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'91 K5 Four Wheel Camper

This is the build for my 1991 V1500 Blazer, AKA the K5.3. It started out life being sold to the U.S. Government with a 350 TBI/700r4/241 combo. 4 years with a 5.3/700r4 Combo and now moving to an 8.1L Vortec and NV4500 5-speed.
Overview Gallery Discussion
Is the pressure still leaking down after the pump swap? One of the benefits of having the higher pressure is the less chance of heat soak problems. Don't know of any modern car that has heat soak problems, which is basically what you have now for a drivetrain.
 
JoshHefnerX said:
Is the pressure still leaking down after the pump swap? One of the benefits of having the higher pressure is the less chance of heat soak problems. Don't know of any modern car that has heat soak problems, which is basically what you have now for a drivetrain.
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Pressure is holding on the line after the key is switched off. Before the pump swap the pressure would drop to zero as fast as the key shut the engine off. I know it sounds funny to have a heat soak problem, but It was in the high 80's yesterday and coolant temp was right at 210 while climbing. Part of the reason I hadn't picked up on the issue, was the fact that the truck would drop pressure so fast there wouldn't be enough in the line to boil it.
 
Nice trip report! The ignorant bravery of some people amazes me. I'm nervous taking a "built" rig on snow runs and here you run into people doing it in poorly prepared stock trucks.
 
Great pics from the trip!
This may sound weird but on the 6.0 in my blazer the fuel pressure was running alittle low (48 psi) so I swapped out the fuel pressure regulator. Still 48 psi, removed the vacuum hose from the regulator and it instantly jumped to 60psi. So needless to say I'm running without the vacuum reference hooked to it.
 
mrk5 said:
Nice trip report! The ignorant bravery of some people amazes me. I'm nervous taking a "built" rig on snow runs and here you run into people doing it in poorly prepared stock trucks.
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They didn't look prepared for anything. I spied into the truckbeds of both and didn't see any recovery gear, camping gear or anything. The boy that stopped Larry was looking dehydrated too. Lynn noticed the white crusty stuff at the corners of his mouth and I offered a Gatorade and he politely turned me down. I pulled one from my cooler and tossed it at him anyway. The kid looked at me puzzled. My voice took a "Dad" tone and I told him "Drink it." He said thanks. He hoofed it a long way down from the trucks at 10,000 feet according to my GPS, it was hot and easy to overdo it at that altitude. I know this, I wasn't hiking my fat ass behind Larry to check it out. Not at that altitude. I'll wait and ride up there.

I'm actually surprised the two trucks had a come a long between them. They had to been at it a while as it took about 15 minutes total to get Larry out of the jam with one broken winch and mine. I'm just happy we didn't have to get the two Fords out ourselves.
 
Here is video of the extraction. At 38 seconds you'll hear the pop of the winch breaking. At the 2 minute mark you'll hear the tree we hooked on to snap and broken limbs fall into the camera frame. The noise is enough you can see me get startled.


By the way for the recovery folks, Larry's winch we had used was running a synthetic rope, no winch blanket was used. My cable is steel and you can see us set up the Cable weight midway down.

The video really don't show the severity of the situation. But the tree popping shows the forces we had at work were not to be taken lightly. As soon as my Cable came out we sent Lynn to behind my rig. Be safe when winching that's for sure.
 
T-minus 2 full days and counting to taking off for Utah. Wrap installed on the right pipe from the h-pipe forward. Added a 12v outlet to the ashtray that was missing. Looks like I've got a lot of crap to keep powered up between two Gopros, GPS, Ipad, phone and who knows what else.

Camp stove has been unearthed from the garage, as has the griddles for it. Yay for camp bacon/eggs! Got some of the camping gear boxed up in a tote, need to get the cooking gear together. My better half is working on the food. Going to pre-cook and freeze a couple so dinners will be a snap to put together. Got to pick up Larry's big cooler and water jug for the ride too.

On other front, I've got a co-pilot for the trip too. Our buddy Ian was invited earlier, but a work conflict kept him out. Work changed and he's ready to go. Should be a fun ride for sure.

I've got a lot of memory card capacity to record video and take stills. With a co-pilot I might even get a few of mine in action rather than shooting Larry's rig from the rear all the time!

