Our Dual-Sport GMC Sierra

chaos616

Adventurer
Characters:

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Ehren (a.k.a. the Squatch), originally from northern MN. First truck was a 1983 Chevy S-10 (with a 2.8L V6). While driving to school one day, said engine blew head gaskets.. tore down motor, found a new one and got the truck going again. In the meantime bought a '97 F150 single-cab longbox with manual transmission and no AC. Sold the Chevy before leaving for college. Went to college in Duluth, MN for geology. Studied abroad in England my third year of school (07-08) and met Brittany at a bus stop in Birmingham. Had to sell a beloved F150 to finance the trip, but upon return was still a poor college kid and ended up buying father's old truck on the cheap. Father's old truck was a green 2001 GMC Sierra 1500. Also owned a 1996 KLR650 during this time.

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Brittany also grew up in northern MN, about two hours away from the Squatch. Drove her mom's old '95 Windstar in high school and had to leave it behind for younger siblings when she left for college, also in Duluth. Did not own a vehicle during the first part of college. Went on the same study abroad program as Ehren. Upon arrival back in the States, learned how to ride motorcycles and used a 2002 Kawasaki Vulcan 800 Custom as a daily driver.

Together spent the remainder of our college years in Duluth. In the summer of 2009, we took a 8-day motorcycle trip around Lake Superior.. Ehren on his KLR and Brittany on her Vulcan. In the summer of 2010, we took a 6-week motorcycle trip to Alaska using the same bikes. Six months after graduation, Ehren got a job as a mine geologist out in northern Nevada and after Brittany graduated six months later, moved out west to join him.

Ehren packed all his worldly belongings (including the KLR and a '99 YZ250) into the back of the GMC and moved to Winnemucca, NV in January 2011. Brittany came out with furniture and her Vulcan later that year in June.
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In November 2011, just two days before Thanksgiving, we were driving back home from Safe Haven Rescue Zoo (an animal sanctuary that we volunteer at), about a 40 minute drive. It was about 5:30PM and dark outside with no moon. We were driving down Hwy 400 at 70 mph when we hit a black cow standing in our lane head on and completely destroyed the GMC, just ten minutes after leaving Safe Haven.
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Needless to say, we were down a truck. A week later we ventured up to Boise, ID, to go truck hunting and found our current rig, a completely stock GMC 2007 2500HD Classic 6.0L V8.
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A fresh canvas ripe for modification! To be continued...
 

HenryJ

Expedition Leader
Great story...to be continued!
Hello neighbor :)
Born in Duluth and native to eastern Oregon.
 

chilliwak

Expedition Leader
Welcome to the site Ehren. I hope that you and your girlfriend were not injured in the crash with the cow. It looks like you have a nice new truck to start your adventures with. Please keep us up dated with lots of pics. I look forward to seeing what you do with your new truck. Cheers, Chilli....:)
 

chaos616

Adventurer
Sorry for not continuing sooner, we've been having a little bit of a busy weekend.. where did we leave off? Ah yes.. November 2011. We had just gotten our new, completely stock truck.

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First thing we did was get new tires, as the dealer had crappy passenger tires on there that shredded the first time we (hardly) went off road with it. We got BFG M/T KM2 255/85r16 tires, opting for the tall skinny look. We also replaced all the steering components. We wanted to put better lighting on it so we could see those pesky ninja cows better (and hopefully before we hit them!), but we wanted to do it differently. Decided that there was enough room for some Lightforce Striker 170 100-watt halogen lights to go behind the grille (a black billet aftermarket grille from T-Rex). Hooked them up and had them turn on and off via switch mounted in upper storage compartment on the underside of the roof, which we suppose was meant for sunglasses.

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chaos616

Adventurer
These mods were done in the three months after getting the truck. We also got a Black Bear tune on it in March 2012 which bumped up the MPG to 13-14 on highway and sped up the lock-up time of the torque convertor from 10 seconds to 1 second, thereby utilizing the engine power more efficiently. Did a trip back home to Minnesota for a couple weeks in June/July 2012 with two bikes in the bed, no problem. We didn't really do any other modifications to it until Mother Nature intervened yet again in January 2013. While on a trip through northern Arizona and southern Utah, we hit a deer just outside of Zion National Park.

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Destroyed our grille and all lights (except for the one headlight), pushed all the radiators back and pinched off the transmission cooler lines, destroyed the bumper and bent/pushed up the hood. We couldn't believe our bad luck. And right in the middle of the trip too. Luckily we were still able to drive and visit the rest of the sights we wanted to see and make it all the way back home to northern Nevada.

Zion National Park
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Valley of Fire State Park in southern NV
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Sick and tired of nature breaking our trucks (we came up with a new definition for GMC based on our experiences--Go Murder Critters), we decided on an ARB bumper to hopefully prevent putting the truck out of commission after the next inevitable incident. We also decided to change up the lights again, this time we opted for projection headlights with SMD halos. Thus our dear (deer?) truck was reworked, reinforced, and, finally, reborn to roam the earth once more..

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chaos616

Adventurer
We liked how the bumper turned out! Took five weeks to get the proper mounting kit for it, so when we finally got it on we took it out for a run in the hills.

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The Spyder headlights we modded with different halos cuz the halos that came with these were really weak so we got LED ones from Ebay which were much brighter.
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Went offroading on St. Patrick's Day with a friend and his Dodge Power Wagon.

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We found a nice little path with about two feet of snow on it that we decided to drive through. A couple months ago, before the deer incident, we were offroading and got stuck on a sand dune. Had to call for help to tow us out, and that experience inspired us to make traction boards using 4 3ft 2x12 treated boards and an alternating pattern of 3/8" nuts and bolts. Also purchased a high-lift jack and acquired a 1980 Warn 8274 winch on the cheap with a few problems that we rebuilt and are planning on building a hitch receiver winch mount for in the next few weeks. The reason for the hitch receiver mount is that we want to be able to use the winch either at the front of the truck or at the rear, instead of just having it hard-mounted at the front. Also the ARB bumper doesn't quite have the room required for the upright 8274 design.

