Blower Blazer Build

[Maverick]

Pretty good day on the blazer. It will now pass inspection and drives 100% better.

Adjusted the brakes, got a battery hold down, new wipers, blinkers, etc.

After going back and forth on options, I embraced controversy and installed a spacer kit to lower the t-case. I know it's not the best, but it will work for now, and made an amazing difference. It appears that a CV will require cutting the perches and rotating the pumpkin, not something I can really do right now.

While my son was installing the spacers, I pulled the front tow hooks. They will not work with the plow mount, so they are for sale. Got a count on the bolts needed for the mount and went and bought them. Ran out of daylight to mock up the mount and drill the new holes.

Also have the list required for the Western/Fisher components required to attach and operate the Ultramount lift and lights, I'll pull the trigger on the parts purchase early next week.

Lastly, I need the bolts for the front driveshaft flange mount to the
transfercase. What is the size? My plan was to head down to 6-States Disributors next week.

 

[Maverick]

The front driveshaft/t-case interface will not be the failure point. Those are some big bolts for that job. Someone posted to me that it was 7/16". It didn't register in my head when I first read 7/16"...In my mind I saw 5/16". Bolts secured, just need to hook it up. Also need to break down the front hubs, inspect and grease them, and make sure there's lube in the diff. Matt (15yo) is getting excited to get the blazer out and do some wheelin'! It is certainly looking the part. Need to get the longer brake lines on before we get too excited.

Also, pulled the trigger on the module/wiring/etc to make the Ultramount connect to the truck side mount and make everything work (reciever/lights/hydraulics). Brown Santa should bring it in a couple days.

I added up the costs so far, $2936 on the blazer/lift/tires/etc, $3125 on the blower/mount/controls/etc, for a total of $6061. I'll break it down in a different post.

Overall, pretty happy with project progress, especially with how much bang for the buck so far.

 

[Maverick]

Need mudflaps. Best place to buy with best selection?

I remember Yosemite Sam mudflaps, do they still make those???

Brett

 

[Tacoma]

I drilled holes in the bumpers and used pins, washers, and hitch pins to hold them on. Also, cheap mudflaps, maybe $20 into everything at Cal-Ranch.

Curious about that "spacer kit" to lower the t-case. I just used the huge washers that the factory used-- but put them between the crossmember and the frame instead of between teh bolt head and the crossmember. It's almost like they put them there with that in mind.

 

[Bart]

I went to Six States and got the sleeves you bolt onto the frame, then the hanger that goes into them and locks with a pin. Easy and quick to release. There's a couple of pics on the old LTJ project.

 

[Maverick]

The clock is ticking, really hope to have this operational by the end of the week. Safety inpection is done, just need to get it licensed.

Pulled the blower controls out of the previous rig on Saturday. The rig was up in Park City and it was so nice up there, 39 toasty degrees vs a chilly 24 down in the valley full of winter inversion gunk. Hope it blows out soon.

There are 4 cables that will have to be routed from the cab through the firewall and engine compartment to the front grill. Three of the cables range from 1/2" to about 3/4" dia, each with several insulated wires in a single rubber sheath. One is a big ground cable.

I think that I'll put the plugs in the front bumper where the license plate goes. Also looking at locations in the grill.

Regarding the firewall, it appears that the best location is to hole-saw a 2" hole just inside from the fuse block. Can't find any other handy locations.

Also spent a little time figuring out where the control box will live inside the cab. Seems that there is just enough room between the driver seat and the center console (grew up calling this the "jockey box" in the blazer we had) rather than hanging under the dash. Either location is easy to reach when driving. Also considering gutting the box and mounting the controls in an aluminum panel where the stereo would go. But I want it to have a regular stereo...or perhaps one I saw at Autozone that just has radio and aux input. Though sometimes it's nice to just have a CD in there.

Need to also find a place to mount the lift joystick. (and need a mount).

I was plotting to take Weds off and try and get everything installed...but now it seems like it may snow that day. Rats.

 

[Maverick]

Merry Christmas! What a busy week at work, lots of deliverables and deadlines plus an unplanned day trip out of town.

Got the blazer licensed on Friday, so at least we can drive it, but no other progress during the week.

Finally got a chance to work on it...on Christmas Eve.

