'89 R3500 Crew Cab 2wd to 4wd conversion & beyond

[diesel4me]

When my older brother and I used to sell auto parts at swap meets,we had to load everything up the night before ,some heavy stuff like heads,ect,were stored in his garage's "attic"..after driving 2 hours to get to his house after working till late afternoon on a saturday,then have to load the truck up,and be lucky to get 4 hours of sleep before you had to get up at 4 am to drive an hour or more to the swap meet,unload it all,pack it all back up and haul it home and put it back in the attic--it got old fast..

When my brother was offered a '80 chevy G-10 van that was going to be scrapped due to its 250 six knocking when it got hot,we had the brainstorm of cutting it off right at the door jambs ,and closing off the open end with plywood--we left some of the floor up to the engine opening and the "steps",and used 5" channel iron to make a tongue for it..it fit nicely into the unibody box rails...

I had seen some bikers make enclosed trailers for their motorcycles out of old vans...that is where I got the idea from..

It worked out very well--it towed nicely and could hold tons of stuff!....we could now just store all the stuff we sold in the van trailer,and just lock up up between swap meets,and it also made for more room in his garage..
If it was used more often, we could have made a triangle shaped front enclosure for it and had a place to sit,or maybe even cook with a camp stove,if the weather turned sour while we were at the meets,but we never bothered too..we only used it once a month..

I think he still has that van trailer--I would like to have had it to tow behind my '81 G-10,it would look pretty cool!..

 

[mrk5]

See I think building a trailer is fun. I've been thinking about building one for a long time.

Like you are mentioning with the converted van trailer, you start thinking about more stuff you can add to it. I was just thinking yesterday I should add a charging lead and mount a battery on the trailer so we'd have lights to unload in the dark. Maybe even install an inverter so we'd have a little bit of electricity. I even have a solar panel that could charge the battery when not connected to the truck.

 

[Kay86K5]

My bro took his dual axle car hauler and turned it into a triple axle toy hauler, lengthened it, widened it, and fitted a tent trailer on the front while still being able to fit his crawler on there. He towed it back to CO over Christmas and I helped him finish everything. It was a crap load of welding and grinding, but turned out great. He started a thread on it on pirate:

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/tow-rigs-trailers/1899041-tandem-car-hauler-triple-toy-hauler.html

It was funny to see all the nay sayers in his thread, but we towed with it and it tow's like a dream! Thought you might like a read on it since you are in the mood of building trailers

 

[mrk5]

That's a little more involved than what I'm doing. Although funny thought, could you imagine how long a trailer would need to be for me to have a pop-up in front of my crew cab long bed.

 

[Kay86K5]

That's a little more involved than what I'm doing. Although funny thought, could you imagine how long a trailer would need to be for me to have a pop-up in front of my crew cab long bed.

, yeah, might need a semi trailer flat bed to accomplish that. Your crew cab is about as long as a yatch

 

[mrk5]

Off and on through the week I worked on wiring the trailer. It comes with a decent wiring harness but it's easy to tell the insulation isn't that great when I'm stripping it. I added braided cable sleeve to beef it up a little.

There are existing holes in the cross beams so I threw grommets in them and ran the wires through.

I had to run the taillight up through the floor so I drilled large holes and added more sleeve over the wires to protect them. Once I have everything set I'm going to fill the holes in with silicon to seal them up.

We have a customer that is an RV dealership and they have bought some of this plastic sheeting from us. The add it to the bottom of the trailer frames for added insulation. I was thinking I would do the same with this trailer to keep mud and dirt from building up in the c-channels. Since we will be taking this trailer on back roads, I think it's worth the $12 investment.

Of course if I have any wiring trouble, it'll make those repairs more difficult. I made sure to test light everything before installing the sheet.

I made aluminum brackets for the taillights I picked up.

I have a tongue box coming next week to get mounted. I also need to finish mounting the license plate. I have the light wired up, but didn't get pictures yet; waiting until I have a plate bolted on.

 

[mrk5]

Today, I started working on installing the DIY4X dash I had in the K5. I've been working on doing some of the wiring setup for the past several months. I decided I would use the long weekend to work on getting it installed.

This is the dash stripped down to be cut out.

I cut from opening to opening as illustrated with the red lines.

There are (2) 5/16" bolts in each end of the dash to remove and it's out.

I cut the dash out of the K5 with a cutoff wheel on an angle grinder. This time I use tin snips and it worked really well without the concerns of flying sparks and hitting the windshield.

