Blazer Motor/Tools/Paint

Today on trucks, the guys continue the build up of their 88 bow tie. This week, they'll work on the pulse by dropping a GM freight motor into project big blaze. After that, they'll show you how to get the most out of your tow vehicle with an easy to

self suspension upgrade.

Finally, they'll show you some shop tools designed to make your life a whole lot easier.

That's all today on trust.

Hello everybody and welcome to this week's show. Now, if you were with us last week, you saw us take our 88 Chevy Blazer

and put a six inch lift on it as well as heavy duty axles, front and rear, not to mention air lockers and an aggressive wheel and tire combination to get us ready for some serious off road.

Now it's time to deal with the power plant and this old truck has a ton of miles on it and that engine actually uses more oil than gas. So we're gonna replace it

with this GM performance ramjet 350 fuel injected crate motor.

Now, this thing's got 350 horses comes fully assembled and has this really cool port injection on it.

It'll last every bit as long as that old original engine and give us plenty of horsepower to turn those big old meats.

Now, we know you just heard us say fuel injection. So the burning question in everybody's mind

is what about all the hookups, like the computer wiring, harness, sensors and all that other high tech stuff that goes along with fuel injection? Well, the good news is all that stuff comes with the motor along with plugs, wires and a brand new coil, literally everything we're gonna need to give our bow tie a healthy heartbeat.

Now, obviously, we have some major surgery planned for project big blaze. So first thing we're gonna do is give ourselves some elbow room. Now, we already took off the hood and we took out the battery. Now we're gonna get rid of all this stuff on the inter fender like this overflow bottle and the air compressor for the air locker, everything. Now, the reason we're gonna do this on a project like this organization is the key.

There's gonna be parts flying all over the place and chances are you're gonna end up in that engine compartment before you're done.

So this is important not only to keep everything organized,

but also to keep you from breaking anything too.

The next thing we need to deal with is the cooling system. Now, once you have your radiator empty,

you can go ahead and pull off your upper

and lower radiator hoses as well as your heater hose.

After you've removed your hoses,

you can pull off the fan as well as the fan shroud and finally, the radiator itself. Now, keep in mind on an older truck like this, you really need to be on the lookout for any signs of a leak in the radiator because this is the perfect time to take it somewhere to have it repaired.

Now, as you can see here, we've definitely got some work that needs to be done on ours.

Now, as you can see, sometimes you just need to jump right in here and get down and dirty, especially if you're doing something a little tedious like electrical on a vehicle that has a great big engine compartment like these blazers do.

Now, this is very important, make sure that you carefully mark all of your electrical connections

when you're doing a motor swap, especially if it's something a little radical like converting from a throttle body injection to a multi port like we're doing,

believe me taking the time to do this

will definitely save you some time and frustration when you go to put it all back together.

Now, we can get started on the exhaust system and at this point, we're not only gonna unbolt the exhaust from the manifold so we can get the engine out, but we're also gonna pull the manifolds completely off the motor to give us a little more room to work in here. Also, make sure you use plenty of penetrating lube on the manifold bolts and don't be surprised if a few of them break off on you when you're backing them out.

Now we're ready to unbolt the air conditioning compressor from the engine

carefully, set it out of the way,

making sure you don't kink the hoses or bend the hard lines. Now, on this application, it's possible to pull the motor

without evacuating the air conditioning. So ours is still charged up. But if you do it this way,

make sure you got plenty of room here before you start swinging engines in and out.

Now we can unbolt the motor mounts and the bell housing from the engine

and make sure that you unbolt the torque converter from the flex plate before you try to pull the motor.

Finally, we're just about ready to pull that old tired V8. At this point, you've probably already noticed we pulled the wheels and tires off. Big blaze, which is something you can almost always count on having to do on a lifted truck.

Now, once you get everything hooked up, make one

final check to make sure that you haven't accidentally left a oil cooler line or a transmission line or some sort of grounding wire hooked up somewhere.

Because once you start cranking on this hoist,

you'll make a mess in a hurry if you're not completely unhooked. All right. Go ahead and crank this thing. Let's do it.

