of the oil gasket so I installed a new one and then the installed the timing cover. Still a lot of moves left to go but things are headed in the right direction.

Dodged a bullet today. I was swapping the coolant vent lines on the back side of the heads from the old heads to the new ones when the threads on the second one of the fittings failed. I hadn't even gotten snug with the wrench when it started galling. It took me about 10 minutes of careful back and forth movement of the fitting to get it out.

The fitting is trashed but after carefully running a tap in the head I think I can get a new fitting and it will seal up. Fingers crossed!

After a couple days I got the new 90 degree fitting and when I tested the fitting it to see if I had dodged the bullet I was quite disappointed. It ran out of threads before it got tight. Uggg! (Photo #9)

But comparing the new one with the old one it was apparent the new one's threaded area is shorter. Now all I needed to do was to find a matching fitting. I ended up going in to work and digging through the big box of used fittings and found a replacement that matched the bad one and it tightened up nicely. (Photo #10) Woo Hoo! We have a winner.

After that little detour was done I dropped the heads on and torqued them down.

This is why you don't buy the cheap fittings. They're one time use items.

[vcho455]

With new heads, rockers, and lifters I needed to check the rocker arm contact patch on the valve tip just in case the old push rods were the wrong length. The contact patch looked pretty good and when I tried to move the contact patch more to the center with a shorter push rod length, the rocker clearance to the valve retainer got too close for my comfort.

I switched to 1.6 rockers as part of this upgrade. (Both intake and exhaust contact patches were very close to the same size but somehow I wiped some of the Sharpie ink off the exhaust valve tip before I took the photo.)

During the cleaning of the valve covers I discovered why there was more valve noise than I thought there should be. Turns out the valve covers have been rubbing the top of the polylocks. (Circled in 2nd photo) It looks like I need to use two gaskets under each valve cover to solve the problem.

I also spent way too much time trying to install the PVC hose grommet in the intake manifold. I removed the old one before I painted the newly ported intake and found it was cracked and hard on the inside of the manifold. I found the same problem on the grommet I removed from the original manifold so a new grommet was needed.

What I discovered is that almost every parts store carries the PVC grommet for the valve cover but, not the one for the intake manifold. They look similar but, the groove in the center is much wider on the one for the intake manifold as it has to fit over the casting. (Photos #3 shows the valve cover version which I could get at the generic local parts store and photo #4 shows the intake one (on the right) which isn't carried by the parts stores) Anyway after a couple of bad leads at the local parts stores I finally found the original GM part number and Summit says they have the correct AC Delco one so now I get to wait for it to arrive. It will arrive along with a new EGR valve as the old one had a badly blown diaphragm. My Mity-Vac tester wouldn't budge it no matter how fast I pumped it. I also found two leaks in the Optispark vent hose. (Photo #5) along with the blown EGR diaphragm these are the third (or 4th & 5th) vacuum leak I have found. It's a wonder that the truck idled at all let alone as nice as it did.

After a long stretch at work I was eager to bolt my new EGR valve on the intake and get the PVC grommet installed in the intake. So after helping the wife with her garden all morning I opened the box my new EGR came in and found the the gasket had just been tossed in the box with no packing material and after at least 10000 miles of shipping in which the valve callously beat the gasket into junk.

I moved on to shortening the fuel rail bolts. I had noticed the bolts protruded through the top of the intake manifold into the air passage. Its hard to see in the photos but the bolts stick into the manifold just at the divider of the siamesed intake ports. (Photo #8) The bolts protruding so far into the intake passages may be a result of the intake manifold porting. You can see the difference in the before and after photos.

[vcho455]

When I tried to assemble the optispark and install it I ran into a stripped external Torx head fastener. The E4 Torx hex(?) on the fastener is what was stripped soI was unable to remove the screw to service the optispark.

