Larry's 1978 K10

[Larry]

Cool video Larry. Thanks for posting. Just curious, that now after you have installed that video camera if you think its a good bang for you buck? Also could you post a link so as to where you purchased it. I might buy one. Cheers Chilli..

Thanks Chilli! Heck ya, for 50 bux that dash cam is worth it just as a novelty item. It already caught some trail footage we wouldn’t have as I forgot the GoPro this past weekend on a trial run.

Awesome work, Larry. Wish I lived closer so I could learn from you...I love seeing the transformation and adaptation of your rides! How do your Bilsteins compare to your previous shocks?

That would be cool! Well, so far I LOVE the Bilstein’s! The truck is a completely different truck on the road and trail.

So, this weekend 3 of us took our rigs to the mountains this past Saturday for quick overnighter validation run to see how the trucks did on the trail. 2 of the 3 trucks had quite a bit of work over the winter so they needed to be validate before going on a couple thousand-mile trip. Low and behold, the truck we were least worried about spit out a front drive shaft right at the air down spot. Bill’s mostly stock 2001 Dodge 2500 went KA-BANG! right at the trail head. A quick look underneath reviled the front driveshaft had come loose from the transfercase flange. Somehow 2 of the 4 bolts were completely missing and the other two were loose as a goose and one of the loose bolts broke under torque where the shaft busted loose and knocked a little hole in the tcase so with that, Bill turned around and went home to lick the wounds. The hole in the Tcase wasn’t found until he got back home but the good news is the hole was quite small where it was a quick and easy fix. Same with digging out the broke bolt from the tcase flange. Reasons like this is why we take them on a prevalidation run before the big trips!

Rob and I continued up the trail where we ran into snow across the trail on the Northern side of the trail where the sun doesn’t shine as much. We were probably within a football fields length away from the late where we had planned to camp when things took an interesting turn. As I slowly eased over the snow the truck slide to the passenger’s side towards the edge of the trail where there is a several hundred foot drop off. The more I tried to get off the edge the more the soft ground and rip-rap boulders broke away from the edge. It got quite scary for a while! The more I worked to get it back on the trail the more it kept slipping off as the ground broke away. I finally bailed the did the rest with winches for fear the tires were just going to keep digging into a bigger mess so we rigged up the rear winch for a nice clean pull which everything was going well until the cheap POS Smitybilt rear bumper mounted winch went KA-BOOM! and the truck bounced forward and further off the side about another foot. Now it was really getting intense and unfortunately during intense moments there is no time for pictures and videos. So now we pulled Rob’s K5.3 Blazer forward where he would finish the winching. We finally got the rear axle up on the solid trail where I could back the rest of the way out with a tree rubbing the hell out of the passenger’s side the entire way. While the truck took on some new surface tree scratches that will buff out the entire mess could have been so much worse. I’m also thankful that when the winch broke it locked up rather than freewheeled and letting the truck fall off the side which would have been the case. Other than that, the short trip served its purpose even though I will be done one winch for the Desert Trip. Oh, well. But I got to say, the Bilstein’s, ARB compressor and ARB Airlocker did great where I am extremely happy with them.

These are a couple pictures from before things got really ugly. When it fell off the front axle was resting on the diff and the rear was resting on the shock bracket

Carnage… not sure if I will fix this POS or breakdown and buy a rear winch. Every time I use this thing it either doesn’t work (failed solenoid pack) or it breaks. The little old Hickey Sidewinder winch on the front has always been reliable but more times than not I need a pull backwards not forwards further into a mess.

The video doesn’t serve any justice but you kind of get the idea how ugly things turned at the 2:10 mark when it fell. Plus we were loosing daylight fast (no audio, which is probably a good thing! LOL)

 

[MTCK]

That got real in a hurry. Glad it stayed shiny side up. Time for a warn?

 

[colierar]

Love your truck Larry, I always follow along the story of another square body. Thanks for all of your knowledge(and testing) you contribute. I have stolen a couple of your tricks for my own truck(bicycle bottle cages as water bottle holders) Have fun on your trip!

 

[Larry]

That got real in a hurry. Glad it stayed shiny side up. Time for a warn?

Yes, it all escalated very quickly after the nose took a slide and the rear chewed a hole in the mountain side :Wow1: I will probably fix it and either throw it on CL, put it on the front of the Burb or just keep using it for a while longer until the budget allows for a real winch. Last time this winch broke the piece to fix it was only like $15 through Summit Racing. The bummer is it is a lot of labor as the rear bumper has come off in order to get the winch out. We'll see.

Love your truck Larry, I always follow along the story of another square body. Thanks for all of your knowledge(and testing) you contribute. I have stolen a couple of your tricks for my own truck(bicycle bottle cages as water bottle holders) Have fun on your trip!

Thanks Colierar! Actually, that bike bottle trick was something I stole from my buddy Zoomad75.

Well, as it turns out my buddy had his GoPro running during the extraction but unfortunately his truck was too far back to capture any good footage when the debacle first went haywire. None the less, he got some good footage of the recovery.

Okay, before the winch Nazi's start in with their Monday morning quarterback critiquing our recovery, my winch has synthetic rope rigged to a strap wrapped around a bundle of 3 to 5 trees. At least one of them was over a ft. in diameter and the others weren't much smaller except one….the one that broke at the 2:02 mark. That is pretty funny as Rob nonchalantly looks up and goes back to playing with his tool when the small tree broke while throwing sticks at him. There is also an illusion that the lady is standing right at the rope but she was behind the rope next to the truck then away from the rope when the tree popped. Things weren't nearly as dangerous looking in person with respect to people almost getting their heads chopped off. That said, Rob's winch does have wire and we did use a winch blanket that you can see us draping over the cable.