On a side note, the cosmos must know I'm supposed to leave on a trip. It's made the week at work hell. I've had one customer bitch me out for not rolling over to appease him about us doing a stupid key recall wrong 2 years ago. He had no clue that the recall wasn't for the ignition lock cylinder and when I enlighted him about the facts he lost his mind. Swearing like a sailor in front of his 8yr old daughter too. I not so politely advised him to leave the property after he took the point of making it personal and talking shit about me. Then today I get a Deaf/mute guy to accuse us of stealing his god blessed fidget spinner from his center console during the same damn key recall the first clown lost his mind over. I can't make this stuff up. He even took a picture of his console supposedly prior to us working on his car and had to show it to me to prove one of my guys stole it. Seemed like an unlikely thing to do so when I disagreed with him he came right out with the scam by writing down on my notepad, "pay me $20 or I call the cops". Ok buddy, call the Cops. I know this the full moon is rising.... Tomorrow ought to be just a friggen riot.

Two more days....If I don't loose my sanity and snap on somebody stupid.
 
ZooMad75 said:
T-minus 2 full days and counting to taking off for Utah. Wrap installed on the right pipe from the h-pipe forward. Added a 12v outlet to the ashtray that was missing. Looks like I've got a lot of crap to keep powered up between two Gopros, GPS, Ipad, phone and who knows what else.

Camp stove has been unearthed from the garage, as has the griddles for it. Yay for camp bacon/eggs! Got some of the camping gear boxed up in a tote, need to get the cooking gear together. My better half is working on the food. Going to pre-cook and freeze a couple so dinners will be a snap to put together. Got to pick up Larry's big cooler and water jug for the ride too.

On other front, I've got a co-pilot for the trip too. Our buddy Ian was invited earlier, but a work conflict kept him out. Work changed and he's ready to go. Should be a fun ride for sure.

I've got a lot of memory card capacity to record video and take stills. With a co-pilot I might even get a few of mine in action rather than shooting Larry's rig from the rear all the time!

On a side note, the cosmos must know I'm supposed to leave on a trip. It's made the week at work hell. I've had one customer bitch me out for not rolling over to appease him about us doing a stupid key recall wrong 2 years ago. He had no clue that the recall wasn't for the ignition lock cylinder and when I enlighted him about the facts he lost his mind. Swearing like a sailor in front of his 8yr old daughter too. I not so politely advised him to leave the property after he took the point of making it personal and talking shit about me. Then today I get a Deaf/mute guy to accuse us of stealing his god blessed fidget spinner from his center console during the same damn key recall the first clown lost his mind over. I can't make this stuff up. He even took a picture of his console supposedly prior to us working on his car and had to show it to me to prove one of my guys stole it. Seemed like an unlikely thing to do so when I disagreed with him he came right out with the scam by writing down on my notepad, "pay me $20 or I call the cops". Ok buddy, call the Cops. I know this the full moon is rising.... Tomorrow ought to be just a friggen riot.

Two more days....If I don't loose my sanity and snap on somebody stupid.
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Lol! I worked at at Ford dealership when i was 17 They where in between service managers and used a old transmission guy that had been there for years as a temp... I seen him loose it on some lady that was bitching him out over a bill one day.

He grabbed a piece of loose skin on his throat and said... What do you want my blood!!! I just about pissed myself! Lmao!

Not a job that would be easy to deal with for sure!


Have fun on your Trip! :waytogo:
 
Cross post with @Larry 's thread. The K5.3 is LOADED. It's a lot like a puzzle to get it all in there, but it is. Got room for Larry's ExtremeAir Compressor since my onboard setup isn't ready for prime time. The stove and propane is riding with Bill in his Dodge.

For those that want to follow along the run just need to click on this link: http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0v6Rlob93kMcaExIc8U5mRn378feiJhFQ

I've got to pick up my co-pilot Ian on the way to the Trailboss Larry's place in the morning. Drop his food and drinks in the coolers and book it over to the launch point.

Not sure I'm going to sleep much tonight.
 
Road day one went good. @Larry plotted a cool way to get to Moab off of highway 50 that involved 40 miles of dusty dirt roads. Sorry that makes for crappy video so the go pro got shut off.

Only issue was the same thing that happened last week. We stopped for a photo op at the Utah State line. Took our shots and left. At the top of a hill just past the line the truck shut down and was not wanting to restart. We let it cool, used the pressure gauge to dump the air out of the system and cycle cool fuel in and it fired right back up and drove the rest of the way to Moab without a hitch, even with stops at hole in the rock and the grocery store.

So before dinner Ian and I scoped out the local hardware store and picked up two sheets of 22ga sheet metal to fab a shield. It ain't pretty, but we'll see if it works tomorrow. Worst case I leave it running on short stops.

First time to Moab for me and I'm in awe with the scenery. Wow. Loving it.
 
Guy I used to work with had vapor lock issues on his 4.0L jeep. He took some small solid copper wire and wrapped it around the fuel rail to kinda make a heat sink type thing. I guess it worked.
 
Go see dead horse point and canyonlands. They are awesome. The loop road and the road to gateway past castle valley are cool too.
 
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