I don't know what GM was thinking using these fasteners? And to make it even better they picked an odd size thread. 3.5mm by 0.6 threads so you can't easily get replacements at your local box or Ace hardware store! Or so the interweb tells me. 😀

I was able to grind the head of the stripped screw off and remove the rest of the fastener without damaging the optispark cap. Photo #2 shows the screw head halfway ground off in the hole on the right side. One of the special GM screws is to the left of it.

I will try my local hardware geniuses at Winks Hardware and if that fails I may be stuck trying finding a replacement at the wrecking yard.

My trip to Winks Hardware was successful,! (That place is great! ) They had some screws in stock to replace the bad one in the Optispark. No Torxs head but that was just fine! I had to shorten it up by about a 1/4" which took a bit of time as I didn't have a die nut or a thread file to help remove any burrs after cutting. Some careful work a very fine file and a magnifying glass and I had two screws. I ended up replacing both of the recessed screws.

A side note on the OE Optispark screws. The counterman at Winks said that the screws were a triangular thread. This was something new to me. After looking closely at the threaded part of the screws you can see they are not round. I did some looking around and found this interesting information and a photo.

Conti/Reminc were the ones to pioneer the trilobular shape before it became an international standard for thread forming screws. (probably DIN7500) Their product name is Taptite (www.taptite.com) and there is quite some innovation still going on. They are meant for use in steel.

Of course there are other companies as well that specialise in that sector. EJOT (www.ejot.de) is a big one as well. (probably best known for their direct threading screws for plastics)

The shape itself has the positive aspect of producing less friction during the initial setting of the screw, This rather low threading torque means that it's no issue to include them in your standard manufacturing process even with max-torque tightening processes. (instead of angle tightening)

Another nifty thing about these: they leave a standard ISO 60° thread behind. Any repair you have to make where you lost the original screw, you can substitute with a common threaded screw.

Why thread forming at all instead of thread-cutting or having an already formed thread in the part?

A thread in a part is more expensive than just a hole.

A self cutting screw will produce chips that have to go somewhere. Having this uncontrolled chip-producing menace in your production line can contaminate seals or shorten electrical connections.

A self forming screw will also compress the material in the area of the thread which leads to an increased strenght of the thread against stripping.

A self forming screw does not need to find the thread on the initial setting, therefore you can shorten the cycle time in the production line.

Oh, and the trilobular shape itself is more or less this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuleaux_triangle

During the reassembly of the Optispark I noticed that the bottom half of the cap did not fit flat to the aluminum base. (Photo #3) It is either warped or a bad casting but it's obviously been that way for a while, so I cleaned it up with some brake clean and filled the gap with RTV, as well as all the rest of the seams. I forgot to get a photo afterward and now I've installed the water pump it's impossible to photograph.

Another issue with the water pump came to light while preparing it for re-installation. I wasn't pleased with the amount of corrosion on the sealing surface of the water pump. (Photos # 4 & #5) with all the pin holes evident it looks like the casting may be porous and as result it has easily corroded. I broke out a tube of CAT Blue anaerobic sealant and used the thicker pair of the 2 sets of water pump gaskets I had. I should keep my eyes open for a new pump casting just in case.

I did look at trying to mount the casting in the mill and take a 0.10 cut on it but I'm pretty sure it would take me at least a day to do that and I would have to order a motor gasket from Maziere and so today I won't let perfection get in the way of progress.

After running the Optispark vent lines and other miscellaneous vacuum lines I installed the coil and throttle body before the missus made me quit working for dinner.

Before the clutch went south I had been hearing a chirping sound after start up on cool mornings. So before reassembling the alternatorI was coming from the front of the engine. Once the truck was warm the chirping would disappear. I decided it must be the alternator since the water pump is electric and nothing else is belt driven.

After pulling the alternator and inspecting I found that it seemed fine but the drive belt idler pulley bearing didn't spin freely. It felt rough and ready to be replaced. After several hours of searching for a replacement I came up empty handed.