Just a Saturday afternoon stroll in the mountains.... Winch breaks at :38 mark (sounds like a door slamming) and the tree breaks at the 2:02 mark. Caution! Some colorful language used. Probably not safe for work or children!

 

[Larry]

Rob (Zoomad75) also got some nice pictures on the way up….

After backing down the mountain a ¼ mile or more we turned around in a very tight and steep switchback and camped right in the middle of the trail. This was just as we were setting up camp

 

[zoomad75]

Pretty easy to shoot when the subject is so photogenic. Can't wait to leave for Utah Sunday.

 

[Larry]

Pretty easy to shoot when the subject is so photogenic. Can't wait to leave for Utah Sunday.

Hard to believe we used to take this truck to lunch when we lived in Detroit. The damn thing never missed one pot hole or expansion joint on Michigan's concrete roadways. Lol... Never thought it would eventually end up where I envisioned it either....but that was a long 20 years getting it here

 

[1stDeuce]

Looks like a good time! Wouldn't be an adventure without a little trouble.

And sorry, but you have further validated my notion that Smittybuilt winches (at least the early ones...) are junk. Yours is the second of only a handful of winches that I've seen, and the second to try to fail in a way that was NOT COOL. (The other refused to stay i gear, and would freewheel when it kicked out, dropping the truck back down a huge drift...) I have more trust in HF Badlands winches than the garbage winches that Smittybuilt put out the first few years.

My general opinion is still that real winches have a red "W" on them, though I have no experience with Superwinch units. My MX9000i is almost 20 years old, and has never so much as hiccuped. My Jeep is it's 3rd home. Same for my 8274, though it's been used fairly infrequently on the last two vehicles.

Hopefully your new rear axle keeps you from having to wipe the truck's butt on your upcoming trips!!

 

[zoomad75]

Hard to believe we used to take this truck to lunch when we lived in Detroit. The damn thing never missed one pot hole or expansion joint on Michigan's concrete roadways. Lol... Never thought it would eventually end up where I envisioned it either....but that was a long 20 years getting it here

Or swapping in a dump truck tranny in your carport in January in Detroit. I don't think either of us really imagined where we would be still be screwing around with that truck. Much less trying to keep it from sliding off the trail covered in snow. Been a fun ride for sure.

 

[huntsonora]

Larry, what paint do you use on your frames? I have a trailer I'm about to start work on and I'm wanting to take it to bare metal and prime and paint it

 

[Larry]

Larry, what paint do you use on your frames? I have a trailer I'm about to start work on and I'm wanting to take it to bare metal and prime and paint it

Hey Drummond,

I use Van Sickle satin black on most everything with an occasional use of gloss black (brake baking plates & drums for ease of cleaning). It is an oil based paint you can buy at the Big R farm store here in Colorado by the quart, gallon or spray can. They have red or gray primer too. I mainly use the spray cans but I have bought their paint in quarts before to spray through a cheap Harbor Freight gravity feed gun. The stuff is tough as nails (next best thing to powder coating) and with being oil based you can practically paint over a grease ball bearing with perfect results. You will never buy an acrylic like Krylon from Walmart ever again after you use this stuff

 

[huntsonora]

Awesome! Thank you! I'll be headed through Pueblo a bunch between now and hunting season. Lunch in me one of these days soon...

 

[Cummins_expo]

Larry,

I have been searching your posts and past builds. Do you have a link to your suspension setup? Been doing a lot of reading on CK5 and a few other Bowtie forums. Most are crawling, or mudding and they build big tall flex rigs. I see you use yours closer to how I plan to build mine. Trying to dial in a suspension on an 87 with 3/4 tons swaps and 33 or 35s. It wil be used to explore Baja and the AZ backcountry. Will spend many of miles on washbaord roads.

 

[Larry]

Awesome! Thank you! I'll be headed through Pueblo a bunch between now and hunting season. Lunch in me one of these days soon...

Cool! Message me when you know you will be passing through. My favorite Mexican joint is right off I-25 on the Southside of town. The Mill Stop Cafe by the steel mill. Yummm!

Larry,

I have been searching your posts and past builds. Do you have a link to your suspension setup? Been doing a lot of reading on CK5 and a few other Bowtie forums. Most are crawling, or mudding and they build big tall flex rigs. I see you use yours closer to how I plan to build mine. Trying to dial in a suspension on an 87 with 3/4 tons swaps and 33 or 35s. It wil be used to explore Baja and the AZ backcountry. Will spend many of miles on washbaord roads.

Sounds like a cool project. I don’t really have any threads on the rear suspension but mine is more less stock with an ORD 4” Shackle flip and ORD 6” HD Shackle with 56” rear spring packs from a 70’s ¾ ton truck. ORD does not recommend the 4” flip with the 6” shackles but mine is so heavy in the rear the negative side affects of that combo are moot. The truck rides unbelievably nice for what it is! It rides so much better than my stock Silverado HD it isn’t funny.

My Polar Bear Suburban might be more in line with what you are building. It just has the 4” ORD shackle flip with stock shackles and leaf springs in the rear. Flexes well and rides nice too even with cheap Superlift shocks. Both the K10 and Suburban are identical in the front suspension with 4” Superlift springs, ORD HD shackles and ORD sway bar disconnect (except shocks). I never disconnect the sway bar but the kit corrects the sway bar angle with lift springs. That alone makes a big difference in the ride quality of the front suspension

This is the rear of my Burb

Do you have a thread on your Burb here or CK5? I visit both sites often

 

[Cummins_expo]

No build thread yet as I am just getting started But build thread to follow. Thank you for the info on you set-up.