Beretta.net

Fixed up this POS on the cheap and it's making a great winter beater. It's amazing what difference in aesthetics some paint, wheels and stickers can make.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE8qwoad8Dw


Had to fix the rear axle, that was the last video. Swapped some offroad/street blazer parts around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZO2m7b-zvQ


Also did ball joints, fuel lines, brake lines, (used) caliper & rotor on one corner, ebrake hardware with ghetto actuator. Painted the grille black, did my red/black bowtie treatment along with some Z69 stickers. The Z28 wheel offset and some rear spacers actually help with stability a little...widens track by 4" in front and 7" in back. I yanked out the terrible head unit install and put the leftover factory CD player in...been rocking some DMX. Sanded the ragged and prickly shift knob and swapped the metric cluster to my US one from the Gambler.

Lots of fun to have an #aintcare winter beater. Dump the clutch and kick the ass sideways and slide around. Then if it gets stuck just put in 4WD and drive out. Good times.

Beadlock wheels for cheap with no welding. You know, laser jig for drilling...tap with a drill press...plastic mockup...laser alum rings. The whole 9 yards.

https://youtu.be/RLeUMv4NltU?si=tbrQxGyjoMViKgWX

This forum is looking dead! So here's a Blazer update.

I love my winter daily, even used it quite a bit this summer with no doors while making repairs/upgrades to the Beretta. I just bought a dead ZR2 to 5spd swap also. The Gambler is beyond bad...so it's getting torn down to donate 5spd stuff. I tried to kill it with style by cutting off the roof and jumping it...but it failed to give me any epic breaking-in-half video like I wanted.

Fixed fuel pump and gave er hell again
https://youtu.be/tNP7oMjPvVA

Made doors on the "good" blazer removable for the street
https://youtu.be/2SQubYOhZZs


Cut it into a ute
https://youtu.be/hhTAKZ9Pz70


Tried to make it fly
https://youtu.be/pOHTymXtqrE

New ZR2 to build
https://youtu.be/CHicOmHgwsE

Blazer drama: I retired the shitty one because it would only crank over about once every 20-30 key cycles and I didn't want to spend money on a starter for it when it was already on death row. After tearing it apart I noticed the NSS switch on the clutch pedal was really nasty (prob from driving through the pond) and that's probably all it was - and I could have fixed it just by splicing two wires. Oh well.

The street Blazer I've been driving finally had terminal rear axle failure. It was damaged when I bought it, fixed with a "repair bearing" knowing it wouldn't be permanent. 2-2.5 years later that bearing failed and I tried another $21 rig job to get through the winter. Almost made it! Smoked it (literally) in early March.

After getting the shitty one completely torn down I started on the red long-term winter beater. Didn't get far before I noticed the frame had cracks at the front control arms. Apparently it's a super-common ZR2 failure that I didn't know about...so I guess it's gonna go on that bare ZR2 frame that I bought with an LS in it. So that'll be 3 Blazer frame-off jobs. Oof.

You'll have to watch the video to appreciate just how rusty that first Blazer was. My god it's the worst I've ever seen.
https://youtu.be/Q-igOk81AJQ?si=tNQNbClRN_Cxc7Tf



Discovered during the teardown that it's a huge ass-ache to get the clutch pedal out of these 98+ S10s, and the pedal pivots are hollow plastic. So I created a metal solution that also saves you from having to pull the entire dash out to get the pedal. Makes a 5spd swap much easier. Got a couple sets sold already.
https://youtu.be/RmmnYb9v0tI?si=6-Vj6gQH713_JS3f



The death of the rear axle was a good excuse to wake the Beretta up from hibernation though. It's felt good to drive it again.
https://youtu.be/STKNROprwKc?si=CVw8rlKA0NZXwP3n


With the 5spd out, I was able to do some fabricobbling to sort out the 4spd shifter for the upcoming LS/sm465/SAS project.
https://youtu.be/O9hmEa0tLA0?si=jQMw_rJYVvMi78oO

Decided to harvest the 4.3/5spd/tcase from the street Blazer for the red ZR2. The condition of the ZR2s engine and tcase is unknown and I know mine are good. Also figured it was good practice to split the body properly first on the one that won't be a daily driver. The gambler I just cut everything to get it apart.

https://youtu.be/giWhdJBpQi0?si=3YBt_Id4jWEX0n_q



I also noticed the Blazer fuse block plug shape looks exactly like GMT800. I'm sure I'll have to move wires around, but I can probably make a GMT800 LS harness plug and play with Blazer fuse block. That could save people the $900 that CPW charges for their harness.



And I sold 4 of the clutch pedal pivots already, so it looks like those will be popular. 2 of them to people who just broke their plastic junk. Made a website page to reference to a paypal store link.
https://gearheaddezign.com/customparts/index.html