1976 k5

[owenst7]

It's raining out, and I'm spoiled on good weather here in NV. I suppose I might as well start a thread.

I bought this truck around Valentine's day of 08. Mostly just wanted a hunting/camping rig for around here so I don't have to worry about scratching and denting up my DD. The plan for it while I am going to school in NV is probably 37"-42"s SXs and a crafty interior setup for storing gear and sleeping (I've wanted a rig I could sleep in since I was about 3 years old).

Here it was the day I drove it home. Pretty much stock except for some 6 leaf 4" front springs. The rear was running a tapered 3" block and two add-a-leaves . It rode like ****, but I got the truck for $700 and the engine and tranny were good, along with the PO just replacing all the suspension and body mounts.

First thing I did was brace the steering box and pull the anti-sway out. While doing a shackle flip, I discovered the passenger side shock mount sucked. Oh well, I never planned on leaving it there anyway.

Here's the flip I worked out for temporary.

I ended up putting one more leaf back in after a couple days.

 

[owenst7]

February of 09, I was up in a canyon a couple miles from my house. Even with those stiff lift springs, I managed to pull my steering arm off. It took about 8.5 hours to get the 2 miles back to my house.

Wasn't too happy about this, but it was determined to traverse that damn car. I can't believe how tough those MTRs are. Too bad they only came in a 37", and they had to quit making them.

This got old after about 20 minutes, so I said f-it, crossover is now the first priority.

 

[owenst7]

So I put the rig in the driveway and collected some parts over the remainder of the semester. I go home to AK every summer to work, so when I got back to Reno this past fall, I was pretty motivated to get this thing moving. I had picked up a set of freshly rebuilt HD1/2 ton springs from a '95 pickup previously and a set of flat top D44 knuckles. The plan was to build a 44 to handle 37"s (that's all that a lot of buggies around here run anyway). About a week after I spent hours pulling those knuckles, a set of tons appeared on Craigslist. Anyone that wheels with me knows that I tend to get bored when I'm not pushing the limits too far (I've been wheeling my own rigs now for 18 years, boy that makes me feel old). So, screw the half ton plan.

Ground the calipers on the 60, moved the perches on the 14, picked up a screaming deal on some 8-lug rims.

The G80 was on its last legs. I could have just pulled the actuator and left it open and it would have been fine, but since this is turning into a trailer queen and I already had it apart, might as well take the Lincoln to it.

I spent the last several months pounding out just about every rivet on my frame in between classes. I became very good friends with my cobalt bits and HF air hammer. Since 64"s are 12" longer than stock, I moved the front hanger forward 5.5". On the '70s (+/-) frames, there's a body mount crossmember riveted to the frame right there. The spring hanger will bolt up nicely with existing holes and everything. The later model frames, however, have the body mount outboard of the frame. I'd bet you could snag an older crossmember and move those body mounts if you didn't want to make a new mount or weld the two together.

I moved the rear hanger back about 1.911". With the 6" shackles, this put me at about 42* when the spring is flat (longest). The ride height did come out to around 35.7* I think. Please excuse my poorly calibrate HF angle finder. You win some, you lose some with that place.

 

[6872xtc]

I can tell you from my experience that you won't regret going crossover. I recently put it on my '70 that only has 4" lift and was amazed at the change in my truck! I installed a quick ratio box also which really makes a difference IMO. I wish I'd done it sooner, but I thought it wouldn't be that much of a change with my short lift. My thoughts are that crossover will make more difference on yours due to '73+ having longer springs than mine.

