Thanks!! Not sure how much blazer will actually be left when we are done though haha
As long as it still sort of looks like a blazer it's still a blazer, right? Bonus cool factor points if the factory hard top still fits when the build is done.
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Sara’s chase truck. A linked, boatsided, custom frame K5 4800 class build
- Thread starter Coolmeadowsmotorsports
- Start date
As long as it still sort of looks like a blazer it's still a blazer, right? Bonus cool factor points if the factory hard top still fits when the build is done.
Coolmeadowsmotorsports
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Got out in the shop yesterday. Got some better pics of our frame jig setup for everyone. Decided to go with a chain and binder setup for securing the frame to the jig. Some cheap small binders from Amazon worked surprisingly well
It’s not moving separate from the table that’s for sure.
Finally after hours of measuring and finding out that half of harbor freight levels aren't actually level, we got the frame centered and aligned with the body in its final location.
Motivation came back because we finally got to start brainstorming and designing the next step of the project. So we measured out for boat sides.
I had a base idea that I wanted the main boatside tube at the same height and “plane” as the upper rear frame tubes because where they would make initial contact with the blazer tub at this location would allow for more weld points between chassis and tub if that makes sense. Kinda shown in this next pic
Now to transfer that height measurement to the side of the tub
It’s not moving separate from the table that’s for sure.
Finally after hours of measuring and finding out that half of harbor freight levels aren't actually level, we got the frame centered and aligned with the body in its final location.
Motivation came back because we finally got to start brainstorming and designing the next step of the project. So we measured out for boat sides.
I had a base idea that I wanted the main boatside tube at the same height and “plane” as the upper rear frame tubes because where they would make initial contact with the blazer tub at this location would allow for more weld points between chassis and tub if that makes sense. Kinda shown in this next pic
Now to transfer that height measurement to the side of the tub
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Coolmeadowsmotorsports
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Here’s our mark, something to start with. But that’s a hell of a lot chopped out of the bottom and we will probably lose window function going this high unfortunately
I’m going to disassemble a door and Find exactly where the base of the window stops when rolled down. More so for winter wheeling only, this truck is going to get either door skins or tube doors for the warmer months and possible races to also help shed a couple pounds.
So today I hopped on bendtech during lunch break and knocked out some initial tubing dimensions for the boatsides. Will end up looking something like this.
The orange colored tube will be 2” .188 wall for strength and the neon green supports will be 2” .120 wall as there will be more added and it will also be skinned over them.
Gonna play with some more measurement ideas throughout the week and figure out the window situation.
We will definitely be either removing or relocating upwards the lower door hinge on each side.
Hit us with some tips, tricks, and suggestions!
I’m going to disassemble a door and Find exactly where the base of the window stops when rolled down. More so for winter wheeling only, this truck is going to get either door skins or tube doors for the warmer months and possible races to also help shed a couple pounds.
So today I hopped on bendtech during lunch break and knocked out some initial tubing dimensions for the boatsides. Will end up looking something like this.
The orange colored tube will be 2” .188 wall for strength and the neon green supports will be 2” .120 wall as there will be more added and it will also be skinned over them.
Gonna play with some more measurement ideas throughout the week and figure out the window situation.
We will definitely be either removing or relocating upwards the lower door hinge on each side.
Hit us with some tips, tricks, and suggestions!
How hell bent are you on having the windows functioning? My suggestion would be to make removable lexan windows like drag cars have.
Coolmeadowsmotorsports
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O yeah. May not be the hardtop (the one on it now has a lot of cracked fiberglass and pretty banged up) but One of Sara’s wishes was that we need to still be able to put a soft topper soft top on it. So the mating portions of the tub to the top will have to remain along with designing a cage accordingly. My ideal goal is when you see it on the trail you’ll still know right away that it’s a 70’s sqaure body k5. In the words of Ian Johnson. “No questions asked”As long as it still sort of looks like a blazer it's still a blazer, right? Bonus cool factor points if the factory hard top still fits when the build is done.
We really aren't. If we only have to possibly lower the main boatside tube an inch or two to gain window function than it’s feasible and worth it. But if it’s more of a hassle than that we are just gonna ditch the windows and roll without them. Find out for sure when I pull the door panels and take some measurements. I do like the lexan idea. Would be nice to hold in the heat during the winter.
Sara brought up the idea of just running welded doors but we both think a somewhat functioning door would be the goal being that it’s a multipurpose rig. I need to look further at the 4800 ultra 4 rule book and see if it’s legal to have a bolt in or tube clamp style upper door bar as well because that too will help decide.
