OT: Tow vehicle - Army Surplus Blazer (diesel)
 

Looking at an '84 Army surplus Blazer, 4x4, 6.2L diesel. 36K miles. Anyone have some details on these things? Towing capacity? Powertrain durability?

Audiofn borrowed one of them to tow his Formula 302 from Long Island to north of Boston, He said it was one HELL of a tow vehicle ;)

Kurt :D
Jon,someone wants to meet you :D

Where would I go to find out what a reasonable price is on these things?

I looked into some Military Surplus vehicles once. In their view the vehicle was quote "not economically feasible to repair". And that about summed it up.

This one is being offered by a guy who owns a muffler shop - said he got it from the railroad. The guarantee it'll pass inspection no problem (in MD, inspection is a real *****, but it's a 1 time deal, that's it - after that, you run 'em till they fall apart).

I have yet to see the vehicle - will take a look at it 2nite.

Kook:
I don't know how much you will be towing but
these are not great tow vehicles,No power in the early diesels,no brakes,all light duty parts{brakes,cooling,etc} also the steering tends to get very loose with a load on rear,
they are not the best choice! I still have a 83 Suburban 1/2 ton extra length helps but i had to upgrade so much to tow i don,t thinck it was worth it.It never realy was great at highway speeds.

Birdog is right ,the old chevys diesels were real pigs ! NO power at all ! I drove lots of them .How ever ,I know a guy that changed the cam and did a few things to it that realy made it move . I could be wrong but I think they were a small block chevy converted . If yo uknow what to do you couls get a nice 350 chevy cam for it . You should hear that baby run !But they are very light duty engines and the brakes and all that are light too . They did do pretty good on fuel though ! ;)

I did not use a Amy Surplus Blazer to pull back the Formula. It looked like it had been through a war but that was just the rust falling off :rolleyes: :rolleyes: . I was having trouble with my truck so I asked if I could barrow this one. About 30 min into the drive home I lost 2 cylinders as the spark plugs fould from all the oil that was blowing past the valve seals!!! It took me 4 hours to get to the boat. 3 hours to make the trailer worthy of the trip and 12 hours to get home!!! :( :( :( The things we do for our boats. I got home and I was so exhausted that I did not even care about the boat!!!

Boot, that was the 5.7 diesel. Man, what a pig those things were :eek: Back then GM was replacing them with the 6.2 under warranty. I had a friend who was a flat rate GM guy and he must have swapped out close to 100 of those grenades :eek: Your right, they suck!

If it has the 3.73 rear end it will pull the boat but it will be squirrely stopping. I used to pull my 23 foot cuddy with a full size Blazer and it was always an "adventure". I then bought a Suburban with the same motor and it was a fine, but a little slow on hills.