Thanks for the positive words, folks, and sorry I've been so long posting an update. Thanks for the input, as well, and those are some valuble photos, coilover.
As others have noted, I did figure out the little round indentations. Don't know if "jounce bumpers" are the correct name, but on the old S10, they are just little rubber triangles, hence the flat strike plate on the axle. On the newer S10 Blazers, they are little cylinders that look like a doggy chew toy.
How do I know this? I went driving around town, looking for an unsuspecting S10 Blazer. Finally finding one in the parking lot of our little University, I crawled under, and there they were. Okay, that explains the round pads. I could cut them off, but they really don't hurt anything, and I'd rather not cut anything up that might come in handy later.
But I found something else that mystified me. My sway bar was mounted facing forward....on all the Blazers I found, the sway bars were mounted facing backwards. I thought the wrecking yard had done something wrong, until I found that the difference was in the number of doors.
I searched tons of pages online before I stumbled across a parts catalog that showed the difference. A four door S10 Blazer has a sway bar facing the rear, in two door versions, it faces forward. And the connectors between the frame and the sway bar are completely different between the two.
So there's your best helpful hint from tonight's post: If you want to use the sway bar that comes with your Blazer rear end, get one from the 4-Door. The 2-door version goes forward, and will not work because of interference from the S10 gas tank. (more on that later).
Swapping the leaf springs on the rear axle was a piece o'cake. Everything from the '85 springs mated up to the '00 rear axle, and it rolled right into place.
Here\'s a picture of the new axle in its new home. Notice in the shadow at the top of the picture, the old triangular jounce bumper. If I ever bounce that hard, it will impact right behind the round pads for the '00 Blazer, and strike that flat area. You can also see in the photo the sway bar...with no frame mount.
Next: Hooking up the sway bar.