ParadisePWoffrd
Recovering Project Junkie
If the door opens, and the window will roll down ~75% or so, I think that would be enough for winter use. If the doors were staying on all the time, I would want them to roll down all the way.
Are the new front floors going to be the same height as the factory rear floor, and boatside? Or will the boatside tube be more like a hip bar?
I have been thinking of something like this for a while, as the squarebody stuff seems to have a ton of waste height in the body/frame area.
Are the new front floors going to be the same height as the factory rear floor, and boatside? Or will the boatside tube be more like a hip bar?
I have been thinking of something like this for a while, as the squarebody stuff seems to have a ton of waste height in the body/frame area.
ParadisePWoffrd
Recovering Project Junkie
A local guy did this with his k10 a number of years ago:
well i guess its time to update the thread as i have made progress/destruction
i cut 12 inches down from the sharp body line, i wanted to keep my doors and have functional windows. so 12 inches was all i could really get away with. i moved my bottom hinge up to where my top bolt hole is now the bottom hole. and welded it to the cab and door. i ground my hinge pin so i can still remove the doors. i uses 2x8 rectangle tube with 3/16 wall, 5 feet long.
nc4x4.com
well i guess its time to update the thread as i have made progress/destruction
i cut 12 inches down from the sharp body line, i wanted to keep my doors and have functional windows. so 12 inches was all i could really get away with. i moved my bottom hinge up to where my top bolt hole is now the bottom hole. and welded it to the cab and door. i ground my hinge pin so i can still remove the doors. i uses 2x8 rectangle tube with 3/16 wall, 5 feet long.
MY TURD ON TONS
Betcha I know where you got that steel from.:flipoff2: I've got about 7ft left lying in my shop for mini-boatsides on the passenger side of my zj.
nc4x4.com
pennsylvaniaboy
make fullsizes great again
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pennsylvaniaboy
make fullsizes great again
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Clearly I was a fan of boatsided Fullsizes
Coolmeadowsmotorsports
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This is why i love input, didn’t even think of it that way but very true. There really is no need for full window travel in the winter.
Our plan is to keep the floor lower than the boat side main tube. It will taper up into the boatsides. Ill have a Better idea how that will turn out when we determine seat height. Which brings up that we will need at minimum an adjustable driver seat mount as Sara is 9 inches shorter than myself and we both will be driving it.
This is good to know. Just ran out and measured real quick and I’m coming in at about 10.75 inches from that same body line he used. I could definitely afford to lower the main tube an inch or so. We where planning on doing something similar with the door hinge as well.A local guy did this with his k10 a number of years ago:
well i guess its time to update the thread as i have made progress/destruction
i cut 12 inches down from the sharp body line, i wanted to keep my doors and have functional windows. so 12 inches was all i could really get away with. i moved my bottom hinge up to where my top bolt hole is now the bottom hole. and welded it to the cab and door. i ground my hinge pin so i can still remove the doors. i uses 2x8 rectangle tube with 3/16 wall, 5 feet long.
MY TURD ON TONS
Betcha I know where you got that steel from.:flipoff2: I've got about 7ft left lying in my shop for mini-boatsides on the passenger side of my zj.
Thank you for sharing that post!
Coolmeadowsmotorsports
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Good inspiration thanks for sharing!
Coolmeadowsmotorsports
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Got back out in the shop yesterday. Spent some time verifying what height we would set the boatside main tube at. Pulled the panel off one of the doors and measured how deep in the door the window is all the way down.
Ended up being 22 inches from the top of the door edge to the base of the window.
Our initial boatside height put us at 20 inches up to the top of the door sill which made it 2 inches shy of a fully retracted window. Initially I was gonna let it ride with that but after looking at the door hinge setup I decided to drop the main bar 2 inches to retain one of the door hinge bolt holes for alignment.
So I got more in-depth with bendtech for our boatside design.
As you can tell the rear tubes from the front view are now slanted downward a bit and the front are almost level/ parallel. Trying to figure out how much reinforcement we should have within the boatsides.
But after taking some more measurements to confirm fitment, Sara and I went ahead and started cutting the body.
Ended up being 22 inches from the top of the door edge to the base of the window.
Our initial boatside height put us at 20 inches up to the top of the door sill which made it 2 inches shy of a fully retracted window. Initially I was gonna let it ride with that but after looking at the door hinge setup I decided to drop the main bar 2 inches to retain one of the door hinge bolt holes for alignment.
So I got more in-depth with bendtech for our boatside design.
