'89 K5 Blazer - Rough Country Suspension Lift | Off Road Designs Sway Bar Disconnects

[@dconway32]

Digging this build man! I'm looking for a mid 80's Blazer myself and trying to decide if I want to really deep dive into a ground up rebuild or buy something that's almost complete. Your videos are definitely helping... Thanks for posting!

[@CraftwerksMC]

Max, the only thing I recommend a little difference is if you have to do the cones again for any reason spray them down with a good penetrating spray and then hammer like you did on the steering arm, but skip the heat. If you just move to the front and back of the steering arm hammering it up a little from the bottom it will work the cones up and then all you need to do is hammer the steering arm down back flat on the mounting surface and then that will further release the cones and they will get high enough to where you can either take them out with your fingers or go ahead and squeeze on them a little bit to compress and then they should just slide off instead of ruining them.

[@Chemogs]

I didn’t know dave batista liked to work on old trucks hahahaha

[@jadeneslava2148]

what headers are you running?

[@AdamCanFly]

Awesome video! What tires are you going with? I just got a set of Cooper Discoverer STT Pro 35x12.5x15 and my Blazer rides 1000x better! I can’t wait to go off roading! I also found a receiver hitch at the junk yard. I need to trim a few spots to make it fit perfectly. One request...When you’re showing detailed parts, would it be possible to ditch the fish eye? It was hard to see when you we’re talking about the pitman arm and the washers.

[@Makswerks1]

Sorry, not really a camera guy. I mostly use a gopro, but I can try to be better about zooming into things. I need to track down a receiver as well as I dont really have any recovery points. But based on how well it did at HF (next weeks video) I may not need them :). I will say this suspension rides pretty rough on the street, works fantastically off road though. Will probably add some more progressive bumpstops at some point.

[@CraftwerksMC]

@@Makswerks1 Yep, fisheye is part of the Gopro effect but its a lot more reliable and convenient for filming. Definitely more light would be beneficial though, otherwise its hard to see some of it and it gets more grainy. Great video though Max!!!

[@hitekredneck109]

Eh there. Thanks for your video and decent looking rig!! I have one question for you. I picked up an '82 k5 with a rough country 4" installed and 35" tires. There are spacers on the transmission crossmember to drop the rear of the transfer case about 1" or so. Did you need to do that to your blazer? The rear output seal keeps leaking and I think the slip yoke is going too far into the case with suspension travel causing it to leak. I wanna take that spacer out but not sure if it's actually needed or not. Cheers from 🇨🇦🇨🇦

[@Makswerks1]

With a 4" lift you need the Tcase spacers. It should have the whole tcase lowered evenly. There are 4 spacers. You can measure the slip yoke engagement to see if its the issue.

[@hitekredneck109]

@@Makswerks1 thanks for your quick reply. I will check the angles and the spacers were already installed. I just can't get it to stop leaking atf so I'm thinking either a hairline crack in the tailpiece or more likely the plug in the end of the yoke. I'll check through the week....lol.....it snowed here last night just as things were starting to thaw out😳😳😳

[@Makswerks1]

@@hitekredneck109 You should also check out the slip yoke itself. Sometimes they rust and pit causing it to chew up seals.

[@hitekredneck109]

@@Makswerks1 I did. I took it back out today. It was leaking from the metal plug in the back of the yoke. It was butchered like most of the stuff on this thing so I welded it in. There is also a spot that feels like it "dips" on the outside diameter (a low spot) of the slip....weird. lol......also I'm sure that the bubble gum welding on the drive shaft itself is contributing to it. Man it's messy. I dont know if I'm gonna have it fixed or just convert it to a 205 tcase. Either way, if I can do an sye I could put a longer drive shaft in the rear to help decrease the joint angles but if your rig is working well then I might just get the shaft fixed. There's s really good shop about an hour away from me and they do all kinds of repairs n custom stuff. A friend of mine uses them for all his dragster stuff so we'll see how she goes. I really appreciate your input!!!!

[@joshuaatkins5197]

Since you attached the swaybar hold up bracket where you did, it doesn't look like you're going to lower those bumpstops. Better do that. The tires are a lot softer then fender sheet metal is. Highly recommend lowering them. Your shocks shouldn't be what your bottom out on. Edit: also recommend mounting swaybar once the weight is on it, not with axle hanging.

[@tmmyjay]

Great video. Do I need the front sway bar drop bracket on a 2" spring lift?

[@Makswerks1]

they sell a kit for lifted vs stock height trucks. if you are lifted you need the lifted drop bracket.

[@ravenrivera1950]

You only need it really after 6 inches and higher lift. 2 inch will be fine with stock location even 4 inch on my other k5 is fine stock sway bar

[@tandreu2020]

Do all K5 or some have single shocks in the front, I'm doing mine soon but I noticed mine have 2 per tire, are they different sizes when your replace them? Thanks for the vids!

[@Makswerks1]

Dual shocks were an 80's thing. you can find trucks with a stupid number of shocks on them. Generaly modern day shocks are worlds better than that was available then. They added more shocks to affect rate, but now you can just order custom shocks for what you need. Feel free to swap back to a single shock setup.

[@tandreu2020]

Thank you, appreciate your knowledge!

[@channell11]

@@tandreu2020 Yep, the quad shocks were a factory option, but when replacing them most people just go to a modern single shock.

[@josephpuchel6497]

Hey I would have went with springs in rear instead of blocks. Especially when off road . Nice video

[@Makswerks1]

The rear springs were in good shape and flexed out well. Blocks are a great bang-for-buck improvement.

[@robmeans9607]

throw those lift blocks away and do an ORD shackle flip on it, you wont regret it!!