I'm doing something a little hokey with the speedo. I haven't invested in an aftermarket speedo because I'm waiting to get something that will work with an LS type swap. Plus a speedo and sending unit are expensive. I have the speedo mounted VSS so I have the guts of the speedo left in the truck so the DRAC still gets a signal. I used the screws that would normally hold the guts to the gauge face to mount it on a metal strap. That strap is bolted to an existing hole.

This is where I ended today.

The dash is bolted in but I haven't wired anything up.

 

[ssyork]

Looking great. I like the trailer project, is turning out really nice. Should work like a champ.

 

[mrk5]

Thanks. Hopefully have it inspected next week so we can get it plated and put it to use. Already thinking about what more we can add to our camping kit now. LOL!

 

[mrk5]

Today I worked on the instrument cluster. I pulled wires off the factory connector.

You can see some of the wires I'm pulling to the left side of the photo. I used a tool I got for the Packard connectors to pull he pins. It's like a thin screwdriver that goes into the slot indicated by the arrow.

I put new connectors on the wires to use with Packard plugs.

When I did the same thing in the K5 I found a very nice diagram of the instrument cluster. I think it was more readily available because of the CUCV service manuals. I had to dig through the electrical diagram book for my truck to figure out which wires I wanted. Here's the diagram I put together.

You will noticed I noted a few of the connections, like the check engine light (CEL), are ground circuits. I figured out on the K5 that some of the connects go to ground and not a power lead.

I was planning to use small LED lights for turn signals and hi-beam indicators like I did in the K5. Problem was they were super bright, especially the hi-beam that would be on for an extended period of time. I came across an indicator panel on someone's build thread here on CK5 so I picked one up.

Normal view of the lens over the indicator lights.

Here you can see what they will show when illuminated.

Here it is in the dash.

The indicator panel is a little more hack than I'd like. The problem is that I added it after the fact so when I routed out the instrument panel I didn't have the specs to cut out the indicator panel. I didn't want to waste the time and material to cut another so I made this work.

This is pretty much my view of the dash from the driver seat.

From outside the truck.

I don't have a speedo yet so I put in a blank and used it to mount my cell phone holder.

Still need to get sending unit installed and wired to the gauges. Also need to install the climate controls and get power to the accessory switches.

 

[Babaganoosh]

Looks great Scott! Certainly a fine piece you are adding.

 

[mrk5]

Thank you. I'll be glad to have it all done. For right now I'm just glad to not have it laying around the shop collecting dust.

 

[ashman]

I like that indicator panel. Got a link for it?
At some point I'm going to need to redo the one I made and I'm leaning seriously towards something prefab like that.

 

[swettysblazer]

Hmmmm I like the looks of this. Awesome!

 

[MNorby]

looks really nice

 

[mrk5]

I like that indicator panel. Got a link for it?
At some point I'm going to need to redo the one I made and I'm leaning seriously towards something prefab like that.

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/nvu-91017-01
They sell them with nice looking bezels as well, but that doubles the price. http://www.summitracing.com/parts/nvu-90938-03/overview/

The only complaint I have is not anything that can be helped. It's just that you end up with a total of 14 wires to deal with. I'm trying to bundle them as much as I can to keep it clean.

I can already tell the brightness on these indicator lights is perfect. Ironically I haven't had a functioning hi-beam indicator since I bought the truck. I think the bulb in the factory cluster must have been out.

Hmmmm I like the looks of this. Awesome!

Thanks!

looks really nice

Thank you.

 

[mrk5]

When I did the same thing in the K5 I found a very nice diagram of the instrument cluster. I think it was more readily available because of the CUCV service manuals. I had to dig through the electrical diagram book for my truck to figure out which wires I wanted. Here's the diagram I put together.

You will noticed I noted a few of the connections, like the check engine light (CEL), are ground circuits. I figured out on the K5 that some of the connects go to ground and not a power lead.

I don't think I explained this very well. What I mean is that on the CEL and brake warning lights, you connect the ground wire from the LED indicator light to the wire coming from the original factory instrument cluster plug. Then provide a power wire that is hot when the key is in run. As you can see in the diagram there are several pink/black power wires to use for this purpose.

With the turn signal and hi-beam indicators you would connect the power lead from the LED indicator light to the factory wire. Then the ground lead goes to a typical ground.

 

[mrk5]

I also don't think I ever posted a picture of the bit of graphic "flare" I added to the truck:

One on each side.

 

[MAX89K5]

I also don't think I ever posted a picture of the bit of graphic "flare" I added to the truck:

One on each side.

Lol love it! Good progress, trailer is sweet too [emoji1]

 

[miniwally]

I also don't think I ever posted a picture of the bit of graphic "flare" I added to the truck:

One on each side.

Very nice, does that eagle have dimples?

Just sayin