All the bolt-on idler pulleys (As opposed to one's with an integral mount) I found are larger in diameter than the one I have. The alternator mount has no name or part numbers on it and other than the bearing itself the idler has no numbers either. I'm guessing the PO used an ebay special when he put the truck together. So I decided to attempt to rebuild the idler by remove the bearings from the pulley. I found that they are common bearings easily sourced.

Using my arbor press and some heat on the outside of the the pulley I was able to easily remove the bearings and then I pressed the inner spacer out of the bearings. It went pretty smoothly and other than the condition of the inner spacer it should reassemble without issues.

The scoring on outside of the inner spacer (Photo #10) must have been present when it was assembled. The spacer pressed out too easy to cause any scoring. Once separated I noticed that both bearings are rough when I spin them. It seems odd that both would fail in simultaneously in relatively light duty usage. The bearings are rated for 10500 rpm and static load of 980 psi each.

It's possible with the outer races pressed into the pulley together and the inner races being pressed together on the spacer the ball bearings may have been side loaded somehow against their races and that may be why both bearings failed. That being said I'm not sure how to prevent that when I reassemble the idler pulley.

Photo #11 shows the alternator mount. The yellow arrow points to where the idler mounts and the purple line represents the drive belt.

The new bearings pressed into the idler without issue. I checked the inner races and the outer races to each other and found both surfaces to be flush with each other and no side to side play of the inner races. So theoretically there is no preloading of the races and I should get a long life from the bearings. At least longer than the no name bearings I removed. (Fingers crossed)

[vcho455]

I purchased a set of Sanderson headers for the truck. No question that running the factory manifolds with ported heads would be a waste of potential, not to mention cash.

I did a lot of research (Too much I think!) on S10 V8 headers and came to the conclusion that I could get a set of long tube headers that might fit. (There is no set reference as to how far forward or back a SBC engine should set so there is no header that is guaranteed to fit.) Or I could get some short tube headers that will fit. That combined with my wanting to maintain the single exhaust (single catalytic converter = less $) and more of a sleeper aditude. Long tube headers would have made that a much bigger pain due to the lack of real-estate underneath. Also running an exhaust pipe on the drivers side on a Blazer gets tricky due to the fuel location. The LT1 angle plug heads also limited my choices some.

Once I had my hands on the headers it was apparent that there was definitely room for improvement of the Sanderson design. They are designed to fit any S10 with a SBC. (Photo #1) Looking into the collector it's pretty obvious things are cramped and exhaust flow at that point takes a back seat to packaging. So I did what any hotrodder would do, I cut them up!

Then I made a trip to my friend's at True Mandrel and purchased a pair of longer collectors. (Photo #4)

The passenger side fit pretty good with the only change needed to get a couple bolts in was to tweak the dipstick upwards. The collector barely clears the firewall. I'm pretty sure I will have to add some clearance before I'm done.

The drivers side was more difficult, not only is there more stuff to contend with but, the firewall contacted the #1 tube. I got my port-a-power out and pushed the firewall back but, every time I released the ram the firewall would pop back into the same position. So I jacked the firewall back again and gave it a good tap with a hammer. That caused the firewall to pop and in the end the firewall was way farther back than it needd to be. (Photo #6) One less point of interference and it looks like it will work well.


The rest of the issues involved not enough clearance between the drivers side header and the clutch master cylinder, the steering shaft, and the valve cover. Photo 7 sort of shows the clutch master cylinder and Photo 8 shows how close the header was to the valve cover.

I was unable to get a photo that showed how close the steering shaft was to the header. However you can see the shaft in Photo 7 behind the center 2 tubes. There was about 1/8" of clearance and I was certain that the heat would destroy the rubber cover over the slip joint on the shaft, not to mention I definitely do not want the header to hit the steering shaft as the engine torques in the motor mounts.

[vcho455]

To give the driver's side header more clearance I got my girl Rosebud out and using a smal ball pien hammer and my really big channel lock pliers I proceeded to open up those tight clearances.

