'91 K5 Four Wheel Camper

[ZooMad75]

With everything going on in my life I forgot the fact that it was just over a year ago I yanked the 5.3 out to make room for the 8.1.

I'm going to have to get cranking to get what little I need to do be ready for Blazer Bash.

I posed up in the BB thrash thread, but the list isn't major.

Main fix is frame repair at the steering box. Throw the xj steering shaft at the same time. Swap out the core support if possible. There are a few little items I'd like to do but will depend on what I can get done.

One thing I'm not worried about is the drivetrain swap. I've put 5,000 miles on it so far with no major issues besides the loose ground. I drove it again to Denver this weekend and other than being hot without AC it had zero issues.

 

[ZooMad75]

OK. Blazer Bash '21 is in the books. Story time.

This year's departure point was leaving from my Dad's place in Denver. This will save my son some fuel/miles coming down to Pueblo. We visited my Mom in the nursing home and hit the store for the final load of food. We packed the rest of the food at my Dad's place and planned to hit the road early on Wednesday before BB.

Getting fuel and Ice for the road cooler. Time to hit the road.

We boogied right down the interstate without much traffic. The 8.1 was humming along not really caring about the elevation or the load. We made the pull from Georgetown to the Eisenhour tunnel in 5th and maintained above the speed limit too. Big Blocks rule!

Like any self-respecting gearhead one has to one has to push in the clutch and whack the throttle a couple of times inside the tunnel.

Past Dillon, Copper Mountain and up and over Vail Pass we get to the beginning of the Glenwood canyon.

The highway was down to one lane in each direction, but the traffic was moving right along.

After a quick stop in Grand Junction to get the meat we forgot in my Dad's fridge we hit the highway and pretty soon we are crossing over into Utah.

The main target was to get to the Top of the World trail and at least get to the top and find a place to camp for the night. Solo. My buddies back home were a little concerned going alone, but if my buddy Bill who is wheelchair-bound can make it in his stock '05 Power Wagon alone, I should be able to. We turn off of I-70 and made our way down Hwy 128 to what's left of the Dewey Bridge.

The Bridge.

The Boy contemplating jumping into the Colorado to cool off.

Getting back into the Desert views with the river is still breathtaking to see.

We air down and start up the road to the turn at a trail intersection. For the most part from the Dewey Bridge to the intersection it's really a dirt road with a few rough spots. Doable in 2wd. Once the turn is made it gets serious fairly quickly.

This is what I'm talking about, ledges. Lots of them. Nothing horribly bad, but lots of them.

There are many lines to take to make it as easy or as hard as you want it. It keeps your attention. Enough so we didn't stop to take many pics.

We made good time to get to the top. Smoke from California was killing the views.

Something else was killing the views. Clowns. Overland clowns doing it for the 'gram and the Youtubes. Now I've got nothing against the overland scene. Hell, some of what I do falls into the category. But when you roll up to a crew of 5 trucks slathered in company logos and Instagram handles and the guys are wearing matching camp-shirts with the logos and IG handles also on them, you should expect stupidity.

Now for those that didn't pick up in the BB pic thread, here's the scoop on these goons. They are a Hispanic Overland group from Texas that was speaking only in Spanish around us. Now I don't speak a lick of the language, but my son has picked up some from his coworkers. I was wearing a bright pinkish-red shirt and after I told my boy to pay attention to what they say, he's pretty sure that called us both "fags". I hadn't said anything to them and they were blocking the trail so I couldn't get up to the wide spot where the rest of them were. Each truck is taking turns parking at the top and launching a drone, taking pics, and generally hamming it up for the 'gram. It's taking a half hour per truck to get this crap done. I noticed another group of 4 trucks off to the side cooking up a late lunch and smoking weed (yes, they were from Colorado) and introduced myself. One of them indicated the "overlanders" had been struggling to get the most stock unit up the trail in their group, a Toyota Sequioa. Paitently waiting we see this guy deploy his RTT in front of us and take his sweet time driving up to the photo spot why somebody else holds the ladder. (sorry for the potato quality)

While parked on the ledge I can see one of them getting into a safety harness of some type. At first it looked like they were winching each other over the edge and back. According to their Instagram posts they were only using the harness to safely lean out over the edge. Call it what you want it was still rude and less than smart.