I had hoped to get everything in and the blower hooked up. Not quite. Didn't even get to the wiring, the mount took what was left of the day after some unplanned Santa Clausing took most of the morning.

First, I had to readjust the drag link. When I did the steering column repair earlier, I put the ball joint back together upside down, so the steering wheel is upside down. I'll tear it apart and fix it when I have more time and/or next summer when it's a little warmer. The shop that did the front end alignment adjusted the drag link until the steering wheel was right side up...which meant that it turned really sharp to the left, and hardly at all to the right. DOH!

Then it was time for the frame mount. Fitted it up in...and it wouldn't fit. Plastic air dam (or whatever it is that bolts on the bottom of the bumper). Removed it. Then, bolted the front of the mount in, and put the mount together.

Passenger side sat lower than the driver side. This rig was in a wreck at some point, and the frame got a little tweaked. Or something. The rear parts of the mount didn't want to hit the frame at the same height. It looks like it's designed to fit the frame just ahead of the bump stop brackets, but there's a 2" vertical gap on the passenger side. Guessing that the front frame horn got bent up a little on that side, which changes the angle of the mount. Also, it had about 1/4" intereference with the bump stop brackets. On top of that, there are brake lines right where the holes need to go (somebody had warned me about that, thanks!)

The fun didn't stop there. All bolted in and forced into place, it became apparent that the mount was designed for the stock, flat springs, not arched springs. Part of the mount interferes with the spring. It's just a lip, and looking at it, the interfering part is not part of the load path, so it got targeted for a trim. We had just enough time to remove the entire frame before putting the tools away and cleaning up for the Christmas Eve family party.

This afternoon while the kids were playing with new toys I snuck out and trimmed the offending parts and put a little paint on. I had just enough time left over to cut the hole in the firewall. I found a nice 2" round spot with a divit in the middle, almost as if some Chevy enGineer planned it that way. After a little hole saw drama (hole saw grabbed, center drill bent/broke) I replaced the bit and finished the hole. I came in and fashioned a grommet out of some plastic from a Home Depot bucket and put the tools away.

With any luck, we'll get it hooked up tomorrow. Or at least get closer to finishing. What snow we had at the cabin has mostly melted, with no storms in sight this week. Last year we had over 4' by now.

 

[Maverick]

Good day today. Mount mounted, cab side controls mounted. All Western/Fisher/Ultramount wires and controls mounted except light adapters (they arrive UPS tomorrow). The Western/Ultramount controls the hoist and lights only. The blower controls are separate.

We wanted to mount up the blower and hoist it before we drilled the holes in the bumper to mount the blower controls, just to make sure the hoist wouldn't be in the way. We'll install those in the morning, then fire it up.

The lift works now, and hoisted the blower right up. Heavy sucker! Squished the front tires, gonna need to put air in them tomorrow. Really need some ballast on the back. I'll stick the double dirt bike rack on tomorrow and load it up with some stuff. Maybe a 55 gallon drum of water, I'll throw in some RV antifreeze.

Yahoo!

 

[Bart]

Getting real close. Good thing the snow has held off for you.

 

[Maverick]

Soooo close. And yet not.

What a day. At 3pm, everything was installed and the blazer and blower were running. Hadn't plugged in the headlight harness that UPS had just delivered, but that could wait 'til I got up to the cabin. Family jumped in the truck and left, I was gonna follow in the blazer. Then I noticed antifreeze dripping.

Started to tighten the hose where it was leaking, and a stream squirted out. Not good. Autozone had one nearby so I got ready to go. Then I noticed that there was no lower fan shroud. What the heck?

Ok, went and purchased the radiator and started calling junkyards. Nobody had one except Sommers, and they wouldn't commit because the radiators can be different heights. I got down there and we measured the new radiator and found a shroud.
5pm, got home and installed the radiator. 2" too short. Great. That meant the shroud was too short too.

Called Autozone and found the correct radiator at a store on the other side of the valley. Dog was happy for another car-ride. Drove out, swapped it out, ate a Snickers, and came back home and installed it, and then the shroud fun began, mating the bottom of the too-short shroud to the top of the original shoud.

Installed and removed the shroud pieces a bunch of times. Discovered the blower control wires had to be partially rerouted for the shroud to fit. Then another time there was some mysterious fan/shroud intereference. Aaargh!!!

