'89 K5 The Bulldozer

[Tnsejed]

Next step was to work on the cage, sliders, and tubs.

I pulled the window out to get the engine cage to A pillar tie-ins done and welded. The A pillars through the dash.

Tubs:

I always wanted a C-hoop X but it wouldn't happen with the 4 seats, Fuel cell, and spare. The spare space was what I used if we went camping for our gear.

 

[Tnsejed]

Got the sliders in as well, then tie'd all these in to the frame and an X to the b-hoop bracing.

 

[Tnsejed]

After this all the plating to the body was done. I did get sick for a few days not realizing the inner tub was galvanized after that. My throat hurt something fierce. I knew it though as soon as I was done and saw all the white fuzz around the welds.

I also made the center console and added more bracing etc. Made alot of progress but not many pics.

Also did a dash that I could take out and modify pretty easily. Same with switch panels above the center console. Working on these is nice and easy and has helped over the years with changes.

I got the fuel system all done. The truck has dual batteries behind the front seats and a Blue Seas automatic duel battery system. I also have a separate fuse block back there for the accessories. My battery system is setup with critical vehicle components on one battery and lights and accessories and winch on the other. With the blue seas they are combined during use and when shut off they separate (or if failure happens on one battery they separate). I can then manually, or electronically combine them if needed.

This definetely looks like a newer picture but you can see the cell

 

[Tnsejed]

I finished up a bunch of little things and some exhaust. Antiwrap bar version 1 done. Made a rear bumper etc...

After all of that it was pretty much time to shake it down. I shook it down pretty easy as there was alot of stuff going on.

Finished truck:

Its first flex:

Re-did some trimming after that etc..


Then its first blast around the fire roads near my house.

 

[Tnsejed]

The front springs were changed out before the first outing. But I had problems with the 64's. I really wanted them softer. So I started shopping around at junk yards and just buying up random spring packs. Swapped stuff in and out until I found what seemed to work best.

It's also totally non-adviseable due to the internet. But what I ended up with was the top 4 leaves from my Rocky Mountain Spring 64 pack (totally stock regular truck pack with overload and lower removed) and then a cut down lower spring out of an S-10. This spring had crazy arch compared to the 64's but it kept the pack from going W on me.

Surprisingly those packs lasted all the way until I 4 linked the rear. I beat the shit out of em. Bent 4 anti-wrap bars and wheeled everywhere.

For the first season I used the DIY4x wraptor crossmember, which stuck way down. It was by far my lowest point. And after the first year I ditched it and remade a new crossmember and a new antiwrap bar as that was my first bent anti-wrap.

To make this new antiwrap crossmember and bar I put it in the link calculator with the leaves as links. You could feel how much antisquat the truck had and I didn't like how it behaved. So I went with a 42" long bar made from 1.75x .25wall upper and 1" x .25 lower.

The first actual trail it ran was Hackett which is about 10 minutes from my house. Then its first trail out of county was Spring Creek.

 

[Tnsejed]

After those two first trails on a fresh build I had a big trip planned with the truck. I only had about 3 weeks notice but I was informed by a retailer of mine that they were exhibiting at Overland Expo west near Flagstaff Arizona. This was 2014. They had planned to take a bunch of my products to the show and wanted to know if I could be there. So I said why not.

I also decided I could take off a week early and 'overland' there. I started planning the route. At the end of it we did approximately 500 miles on dirt out to flagstaff on what was essentially a new build. Total trip mileage was 1800 miles.

Before I left I revalved the front and the rear shocks and went through the whole truck making sure I didn't forget anything. We'd be pretty far from pavement on reservation land and I didn't want anything going wrong.

The day before we were leaving it snowed like a bastard. 14" at my house. So all of our trails and forest service roads leaving colorado were squashed. Which at the end of the day was ok because we made it just in time.





So we hit pavement and headed towards farmington. We decided to hop onto dirt as soon as possible once we saw the snow subside. That happened about 2 hours into New Mexico if I remember correctly. We atleast rode into Chokecherry on dirt and crawled around there for the whole second day.