More stupidity:

Soon I'll get my turn.

 

[rpcraft]

Kind of funny to pull up on a group of strangers that you don't know, can't speak with, have no relative reason to talk with, will probably never see again and be worried about what thay are saying about you. There's plenty of Hispanic guys from Texas and other places wearing fluorescent color clothing while working, hunting, kicking around the casa, etc etc. Pink, yellow, green, and orange even! Maybe they were just checking your your bad ass K5 and admiring it some from a distance or shitting on the very same "grammers" you were as well. Not judging you but just saying it might have nothing to with you. The world is full of all kinds of people and langauges.

FWIW I love your K5 build. It's a fantastic setup!

 

[ZooMad75]

Kind of funny to pull up on a group of strangers that you don't know, can't speak with, have no relative reason to talk with, will probably never see again and be worried about what thay are saying about you. There's plenty of Hispanic guys from Texas and other places wearing fluorescent color clothing while working, hunting, kicking around the casa, etc etc. Pink, yellow, green, and orange even! Maybe they were just checking your your bad ass K5 and admiring it some from a distance or shitting on the very same "grammers" you were as well. Not judging you but just saying it might have nothing to with you. The world is full of all kinds of people and langauges.

FWIW I love your K5 build. It's a fantastic setup!

Thanks for the compliment.

This is one of those "you had to be there" kind of moments. First off I'm usually very welcoming to anybody I run into on the trail. We are doing the same thing so there's something we have in common. But the general tone and vibe I got from these folks is that they were truly annoyed at us rolling up to their party. I've seen it a few times before that the mere sight of a rough and ready built K5 with a 30+ year old camper on the back kind of deflates the ego to a group of fairly new Toyotas with all the fancy overland gear.

They glared at us and generally did everything they could to be unwelcome to our presence. I approached but they went on with what they were doing. In short I don't think they would have helped at all if I needed it. Which is the direct opposite of everything I've seen of 95% of the off road community. The four from Colorado got the same vibe I did when I spoke with them.

When we finally got our turn to drive up to the edge and take a picture, we might have been 5 minutes in when one of the women started giving us the stink eye that we had taken too much time. You see she was getting harnessed up to take her turn dangling over the side and now we were in her way.

I could have been a real ass and popped the top on the camper, set up the tri-pod and really going nuts. I had a simple drone I could have sent up even though I couldn't have taken a pic with it. But I didn't. We got our shot and got the hell out of there.

What should have been a neat experience for my son and I got turned into a tense, annoying situation that didn't have to be. We waited over two hours to get our turn and in five minutes we got rushed. Had I been with my normal group I wheel with or the BB crew it probably would have been a little different as they would have probably been more accommodating. But since we were solo I wasn't going to push the issue. We waited, got our shot and boogied down from there.

 

[ZooMad75]

One other thing, it's got nothing to do with race. I don't care about that. What is messed up is the attitude they had and it got backed up by what they said about us, thinking they could talk shit without us knowing what they were saying.

They spoke perfect English to the other guys, those guys told me so. Again, just not being welcoming.

I know sometimes people get so hung up on new everything, trucks, gear and so on. It's a gut punch to see a 40 year old truck run the same trail with ease on ancient leaf spring/solid axle suspension. Some think it's cool the old iron is still out there, others get annoyed. These guys got annoyed. I ruined the pretty drone shot when they circled overhead taking video.

