'91 K5 Four Wheel Camper

[Tony Vickers]

I bought a set a few weeks back and just put mine in. I was sold 5125 fronts 33-185552 and rear 33-186669 for a 4" Lift. Can't take it for a ride yet as the drive line shop sent both my drivelines a inch too long on both of them. So my ride is down for another week waiting. :-( What are the differences between 5100 and 5125s?

 

[82355]

On another note, we did some cleanup at the shop last week and we came across so slider windows for a K5 somebody stuffed in a corner and forgot about them. Being the only one there with a K5 I brought them home.



One of the panes is cracked but for some reason it's holding together. I like the idea of the sliders, but don't really want go through the ordeal of removing the solid ones and putting in the others. I'll kick that one around in my brain for a little while.

I believe they are safety glass, like a windshield. The tint is inside the glass. They can be cracked for years. Swap them, it is a simple enough job, and makes the back seat much better for the sad times when the top is on.

Martin

 

[nocoasthardcore]

Probably need to change the title to 'One Mo Snow...?'

 

[Bent77]

What?!?

It snows in April?

 

[mrk5]

Not up here in the north.

 

[Truckman4life]

We got almost 2" last night. Go 15 min north or south and nothing though. It's all melted off by now so back to green grass.

 

[ZooMad75]

4-6 inches on the grass this morning. Some on the pavement, but it was slushy. Drive in was wet. My 2wd S10 made it to work with no issues. Just spring in Colorado. We've had blizzards in April and May before.

 

[Truckman4life]

4-6 inches on the grass this morning. Some on the pavement, but it was slushy. Drive in was wet. My 2wd S10 made it to work with no issues. Just spring in Colorado. We've had blizzards in April and May before.

Yeah clear back in 2010, I think, we were coming back from my sisters wedding in WI the second week of May in a crappy mustang and hit over a foot going over the Eisenhower. Not a fun drive.

 

[ZooMad75]

I bought a set a few weeks back and just put mine in. I was sold 5125 fronts 33-185552 and rear 33-186669 for a 4" Lift. Can't take it for a ride yet as the drive line shop sent both my drivelines a inch too long on both of them. So my ride is down for another week waiting. :-( What are the differences between 5100 and 5125s?

The 5100's are the direct fit application shocks. 5125's are the custom version of the 5100's. So yours are probably a different lengths and or valving to the off the shelf 5100's I have.

 

[tomford]

@tomford Thanks. I'm pretty happy with it. The lift is pretty basic as it is. 4" Rough Country springs up front. 4" ORD shackle flip out back with stock springs. Tires are 315/75 16 Goodyear Wrangler Duratrac. Pretty good combo for my useage.[/QUOTE]

Thanks, I've been torn between 4 or 6" lift for my k5 and 35's. Love your stance

 

[ZooMad75]

Thanks, I've been torn between 4 or 6" lift for my k5 and 35's. Love your stance

I'd recommend something other than the rough country springs unless you are on a tight budget. Spend a little more and get tuff country front springs or a little more for ORD springs. I'll upgrade my rough country springs at some point.

 

[Justin V]

I second that. I have rough country springs on the front of mine. I compare them to riding a floor jack down the driveway and off of the curb. Rough is the case for sure.

 

[ZooMad75]

My wife asked me earlier last week if we could take a ride this weekend. She recently had a flare up of her MS and due to that she's been lacking energy to be able do a lot. She needed to get out of the house as she was getting a little stir crazy. So I worked up a plan for a mountain cruise and sent the directions to my phone. This morning I thought this might be a good opportunity to throw on the front Bilsteins and see how they perform on the route I planned. Got up early and let her snooze some more while I tossed them on.



Another shot..


The route I planned had us running up Hwy 50 to Canon City. Somewhat a familiar path for me as it's the way I go to work. From Canon we headed north on Red Canyon Rd where it turns into Shelf road. Shelf road is a narrow dirt road shortcut to Cripple Creek. As the name implies, it's cut out of the side of the mountainside all the way up to Cripple Creek. It's steep in spots, but is county maintained so an average car can go up it, although it's pretty rough in spots. I've had a customer from Texas tell me he drove it in his C6 Corvette. It did beat the crap out of it though. Still, for a Sunday cruise with the wife it hit the spot as we were going it alone. She really couldn't take the stress of play date on the rocks. Once in Cripple Creek we'd find a place to eat and then come back via Victor and Phantom Canyon Rd.

The wife was the official photographer, so I need to crib the photos from her. She took a lot. I did take the gopro for fun too. I will say this, the front Bilsteins changed the way the truck rode for the better. Pavement or off, better. Can't wait until we put the rears on.

 

[ZooMad75]

A little history on Shelf Road, it was created back in the 1800's to connect the cities of Cripple Creek and Canon City as a stage route to deliver people, goods and ore. Of the two roads we would take today, this one was the rougher of the two. It climbs close to 4000 feet in elevation topping out just below 10,000 ft total above sea level. Still, its no major 4wd trail as we saw some pretty tame soccer Mom-mobiles on it. One does need to know the mountain driving etiquette on narrow roads that the uphill driver has the right of way. Most of the drivers we passed knew this, but there was that one lady barreling downhill in her Highlander hell bent on not stopping. I saw her coming and stopped where I could. I made sure she heard me as she went by as I could have patted her on her head we were that close. Anyway onto the pics.

Just off the pavement the shelf starts. We are already 100ft up from the canyon floor where that creek is.

Starting the climb while the canyon is still fairly wide.

Getting into the granite.

One of many big monoliths on the way up.

