[rokcrawlr1]

Here I go again. Some of you may remember my last build http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/chevy/872001-my-89-chevy-build.html. Basically a handful of trips after I finished that truck I realized I didn't have enough room for the family to wheel comfortably.


I ended up selling the truck and purchased a TJ from a guy in Arkansas. The rig was pretty well built and I must admit it fit in the densely wooded trails of Oklahoma quite nicely, but it wasn't long before I grew annoyed by the fact that with 42" tires and a stock 4.0 it wasn't that fun to drive around town. And it didn't leave much room to haul around the dogs or much of anything else.


What I really wanted was a rig I could drive anywhere, and not have to get the truck and trailer out to make a day run in Disney. Something with modern power and creature comforts and plenty of room for road trips. I want to take the rig fishing, wheeling at the river, hell I'd like to make the drive to Colorado with this rig have a good time doing some light wheeling and sight seeing and drive back home. All while get decent fuel mileage and being comfortable.

So I found what I thought would be the perfect rig. An 84 K5 Blazer. Originally a 305/700R4/208 truck but someone had swapped in a tbi 350/th350 in it. It was fairly straight and didn't have much rust. The previous owner used it to take his son hunting. Here it is the day after I bought it. Loaded up the family and the dogs and went wheelin at the river.


This isn't going to be a hardcore build thread. Just a nice driver with some off-road goods.

Current plans.
6.0 LQ4/ stock internals/ f-body long tube headers/ CAI/ tuned
4L80e 2WD trans
th400 to 205 adapter (machined)
32 spline input NP205 with 32 spline front and rear output 1350 yokes

Front
4" ez ride leafs/1.5" forward ez inch/ 1" body lift
CUCV GM D60 4:56 welded
DIY4X cross over high steer
PSC assist
1350 yoke
Bilstein 12" shocks
custom bumper/winch

Rear
CUCV Corp. 14 bolt 4:56 Detroit
DIY4X disc brake conversion
Off Road Design 4" shackle flip with 4.5" shackle/ 1.5 back ez inch/ 1" body lift
Bilstein 12" shocks
custom bumper/ winch


Interior
Full cage, through the dash a pillars
2004 buckets in front/ custom console/ 3rd row burb seats for the rear bench?
spray in liner on floor

 

[rokcrawlr1]

I soon started gathering powertrain and drivetrain components that I thought would help me achieve my goal of a dual purpose rig. I bought a 2004 2500HD 2wd truck that had been lightly wrecked in the front. The truck had 152k miles on it and I gave $1,000 for it and drove it on the trailer. It was a work truck, pretty well beat up but had the engine and trans I wanted. 6.0 LQ4/ 2wd 4L80E with all spline tail shaft.
Tore the truck apart and kept what I wanted off of it. The rest went on craigslist and I've pretty much made my initial investment back at this point.



My original plan was to roll a set of main and rod bearings in and replace the oil pump and seal but it wasn't going to be that easy now. Wasn't long before I tore into the engine and found some bearing material in the pan. From my research, the 6.0 is known for eating cam bearings. When I pulled the camshaft, the bearing fell out with it. It was the number 2 bearing. The bearing hadn't spun in it's bore, this was obvious by looking at the bearing, but I did measure the bore to verify it wasn't out of round and within spec. There were 2 designs of LQ4 and the cam bearings and a few other components changed such as head bolts. Here are the specs for the 2 designs

Camshaft Bearing Bore 1 and 5 Diameter - First Design
59.12-59.17 mm
2.327-2.329 in

Camshaft Bearing Bore 2 and 4 Diameter - First Design
58.87-58.92 mm
2.317-2.319 in

Camshaft Bearing Bore 3 Diameter - First Design
58.62-58.67 mm
2.307-2.309 in

Camshaft Bearing Bore 1 and 5 Diameter - Second Design
59.62-59.67 mm
2.347-2.349 in