In Freiburger I trust.

https://youtu.be/yJU6RU0Dj9g?si=5NA-B21xRNjpP7FE

Once the headers were in place I started on the collectors. I cut and fitted the collector extensions to fit the chassis and hopefully I will be able to install the headers without having to lift the engine once the extensions are welded on to the header.

The other thing I'm doing with the collectors is welding a divider plate in each one. So instead of being a short/mid-lenght header it should mimic a tri-wye header without having to cut the whole collector off and re work all the tubes. Fingers crossed.

To determine which direction I wanted the divider installed in the collector extension, I compared the firing order on each side and the tube lengths of each cylinder so the divider would to keep the exhaust pulses away from each other as long as possible. On the drivers side cylinders 5 and 7 fire consecutively so I divided them and #8 and #4 on the passenger side I divided those two. I looked at a lot of tri-wye header pictures and articles for inspiration and education but there's little documentation on tri-wye header design, let alone doing what I'm trying to do.

I am reasonably sure it will be an improvement over the headers as they were originally manufactured but I have no idea as to how much. Maybe Freiburger will see my little thread and want to do a header design dyno test on the truck for me.

The one thing I do know for sure is at present I've only spent about 30% of what the set of custom built headers were quoted to me.

I needed some way to keep the divider plate lined up inside the extension. I was concerned that just welding the plate in place inside the extension would cause problems as there may be different rates of expansion of plate and the extension as the headers heat cycle. Which might end causing the divider to break up and end up in the cat.

The solution I decided on is to leave one end of the plate free to float and weld the other end. The yellow dot on the inside of the left side of the last photo is where the welds will be.

To keep the floating end in place I fabricated a pair of modified merge collector spikes. Like in photo #1. The photos show better than I can describe what I am fabricating.

Next step was to tack the extensions to the headers and test fit again. Once both sides were in place I tacked them solidly in place. With some help from my girl Rosebud, I closed up all the gaps between the headers and extensions and finished welding them together.

[Larry Callahan]

I just noticed the list.

Well done!

69 GTO
72 FIREBIRD
64 BONNEVILLE FUNERAL COACH
70 JAVELIN
52 F1 FORD PU
29 FORD PU
85 ALFA ROMEO
ASSORTED DUCATI'S
91 BLAZER LOWRIDER

[vcho455]

I just noticed the list.

Well done!

69 GTO
72 FIREBIRD
64 BONNEVILLE FUNERAL COACH
70 JAVELIN
52 F1 FORD PU
29 FORD PU
85 ALFA ROMEO
ASSORTED DUCATI'S
91 BLAZER LOWRIDER

Thanks!

It's not up to date at present. For some reason I am unable to make changes to it.

[vcho455]

Unfortunately at this point I had a self inflected set back. I got in a hurry and forgot to weld the inside of the old collectors before I welded the new collectors on. (The area shown by green line in photo#1) Doooh!

That meant cutting the freshly welded collectors off, welding up the insides and then refit and weld the collectors on again.

Once they were all back together it was time for another round of pressure testing. This revealed a bad weld from Sanderson. Unfortunately the leaking area I couldn't access the bad weld from the outside due to an adjacent tube. I had cut the offending tube open where I discovered about 3/4" of weld that had little or no pentration. (Red circle in photo #2)

Not exactly the easiest place to work as I wanted to limit the size of the opening I would have weld up once the repair is finished. Plus it was being complicated by the fact that my sweet Miller hood is at a friend's house and he's out of the area so I'm stuck using my POS harbor fright hood. Grrrrrr!

In order to keep the truck able to pass emissions I needed to make a provision to hook up the EGR line. One thing I discovered during my research on headers is that all the emissions rated headers have the EGT tube plumbed into the #8 tube.

The factory plumbed the EGR tube into the collector where the EGR sees 4 exhaust pluses. Apparently only seeing one exhaust pulse can cause the ECU to throw a code. So I wanted to hook the EGR up more like the factory. I ended up with a compromise where the EGR will see 2 of the 4 pulses. Fingers crossed it will work.

