This page is still under construction so please bare with us.
My Blazer
Finally the story begins.........
I saw the Blazer on the well known Ebay back in August 1996. The advert stated that she had 10 months MOT and no Tax and she was a good runner. The auction ended with me as the winning bidder and I set about trying to find a trailer to go and get her. I came across someone who was a friend of a friend and they had said we could borrow their trailer. The owner of the Blazer had mentioned that she was roughly the same size wheel track as a Range Rover.
Two days later we were on our way down to Brandon, Suffolk. When we got there she was fired up and sounded fine for a 6.2 V8 diesel. The fun then began, she wouldn't fit on the trailer so we left empty handed. A day later we were back down there, this time with a much larger trailer. We got her home and the next day she was insured and taxed and ready for fun on the Liverpool roads. She was given a good service and then started her daily use by me and Denise (that's when I would let her).
Here is a picture to the left, of her in her original state. (Please click to enlarge).
As you can see she is original colours (black/white) with standard wheels and
suspension etc. For the next 10 months she was used as an every day vehicle going
to and from work, shopping and weekends away. At the time we were members of a
Land Rover ONLY club and as you can imagine the members started moaning that
she was not a Land Rover and started getting nasty with comments over her. (This is why we want our club to be as friendly and family orientated as possible.) The final straw with us belonging to the Land Rover Club was when we went on a weekend away with them. They decided that we were all going to go Green Laneing which we agreed to participate in, it would be good for us to see what the Blazer could do but what we didn't know was that we where purposely put at the back of the convoy as they where planning on letting us get stuck and leaving us there and coming back for us at the end of their day. Some green laneing....it was more extreme off roading! They had us going up rock faces which they were all going in between but as the blazer was so wide we where going over them and in some places we where on two wheels balancing. The absolute finish of us being in the club was when they where all struggling to get up a rocky path and I shouted to them to get out of the way and let the yanks up as they won the war for us, as you can imagine this did not go down well at all! We then left the club and decided to start the M.A.E.C. and where determined to make it a totally different kind of club.
The Blazer was a great vehicle, she did everything we asked of her from extreme off
roading to family days out in the park as you can see in the pic on the left. We took
her out on a summers day with her back canopy off (by god are these heavy to lift off).
Even in the aged and poor state she was in she still managed to get the crowds
to her, from the kids to the pensioners.
One day in October I was sat in the house bored and decided to go out and do some of the rust bubbles on the sills which I thought I would do out in the street. As I chipped away at her sill the whole lot decided to come away in one piece (from pillar to pillar) along with some of the floor and land on
the road. Upon closer examination she needed:- new windscreen pillars, floors both
sides,sills both sides, 4 new full wheel arches, a new bulk head, doors repairing,
rear wings repairing, rear floor repairing etc etc etc, the list goes on and on and on.
Only for the fact that had just spent £2000 on a Sky-jacker full lift kit consisting of:-
4 leaf springs, 4 shocks, uprated bushes all round, corrective steering arms and U.V.
joints etc. Oh and I forgot to mention a new set of large tyres. I was not a happy chappy otherwise I would have cut her up for spares. This was where I came to the point and decided to take her off the road and do a full restoration.
I thought to myself....right, I want no rust at all on this bloody car so out came the grinder and a large packet of cutting discs and I set to work on ridding her of all rust and rot. If only a wise guru had come along and for warned me of what I was getting myself into. While I was waiting for new inner and outer sills for both sides including new out riggers I got carried away with the cutter. When the sills finally arrived she looked like something out of a war zone or as if she had been used for target practice by tanks. The new sills and out riggers arrived and I set about fitting them along with fabricating new
floors, as I am doing this I am thinking that I need new
windscreen pillars, wheel arches and bulk head and where the
hell am I going to get them. Again the search started. After
a lot of endless searching I ended up buying another blazer
to use as a donor vehicle, sacrilage I know to cut up another
K5 especially when the donor vehicle was in better nick that mine but I wanted and was determined to see my K5 on the road looking the dogs bo***cks.
Here is the donor vehicle two weeks after me getting my hands on her and after
cutting her pillars out she was still in better nick than mine...lol
I had to start getting my finger out to get what I needed off the donor vehicle and get shut of what was left of her as the weather was changing and winter was here. As usual it was raining most days and my K5 was sheeted up in her winter woolies to protect her. She stayed warm and dry for the next couple of months thanks to the rain and work commitments. In the meantime I went on a bit of a spending spree collecting bits that I needed for her and stuff I wanted to do to her. I bought her a 6.6 (400 ci) engine off a very good friend up in Newcastle-upon-tyne (Hi Dave, yes its you I am talking about), also got some new black leather interior for her, loads of large sheets of alluminium chequer plating, ended up buying some larger tyres that I couldn't resist and had to have, all the goodies for the engine for the rebuild and the extras for when its in.
Finally around April the weather started to brighten up and work commenced again and this time I had a helping hand from another good friend Tex (the cowboy). Now that the good weather was here I set about welding up all the body work, floors, sills, pillars and arches etc.
I would start the welding and as I had finished that Tex would be following me round
doing the filling, sanding and prepping. This went on all through April. Any spare time
we had was spent with Tex chasing me around my blazer...lol.
Here are some pics of work that have been taken along the way.
This is just some of the rot to the
drivers side cab area and the
passenger side was the same.
Well the months passed but she slowly progressed, one side is now completely done and ready for its final sand down for spraying, but 1st i would have to finish the rest. which is getting very close.
Well us men being big boys the big 400ci SB engine and my big BF mud tyres were sold to make way for my new 37" muds and my chevy 454ci BIG BLOCK and i got my self a pro comp dizzy, a set of brand new race headers and a nice big seconderies performance carb to compliment the engine oh not forgeting my new jackson timing cog set (he he no chain) and a full chrome dress up kit. so when painted up and fitted shoud look the dogs knackers sitting in my nicely painted engine bay.
On with the story.... well so far its got new floors, inner and outer sills both sides, new outriggers all round, new windscreen posts and any rust on the back wing or doors have been completely cut out and treated and new thick metal cut and shaped then seam welded back in.
but now its getting winter again so in the next couple of weeks am hoping to get the engine bay ground, treated and sprayed then my engine with all its goodies and new clutch, flywheel etc can be fitted,
Well heres a sort of list of what i have to do before its trip to the mot station..
1.. ground, treat and spray engine bay.
2.. paint and fit timing gears to engine.
3.. fit engine, drain tank and lines of diesel and wash and refill with petrol, then get running.
4.. spray interior with a sealer then paint.
5.. fit new carpets to front of interior and make new brackets etc and fit new leather interior (matching front and back).
6.. chequer plate inside of the rear.
7.. remove eveything again.
8.. trailer it to tex's to be oven sprayed.
9.. when i get it back fit everything again i.e.. interior, bumpers, lights, nudge bar and winch etc etc and dress the engine.
10.. fit the new pro comp fuel pump reg and presurre clock.
11.. fit new headers and make and fit a complete exhaust.
12.. tune engine to new exhaust, headers etc.
13.. take for mot and tax.
14.. get complaints from the nighbours for the noise.
