Sara’s chase truck. A linked, boatsided, custom frame K5 4800 class build

[Coolmeadowsmotorsports]

Hi all,
Jumping back into the forum game with a new upcoming build. Goals here are building a K5 blazer primarily for my girlfriend that will allow me to hone my fab skills before diving into a 4400/4800 race rig build. Truck will serve as a learning experience for her in both fabrication and wheeling experience. Finally when the time comes it will take on chase/support vehicle duties at races.
build list:
87 k5 with full vert conversion.
5.3ls with 4l60e(possible 4l80e upgrade) with rad designs shift control.
dana60
14 bolt
Np241
Scratch built square tube frame
Boatsides
Possible minor dove nose.
full cage.
3 link front suspension with 14 inch coilovers
4 link rear with 14 inch coil overs.

this is being done on somewhat of a “budget” as. Most of the parts are being obtained from my older s10 wheeling rig. Good truck but it’s time for something fresh. Helpful critique is welcome! Love to learn with this and become a better builder.

so to start it off I separated what was left of the blazer frame from the tube.

going into this weekend I’ll be taking measurements for the new frame.
this is the donor vehicle

looking forward to see how this turns out.

 

[SLOWPOKE693]

Sounds like it's going to be a cool build. I love me a nice K5 Blazer.

Subscribed

 

[jhama78]

Following

 

[CDA 455 II]

Subscribed

 

[stan1688]

Sub'd! I love a good built square body.

Looks like the K5 frame has a good crossmember and motor mounts. Worth reselling if you're not going to use them.

 

[Coolmeadowsmotorsports]

Sub'd! I love a good built square body.

Looks like the K5 frame has a good crossmember and motor mounts. Worth reselling if you're not going to use them.

Good eye. Yeah it has a TNA crossmember with mounts and a psc box with ORD frame reinforcement. The plan is to try and make use of both in the new build as of now minus the frame reinforcement. We shall see.

updates coming this weekend.

 

[Grendel]

In for the ride.

 

[Coolmeadowsmotorsports]

So i was able to make some progress with the GF this Saturday. Leveled the blazer tub on the jack stands and mounted the front fenders for measurement reference.

took as many measurements as i could so i could begin building a frame on bendtech. One of the big changes that was decided was that we are going to be building the frame out of DOM rather than box tube to save weight and i feel it will be more doable with my resources and lack of frame table.
My “notes” on the frame measurements.

Final thing i wanted to have involved for reference was the engine and trans in position. Quickly welded some casters on a table and than Sara and i worked on chopping out the firewall to set the engine and trans back into the chassis.

Sara getting dirty with the eastwood versa cut 40 plasma.

Finished cut

Engine and trans sitting in place

Engine is now sitting back 13 inches from stock location. i have an idea in my head of where about the front axle will end up which with this configuration should give me plenty of up travel room in front of the crank pulley.

thats as far as we got Saturday. I had some free time today to start plugging some numbers into bendtech. This is what I have of the frame rails so far

Thinking i may have overdone it on the verticals at every 5 inches. Probably going to space them to 8 Inches On the flat frame sections. I’m not going to be designing the whole tube assembly in one shot but rather something like the frame first, than boat sides, than cage.
That’s where I’m at so far.

 

[Clemson13]

This looks like an awesome build, I can't wait to see it happen. How you're day to satisfy my impatience : flipoff2:

 

[CMMS-Sara]

Sam Coolmeadowsmotorsports clued me in that he was doing a build thread so I figured I would get in on the action! While I have decent automotive knowledge through working on my own vehicles, I'm very excited to jump out of my element and practically build something from scratch. While Sam will be doing the technical design and major fab, I'll be doing the mechanical side: building axles, mounting coilovers, motor work, welding, and minor fab work. Also looking forward to hopefully help share some good build tech with everyone on here!

 

[Projectjunkie]

Welcome!

I couldn't help but notice no ear protection with the plasma cutter I watched a co worker puke with vertigo for 3 days after getting torch slag in his ears, that and the deafness.....



Any concerns about rear drive shaft length if you go 4l80e with the engine pushed back?



Bitchin build, keep it coming

 

[M92PV4U]

I couldn't help but notice no ear protection with the plasma cutter I watched a co worker puke with vertigo for 3 days after getting torch slag in his ears, that and the deafness.....

Well shit, ya learn something new everyday on this forum...