Got done and then installed the headlight harness adapter kit. Pretty straightforward on the driver side. Turned the headlights on...nothing, except a load on the alternator and flickering lights. Hit the highbeams and they worked. Hit the lowbeams again...load/flicker. Nice. Checked all the grounds. Moved to the passenger side to see if maybe both sides have to be installed to work.

Had to remove the battery to get to the passenger side headlights, and then the battery that came in it decided that the positive terminal was done, stripped out. (it was close, and removing the battery and the newly installed extend-a-posts didn't help).

9:55pm, Autozone was closed and O'Reilly was open for 5 more minutes. Zoomed on down and picked up a new battery. Extend-a-post tried to strip out that one too. Didn't have a short enough 3/8" bolt so I cut the end off a long one and created a stud. Got everything back together, including fixing the battery to radiator support ground. Didn't help the headlight issue though.

So here I am, stymied by the headlight issue. Highs work great, Lows don't work at all, and actually induce a momentary load and make the lights flicker every few seconds...that screams grounding issue to me. It happened immediately with the driver side. I disconnected the driver side with the passenger side connected, and it still does it. So to me it seems that there is a set of wires backwards/reversed somewhere in the low beam circuit. I'm gonna poke around a bit on the forums and see if anyone has had this issue.

Brett

 

[Cascadia]

Wow, that sounds like a very long day. It appeared Like you were so close. But that's how it always goes it seems. Nice work anyways.

 

[Maverick]

Operational!

Had a small glitch showing it to some guys at work...it cut out right in the middle of turning the chute, so the chute was pointed straight ahead all the way up here, and the deflector was flapping in the wind. The system was dead, no power, no nothing. Troubleshooting said the hot side was fine. Turned out to be the main ground for the blower system. Cleaned it up, and it runs great.

Drove it up from SLC through Parley's Canyon, I took the turns pretty slow and it took a little extra steering input. The only other problem was that it needed a gear between 2nd and 3rd. Wrapped out in 2nd and just didn't have enough poop at the bottom of 3rd. Wishin' I had a tach to know how hard to push it in 2nd. The extra 1000 rpm of the '96-99 Vortec would have come in handy there.

The flip side to that was that the blower blocks the air from the radiator, so it got up to 215-220 a couple times and even with more usable rpm/power, it would have still heated up.

After the summit it was fine, and once I hit the ranch exit, it came up the mountain roads pretty well, did a lot better in 2wd that I thought it would.

Blows the snow great, but can't get a good enough bite in the snow in some of the "non-level" spots when pushing the blower without chains. The chains on the plow jeep had extra links to fit 33's and are way too small for the 35's.

The place I thought would have the cross-links isn't around anymore, and web searches did nothing. I see them around from time to time, but can't remember where. So I grabbed the set that fits the 39's on the jeep, I'll pirate the extra links for the time being. Or find a farm supply store in Heber that sells such things.

Raising the blower just a little gives insta-traction on the front tires, which, by the way, had to be aired up to 64psi (10ply). Aired the rear to 45. Normal pressure for the 10ply 35's on the blazer seems to be around 35psi.

I had to move the sliders on the blower to the front of the box, due to the angle of the blower they weren't even touching. The "grabbers" on the front were also digging into the gravel ahead of the blower. Tomorrow I'll check to see if I can change the overall angle of the blower. Hope to get some vid of the blower in action!

On the lights: A little troubleshooting this morning told me that the problem is when I plug in the high-beam harness adapter to the truck, whether or not it's connected to the rest of the Western wiring harness. Tells me the truck has a glitch. Happens on either side.

My short term solution was to wire the low beams to the Western system only, high beams are truck only. I think the long term solution will be to splice in a toggle switch to power the Western lights at my discretion, high/low or maybe both at the same time, plus I'm gonna mount some other lights on the front of the blower.

And, as a bonus: The long garage bay is 21'-6", and the blazer/blower is 21'-0"! (I designed that bay to fit a shortbed crew cab) So it will fit inside between now and when I knock out the wall. I was planning on doing that this week, but I need to build the new wall first and I burned the first half of the week messin' with the blazer.

So glad it's working!!!