 

[mrk5]

What's also interesting about your encounter is that I was surprised about how few other people we ran across on the trails. There was the group of rental Jeeps on Wipeout Hill, but that's all I saw. I guess we did pass a geo tracker on Gemini Bridges Road. I always think with as many new Jeeps and Toyotas you see running around there would be more on the trails.

 

[ZooMad75]

What's also interesting about your encounter is that I was surprised about how few other people we ran across on the trails. There was the group of rental Jeeps on Wipeout Hill, but that's all I saw. I guess we did pass a geo tracker on Gemini Bridges Road. I always think with as many new Jeeps and Toyotas you see running around there would be more on the trails.

Very true. We figured we had the trail to I ourselves. We started late in the day, mid week so the weekend warriors should have been less. We did run across a couple of jeeps coming down the dirt road shortly after starting up but that was it until we got to the top.

Dave and I didn't run into any traffic on steel bender Thursday afternoon at all. Saturday we did have traffic coming down the Shaffer switchbacks, but we expected that since it is part of the national park. Gemini bridges did have some rental jeep traffic on it too.

I fully expected more traffic to be honest.

 

[rpcraft]

Yeah it's a bummer it was like that during the midweek.

I know I don't really do group rides much in the motorcycle world anymore because they all want to ride on weekends and the traffic then is just too much and too dangerous.

Often if I want to get any good riding in an area I'll take off Thursday and Friday and head to the area after I leave work on Wednesday. Gives me two days to get the best of the least amount of traffic and then the rest of the weekend to return and handle any surprise maintenance.

I suspect the offroading and camping scene has probably gotten just as bad with the proliferation of people earning their pay on youtube and similar things but have just been curious if the weekdays are any less occupied compared to weekends now. Seems like not so much.

I guess in retrospect my only regret and angst about the whole ordeal is to not really be able to go and be alone when I choose to, and also the fact that I never got on the band wagon to create my own channel and be retired to youtube as well though, lol.

I try not to hate anyone about it specifically, and some of those guys have great content that add to my desire and ability to keep wrenching on the K5, bikes, and the house, so I guess its the poison of the modern age where you have to take the good with the bad, unfortunately.

 

[ktmoutfront]

This is part of the reason we are trying to keep Blazer Bash to a core group of alike people. Once the IGYT people show up, everything is about the likes and the fame. We want the fun and the wheeling crowd.

I have people asking for more pictures of the stuff I do. I tell them to go do something, anything. Don't just sit on your butt looking at other people's lives.

 

[ZooMad75]

Yeah it's a bummer it was like that during the midweek.

I know I don't really do group rides much in the motorcycle world anymore because they all want to ride on weekends and the traffic then is just too much and too dangerous.

Often if I want to get any good riding in an area I'll take off Thursday and Friday and head to the area after I leave work on Wednesday. Gives me two days to get the best of the least amount of traffic and then the rest of the weekend to return and handle any surprise maintenance.

I suspect the offroading and camping scene has probably gotten just as bad with the proliferation of people earning their pay on youtube and similar things but have just been curious if the weekdays are any less occupied compared to weekends now. Seems like not so much.

I guess in retrospect my only regret and angst about the whole ordeal is to not really be able to go and be alone when I choose to, and also the fact that I never got on the band wagon to create my own channel and be retired to youtube as well though, lol.

I try not to hate anyone about it specifically, and some of those guys have great content that add to my desire and ability to keep wrenching on the K5, bikes, and the house, so I guess its the poison of the modern age where you have to take the good with the bad, unfortunately.

I agree with you. Like anything else there are good groups and not so good groups to run into. That trail had both. I ended up helping the other group later (I'll explain when I get to that part of the story). Those guys were cool, helpful and respectful and hopefully they found us the same way.

There are some great channels I watch on YouTube that are great stewards of the off road world. Tread lightly, helpful and nice when getting up with others on the trail. I watch them even though they don't drive a fullsize.

This group was out with another purpose. Getting likes and online clout to sell the latest in overland products like their own brand of RTT. If I follow the translation right on IG they might be getting paid to guide others out on these trecks.