For the tube I got really lucky at the U-pull-it when I saw a perfect EGR tubing that I was sure I would be able to modify to allow me to hook up the LT1 tube. It was on what I believe was a 90's vintage Toyota pickup. (There wasn't much left of the truck besides an engine sitting on a frame when I got it.)

I was able to open up the hole in the cast iron part to match the bolt hole on the LT1 tube. Out of an extreme bit of luck the sealing part of the LT1 tube is an exact match to the existing hole in the Toyota fitting. (I can't win the lottery but got this bit of good fortune. 😄 ) It bolts up nice and secure. (Photos 3,4,5 )

I then cut the Toyota tube in two and welded the end with the 90 degree into the header. (6th photo.) The interweb said I would be able to weld stainless to exhaust tubing with my MIG welder and for once it was right! Whoo Hoo!

I found a brass bushing in my drawer of many spacers, that was a perfect fit to the 1/2" OD tubing. I soldered the bushing to the tube on the header. I bolted the header to the engine and bolted the Toyota tubing to the EGR tube. Then pushed that end into the bushing so I could mark its orientation. Once done I removed the header and soldered the other half of the tube (Yellow arrow in 7th photo.) in place.

[vcho455]

I dove in and made good progress on the exhaust system after the previous detour. I didn't make flat rate but, I got the hardest part done. I'm sure if I did this more than once every 6 or 8 years I might be good at it.

I'm maintaining the two into one system but, upgrading the cross pipe to 3 inches from the previous 2 1/4" non-mandrel bent tubing. (Photos #1 & 2) I had originally planned on reducing the 3" collectors to 2 1/2" tubing then merging into 3" at the wye but, the lack of real-estate on the passenger side really made doing it that way a lot more work. So it's now 3" all the way.

I toyed around with putting an expansion joint in the cross pipe but in the end decided against it. Not only was it likely not needed but it would have dropped the pipe lower than I really wanted to go.

I like to use band clamps for building exhaust systems. Somewhere I saw someone selling band clamps with holes drilled for welding. So how hard could it be to make one? �� For once that was correct! It took longer to drill the hole in the 2 by than it did to drill the band clamp. (Photo #6 & #7)

Picked up a V-band clamp that I will install aft of the wye connection. It will allow me to disconnect the wye pipe and remove it without having to drop the transmission crossmember, as well be able to remove the cat and muffler without removing the crossmember.

This is my first time using a V-band clamp. Having completed the installation of the V-band I found it to be quite fiddly. I believe that for a retrofit or modification of an existing exhaust system the V-band clamps are more of a pain to install. It would probably be easier if one was starting from scratch on a new system.

Also I wished the sleeves came with a deeper cut on the inside to fit the tubing into.

I taped up the sleeves before welding them for protection. Not having welded stainless like this before so I had a bit of a learning curve. Unfortunately I didn't have any scrap pieces to practice on. So I just dove in and in the end I didn't destroy any parts! Woo hoo!

[vcho455]

Before the headers got installed I needed to make some changes to the brake lines. The good news about this little project is I may have actually made flat rate if there was such thing for reworking brake lines.

The lines weren't very pretty to start with but, with the headers installed the brake lines were too close to the headers for my comfort. More clearance was necessary! At this time I installed a line lock into the line going front brakes. Fortunately I was able to shorten and re- bend the existing stainless lines and then add a piece of Nicopp line from the proportioning valve to the line lock.

The first photo is the before picture and the 2nd photo is of the rerouted rear brake line.

The 3rd photo is of the rerouted front brake line with the new line lock installed.

Once the brake lines were done I dove into rerouting the clutch line. Starting at the master cylinder I repositioned the 90 degree fitting to gain some clearance and then routed the braided line down the top of the frame instead of on the inside of the frame as before.

One thing I noticed was that the emergency brake cable were would contact the fitting on the master cylinder when the brake was applied. I pulled the cable up about 1/2" and secured it with loop strap to keep the cable from putting a strain on the fitting.