As you can tell the rear tubes from the front view are now slanted downward a bit and the front are almost level/ parallel. Trying to figure out how much reinforcement we should have within the boatsides.
But after taking some more measurements to confirm fitment, Sara and I went ahead and started cutting the body.
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Coolmeadowsmotorsports
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My train of thought is to trim away only what is needed to get the main tube in for now and than use that to support the majority of the blazer tub.
I temporarily setup some ratchet straps to the roof to help support the body while we cut,
Next up will be to bend the two main tubes and start fitting them in.
ParadisePWoffrd
Recovering Project Junkie
Looking at the Bendtech, could you bring that rear tube into the vertical support under the tube its landing on currently, to avoid that more complicated bend? Not sure how that ties in with the rear of the chassis plans, or changes the strength of the structure. If you are planning to bend that tube in multiple pieces, to be able to slug it, then it becomes much simpler.
Coolmeadowsmotorsports
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bendtech makes multi plain bends like that pretty simple. for example that main tube, there is only a 5 degree rotation between the two bends. i just use a swag degree clamp on the end of the tube, zero it, and than rotate accordingly between the bends. sara and i have gotten pretty good with it.
btw excuse my disaster of a shop, 10 pounds of crap in a 5 pound bag
Coolmeadowsmotorsports
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updates!!
We have been working hard the past few weeks and owe an update to the thread. so lets jump back into it. as you can see above sara and i proceeded to bend one of the main boatside tubes out of 2" .188 dom. we than mocked it to the side of the truck and determined what part of the center section of the floor we would cut out for the center support bars.
we started strictly with the passenger side and continued with the trend of only cutting the body as necessary. the chain and binder where to just hold it in place. we proceeded to notch and cut the tubes accordingly for the center.
this is the final boatside tube design we decided on. got rid of some excess tube to try and save a bit of weight. i may throw in some small diameter cross tubes later for support when we go to skin the boatsides, but this will do for the main structure.
this is with all the center tubes mocked up.
should provide a bit more clearance than stock id say.
as far as the doors are concerned we are going to relocate the hinge bolt plate up and reweld it to the tub so that we should have full door adjustment for alignment purposes.
next was time to move on to the driver side. i wanted to mock up both sides, make sure everything measured out evenly and square (atleast close) and then we would weld everything in place.
We have been working hard the past few weeks and owe an update to the thread. so lets jump back into it. as you can see above sara and i proceeded to bend one of the main boatside tubes out of 2" .188 dom. we than mocked it to the side of the truck and determined what part of the center section of the floor we would cut out for the center support bars.
we started strictly with the passenger side and continued with the trend of only cutting the body as necessary. the chain and binder where to just hold it in place. we proceeded to notch and cut the tubes accordingly for the center.
this is the final boatside tube design we decided on. got rid of some excess tube to try and save a bit of weight. i may throw in some small diameter cross tubes later for support when we go to skin the boatsides, but this will do for the main structure.
this is with all the center tubes mocked up.
should provide a bit more clearance than stock id say.
as far as the doors are concerned we are going to relocate the hinge bolt plate up and reweld it to the tub so that we should have full door adjustment for alignment purposes.
next was time to move on to the driver side. i wanted to mock up both sides, make sure everything measured out evenly and square (atleast close) and then we would weld everything in place.
Coolmeadowsmotorsports
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on to the driver side we went, ofcourse this is when sara saw the body shift as we where cutting, so we had to go grab some factory measurments from my dads k5 and weld in some door supports so the firewall and windshield didnt collapse towards the rear of the tub.
some simple angle iron did the trick. it was also right about now we realized that our scratch built frame wasnt as straight as we initially thought. luckily it was just a slight tilt to the driver side, (cant really think of a way to explain it) but it caused improper gaps for the boatsides inner tubes on both the driver and passenger side. after redesigning how the frame anchored to the table, we used a porta power and chain binders to crank the frame into place. all of this can be seen in the pic above. i slacked a bit in the pictures of this stage of the build and i apologize
now that everything was fitting almost perfect it was time to weld.
as you can see theres no original floor left to the truck. we are going to the spring Carlisle swap meet next month and im hoping to get a good deal on an eastwood bead roller to help with building some custom floor panels.
than we recentered the blazer tub and tacked it to the boatsides finally mating the tub to the chassis although this is just to keep it from moving for now.
some simple angle iron did the trick. it was also right about now we realized that our scratch built frame wasnt as straight as we initially thought. luckily it was just a slight tilt to the driver side, (cant really think of a way to explain it) but it caused improper gaps for the boatsides inner tubes on both the driver and passenger side. after redesigning how the frame anchored to the table, we used a porta power and chain binders to crank the frame into place. all of this can be seen in the pic above. i slacked a bit in the pictures of this stage of the build and i apologize
now that everything was fitting almost perfect it was time to weld.
as you can see theres no original floor left to the truck. we are going to the spring Carlisle swap meet next month and im hoping to get a good deal on an eastwood bead roller to help with building some custom floor panels.
than we recentered the blazer tub and tacked it to the boatsides finally mating the tub to the chassis although this is just to keep it from moving for now.