For those that know me, I hated every minute of this snow.

Finally on dirt:

After a night of camping in Chokecherry we got to wheel. I had what little gps tracks I could find for the area. There wasn't much and we got lost about once every half hour. Trails friggin' everywhere. I did have a portion of anasazi refrigerator on the track so we made that our basecamp trail. If we could find our way back to it we were good to go. :

That's totally a spaceship in this drawing:

We had a ball in Chokecherry and could have stayed there the whole week, or so we thought. In fact we talked about scrapping the rest of the dirt and just crawling but I'm glad we didn't. It was time to hit the road.

 

[Tnsejed]

After another night in Chokecherry it was time to head off into the desert. Our next stop was Canyon De Chelly. I had a campsite planned out right on the rim. We were not going to go into the canyon as its a fee area.

Shiprock is awesome!

I love this pic:

It was like a throttle down dream. Haha.

Then onto a an actual road instead of trail.

Our campsite:

 

[Tnsejed]

We left the next morning and head out into the desert. Fuel stops were pretty frequent and not knowing how well the truck would do we'd play it safe. At this point in time we knew we couldn't trust the fuel sending unit in the fuel cell. It would get stuck quite a bit and for hours at a time. Were getting about 8 miles per gallon in the dirt. I had fuel stops programmed into the gps track I made and we hit every one, and only had to add one stop which took us about half hour out of the way.

Headed back to the same big dirt road in the morning. This was our starting off point until we turned off into no mans land.

Starting to get into some real sand:

Found a Hello Kitty in the middle of the desert. She would become the mascot.

Shit was real now. There was pretty much no trail or sign of trail. Only what I had on the GPS. Super deep into the res, nothing in site on any horizon, and an insane way from any actual road. It was awesome.

My buddy had to do real navigating for me here. We lost the track only twice as we weren't paying attention.

After hours of that we found civilization, and this is what it looked like:

 

[Tnsejed]

Finally we hit our campsite location on the gps track.

 

[Tnsejed]

Next morning we got up and were right in the thick of the desert again, as we camped with no civilization in site anywhere. But we could see the end goal way off in the distance:

Haulin' ass and starting to get into the mountains

Then our trail started getting very minimal again. It was this way for a few hours and we got lost a couple times. We also had a detour which took us an hour out of the way as we encountered a non-openable locked gate.

Finally back to a better trail.

Only about 1 hour away. This is what she looked like after all that dirt.

The end is in site.

Rolled into Overland Expo in a crawler with all of our gear filthy and realized we forgot the rooftop tent, the brim hats, and our didgerie-don't.
All joking aside though it was pretty damn cool. We got to see some amazing rigs. There was definite jealousy with the guys that had showers and truck bed campers. Not having to set up a tent would have been great. Hell I was heating up cans of chili over a fire, so for that first night we drove into town and had a steak dinner.

My workspot for the next few days

The truck did great. I had a rear power window motor failure when the window was down one evening. That was really the only issue aside from the fuel level sender. Was a great trip.

 

[cesandvik]

I was just looking at this build and thought, This looks just like the guy I saw at Overland Expo a few years ago, sure enough, you just posted the last post. I remember checking out your K5 and thinking about the amazing work you did... Mine has come a long way since then but still not where yours was at the event years ago, not sure if you remember the light grey K5 that year.

 

[Tnsejed]

I was just looking at this build and thought, This looks just like the guy I saw at Overland Expo a few years ago, sure enough, you just posted the last post. I remember checking out your K5 and thinking about the amazing work you did... Mine has come a long way since then but still not where yours was at the event years ago, not sure if you remember the light grey K5 that year.

Absolutely I remember. I remember you, and I think it was @Larry that was there as well. It was awesome seeing a few squares there. Great meeting you and hopefully we will meet again. That was a fun show.

 

[cesandvik]

Absolutely I remember. I remember you, and I think it was @Larry that was there as well. It was awesome seeing a few squares there. Great meeting you and hopefully we will meet again. That was a fun show.