I installed a new clutch slave cylinder and I installed a Bangshift Billy clutch controller. Last summer's trips to the drag strip revealed my short comings when it came to controlling the clutch during the launch. Which comes from my general lack of practice launching at the track. A friend told me about this clutch controller and decided it would be a good addition and possibly make me more consistent with much less practice at the track. It wasn't cheap but neither is paying to practice launching at the track. 😀

The controller looks to be a quality product but, I wasn't excited about the fact that it hangs off of only one bolt. Which might be fine if it was mounted face up or vertical but I wanted to mount it under the truck's floor pan.

To make me feel confident it would stay put, I made a mount that included a strap and a 2nd bolt to secure it. The mount got screwed to the floor pan and the controller gets screwed to the mount so I will be able to remove the controller if I need to without messing with fasteners under the carpeting. I also put some double sided tape on the backside of the unit. (2nd photo) Sometimes a bit of red tape is a good thing. 😀

My concerns about the single bolt mounting come from my plan to mount it underneath
the floor pan next to the transmission. I decided on that location to minimize the possibility of a trap for air in the system that would make bleeding the system difficult.

That is a real concern as I'm using the factory slave cylinder which does not have a bleeder screw. My plan seemed to have worked as I was able to get the clutch bled without issue and it seems to be operating correctly but, I don't have the engine running yet, which obviously is the real test.

And as the last photo shows I still have some wiring to finish. But the console needs some attention before that gets done.

https://bangshiftbilly.com/collectio...42410512810179

[vcho455]

It was time to replace the upper and lower control arms before I installed the headers. The truck had factory lowers and non-adjustable UMI uppers when I bought it.

That set up had some issues, one was there were no turning stops so the tires rubbed when the wheels were hard over. In addition the sway bar links hit the tie rods when turning with the suspension compressed. Those were small annoyances compared to the non-adjustable upper control arms that didn't allow me to get any more than +1 degrees of Camber. The tech line at UMI assured me I will be able to get -2 degrees of Camber if I wanted to.

For once the the job went as expected with no issues other than the usual discomfort and unease that comes from reinstalling coil springs.

Once I got both sides installed it was time for the turn stops and the sway bar links. Still to go will be adjusting the sway bar links once the wheels are back on and the truck on the ground and an alignment.

To get the new adjustable upper control arms in the ball park of where they needed to be I measured the old uppers with the shims (Photo #4), compared that number to the new arms (Photo #5) and then adjusted the new arms (Yellow arrows photo #6) to put the top of the spindle in about the same orientation without the shim packs. On the driver's side I turned the heim joints out 1/4" and the passenger side out 3/8".

After everything was assembled I noticed the the shocks were catching the suspension when it was in full droop and not the bump stops on the upper control arms. I located some thick washers and installed them under the stops to keep the shocks from having to catch the suspension. (Photo #7)

Now the sway bar has those nice new ends on it those soft old factory bushings in the mounts will need to be replaced. (Photo #8)

[vcho455]

It took me a day and a half to set up and aligned the front end. My first task was to check my concrete slab to be sure it hadn't moved since the last time I did an alignment some years ago. To do that I laid out the wheel plates and set a 10 foot piece of square tubing that I had checked for straightness on the plates and where the rear wheel will sit. Then I set my 6 ft level on the tubing and found the slab hadn't moved. I also checked across the turning plate and that was nice and level too. That's always good news!

My initial set up of the upper control arm lengths in post 116 was off by quite a bit. I ended up having to turn the ends out another 3 1/2 turns to get things where they needed to be. (Photo #4) Getting the end bolts out and turning the heim joints was time consuming. Getting them reassembled was quite difficult as the truck had to be jacked up to exactly the right height to get the end bolts to thread into the cross shaft.

I used the center set of specifications (street performance) provided by UMI shown in the 5th photo.

After putting away the alignment tools I spent the rest afternoon knocking out some unglamorous but, necessary items. I got the brakes bled (Which went well. Thanks to my wonderful wife. Way better better than the last time I did brake some work!) and followed that up with what I thought would be the last test fit of the headers.