 

[Coolmeadowsmotorsports]

Welcome!

I couldn't help but notice no ear protection with the plasma cutter I watched a co worker puke with vertigo for 3 days after getting torch slag in his ears, that and the deafness.....



Any concerns about rear drive shaft length if you go 4l80e with the engine pushed back?



Bitchin build, keep it coming

Ouch, yeah I’ve had a close call or two with slag from a mig getting close to my ear. never thought about it with the plasma honestly. Thanks for pointing that out

To answer your question about the 4l80e it shouldn’t be too big of a change over And it will actually end up needing a longer driveshaft when the final combo is achieved. the 4l60e i have mocked up measures at 27” to the end of the extension housing and the 4l80e i have sitting in the corner measures at 28.5 to the end of the extension housing.

In terms of the driveshaft itself I’m looking at around a 30” estimated driveshaft length. thats leaning to the short side. Should be slightly longer. this is with a rear stretch.


I’m sticking with the 4l60e for now as the 4l80e i have has no reverse and in need of rebuild. the down the road plan is to swap the 4l80e in to the truck at the same time as installing a 2 speed atlas. For now though we are working with what i have in hand.

4l60e and np241c w/ SYE measures at 43.25” bell housing to driveshaft flange.
4l80e and atlas 2 speed would measure 40.75 bell housing to driveshaft flange.
So in the long run ill actually end up with a longer rear shaft As the 4l80e and atlas combo is 2 inches shorter than the 4l60-241 combo. (This is all measurements with 1300 series flanges)

A Stock k5 wheelbase is 107” I’m shooting to have a 112-114 WB on 40’s. We wheel a lot of hill climbs and steep downhills which makes me gravitate towards a slightly longer wheel base. My s10 was at 111” and i was very happy with that. I figure with the boat sides and a nice flat belly it will be able to drag itself over anything it may not clear on a break over type obstacle. So the rear will be stretched about 3 inches back from stock location and the front also about 3inches forward from stock location.

Looking to be a busy weekend so probably wont be getting any work done on the truck but the plan is to probably start bending frame tubing next week.

 

[redneckK20s]

Subscribed. I dreamed of doing something similar to my '84 3/4 ton until the reality of my budget and skills set in.

 

[72blazer]

Looks like a decent mall crawler build. I’ll come back for updates

 

[Coolmeadowsmotorsports]

Looks like a decent mall crawler build. I’ll come back for updates

I have the perfect curb line to hard park on at the local jcpenny. If there still open when this rig is done that is.
thanks for following!

 

[Coolmeadowsmotorsports]

Subscribed. I dreamed of doing something similar to my '84 3/4 ton until the reality of my budget and skills set in.

Definitely stepping a bit out of my comfort zone with this but knew if I didn’t go all in with this one id regret it. The original plan was just a stock frame with front 3 link and rear 64inch leafs. The ideas started rolling and things escalated quickly. Can’t skimp out on the girlfriends rig

 

[Thornbird1]

Nice rig bra

 

[chaplinfj60]

it is easy to snow ball for sure, and if i had to do it again i would do exactly what you doing with a fresh frame of 2x3 or 2x4 or something of the sort, its painfull trying to make old work with new especially if your adding new 4 links and 3 links. cool cool cool

 

[McBastard79]

Badass!

 

[KrustyTJ]

Looking like a nice build pretty cool your old lady is into throwing down in the garage with you

 

[tazcj7]

Definitely going to be following this.

 

[azdirt3.0]

This will be an awesome build

 

[Coolmeadowsmotorsports]

happy Monday all,
I did find some time to finalize our frame setup on bendtech. After floating around on forums and google pics of crawlers on line I was able to space the vertical tubes a bit more and use some 45* diagonal tubes which I would say should make the frame pretty structurally sound.

I left some open space up front with the vertical tubes for now and will add some in when I figure out final engine placement and suspension tie in. I don’t like going to far on the computer without seeing it in person.
some 2d frame shots

Each main frame tube will be one piece. Pass upper, pass lower, driver upper, driver lower. Than driver and passenger side tubes will be slugged together at the front and rear, followed by some supporting tubes at the tie in.
so far we are looking at a total frame weight of 226 pounds and using a total of 109 ft of tubing(assuming I don’t screw a bend up once or twice which is likely) .
I estimated about 40ft required of the 2x4 steel square tube to build something similar which would have weighed in at about 300lbs, so I’m saving around 75 pounds of weight and in my opinion the round tube will be a lot more structurally sound.

if all goes to plan Sara and I should be bending some tube Wednesday night.
please shout out if you see me making a bonehead mistake.