 

[rholbrook]

Nice pics of the Ski Doo, the Blazer looks great too.

 

[Maverick]

Thanks!

Hope to get the Doo's out tomorrow, at least up and down the unplowed roads. Start teaching the 12yo how to ride.

 

[Maverick]

Blew some snow today, during the 15 minutes that it ran. Didn't get any pics or vid.

Spent part of the day yesterday trying to find somewhere that sells tire chain parts (links, connectors, etc). Finally found a place and went and bought what I needed to make the 33" chains fit the 35's. Pics show the chain mods in progress and the blazer before I installed the rubber binders, 2 on each tire.

Ran it for a while yesterday, before the connector on the fuel shut off solenoid lost continuity. Took me 'til 3am to find that mutha. It would run if I primed it and then kept forcing gas with the prime-bubble thing on the gas line. Followed the fuel, made sure the fuel pump was pumping, tore the carb apart and everything checked out. Figured the only thing it could be was the solenoid so when I got up today I tested it and found it was the connector. Cleaned it up and it ran great.

Finished up breakfast and got a call from my cousin, he was stuck in a ditch. First manly test of the chained up blazer. He was on a steep stretch of the main road, hard packed and very slick. He had pulled over a little for someone too impatient to let him get all the way to the top and slid into the ditch. Typically you can back down to a driveway...but the next driveway had some landscaping rocks (somewhat out of place up here on the mountain, but oh well) and he was partially on top of one and was nervous about his new truck. Hooked up the blazer pulling uphill, chains dug in, pulled him out, no drama. Pulled over to let a sidebyside on mattracks go by and undid the strap. I had just thrown the strap in yesterday, just in case. I'll do a followup post on the gear that I'll be carrying in the blazer.

Got back to the cabin and fired up the blower. Cleared out what little snow there was left in the driveway, then ran down our road, then up to clear some parking at my cousin's cabin. That was a pretty good test, it was 18" of settled concrete snow. I had to basically inch forward 6" at a time, let it catch up, and do it again. New powder will be a blast.

I came back up our road and talked with the neighbor, he was just firing up his snowcat. Then I went back into our driveway and finished up the parking area. On what would have been the 2nd to last pass the high speed solenoid failed. As did the starter. With a couple taps with the whammer the starter would remember to do it's thing, but I was pretty much out of time and had to go back down to the office to finish up some stuff for the month.

Gonna dig into the solenoid tomorrow. And either order a new starter or remove it and have someone in town rebuild it during the week. I'll try to get some blowing pics tomorrow.

Oh ya, almost forgot: I stopped by and picked up twenty of the 60# "tube" sand bags and put them in the back of the blazer. 1200 lbs. Partly for ballast...partly so that it will fit in the garage. To fit it in the garage to chain up (didn't want to lay in the snow) we had to stick in the dirt bike rack and have a couple sacrificial teenagers for ballast. And have the blower down. Now it fits (barely) with the blower up, but with the blower down, it has the tail-dragger blazer stance that I hate. I think I'll take 3-4 of the bags out tomorrow and see if it levels up but can still fit in the garage.

 

[Maverick]

Went up to fix the blower high speed solenoid today. There's a little control box with solenoids for the choke and the throttle. The bolt holding down the solenoid for the throttle had come loose and the solenoid was basically flopping around.

While I bolted it down, my 15yo replaced the self drilling screws on the control module with some round screws/locking nuts. The self drilling screws were down through the front fender and could potentially contact the tire at max stuff.

Also ordered a starter today. Seems to turn over ok when cold, but not when hot.

Pics: Controller, battery and connections, blower connections in the bumper, and Ultramount connection.

Ready for the snow!!!

 

[neagtea]

Brett, thanks for building this. It scared away the snow.
Putting away skis and getting clubs back out.

 

[Maverick]

Brett, thanks for building this. It scared away the snow.
Putting away skis and getting clubs back out.

Seriously! Actually, the snow was holding off until I could get it done. Now it's done...LET IT SNOW!!!

 

[Maverick]

Um, snow?

 

[Corban_White]

I've been waiting for 2 months. Gave in and took the sled out last monday. Much better ride than I expected but not sure it was worth the $150 in parts. Used parts at that. I've about given up on winter until next December.