Camshaft Bearing Bore 2 and 4 Diameter - Second Design
59.12-59.17 mm
2.327-2.329 in

Camshaft Bearing Bore 3 Diameter - Second Design
58.62-58.67 mm
2.307-2.309 in



Ended up doing a total rebuild. I went back and forth with upgrading the camshaft but ended up going back with a stock replacement that a buddy had for free. The cam upgrades I looked into was the 220r from texas speed, springs, with chromoly pushrods. $600 for ~40 hp. I convinced myself that the with the new power plant, the K5 would be twice as powerful as it once was with the LS swap and I could spend that $600 on something else.

 

[rokcrawlr1]

I did go ahead and work the heads a little. I figure if and when I do a cam swap, I might benefit from it. The 317 heads flow good as they are, I just cut out the swirl port, opened up the exhaust a little and polished the exhaust with 120 grit. The intake runners got cleaned up with 80 grit only.
Swirl ports before

Swirl ports after



Exhaust port before

During

After




I used these. Make sure you get a quality mandrel in several different lengths.

 

[Kay86K5]

I remember your blue/black truck build. I loved that thing. Do you know what happened to it after you sold it?

Looks like a good platform. Can't wait to see how it turns out. If you do come to CO, let me know

 

[rokcrawlr1]

The engine is back together now. Cylinders looked great so they just got honed. Fortunately none of that bearing material made it to the crank so it ended up just a basic rebuild with new cam bearings.

 

[rokcrawlr1]

I'm going to use the Dirty Dingo LS swap motor mount brackets. Im hoping to run the Ls Denso ac compressor and these mounts have a lot of adjustment so they might work for that.

 

[rokcrawlr1]

The np205 was originally a 10 spline male input with a 10 spline front output and a 1330 yoke I believe. I purchased all the swap parts as well as a master rebuild kit with new bearings from Off Road Design. To run the 4L80E I needed a 32 spline female input and I wanted to upgrade the front output to a 32 spline 1350 yoke while I was in there. I had a local guy machine the 205 case for the larger bearing that the new input required.

 

[rokcrawlr1]

Only lets me post 1 photo at a time from the iPad?

 

[rokcrawlr1]

Axles are ready to go under the Blazer in the next couple weekends. The dana 60 got DIY4X high steer. I really like this crossover kit compared to others because I can run down to Napa and buy a replacement tre with this setup. I also like that they use 3/8" wall 1-3/8 tubing so the draglink and tie rod can be tapped directly for the tre rather than welding in a tube adapter.
I replaced all the bearings (except for carrier) and seals in the 60. The kingpins were worn pretty bad so they were replaced as well. The original warn lockouts that the axle came with were rusted and one was missing a cap. I had a set of 35 spline Warn lockouts laying around so I removed the 30 spline gear from the cucv set and swapped them into the 35 spline set. Only problem is if I break one I will have to remove my 30 spline gear (assuming it's not what broke) before I warranty them out. The 14 bolt got the DIY4x disc brake kit with 2wd 3/4 ton calipers and rotors from Rock Auto. I will eventually get some 3/8" diff covers, that's not very high on the priority list right now.

 

[rokcrawlr1]

And here's where I'm at currently. My dad and I finished up the front half of the cage this last weekend and shot some paint on it. I drilled 2" holes in the floor so we could drop the cage down through the floor and weld out the tube joints completely.

 

[rokcrawlr1]

I'm very fortunate to be able to wheel and work on projects with my father. Im 32 he's 54 and he can spend all day out in the shop with me welding, grinding, turning wrenches. He installed the PSC gearbox and steering gear brace from Off Road Design Sunday while I finish welded the cage.

 

[rokcrawlr1]

This isn't a great picture of it, but I removed the hydro boost from '04 and got it installed on the K5. I have some pictures somewhere of the swap. It was very simple to do. I cut the rod off of the vacuum booster and welded it to the hydra boost rod. It was almost like it was meant to be that way because the vacuum booster rod was hollow and the hydro boost rod slid into it after drilling it out slightly. Once I set the depth I welded it in.