 

[owenst7]

The motor mounts were totally shot and the crossmember was shameful. Good thing I had to re-do all that anyways. This is not my truck, I stole it from another website:

The crossmember was about 1/2" from lining up at "2" and "3" on the drivers side. I fought with this for a couple days. I backed everything out to just a couple threads and couldn't get it to work, etc. The width of the crossmember was flush and parallel to the frame rails, so I knew the frame wasn't out of square. What I suppose was going on is a couple things. When tranny mounts wear out and aren't replaced, the engine tips back. This pulls up on the engine towers at "3" and somewhat at "2" (it's pivoting around "1"). Also, when the engine torques, it pushes down on the passenger side tower, and pulls up on the drivers side tower. I suspect over the years of running worn out mounts and being oblivious, this tweaked the hell out of my engine bay. I ended up pulling new towers off a newer truck at Pick N Pull (most of the trucks in there were suffering from the same ailments) and barely got it all together. The way the ORD crossmember holds the towers is about the strongest design I can come up with to combat those forces.

Here's the old crossmember that one of the POs...well, a picture is worth a thousand words...

One day at Pick N Pull, while pondering what pitman arm I could use for a high-flex, low ride height, axle moved forward Chevy, I stumbled upon two late '70s Ford vans. Parked side by side of all things. Didn't take me long to get my girlfriend on the phone to run my pitman arm puller to me (that thing goes with me every time now). That's also a 2wd variable ratio sector shaft by the way.

 

[owenst7]

I welded up a drag link out of 1.5"x.250" DOM, cut some 6" shackles out of 3/8"s (the stock 4" shackles let the spring eyes hit the frame), and tossed my 52"s up front. I'm running ES2026R for drag link ends. They are stock GM 1/2-1 ton DLEs. I ran both RH thread so that I only need one set of spares. I'm not sure why anyone would take the overload out of the 52"s. It's pretty flat, and recurving the spring is a good way to spread the eyes out in a hurry. The overload doesn't effect droop anyways. I prefer droop to compression travel anyways.

Here it is as it sits today. Really came out pretty damn close to my old ride height. Now that I have the tons under there, those 35s that I've only put about 30 miles on need to be replaced.

The chain in the 203 has been slipping since I bought the truck. A couple years ago when I bought it, I picked up a spare 203 for parts. I traded my half tons for a 27 spline 205, but it is minus shifter and adapter. Ideally, I want to tear into the 205 with new seals and replace any worn bearings before I go home for the summer (that's hard to do with it in the truck). When I get back next season with more money, I'm planning on deciding which tranny to run permanently, buying a doubler plate, making a skid/crossmember with polyethylene on the skid, and putting that in there. I pulled the 203 out (that's a lot for a 150# engineer to bench press!) and tore into it. The chain was definitely stretched out, but everything else was fine. I also discovered how crappy the part time kit in there is. Yesterday I discovered some spider gears in the boxes of parts that came with the truck. I'm going to take the tail housing back off and see if they're correct.

The 203-rebuild horror stories are pretty unwarranted. I mean christ, the whole thing can be rebuilt with just a 9/16" wrench and some chemicals. If a guy in a 20* garage with poor lighting and a messy table can do it at 5am, anyone can. The needle bearings are easy to catch by spinning the shaft in the case while holding a beer-pong cup under it. Some of them were shattered and stuck to the magnet, so I gutted the cases, cleaned them out real good, and put the magnets back in. The whole thing is really simple to put back together, and there's even enough room to get your hands in there easily and such. I re-assembled the case in the truck in pieces so that I didn't give myself a hernia lifting it up there and holding it while I threaded bolts. The needle bearings are really, really easy to handle if you use transmission assembly compound. Like, really, really easy.

That took all of about 5 minutes. Did I say how easy it was? Assemblee Goo should sponsor me for this kind of advertising.

So that's where I'm at now. I'm waiting on a buddy to finish my rear driveline. I've been driving it around a bit in front-wheel, and I couldn't be more impressed with the handling. Being that I'm running a shorter pitman arm than steering arm, I sacrificed some understeer for leverage. The benefit though, is that I have quite a bit more steering power than I did stock. I've got to teach myself how to tune Q-jets as mine is running poorly, but the tranny seems to be doing well. I'm considering putting a 400 in there eventually though because you can change gear ratios in it. I've rebuilt parts of my 4l60e, I actually like building autos, but the all-gear drive of the 400 sounds simple to work on and really reliable.

