The Trooper/Blazer I call Blooper.

[pappawheely]

I ordered a TORQ locker for the front. I did research on all the "lunchbox" lockers. The TORQ wasn't the cheapest, but I think it's the best design. It doesn't use pins. Instead the two halves of the center section lock together. I thought it was also pretty cool that one of the owners of the company replied to my inquiries on social media with answers to my questions on a Monday evening. If I'm going to spend my money, I like to give it to good people!

Here I go farther into the black hole, but I can't help myself. I get sucked into "how do I make things better." I have to pull the carrier out now, but my inner axle tube seal was leaking on one side. It's silly to tear everything down and not change those I guess. That's what I'm using to justify this.

Back when I was driving this as a Blazer, I was going up a loose, rutted out hill that was steep. I kept getting stalled out because one front tire was spinning. Even with the posi in the rear. A guy waiting behind me asked if I had a rear locker, I said yes. He said put it in 2WD and send it. I never forget that because I learned a lot about 4WD that day. I'm already concerned about the capabilities this truck will have. The gearing is all wrong. Turbo 400, 205 and 3.73 gears on 37's. My crawl ratio is a pathetic 18 to 1. I really want a doubler, but the cost is just way too high. Maybe I should start a gofundme or something. Help a starving artist get through tough trails! A photo of me looking pathetic will be easy!

 

[pappawheely]

Some people may think I'm ruining a good Trooper, but that's not the case. This truck has had a hard life apparently. I pulled up more of the floor covering and sound deadening. WOW! In a few years this truck would have rusted from the inside out. The underside of the truck is spotless. The inside is covered in cancer. The factory sound deadening is a bad design. It's jute against the steel floor with thick rubberized coating on top. The jute holds moisture against the steel. No bueno. I hope the rear of the truck is not in the same shape.

 

[pappawheely]

The cargo area in the back of the truck had more widespread rust, but it was less severe. It was hot inside doing all that grinding.



Here is my weapon of choice. If you are going to use a wire wheel, be sure to get the ones that are twisted or braided. The wheels with straight wires coming out jettison the wires into your body and they are useless in a matter of minutes. The braided ones last much longer and you are able to put some pressure into them. Make sure you have eye protection!!! It's also smart to wear a respirator because you have no idea what's in the dust you will be breathing.



I am hoping that I can weld up some of the smaller perforations with my mig welder. When I was doing restoration, we used acetylene and welding rod. You had so much control of the heat with gas. Mig is not as precise. The last thing I want is a sea urchin of wire sticking out under the truck.



Next I'll treat the metal with something. I've used a bunch of POR15 in the past, but that stuff's very expensive now. I have some Krud Buster stuff sitting on a shelf. I'll try that first. I still need to pull the front seats out and do the cab floor. The front corners of the wheel wells are going to need patch panels. I was thinking while I was at it, I could put in a dead pedal. I'll be running an auto trans so I only have 2 pedals.

 

[Kingsize24]

Use any cheap rust converter that dries to a paintable finish, then prime and seal. POR15 is an encapsulator not a converter anyway. I try not to encapsulate rust ever anyway.

 

[pappawheely]

More grinding and cleaning today. I got a lot done, but I still need to pull the door panels and side panels then scrub the interior. The good news is I can just spray everything down with the hose. All the electronics have been removed. I'm going to have to take a couple days off. The slice I put in the palm of my hand got infected. I'm going to have to let it dry out and heal a little bit. Even with gloves on it got constantly irritated and I didn't take very good care of it. Having a high pain tolerance is not always a good thing.

I have everything I need to put the front diff together. New axle tube seals. The installation tool. The torq locker I ordered. New axle shafts and u-joints. New hub seals. Once I get that all done it will be back on 4 wheels. I also have the pitman arm and steering links out for fab and welding. One issue I need to address is the badly dented rocker on the passenger side. I am going to weld some 2x6 rectangular tubing to the rocker. It will act as a slider and also I was going to use it to mount the body to the chassis. I've had a spot weld gun for years and never used it. Now is my chance.

 

[pappawheely]

I'm learning a lot watching this scratch build from Mike Essa. Such a cool truck. I just wish I had a tenth of the skill Essa has. If you watch the other videos you will also see Brandon who I used to work with along with his brother Justin. Good people. Check it out. I'm going to be stealing Mike's ideas big time!

 

[pappawheely]

I started looking at the firewall. I'm trying to focus on simplicity on this build. The Trooper is helping me because it's a pretty simple truck. I'm running the same size caliper on every corner. Therefore, I'm running the old school "corvette" master cylinder with no booster and a loooong pedal. This should give me good brakes, but without having to worry about vacuum. I'll plate over the firewall and make new holes, but surprisingly, the master will mount just about where the trooper master cylinder mounted. I'm waiting for the corvette pushrod I ordered. Not sure what's up with USPS, but everything they ship is late and the tracking is lacking.



You can see the original mounting holes for the Trooper stuff. I will be re-using the Trooper gas pedal because it is a cable. It will work with the Holley carb I'm getting built over at C&J engineering. John is going to be doing the off road tricks to it so it will work in the bumps.



I'm installing a GM tilt column from the Blazer donor. Since it was a manual truck the column is clean with no shift linkage. I'll be running a cable shifter on the Turbo 400 transmission mounted on a center console. The column is going to fit in nearly the same location as the Trooper 😍. I need to cut the bracket off the end of the column where it used to mount to the firewall and make a new bracket for it. Then adapt the upper mount to the stock Trooper part. Not a big issue. So happy it's going to work. I still have the keys to this column.



I did some measuring and the steering linkage clears the headers with no issue, I was surprised. The only down side I've encountered is all the holes all over the firewall that I won't need. That huge hole on the right was for the wiring harness. I'm not doing that. I'm planning on mounting the batteries and all the fuses and electrical inside the cab; hidden in the dash and center console. I'm not going to have inner fenders to mount all that junk on anyways.

 

[pappawheely]

Back on the front axle today. Pulled the carrier out after having to consult YouTube university. At first it wouldn't budge. Then I watched a video showing how to put a prybar in the carrier housing and turn to driveshaft. Came right out. Just make sure you leave the bearing caps bolted loosely so the carrier doesn't fly out. The paint marks are so the bearing caps go back on exactly how they were.

Next I removed the inner axle seals. What a rusty mess. I tried using a long pipe to knock them out. I couldn't get a decent hit on the slight lip of the seal. Then I used a 36mm socket with the same pipe. Came out with a ton of debris. What mess. I'll clean it up and install the TORQ locker and new seals tomorrow.