Nothing wrong with making money either way. More power to them. Let's face it the overland crowd is not afraid to spend money as they typically are not the built not bought type around here. So they buy and are willing to pay someone to show them the ropes on a trail. Again not a bad business model today.

But going after it so obviously and rudely is not how most of the off road community operates.

I could have blasted them on the gram. I could have ratted them out to the BLM. Other than catching a lot more grief myself I don't think it would have made a difference later. We got over it pretty quickly.

I follow the same line of thinking on taking trails mid-week vs the weekends. Far too many weekend warriors now. If the trail is closer to Denver, even worse. The availability of box stock capable rides makes it very easy for noobs to get in. Same for sxs's if they are allowed on the trail you are on.

Those issues are direct to the reasons why we take the desert trip when we do and where we go. We go in June because it's hot as balls and normally people don't go then. We go very remote, even if the trails aren't as hard being 50 miles or more from the nearest paved road tends to weed out the Subaru and vanlife crowd.

 

[imiceman44]

This is part of the reason we are trying to keep Blazer Bash to a core group of alike people. Once the IGYT people show up, everything is about the likes and the fame. We want the fun and the wheeling crowd.

I have people asking for more pictures of the stuff I do. I tell them to go do something, anything. Don't just sit on your butt looking at other people's lives.

That is what I keep telling people, stop watching people live, go live your life.
Nothing wrong with the occasional viewing to learn something, but then go and do your thing before it's too late

 

[ZooMad75]

Getting back to the story...

With the overland crew out of the way, we got the shot and got back going on the east loop of the trail.

Worth the wait though..

The smoke did make the view different looking west.

The four guys from Colorado had already started down, so I figured we might catch up to them. There were two Tacomas, A Jeep TJ, and XJ Cherokee.

This is where we are figuring out that the east loop down is much nastier than the west side coming up. I made a poor line choice on a step-down and it was going to put us into a very bad position. My son stopped me and got out to check out what line we have and after looking he got me out to inspect. He was right, we were way too far to the left and it was going to get us stuck if I stayed on it. I had to do an Austin Powers level maneuver to jockey the truck back to the right side. We walk right down the line without issue. The kid is getting better at spotting for sure. We also killed some time and allowed the guys in front of us to get ahead.

They were finishing up a trail repair on the XJ. It had broken the rear u-joint on the rear shaft. He broke it since he was helping lower the TJ down the ledges as it was completely dead from a major electrical short that took out the engine harness. They had reached the last climb out to where the two sides of the loop come back to the main trail.

They were struggling to get the TJ up the incline. They had to get creative with both Tacomas and their winches, but they managed to drag it up the slope.

It was the XJ's turn with no rear driveshaft. I had been talking to them and offered my help if they needed it. The XJ needed help. So I got in front of it and hooked up the strap they had out. It was a quick tug that the truck didn't even feel the weight of the XJ behind us. With the four of them in a good spot, I asked if they needed anything else and took off again to find a suitable camp spot. I think we found one.

Sunlight started fading as I cooked up some steaks in my old cast iron skillet. The smoke played with the last bits of sunlight for a pretty good show.

Dinner was great. Nothing like a steak on my Grandma's 100 year old cast iron. The pasta was pretty good too.

The next morning we broke camp and I remembered to address the fenders rattling we heard all afternoon the day before. I found both the bolt in the doorjamb for the fender and the top bolt by the hood hinge had backed off on both sides. So I didn't even think about checking the gap and cranked the bolt down in the jamb on the driver's side. I shut the door and it locked in place on top of the fender. Now I can't open the door. Thirty minutes later after breaking two plastic trim tools to avoid screwing up the fender and door I still screwed them both up and got the bolt loose. A ratchet strap to the rear of the fender and the front bumper pulled it enough to get it tight without the door hitting it as much. I was pretty pissed at myself, but what was done was done. Can't cry over it too long we got stuff to do.