 

[owenst7]

I can tell you from my experience that you won't regret going crossover. I recently put it on my '70 that only has 4" lift and was amazed at the change in my truck! I installed a quick ratio box also which really makes a difference IMO. I wish I'd done it sooner, but I thought it wouldn't be that much of a change with my short lift. My thoughts are that crossover will make more difference on yours due to '73+ having longer springs than mine.

Oh totally. I'm always suggesting to people that they run as little travel in the front with stock steering, or you just make the vehicle less capable by generating all those steering issues. It's a good design for bump steer in a truck that sees heavy loading, but it's not designed for an off-road application at all. I understand why the engineers did it. when the springs sag under load, it doesn't spin the steering wheel. But, I really would have liked to see them run inverted T or crossover on the blazers since they were marketed as a fourwheeler.

I remember around summer of '92, we had a family friend that built up a competition truck. He kept having issues with the steering, so he pulled an orbital and ram off a loader. I was real young, but completely infatuated with the truck, so I hung out in his dad's shop all the time (my uncle was one of the welders there). I just handed him wrenches and stuff, but he was always explaining why he had to change the steering, why he was doing this, etc. I called him a few weeks ago to pick his brain, and he couldn't believe I retained any of the stuff he'd taught me all those years ago. He ended up competing with Bigfoot and a couple other trucks when they came to the state fair one year, but then he chewed up his hand bad and I haven't hardly seen him out since. Pretty sure he's parted the truck out now, but in it's heyday it was a '72 GMC on an aluminum Kenworth frame with 63" rice and canes. He named it "The Alaskan", so the color scheme my K5 is getting is sort of a tribute to that. I'm going to eventually do the tub dark blue with the big dipper on the sides.

 

[owenst7]

I took it out for a shakedown run the other day. Didn't want to do anything too crazy cuz I was afraid it seperating the stock length rear driveline. I actually had no issues with it. I guess the longer shackles in the back along with the angle really make good geometry for the slipyoke. I finished my 1350 driveline tonight so I'll be taking the truck camping this weekend.

 

[owenst7]

 

[owenst7]

I also dropped the front tire off a rock a bit too tall and landed right on my shackle. I cut them out of 3/8"s. It was about a 12" drop and it hung both drivers side tires in the air. Needless to say, the granite lost that battle big time. Not bad for $4 worth of strap.

 

[owenst7]

Here's some better pictures of my steering. I'm still considering a zero rate so I haven't cut the ubolts down yet.

Pass. Side compressed

That's the axle in stock location, stock 52"s, 1.75" drop pitman (Ford Van), ES2026R ends (stock GM DLEs), and Ballistic arms. There is some understeer due to the steering arms being longer than the pitman arm. This is about the most ideal pitman for these trucks in my opinion, so eventually I will probably make some custom arms (if nobody else is doing it yet) that are appropriate length and have correct ackerman angle. This drives pretty darn good for now though, better on the highway than my DD in fact.

 

[owenst7]

We took it camping last weekend. I'm really gonna miss how well those MTRs do in the snow when I get bigger tires (35"s aren't cutting it with 1-tons dragging on everything).

The e-brake cables are too short, but the 14 is getting discs and a line lock soon so oh well. The front shocks are too short, but they're keeping my driveline from separating at the moment. I have a set of new DT 15" shocks, but I need to make some crossmembers and junk before they go on.

A little more sideways than I'd expected when I slid into that ditch. Even sitting on the door inside, the truck felt surprisingly stable on the new suspension.

This is a giant quartz deposit by the way.

I've got an air mattress that fits perfectly in the back. Stayed cozy and warm all night even though it was about 25* outside.

 

[jonrpick]

Nice... I like the idea of being able to crash in my vehicle as well. My K5 will most likely never be off pavement enough to merit anything other than stock-sized tires, but I do plan on road-tripping in it, and crashing in the back...