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chaos616

Adventurer
:wavey::wavey:

Hey Henry, yeah we loved living in Duluth and we definitely miss trees and Lake Superior! Ehren is originally from Bemidji and Brittany is from International Falls, so Duluth was kind of a big city for us, haha.

Hey Chilli, we read through some of your threads and thought it was pretty good stuff. We're glad to be on here. Surprisingly we left the cow accident scene without even a scratch, we felt pretty lucky but also pretty bad about the cow.. and the truck cuz it had a fresh oil change, brand new battery, fresh plugs and plug wires and a full tank of gas. Oh well, still very thankful about having no injuries, that's what's important anyways. And don't worry about pics, Brittany loves taking photos of the truck and our expeditions so expect plenty more to come.
 

ober27

Adventurer
Ehren and Brittany,

It was fun to see that you're from Bemidji and International Falls. We live in Bemidji and travel to I-Falls frquently to ski(Black Bay Trail, Tilson Creek Trail and out to the Review Islands). We also head up through I-Falls to access all the great forest roads between Fort Frances, Dryden and Kenora.
Keep the stories and photos coming.

Darin
 

chaos616

Adventurer
Hey gmcpimpin, we will most certainly do before too long, work week and all might be a couple days.

ober27, SWEEEET!!! That is a quinky dink for sure, we have gone on a couple bike trips up through the Kenora area, its so pretty up there...treeeesss...

Thanks for the replies, we will continue to post more as more development happens, I know I like pictures, so we will try to get more of those up, they're fun!

Cheers,
 

1stDeuce

Explorer
Nice truck and bumper! You might want to reconsider making the 8274 a multi-mount winch... it's HEAVY and big, and since it mounts feet forward, a receiver mount is going to be substantial too... On the other hand, the ARB can VERY easily be modified to hold the 8274. :) (See some details in my truck build below)
Looks like your bumper fits a little better than mine too. I think I just have the Chevy version, but it should fend off the deer just as well! :)
Chris
 

chaos616

Adventurer
Hey 1st Deuce, I have read through your post and saw how you mounted the 8274. I then thought about mounting maybe mounting the winch down sideways, or flat so that the mounting points were up, it would be some fab work, but not bad, the only problem is I would have to relocate my transmission lines, or get soft ones (does anyone know a good place to get stainless braided transmission cooler lines done?) and then i would have to notch the metal radiator frame a bit (1 in maybe, its about 6 inches wide).

But then i figured I would just do the hitch because honestly i am pretty big (6'4" and 240 lbs.) I can handle the weight now and like the versatility and the extra load off the front suspension. Maybe when i get a bit older that won't be an option, but well see. The nice part about the hitch mount I am making is that it bolts to the stock location, so if i take it off, its back to a regular ARB bumper...
 

chaos616

Adventurer
Ok, so for the traction boards, we did some research some plastic ones made by company X, and other metal ones that are popular, but none of them sparked our interest or need.

With the sand and gravel in this part of the country, without sufficient grip, the sand turns into ball bearings on any surfaces without a stud (metal boards with perforated holes, and they don't work as well. I wanted to be able to crawl out of an axle deep hole with them and i needed something solid for the tires to grip on.

So i designed the boards to be "light"..."ish", weighing in at ~ 20 lbs. each, short enough to dig in at weird angles and have the truck crawl out of a hold (3' long), strong enough to hold an HD truck (2x12 treated), and have enough grip for the tires (3/8" carriage bolts w/ nuts).

In this photo, the left board is facing down (were looking at ground side) and the right one is facing up (were looking at tire side). The ground side bolts are pretty regular pattern based on space left from the tire side bolts. You will notice that the tire side bolts are not straight across but rather angled so that while a tire is on the boards, at any one time, there are at least 2 bolts catching the tires.
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Again photos, the first being the ground side, the second being the tire side
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You can see that the tire side studs are shorter than the ground side studs. I figured i would have less studs on the ground side, but they would be longer for grip on variable terrain. The tire side studs are shorter, but numerous and consistant providing exceptional traction on a continuos and constant surface such as the tire.
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Finally I v'd the tops of the boards because I figured I could shove them in sand or snow a little easier, or if absolutely necessary use them to dig with. Also the V could provide a little more traction if on a hard surface at an angle by gripping on a rock, or in a rut.
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Cost was pretty manageable, as I aquired most of the carriage bolts with nuts and washers at the local farm supply store, and the boards were cut out of a 16' length of 2x12 treated board. Total for 4 (with an extra piece of 4' board used as ramp blocks now) probably came to around 160 dollars, about half the price of the plastic boards.

I wouldn't do anything differently with these, but i am considering making some 5' boards for extremely muddy or snowy conditions, however factoring in weight, they would be quite heavy and bulky.
 

locrwln

Expedition Leader
Good looking truck. Too bad about the animal strikes, I think I will have to stay away from traveling with you anywhere...:Wow1:

Lots of great exploring out in the 'Muc.

Jack
 

chaos616

Adventurer
Hey thanks locrwln, its kind of funny because we lived in Northern Minnesota for 24 years and 23 years respectively, and neither of us had ever been involved in a collision with an animal, driving or not... I figure with the higher speeds and less overall light around it makes for a dangerous scenario. My next purchase is lights, but I am currently looking for high end lights used to save some coin, well see. Also I plan on a front locker eventually, how do you like yours now that you have spent some time with it, useful or was essentially an expensive toy?

Cheers,
 

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