 

[Dan]

That center X is a nice touch.

 

[Coolmeadowsmotorsports]

Wassup folks, sorry for lack of updates. I work at an underground electric utility here in Jersey and with the recent heat I’ve been jammed at work almost daily at this point. Really hoping to be bending some tubing in the coming week or so but we will see. Bright side is overtime money equals truck parts

 

[Clemson13]

Bump

 

[redneckK20s]

Any plan for the boatside? Watched a video of a squarebody crew without a bed wheeling, noticed the bottom of the cab in the center is about 6-8 inches higher than the bottom of the rocker, seems like a good place to start.

 

[Coolmeadowsmotorsports]

update, first off hope everyone had a good fourth. i apologize for starting this thread and than kinda disappearing, work unfortunately has complete control of my life right now. That being said sara and i did finally get some time to bend some tube and figure out that i already fudged my design a bit so some changes where made.

We started by bending the top two frame tubes and tying them together.

I’m having to do these steps outside as i just don’t have the room to do pieces this big in the shop.

Of course the first tube i bent i over rotated in between the fourth and fifth bends, so that was thrown to the side and the second and third tubes are what are pictured above. everything bent well to the point that the ends where only an 1/4 of an inch off from each other. after all those bends and rotations with the equipment i have sara and i where pretty happy with this. The ends will be slugged with 1.5” .25 wall Dom. we than used the scrap first frame tube to just get an idea as to how the top and bottom halves would fit together and discovered our second problem that I didn’t see in bend tech. when i designed the top and bottom halves in bend tech i basically copied the bottom two frame tubes and stacked them above each other. The rise in the frame where the tubes come up under the bed floor of the blazer is where my issue arose as you can see the tubes will be way to close to the point of pretty much contacting each other.

The front rise in the frame would have worked but the frame rail spacing would not have been consistent.

So a redesign on bend tech was in order. i made the two tubes i had already bent the now upper frame tubes that would hug the blazer tub, and than redid the lower frame tubes with proper spaceing between tubes the whole length of the frame.

There will now be a consistent 7 inches between upper and lower frame tubes. i than went ahead and threw in a mounting plate at about where the steering box will be. (Just helping better picture the finished product in my head.)

Next up will be to bend the new lower frame tubes and notch a few pieces to be able to mock everything up. Now i know some of you are thinking there’s no way this is gonna be anywhere near straight. My idea is that I’m going to make some scrap “cross braces” that will get cut out later after welding. The idea being that these braces will be cut to precise measurements to basically hold everything straight. While still not the perfect method its about the best im gonna be able to get with this. These will run both vertically and horizontal across the frame to theoretically hold it square. Than once the frame is tied to the Body, boat sides, suspension sub frame, and cage. They could be cut out.

Sara and i wont be able to get out and continue this till late July early august at this point as I’m in process of helping sell Sara’s house On top of being forced for 16 hour shifts at work these past three weeks. i will have a couple of wheeling pics of “the plums” (what we like to call the S-10) last trip out this coming weekend to ”the cove” before it gets torn down for parts. Stay tuned.

 

[Coolmeadowsmotorsports]

Any plan for the boatside? Watched a video of a squarebody crew without a bed wheeling, noticed the bottom of the cab in the center is about 6-8 inches higher than the bottom of the rocker, seems like a good place to start.

I think the truck cabs have a bit more to gain from a true boatside than the blazers especially towards the back at the seat hump. The blazer rockers hang about 4-5 inches below the floor pan. I’m gonna go further than that and bring the boatside all the way up to just under the bottom door hinge. It will be 2x4 tube directly under the door hinge with Dom tubing connecting the box tube to the frame. So the cut will be about ten inches up from the original bottom of the rocker, plus the square tube I’ll gain about 8 inches of clearance at the outside of the truck.

a crude drawing of basically what I’m talking about. The connecting tubes also will be tying into the backside of the box tube rather than the bottom.

i guess this could be considered more of a flat bottom boat than a true boatside. also thinking about a possible “rub rail” on the outside of the box tube. This will also be a major part of structure in my cage design ideas on this part of the build are definitely still churning.