 

[owenst7]

Nice... I like the idea of being able to crash in my vehicle as well. My K5 will most likely never be off pavement enough to merit anything other than stock-sized tires, but I do plan on road-tripping in it, and crashing in the back...

An inflatable full/double fits perfect back there, with plenty of headroom to boot. Plenty comfortable with me, my girlfriend, and my border collie.

 

[cegusman]

If there was ever a pick to photochop this on is it.

 

[owenst7]

35" MTRs

I don't really like having a 17" wide tire, but I traded the LTBs off my DD (glad to have my ATs back on there) for these 40"s, and I sold my MTRs for $500. I only paid $550 for them, and I got to keep the rims for $50...so not too bad. Plus, the ground clearance with the 35"s was bringing the suck...it was like driving 1/2 tons on 31"s again.

Here's the profile on a 10" rim

Assuming these hold up OK (they're pretty old), I think I will like having the smaller rim/tire width ratio. The 12.50s on 10" rims was not ideal, but I got the rims for a steal, and I knew an 8" wouldn't cut it when I tried to go taller than a 37" or so.

I have no experience with Gumbos really...I'm not even sure they are still being made. They look to me like they're going to dig to China...but maybe the 17" width will counteract that. I'd really like them to get good flotation in the snow since it's about time to start breaking trail to my spring camping spots.

I'm hoping I have time to put assist on very soon and make at least a rear bumper out of the tube in the garage. Next season I'm hoping for a winch to build the front bumper around, 56"s up front, make new shock mounts, and I'm not entirely decided on tires yet. I'd like something along the lines of a 44x15x17 MTR, but since that isn't going to happen I will probably end up with TSLs. I wonder if grooving a TSL like an MTR would work well....

Come to think of it, if they still make Gumbos, I could groove them almost identical to the chevrons on an MTR. I may just have to make a trip to Summit for a grooving iron and do some experimenting on these before I replace them.

 

[owenst7]

Oops

The winch cradle comes back and also bolts into the anti-sway bar mounts that are no longer being used as you can see here.

Plated the vertical plane with .120" and the rest is .250"...mostly just to have an simpler mounting surface to work with. It took quite a bit of work with the sledge to get the existing frame as flat as I did. The horns have been beaten on the rocks pretty hard. I actually bent the front of the B52s quite a bit, so I got them square again with a big pipe wrench and went ahead and moved the axle all the way forward so that the spring eye protects things now.

Also have some 2x5x.188 that I'm going to weld in under the door sills and make a rear bumper with finally. I don't have a welder anymore, but a friend is out of town and loaned me his little 110 flux core. Wasn't super happy with the welds I got out of it for the bumper, but I think it's OK. I stalled the winch on it with the line doubled-back to the bumper today. Won't really know until it's been yanked on, but I tried to address the welds in the design. The bucket is all .250" welded inside and out, and the sides are wrapped with 1" angle iron .250" thick. The area that concerned me was the top corners of the front plate, as they are under tension when the winch is pulling. With the tube across the top welded both sides to that plate and the top of the frame horn mounts, it would have to shear 4 3" long welds along with the 90* joint and one side of the angle iron on top of the 90*.

I have material for some d-ring mounts, but I've decided to exchange beer for some welding on my buddy's 220 machine. If a d-ring mount fails, it's probably going to be with someone yanking on it (more force than the winch), and it will be a hell of a projectile. I don't really trust the penetration (or lack thereof) that I'm getting from the smaller machine for that, as they'll just be a few inches weld in tension. Rather than spend a lot of time working around that, it's easier to just call out a favor.

I'll get some pictures of the steering when I've got the bugs worked out. It's plumbed in but there's a couple things I'd like to mess with as I'm not fully happy with it yet.

 

[yellowK20]

looking good!

 

[owenst7]

Damn conifers. You're welcome, Forest Service (and taxpayers). Had to move like three last night to avoid long detours.