A slight gauge of the steepness. The road leads off from the upper left to the right in this shot.

Great scenery.

Anybody want a house? This one was for sale. Pretty sure you won't have any neighbors.

The road follows this creek most of the way.

Getting close to Cripple Creek. The large treeless hill in the pic is the Cripple Creek and Victor Gold Mine. The mine itself started under a different name back in 1892. It began as a open pit mine back in 1995 and is the largest producer of gold in the state of Colorado.

Mine Relics like this are all over the area.

The town of Cripple Creek. One of three towns in Colorado with legalized gambling.

Looking east on Bennet Ave. We had planned on eating at the home cafe on the left. We didn't realize what looks like an old storefront it's merely a sign for a restaurant within one of the casinos. We really didn't want to deal with the noise and distraction of a cramped casino in an old building. It's kind of hard for my wife to navigate with a cane through the maze of one armed bandits and stools cramped together.

Here's a shot of the same street, taken a little further west from where we were. Taken in the early 20th century.

Still heading east, if there is one thing the Casino money did is allow the preservation/restoration of all these great buildings.

We've turned around now and are now heading back west down Bennett Ave.

 

[ZooMad75]

Not really wanting to screw around in a casino we did a quick search for restaurants and found one in nearby Victor. We needed to go there anyway to pickup on Phantom Canyon road so off we went. On the way views are pretty good too. This is looking south off of Hwy 67 to the Sangre De Christo range.

Along the way, the highway hugs the south side of the mine, leading to a very tall bridge crossing another canyon.

Mine relics abound. This steam engine was at a senic overlook with several other rusty hulks.

I think one might need a bigger bumper for this winch...

Close up of the side of the pit. The road is climbing at a 7% grade here.

Getting into Victor, one thing is very apparent. With the lack of Gambling funds, the area is very poor. The main drag has very few open businesses. We did happen to come across this fenced in area with a cool Kaiser military rig and a old Ford 2 ton.

We saw more of these guys walking around town than people.

Must have been 5 of them snaking right here. They seemed pretty unfazed to the rumble of the 5.3 through Thrush welded mufflers.

Victor is directly south of the pit mine.

An old mine company building.

Having stopped at the one and only open restaurant in Victor, we had a pretty good lunch. Even though the lone waitress advised on Sunday they only serve breakfast all day. Ok by me. Food was good, service was good and as a treat we got handmade shakes for the ride back.

We hopped back in the truck and headed out again. Here's the first of many bridges on the way back on Phantom Canyon Rd. Most of these have wood as the road base too.

Compared to our way up, this road is much better maintained. Still washboarded, but much less rough and wider mostly save for the bridges, tunnels and short sections of shelf.

Another of the wood lined bridges.

More Granite. History of this road was that it started out as a railroad grade. The unique thing about this is that this specific railroad was a Narrow gauge line. They ran narrow gauge locomotives to Florence Colorado. The run was short lived. Started in 1894 and went out of buisness in 1915 when a standard gauge line came into Cripple Creek from Colorado Springs.

The hunger for gold does funny things to people. Funny to blast your way through solid rock to run a railroad line down this canyon.

The best example of the wood lined bridges on the route.

 

[ZooMad75]

Here's the first of two tunnels along the way. You can tell a standard size steam locomotive would not fit through here. The Blazer was tight to the sides.

phantom canyon tunnel

• ZooMad75
• Feb 16, 2020

The tunnel is maybe 150 feet long at the most.

tunnel

• ZooMad75
• Feb 16, 2020

Here's a sense of scale to the hole in the rock.

scale

• ZooMad75
• Feb 16, 2020

Between the two tunnels, we encountered a couple of "camps". I use that term loosely as it looks like they are not recreational campers, but more like homeless but with cars. I guess it's better than under a bridge, but still, they are far from treading lightly. I didn't catch all the garbage to the left of the cars in this pic. I feel for their plight, but come on don't trash the area.

Coming out of the second tunnel.

All in all it was a great way to spend a Sunday. We did encounter a family from Texas in the middle of what looked like a pretty serious situation. We happened to notice a Ford Focus make an immediate u-turn in front of us and tear out away from us. The car was then on the side of the road about a mile down. A woman was screaming at a man while sitting. The man had her arms in his hands and he was screaming too. It was loud enough to hear over the tunes we had on in the truck. The guy was bigger by a bunch and it looked to be seconds away from getting violent. We stopped and asked if they needed help. A second lady came around the front of their car and responded to our question. She asked if we any better at dealing with a disgruntled teenager. She told us they had just taken away the girls phone due to some bad behavior and the girl jumped out of the car. Hence the abrupt u-turn. She told us the girl was 13 and I would have said 19 by the way she looked. My wife tried her calming influence to let the kid know it's not the end of the world and there isn't a lick of cell coverage up here anyway. Unfazed to my wifes ways, I pipe up that she might have picked a pretty crappy spot to run off on her own. This is black bear and mountain lion country anyway. But hey, being from Texas they know stuff like this right? After dropping my Dad logic on them we proceeded to motor home.

Just about 140 miles round trip. 1/4 tank of fuel used. Ride quality greatly improved on the rough stuff and pavement too. Good day.

 

[AgDieseler]

Really like the photos and what a great payoff for all the work on your Blazer. We'll be hiking near Buena Vista this summer, and might stop in at Cripple Creek. Not sure.

David

 

[GWeakland620]

Cool stuff!

 

[jekquistk5]

I can't wait to take trips like this in my k5.

 

[RivMan]

I can't wait to take trips like this in my k5.

Same here!