Yes, @Larry was. My mom and Larry live about a mile from each other, I figured that out last August, but we couldn't make a meet up work due to all sorts of stuff. I hope to meet up with him when I head up this summer. Maybe then! Have a good one, great to see the history of your build.

 

[Tnsejed]

I learned alot about the truck during that trip, and it solidified the goal of exactly how I wanted the truck to be.

I never wanted to take away the long range and camping ability. But I also knew it had to be able to hit some of the hardest trails in the state without worry. Doing all of that without trailering it everywhere.

I also learned some stuff. First, the PRP seats need lumbar support. So much that we didn't even make it out of Colorado before we stopped at a Target store and bought some small couch pillows for lumbar.

Secondly making sure the cab is as sealed as possible is really important in the dusty areas. Anything you can do helps. This brings me to a dilemma I have right now with my rear seals.

We used the hell out of the AC/DC converter. Also I needed transfercase controls on the center console. It was the only thing I couldn't reach while belted in. I also wanted interior lighting which I didn't have anymore.

 

[Tnsejed]

After running the truck like that for awhile I made a bunch of minor changes. Softop, changed the wheelbase once. I was making anti wrap bars about once a year. Revalved the shocks a few more times. I went through another set of front springs.

I also would bend tie rods alot. So I started running heat treated chromoly tie rods. These worked the best but it always sucked heat treating them. My oven isn't big enough to do a part of that size so I had to send it out.

I also ended up with cable shifters for the tcase. Then I decided to do a 3 speed transfer case. Unfortunately I have lost all the pictures of getting the new Tcase in. I went with a 3 speed Trailworthy Fab Hero case. New adapters for the new case, and a completely new crossmember, as well as new crossmember behind the tcase. I had to cut out alot more of the floor and make room for the driveshaft in the floor pan as well. I adjusted the drivetrain angle another degree up as well.

The case has been great and I'm pretty happy with it.

Edited to add my buddy had one photo I texted him. So here is the only photo I have of that Tcase swap.

I also had changed the ride height during the original build years as well. This was done right before the Tcase. I dropped the truck 1/2" If I remember correctly.

 

[Tnsejed]

After the 2017 season my core support was completely trashed. I had pulled it straight way too many times and it needed to go. So I decided to dovenose the truck.

The original Plan was a fendered dovenose.

 

[Tnsejed]

I remember it pretty clearly. I got right to that last picture and decided I wanted it dovenosed much more, and I did not like the fender idea. They were just going to get trashed, even more so with small tube mounting instead of having a full core support. I have no inner fenders anyways so I said screw it and tubed it.

I liked this much better. So far it has worked really well. But to keep the truck on the street I needed lights and signals. So I started researching all sorts of light options. I was originally going to retrofit a modern housing assembly. But I couldn't find anything that didn't make the truck look retarded. So I sourced some Hella sealed modules. They work pretty damn good, but they do have a hard euro cutoff. I wish there was more spill above the line but they work really well and I don't blind people on the highway unless I get on the truck over a hill.

These are the mounts I made for the Hella modules. Helps having an okuma at your disposal.

I also didn't forget last season when my buddies started calling it the bulldozer. There was a time on Holy Cross when we were coming down and there was a gigantic group of rental atv's and side by sides coming up. The rental guy pulled over as he was the leader and left enough room. We spoke and he said that he'd rather have us go by instead of his group going by us. Uphill has the right of way but whatever. Anyways the whole bunch of other people didn't pull over very far. I was the only fullsize and had a tough time getting by and drove over some trees. Since then they started laughing at calling it a bulldozer. So I owned it. Made a badge out of zirconium.

 

[Tnsejed]

Here's the truck doing some work after that. I also had done alot of little interior things over the years.

 

[Tnsejed]

I also must have screwed up the timeframe. I thought I did my reid knuckles after the dovenose. But oh well. Next group of pics has some knuckle stuff coming.

 

[ZooMad75]

Here's the truck doing some work after that. I also had done alot of little interior things over the years.

4th pic down looks like you were up on Blanca. Great truck dude. Love the build.