Oh,

yeah, sliding out of there. Nice man. Here she comes.

Uh,

ok. And how do we have the motor out? There's still a few things we need to get rid of before we can start putting the new stuff in.

Now, as you can see, this old exhaust system is pretty much seen its better days and it's not gonna work with the drive train we're gonna use anyway. So we'll go ahead and cut that out

while we're under here. Now is a good time to get rid of this transmission. And this transfer case now with the jack in place, make sure you just connect all your linkage to both cases

and then unbolt the cross member

and get it out of there,

then just lower it all down.

That's a good idea to have an extra set of hands here because these things can be awkward. Well, now that all the dirty work is done, we can get started on our GM crate motor. But before we do that, we need to take a break. Don't go away. We got more trucks for you right after this, I think slid out of there.

What's that?

Later on trucks? We've got some shop tools to show you that can make or break your next projects. But up first, we're gonna strengthen the heartbeat of our bow tie by transplanting that GM brake motor.

Welcome back to trucks. Now that we have our old drive train out of the way. We got a little prep work to do before we can stick that new crate motor in. First off, we need to decide what components we're gonna transfer from the old engine to the new.

Now, obviously, we're gonna want to reuse our starter and our alternator if we can.

So we're gonna check those and then clean them up for painting.

Also, don't forget all these fittings and brackets too.

Speaking of paint now is as good a time as you're ever gonna get to paint your engine compartment and that's definitely something that's worth taking the time to do.

Now, you can go all out and use the same color paint you're gonna use on the body or you can just grab a couple cans of spray paint, but whatever you decide to do,

make sure you take the time to clean everything up really well before you do it.

Now, since you're painting, you might as well paint up all these brackets.

Now, as you can see, we're gonna have to do some modifications to this one to get it to fit. Don't expect these just to drop into place. These kind of projects are never quite that easy.

Now, they'll be close, but it's up to you to make it fit and once you have it cut and ground, how you want it, hit it with a coat of paint, set it aside.

Of course, we are gonna have to replace the motor mounts, but we're not gonna replace them with just rubber ones. Instead, we're gonna use these polyurethane mounts we got from energy suspension. Now, these things are not only gonna way out perform the rubber ones, but they also look a whole lot better too.

Now, before we can install the engine, it needs to be filled with oil and primed.

So we mark the distributor at top dead center

and all we have to do is remove it.

Then we'll install a priming tool down into the oil pump

and rotate it clockwise.

It's also a good idea to have somebody turn the crank while you're doing this. So everything's all nice and oiled up. And of course, once you're done priming the engine

reset the crank at top dead center and then just reinstall the distributor.

Now that we have most of the brackets and accessories bolted onto our new power plant, we can go ahead and load it onto the hoist before we slide it into the engine bay.

All right, that'll do for. Now.

Now, once you get the engine sitting down on the motor mounts, all you have to do is slide in the bolts and you can release the hoist. Now, big word of caution here,

remember there's no transmission in here to bolt the engine to so the engine's gonna wanna tip back a little bit when you take the hoist off. Now, if you have a rear mounted distributor. Like the Chevys. Do

you need to be careful that it doesn't hit the firewall because you can break the distributor and you may have to use a floor jack or a prop to keep that from happening.

All right. Go ahead and drop a little more

slowly. There you go. There you go. Keep coming

with the engine in place. We can start putting things back together like our power steering pump in the air conditioning compressor. Now, some things like your heater hoses are gonna have to be rerouted

because the outlets on the new motor are gonna be a little bit different. Also, heater hose is really cheap to replace. So, do yourself a huge favor and take care of that as well.

Now, we come to the part that we know we've all been wondering about

and it's this wiring harness. I know this looks like a nightmare, but it's really not check this out,

just lay it around the manifold

and then plug into the well marked sensors. Then do your fuel injectors and your computer. You'll be surprised how easily this thing hooks up. However,

all your original hookups that ran your throttle body injection. Well, those can go,

but you will want to keep

all the hookups for your gauges and your electrical system.

So you will need to spend some time in here sorting out this electrical.