Once I had the passenger header side installed I realized that I had no way to tighten the number 6 spark plug. So I took some time to bend up a wrench to allow me to install and remove that plug once the header was installed. (Photo #6)

On the drivers side, I discovered that on the number 7 tube I couldn't get a socket or an end wrench on one of the bolts and the spark plug boot had zero clearance with the tube. (Photos #7 arrows & 8) The cure for both issues was some quality time with my girl Rosebud. 🙂 The last photo shows the new clearance I created.

[vcho455]

I spent too much time messing with the spark plug wire routing trying to maximize clearance to the headers. I ordered some heat shield boots for them. Better safe than sorry. Sorry to say this wasn't really photogenic material.

I also wasn't happy with how the O2 sensor wiring on the passenger side routed. I had installed some extension harnesses since the headers moved the O2 sensor position further down the exhaust. The extensions seem nicely made but, at 12" long the passenger side one is just barely long enough. Not sure if it was GM or the PO who decided where the plug exited the harness. Either way there wasn't enough length to keep the harness well clear of the exhaust tubing.

So I fabricated a small heat shield to protect the harness and to lock the connector in place. The connector has a push tab on it so I drilled a hole in the shield for the push tab. (Photo #2 Green arrow indicates the push tab)

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/w...make/chevrolet

I applied silicone sealant to the header flanges as per the Sanderson header instructions. They claim zero leaks with a bead of sealant and letting it sit overnight before installing. Hopefully this works. I plan on running the unfinished headers for a while to be sure there isn't any other issues to be addressed before sending them out for coating. So if the silicone doesn't work I'll be going back to a conventional gasket sealing.

Then I worked on the wiring until it was too dark to see. About then the wife said to come in and eat dinner or else I could pick it out of the trash. So I quickly picked up my toys and called it a day. 😀

First thing the next day I adjusted the valves. Then I got the headers bolted down and the EGR tube all hooked up. Which I thought was going to be a rear patience tester but, it went fairly smoothly.

Spent quite a bit of time laying out and reconnecting the wiring for the injectors and the rest of the wiring and lines around the intake as well as installing my modified accelerator pedal.

Earlier had stacked two valve cover gaskets and glued them together to make sure I had plenty of clearance above the polylocks. After doing that I used some clay to check the clearance between the covers and the polylocks and as expected I had lots of clearance. As an afterthought I compared the new polylocks to the old ones and found the new ones are about 3/16" shorter. After going through the work to glue the gaskets together I went and installed them that way. If I end up with leaks I know I can single them up without a problem.

To be sure I didn't strip any of the threads out in the head I had picked up some longer valve cover bolts. With the doubled up gaskets I was only getting about 3 turns on the stock bolts. (Photo #6)

I wanted to pick up some new nuts for the lower control arm bolts. The old ones turned too easily. They must have been removed several times over the years. I was planning to get some new Nyloc ones until I saw the price the neighborhood hardware store wanted for metric ones. They wanted $1.66 for the 12mm ones and $1.75 for the 14mm ones, that was each! I opted for 4 regular nuts to use as jam nuts and that was only $2.46. (Photo #7 circled)

I did make one real improvement to the truck. I found and removed a 4" piece of wood (Photo #8) from down in the depths of the core support on the drivers side. I wonder if its been riding along since the truck was in government service. Less weight! Less rattles! Win Win!

[vcho455]

The plug wire insulation boots arrived and I installed some of them on the rear plugs (5,7,6,8).

Then I spent 4 hours reinstalling the alternator. Most of it had to do with installing the mount. No flat rate on that but I also dodged a bullet so I'm calling it a win.

