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79 K5 Prerunner "Lucy"

Overview Gallery Discussion
The springs are 12/300 and 16/400
And yea that’s a lot of preload. That’s max what i would run on anything. But the stupid part is these shocks are too long 17 inches travel and I am only using 13 inches of them. They’re at a 1.35:1 ratio..
when I can afford to replace them and either switch to a arms or change the engine cage up I’ll put a 14 inch shock. So I have to strap it short right now..
 
Have you weighed the blazer by chance yet? Springs seem a bit light. Which could be why the 3”s of preload, but hopefully those sleeves don’t bend hopefully they break if they are going to fail. When swing steer bends at speed you have a higher chance of the truck darting and rolling. If it breaks clean atleast it allows the wheel to track straight until you try turning the wheel. For a first trip rip they “should” be fine. Just don’t let those become a permanent feature. As you get the truck dialed and get it going faster. Mine failed doing 100mph thru the whoops. I’m glad it was a clean break. My truck could be totaled right now if it had just bent. That’s a scary thought.
 
Mr.Clean said:
Have you weighed the blazer by chance yet? Springs seem a bit light. Which could be why the 3”s of preload, but hopefully those sleeves don’t bend hopefully they break if they are going to fail. When swing steer bends at speed you have a higher chance of the truck darting and rolling. If it breaks clean atleast it allows the wheel to track straight until you try turning the wheel. For a first trip rip they “should” be fine. Just don’t let those become a permanent feature. As you get the truck dialed and get it going faster. Mine failed doing 100mph thru the whoops. I’m glad it was a clean break. My truck could be totaled right now if it had just bent. That’s a scary thought.
Click to expand...
Based on the weight of the truck from the spring compressing the truck is 880 on the driver side and 720 on the passenger side. But I have a couple of other spring options to try so we’ll see how this feels. I agree with it being too light. 400/400 or 400/450 might be closer to what it wants and I haven’t installed the hood yet which is prob 70lbs.

That tie rod stuff is coming off like the next time I drive it. I just haven’t gotten the bungs for my joints nor the steel to make 1.5x.250 tie rods. And I cannot imagine having not come off at 100!! That’s gnarly! I’ll prob be going 40-50 out here but I get that it can still happen.. I’ll keep an eye on it. And they are 4130 tie rods btw.. but still..
 
Okay, debriefing time!!
To start out the day went as good as anyone could hope for on a maiden voyage, we had some minor issues that we sorted out but nothing show stopping.
I got to the lakebed roughly 8:30, @secutright was waiting for me, Matt got bitten by the time change lag so he was in route and we got a wild hair and did a couple quick test runs. First run we drove around the hills closest to the truck and about 3 mins in we tossed the alternator belt, and turned the power steering belt. I actually had to call @retroblazer just to gush about the performance.. seriously not what I expected, this thing works pretty good out of the box.
We limped back to the trailer and swapped belts. Then we headed up the trail with Matt and we’re leading and came up on a little dude in his rzr and he was cool enough to let us pass him. Gave him a thumbs up and kept on up the trail, now the area we were in gets pretty whooped out, so out of pure ignorance I just keep my momentum and it starts to come into itself and we start getting up on top of the whoops so I just go faster and the faster I went the smoother it got, so I upshift into 3rd which was prob around 50mph and were actually leaving Matt at this point by a large margin, and I don’t have Mirrors so I kept going til we got to the base of the sand hills, at this point I am starting to realize this blazer is no longer a pokey old tin can.. it now seriously has surprised me and exceeded my initial expectations of what it can do even when handicapped with 11 inches of travel out back.. it’s not the smoothest ride but it gets down..
Matt caught up and we get to the base of the big hill and let the rigs cool down, a couple of dirt biker dudes come to check out Lucy, they dig her.. tripping out on the beams etc low ride height, the whole deal.. which is cool for me because it hasn’t really been out much..
I get back in the truck with Scott and we start doing the dune slayer act so I can feel the truck out, and boy does this thing corner, drifts really predictable and smooth, the 5:14 gearing makes for a short 1st gear and nice 2nd, makes me think with some paddles I could prob scoot around glamis pretty good..
we start up the big hill and shoot that a couple of times and just kinda drive around being kids for a bit.. mind you this whole time I haven’t been pushing the rpm much at all because of the belts, then we stop and Matt takes his turn at dune slayer 2.0 and he musta been on a rail or something!! He was roosting everywhere and just full send on his rig, kill mode or something! It had rained the day before and no dust was present and we had good traction.
And yes we got video of all this btw and will upload it ASAP!
So once Matt has had his turn now we stick him in Lucy and I take him for a ride, and him laughing and just egging me on got me all roosted up and resting and we hit one of the jumps kinda slow and didn’t leave the ground, well that’s not alright so we take a second pass at it and this time I somehow put out of my mind the pulleys and just wot the thing, in the video you can hear the Rpm come up and it shifts and we launch pretty good, not stupid high or anything but a nice comfortable landing well within the trucks comfort zone.
Well that pissed it off good cause the dam water pump spewed the gasket out between the block and the pump. I realize it and shut it down. It’s all hissing and pissin, we decide quickly to just get the truck moving again and get back to the truck quickly without overheating.
I made it back at the temp stayed 200-218 and I got back just fine. We loaded up and headed to Matt’s to form a game plan to fix this because I knew it would be an hour tops and it was 10:30.
So we looked it over and found the water pump hub was bent somehow?? Which caused the belts to jump, and the gasket thing had to have something to do with the thermostat, I had the bypass hose in there and everything and it still happened so we call our engine guy Dennis and he tells me to gut the thermostat and leave the thing in there as a restrictor. We got the new pump, rad cap, hoses, belts and installed it all and had it running by 2 including eating lunch.
Scott had to go and our buddy Albert was there with another friend, and Albert has not been in a Prerunner or crawler ever.. he’s got a turbo c5z06 so he’s good with going fast.
We all leave Matt’s place and head out to the trails local..
To be continued...
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YESSSSS!!!! This was one of the first builds I started following when I joined CK5 so it’s pretty cool to hear about it coming to life! Good job Steve! This is encouraging!
 
Congrats on the maiden voyage, saweet! :saweet: Rig is looking awesome! :waytogo:

And just ditch the thermostat if its giving you troubles, don't waste your time gutting it for a restrictor, not needed at all for that vehicle.

Although I've never heard of a thermostat causing a gasket to blow. The radiator cap is what is supposed to relieve any pressure, the water pump isn't really capable of generating pressure, it just stalls the flow with any pressure.
 
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