You know, one thing you will have to come up with on this project is a fuel pump and on the multi port injection, we're gonna be running, we're gonna need a fuel pressure of at least 43 P si.

And the bottom line is that a fuel pump for a throttle body injection or even a carburetor is just not gonna cut it.

So we got a GM pump for the late model Vortec pickup that's gonna slide right into our gas tank and replace our stock fuel pump.

Now, if you've made it this far in the project, well, you can take a breath because it's pretty much downhill from here. All you need to do is put the radiator in the shroud and all this other stuff back where it belongs

and then spend a few minutes hooking everything up and you're ready to go. Now, keep in mind if you ever have to work on your engine, it comes with a complete

service menu, which is a really nice touch, especially on a crate motor.

And now that we're finished with our swap, it's time to start thinking about the drive train,

but to find out what we've got in mind for that, you're just gonna have to stop by next week. Now, they're gonna love that big time. This thing went in so nice. Sometimes I do that

up next on trucks. We've got a suspension upgrade that can make towing your toys a much better experience. After that, we'll look at some tools for the ultimate shop.

Now, this is,

you just can't get enough of trucks. Check us out online at TRUCKS tv.com.

Thanks for staying with us. Everybody. You know, if you spend much time out on the road, it's impossible not to notice all the trucks and suvs out there. It also doesn't take a genius to realize that a fair amount of those are being used to haul toys, which makes him a perfect candidate for a rear suspension upgrade.

Now, since most trucks have a leaf spring suspension in the rear, that means they're susceptible to axle wrap under acceleration, swaying and cornering and bottoming out when you got a heavy load. Now, these can cause situations that are just annoying

or they can be pretty dangerous. Now, there's some tricks that you can do to make everything work a little better,

but we decided to check the aftermarket, see what they had to offer to make our suspension perform a little better.

And that's exactly what we found in the Roadmaster active suspension. Now, Roadmaster claims their product will help control axle wrap, swaying and bottoming out. But the best part is installation only takes a few minutes

because the assembly for both sides only consists of a couple brackets, a coil and some hardware. In fact, all you need to complete the job are a few simple hand tools.

Now, the way this thing works is simple but ingenious. One of the brackets goes between the leaf spring and this U bolt bracket.

So with the vehicle suspended on jack stands and the jack underneath the rear axle will get started on these U bolts,

then slide in the new bracket

and then reattach your U

bolts.

The other bracket pops right over the rear spring eye

and the spring is suspended between the two with the hardware that comes with the kit,

then just adjust the tension on the spring and that is the width of a quarter between the coils. Now, the neat thing about this set up is this coil spring works in conjunction with the leaf spring

and gives you the benefits of a traction bar, a sway bar and an overload spring all rolled into one.

Some of the other benefits with this setup is that it's as easy to take off as it is to put on. And since no modifications of the vehicle are necessary, you won't void your warning also, just in case you're wondering this upgrade doesn't stiffen your suspension. So you don't have to worry about losing your ride quality. Either

today's tip has to deal with something that every do it yourselfer uses. And that is a can of spray paint, whether you're a professional or an amateur.

The problem arises when you go to use a can and you find that the tips all clogged with old paint and it either just spits or nothing comes out at all. So

you either end up digging at the tip,

try to clear it

or you try to rob the tip off of another can finally end up just throwing everything in the trash. Now, there is a way to prevent this

when you're done spraying, all you have to do is turn the can upside down

and give it a short blast. That'll clear the paint out of the valve and the tip and it'll be ready to go when you are.

Welcome back to trucks. Now, if you ask just about any, do it yourself or what the most important ingredient is to do your own work. Well, one would definitely be desire and the other

would be tools and not necessarily in that order. Matter of fact, if you don't have the right tools, you're probably making things a lot harder than you need to.

Now, a few weeks ago, we showed you some basic hand tools that should be in every toolbox, especially if you're gonna tackle some of the projects like we do around here. But today we're gonna shift gears just a little bit and show you some bigger shop tools by brute manufacturing that were definitely designed to make your life easier and your time in the shop a lot more enjoyable.