 

[rokcrawlr1]

I remember your blue/black truck build. I loved that thing. Do you know what happened to it after you sold it?

Looks like a good platform. Can't wait to see how it turns out. If you do come to CO, let me know

A local guy bought and wheeled it for awhile. It was on Craigslist a couple months ago so there's no telling where it is now.

I'm really excited about a trip to Co. My cousin took his family there to wheel in the mountains and vacation in their JK and came back with some amazing pictures.

 

[K30_Blazer]

this is gonna be a great build. Basically just described the intentions with my build too. I am curious about how you plan on getting the Denso AC to fit. I am going with a Sanden 508 and dirty dingo AC brackets up high as the lower factory mount essentially puts it into the frame.

Gonna be watching this one. I have an LQ9 with 58k sitting in my garage getting ready to go in.

Second you on the DIY4X crossover, just great stuff.

 

[rokcrawlr1]

this is gonna be a great build. Basically just described the intentions with my build too. I am curious about how you plan on getting the Denso AC to fit. I am going with a Sanden 508 and dirty dingo AC brackets up high as the lower factory mount essentially puts it into the frame.

Gonna be watching this one. I have an LQ9 with 58k sitting in my garage getting ready to go in.

Second you on the DIY4X crossover, just great stuff.

I was on the hunt for a LQ9 but they were so damn proud of them! From what I can tell the only difference between and LQ4/ LQ9 is the piston and floating wrist pin. And like 50hp! The flat top piston of the LQ9 takes the compression ratio up to like 10:1 while the LQ4 is closer to 9.4:1. That's gonna be a great setup.

Yes the a/c is gonna be tricky. The Sanden is a 7 piston compressor with a displacement of 154.7cc per revolution. The Denso truck compressor is a 10 piston with a displacement of 188.0cc per revolution so I'm thinking that with the stock K5 condenser the Denso will out perform the Sanden.......plus I already own it. I very well could be forced to use the Sanden and swap mounts like you, I just need to see for myself.

 

[Kay86K5]

more pics :smokin:

 

[kayjef]

Cool build. When i rebuilt my 01 3/4ton burb lq4 I looked at lots of different cams, and I went with the ls6 cam and springs from gm performance parts. I think i got it from gmpartsdirect and it was about half of the $600 you said some other cams were. It's a good cam for torque and rides smooth, it really woke up my 6.0, but still has good power below 2500 rpm.

Also could you post some pics of your hydroboost swap?

 

[snowracer]

always liked your old truck and off to a damn good start on this one. really like that your old man helps with your build as always loved having the old man around in the shop and miss his input on my newer builds

 

[K30_Blazer]

Cool build. When i rebuilt my 01 3/4ton burb lq4 I looked at lots of different cams, and I went with the ls6 cam and springs from gm performance parts. I think i got it from gmpartsdirect and it was about half of the $600 you said some other cams were. It's a good cam for torque and rides smooth, it really woke up my 6.0, but still has good power below 2500 rpm.

Also could you post some pics of your hydroboost swap?

Don't mean to thread jack but tell me more about this. I was looking at an EPS grind for my 6.0 but when you add in springs etc etc you are close to $800.

 

[rokcrawlr1]

Cool build. When i rebuilt my 01 3/4ton burb lq4 I looked at lots of different cams, and I went with the ls6 cam and springs from gm performance parts. I think i got it from gmpartsdirect and it was about half of the $600 you said some other cams were. It's a good cam for torque and rides smooth, it really woke up my 6.0, but still has good power below 2500 rpm.

Also could you post some pics of your hydroboost swap?

These are the only pics I have at the moment. The k5 booster has a threaded shaft that can be removed and drilled out to slide over the hydra boosters shaft.