The mount is a flat plate that has three bolts that hold it to the engine. (Photo #4 see arrows) My first problem was the bolt that threads into the head wouldn't thread in. I had cleaned all the threads in the heads before installing and saw there was some damage to the threads in the head. But my thread chaser ran in fine and I forgot about it

When it came time to install the mount the top bolt (The one in the head in photo #5)started to get tight before it was all the way in. I tried to back it out but it started galling. After 10 or so minutes of back ad forth with oil I was able to get the bolt out. Luckily it didn't require a heli-coil, (The previously mentioned bullet I dodged 😀) just some careful use of a pair of taps clean up the threads at the top of the hole. I believe the bolt that I reused was slightly mushroomed and along with the damaged threads it started to galling as I tightened it up. After I cleaned the bolt's threads with a die nut and with some anti-seize everything played nice and it worked good throughout the whole shimming of alternator rodeo. 😀

The mount is a hokey aftermarket piece and it took a bunch of fussing around getting it shimmed up so the alternator was correctly aligned with the crank pulley. The flat plate of aluminum has no rigidity and the mounting bolts cause it to flex when they are tightened unless they are perfectly shimmed to keep the plate flat. (Photo #5 arrows indicate the shims) When the plate flexes it causes the alternator pulley to come out of alignment with the crank pulley. Plus I had to add a washer between the plate and the alternator to compensate for the belt pulling the alternator slightly out of alignment. I think I need to find a better set up for an alternator mount.

I had picked up new bands for the collectors along with the correct belt for the alternator. I installed the bands with silicone and finished the installation of the cross pipe to the rest of the exhaust.

[vcho455]

Previously I mentioned the console needing work. The problem is that it hits the rear seat when lay it down for more storage in the back. With my previous Blazer I rarely folded the rear seat back up for use. I had a rubber pad covering the whole rear storage area that needed to be removed when I needed a back seat. When the M6 got installed in this Blazer the console was shifted to the rear about 2 inches so the shifter could pass through the front of the console (Photo #1).

When the rear seat back is folded down the seat bottom moves forward and shoves against the console. (Photo #2) The PO never secured the console to the floor and so when the seat pushes against the console it slides forward and the shifter won't engage the gears in the bottom of the "H" (ie 2,4,6). Which is a bit frustrating.

I thought I had found a simple fix. I could use an earlier 1982 to 88 console which is 2 inches shorter. Unfortunately after getting one from the wrecking yard and modifying it I found that the front part wasn't big enough to allow the shifter it's full range of movement. So I was back to plan A, shortening the existing console.

After a bunch of tape measure action I decided to cut two pieces out of each side of the console then reuse the pieces by gluing them inside the console with ABS pipe cement.

That turned out to be fairly solid and it should work over the long run. I made a metal plate to mount some switches on. (Got to have some place for the line lock control. ) The console looks pretty rough in the photos due to it had been covered with 1/8" foam rubber. The console must have gotten wet at some point and was stained so I did a quick removal. Once I'm sure everything thing is going to work and fit as planned I will get more excited about cleaning it up.

The lid and the hinge and latch pieces are going to be more difficult as some of them are made of Polypropylene which isn't as easy to work with as ABS. Oh boy

On to the step of shortening the lid and the hinge pieces, which is more of a challenge due to the number of pieces and their complex shapes. I am going to try and use the early style lid (Tan lid) on the later style console. (Lower lid in #6) That's due the later style lid (The black one) that I have has been previously repaired with an aluminum plate, pop rivets, and has been epoxied together. If I can't make the early lid work I will have to find another later lid to shorten up instead of having to deal with the previous repairs. Nothing wrong with those repairs in fact I may be able to sell the repaired one.

The biggest difference in the two lid styles is how they latch. I'm not going to include a latch which I may find out later to be a mistake. I'm hoping the spring on the lid will be enough to keep the lid from rattling.

After removing the vinyl cover and foam from the lid I had to glue the cracked and broken plastic with some ABS pipe cement. I cut 1 5/8" out of the center to start with. Followed by sanding the cut edges with a belt sander. Slowly I sanded the two halves down to get a good fit on the shortened console base. The easy part is now done, on to the hard to fit and hard to glue parts.