Now, first up, we have what they call the paint stick. Now, this is a folding metal rack that allows you to get hoods and fenders and doors or bumpers or whatever up off the ground so you can work on them.

Now, it's got these movable metal arms that are covered in rubber,

so you don't scratch your paint

and it also rocks back and locks so you can get the part exactly where you want it to work on it

for all those times that you wished you had a third hand.

This could be it.

Another useful piece is this little guy called the panel rack. Now, it's similar to the paint stick because it can hold parts vertically,

but it also locks into place horizontally

to make a sturdy little table and that always comes in handy. But the best part about this piece

is that it only weighs about 35 pounds,

man can be completely folded up, which means you can hang it up on the wall out of the way.

Now, every shop needs a good engine hoist. One of the slickest ones out there is this one

that we got from summit racing

because it allows the legs to fold up so you can park it in a corner without taking up the whole corner.

Now, this piece here is called the truck bed lifter.

Now you lay it in the bed of the truck, then you roll these little feet out so they come up under the inside of the bed rails.

Then all you have to do is hook your hoist here and single handedly, you can lift the bed off the truck and this usually is a job for about four guys.

Of course, once you have the bed off your truck, the big question becomes, where are you gonna put it?

Well, that's where this truck bed dolly comes in. Now with this tool, you can move your bed around anywhere you want it, but you still have great access to any of the areas you may need to work on. Also with the bed off, you can throw down a thick piece of plywood

and you've got yourself a portable work bench. But at the end of the day, when all the work's finished,

it folds up for easy storage, just like everything else. We've shown you today.

Speaking of dollies, check out the door dolly. Now, this is designed to hold your door stationary when you go to remount it on the vehicle. All you do is crank the jack, raise the door and bolt it on. Now, if you've ever tried to reset a door and get the gaps and all the hinges just right.

You know, it's at least a two man job and even then it's a major pain,

this little guy will save more headaches than a whole jar of aspirin. Now, obviously, what we've shown you today are just a few of the specialty tools that are out there and in the weeks to come, we'll continue to show you the ones we like to have around our shop.

And now truck gear, parts, tools and equipment for pickups and sport utilities.

Now, we know you've heard us say this before, but it really is true. Nothing quite changes the look of your truck or SUV, like a grill and Stole Industries has a grill for just about any application out there.

But their latest effort is this full billet grill for a 97 or 98 Dakota

or Durango.

Now, the kit comes with the full billet grill and fiberglass shell for about 250 bucks, but you can also pick up this lower grill for the front fascia for another 50. Now, you really can put some teeth in your Dakota or Durango with this complete setup from stole.

Now, if you're thinking about taking some parts down and having them polished, well, don't be surprised if you drop some serious cash to get it done.

Now, for the price of a couple of intakes, you could do it yourself with this ball door buffer and cabinet. Now it features a strong three quarter horsepower motor and features these long spindles

that gives you great access to the parts when you're buffing them,

you also have plenty of room in the cabinet to store your buffs and your compounds. Now, this buffer and cabinet combination goes for about 550 bucks and it's available from the Eastwood Company and a price like that,

it'll pay for itself in just a couple of uses.

Now, sometimes when you're working with tools, it's really tough to keep a grip on them, especially when things get greasy. So Hogue decided to do something about that

and came out with this really slick idea called the handle. Now, these are comfortable non slip grips that slide right onto the handle of your tool and are also designed to resist just about any kind of oil or solvent out there. Get a handle on things with these grips from ho

for about 15 bucks.

That's gonna do it for truck gear. Here's a preview of next week's show.

We're gonna unleash project. Big plays for one heck of a test drive as Stacy lumbers around town and cuts through the trails.

Then we'll go back in the studio for a lesson on knocking out those ugly dents using a hammer and dolly later. It's tool tech with a sneak peek at something that'll turn your ordinary grinder into a mini machine shop.

And finally Stacy's in the tech corner answering your questions and showing you some tricks of the trade.

Well, that's gonna do it for this week's show. We appreciate you hanging out with us. Yeah, we got more trucks for you next week. We should have

pulled a lot of junk off

of

it.

Just all the garbage

trucks is an RTM production.