It's about then I notice when I started the truck up the fuel gauge was showing at 1/4 tank. This is odd, since the install of the pump for the 8.1 the gauge always read high. A 1/4 tank meant I was out of fuel. I dumped the 5 gallons from the jerry can and the gauge didn't move. I was concerned since I had a really good idea of the 8.1's consumption habits on road, I wasn't sure what they would be off road goofing around in low range for a half a day. We made our way back to the bridge, aired up the tires and headed down 128 to Moab. I was sweating the 40 miles as I wasn't sure if I had enough fuel or not.

We made it to town, I found the first gas station and to my surprise, it only took 15 gallons. Great, the fuel gauge is completely off line now. Got to go by miles now. Too late for a Mickey D breakfast we grab some lunch and go hang out. We made another lap through town and saw @AgDieseler's burb outside a diner and noticed he was behind us on the way back to the campgound to see if @Capt Ron had pulled in yet.

Dave followed us in and pulled up next to us. He asked what we were doing and if we had time would we like to go have a test run on Steel Bender. I was a little apprehensive but he and Kris assured me we would be ok on the trail. So we follow them over to the shell station and onto the trailhead.

After watching the build series on his Youtube channel and on here, I was excited to see the big blue burb get some exercise on the rocks.

Kris was right, just the lead into the main trail is amazing. The whole trail is great as well.

The first climb down had the burb stretching it's legs. Holy cow. Droop for days and tucking a forty into the front fender.

My K5 did really well hitting the lesser stuff.

Last obstacle before we turn around.

After Dave realized he was a little low on ATF we made our way back to town.

 

[ZooMad75]

Back at the campground @Capt Ron pulled in with his brother. We helped get his crawler unloaded and parked.

The ORD crew had arrived..

More from camp.

It was fun hanging out and talking to everybody. I programmed a few radios that night too.

Friday morning, time for the meet and greet. What a lineup of kick-ass trucks.

Gathering up for Backwards Bill.

Airing down.

Cruising on dirt.

All together at wipe out hill.

 

[ZooMad75]

Wipeout hill. Two lines, the easy line looks like you need to climb up a wall. The hard line isn't as steep but is likely for body damage. Pictured here is the easy line.

Wade on Wipeout, no flop.

More action.

On the hard line:

Capt Ron walking right up.

Gives an idea of how steep the hill is.

My turn. Wheelie action. The rear weight bias kicked my ass. Plus I'm still relearning the manual off road.

So close... Just couldn't get the rears over the hump.

@Fastereddie getting flexy on the hard line.

@Desert_K5 getting it done.

The watchful Gnome over @AgDieseler's burb on the hard line.

I love shots like this. Reminds me of childhood playing with hotwheels in the sand box. Except the trucks are fullsize and the sand has been formed into slickrock over millons of years.

More follow the leader.

@70jimmy creepin in the trees.

Looking out at the overlook to Hwy 191.

 

[AgDieseler]

…watchful Gnome…

This wins the internet.

David

 

[ktmoutfront]

I wheel without spotting. So a flop every now and then should be honored.

 

[ZooMad75]

I wheel without spotting. So a flop every now and then should be honored.

I think you follow the saying, "dance like nobody is watching". Except for it's "Wheel like nobody is spotting".

Honestly, the fact that Jimmy does what it does with an open 10 bolt up front really comes down to how you built it and your skill as a driver. Who needs a spot when you can drive like that? You made wipeout look really easy.

 

[k2mslskier]

If you ever think about selling that Warn bumper pleeeeaaasseeee let me know.

 

[Bent77]

If you ever think about selling that Warn bumper pleeeeaaasseeee let me know.

That bumper is like the county hot chick. It been used liberally and you have to wait your turn

 

[k2mslskier]

Kinda like Batman, I never got a turn with him either.