Coolmeadowsmotorsports
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Sara and i are pretty happy how this came out.
we used some scraps to weld up for supports for the rear of the tub. the body will be attached mostly to the roll cage when its completed consisting of dimple died plates and stake plates but needed something to support for now so we could begin measuring cage dimensions.
finally it is time to get some hard parts into play. sara was tasked with seperating the 4l60e from our mockup motor and installing an aluminum Midplate. we need to be able to mockup the engine and trans before designing the cage.
midplate installed on the mockup 5.3. waiting for a 4l80e to be bolted up. this is strictly for mockup as we will be building a lq4 for this truck.
and we are caught up for now. i did begin measuring for the main cage structure over the driver and passenger. going to plug some numbers on bend tech and see how it starts to look. going to be a week or two before we can wrench on the truck again as we have alot going on but im hoping that we will make some serious progress this april.
we used some scraps to weld up for supports for the rear of the tub. the body will be attached mostly to the roll cage when its completed consisting of dimple died plates and stake plates but needed something to support for now so we could begin measuring cage dimensions.
finally it is time to get some hard parts into play. sara was tasked with seperating the 4l60e from our mockup motor and installing an aluminum Midplate. we need to be able to mockup the engine and trans before designing the cage.
midplate installed on the mockup 5.3. waiting for a 4l80e to be bolted up. this is strictly for mockup as we will be building a lq4 for this truck.
and we are caught up for now. i did begin measuring for the main cage structure over the driver and passenger. going to plug some numbers on bend tech and see how it starts to look. going to be a week or two before we can wrench on the truck again as we have alot going on but im hoping that we will make some serious progress this april.
Chassis work is bad ass.
ParadisePWoffrd
Recovering Project Junkie
x2. I am somewhat impressed that the body didnt need bracing before it did. You had removed a ton of sheetmetal from the bottom of it.Chassis work is bad ass.
Coolmeadowsmotorsports
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I am as well. I was so concentrated on the chassis being built that I didn’t even think about bracing the tub which I should have known better. Either way got lucky with that and caught it before it got bad.
Thornbird1
Well-known member
T
looking really good man.
looking really good man.
Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.
chaplinfj60
Well-known member
how are you doing any good updates?
CDA 455 II
ANFAQUE2
Coolmeadowsmotorsports
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Sorry guys, fell off the radar for a bit. Making a bad habit of this and it has to stop. I’ll make a more formal updated post in the coming days but here’s a short version. Summer hit and life got real busy, between being stuck at work consistently for almost 70-80 hours a week, Sara and I got engaged, did a bit of traveling and than pushed into updating a lot of things on our camper/toterhome. Finally got to take our old wheeling rig out for the first time in 6 months. Needless to say free time was slim to none. Now that things are once again settling (atleast I hope🤞🏻) she and I are going to have a garage cleanup weekend and than hopefully get some progress done on the blazer! I don’t think we have had a chance to touch it since early may.
Once again sorry for falling silent for a bit. Hoping to stay consistent in atleast updates and hopefully build progress from here on out.
Once again sorry for falling silent for a bit. Hoping to stay consistent in atleast updates and hopefully build progress from here on out.
I admire your optimism
Clemson13
Evernoob is a douchcanoe
Yeah....I deserve updates
Thanks for sending me down the rabbit hole of a build thread that died in 2015A local guy did this with his k10 a number of years ago:
well i guess its time to update the thread as i have made progress/destruction
i cut 12 inches down from the sharp body line, i wanted to keep my doors and have functional windows. so 12 inches was all i could really get away with. i moved my bottom hinge up to where my top bolt hole is now the bottom hole. and welded it to the cab and door. i ground my hinge pin so i can still remove the doors. i uses 2x8 rectangle tube with 3/16 wall, 5 feet long.
MY TURD ON TONS
Betcha I know where you got that steel from.:flipoff2: I've got about 7ft left lying in my shop for mini-boatsides on the passenger side of my zj.