Eileen and I spent a number of days in Escalante NP. Stuck one day when the road fell out. Then a torrential downpour turned the dry stream beds into rocker deep rivers. Fun times.
CK5
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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.
Greetings from Cortez, CO. Had some great days on dirt, some highs and lows. Mechanical/electrical, changed plans and directions and currently on the quest to get home.
Yesterday was a crazy day in its own right with more mechanical issues on the Navajo res. Which as some of you know a 4pack of whities are not looked too highly on. We usually haul ass to avoid conflict but when the truck breaks the situation changes quickly. I’ll go into the details later but it got tense for about 15 minutes and it got took a ton of restraint on my sons part and showing of strength between the rest of us to de-escalate the situation. I’ve had some crazy interactions on the res before but this one takes the prize.
We limped the truck up 160 off the res, past four corners and made it here. Got a U-Haul lined up to carry the beast home. I’ve got a couple of theory’s but if it’s what I think it is I don’t want to attack it on the side of the road. As it is we have A lot of winding narrow mountain roads that lack shoulders. So it’s just the safest to carry it back. I’ll keep the tracking up. But once loaded we’ll take it easy.
Yesterday was a crazy day in its own right with more mechanical issues on the Navajo res. Which as some of you know a 4pack of whities are not looked too highly on. We usually haul ass to avoid conflict but when the truck breaks the situation changes quickly. I’ll go into the details later but it got tense for about 15 minutes and it got took a ton of restraint on my sons part and showing of strength between the rest of us to de-escalate the situation. I’ve had some crazy interactions on the res before but this one takes the prize.
We limped the truck up 160 off the res, past four corners and made it here. Got a U-Haul lined up to carry the beast home. I’ve got a couple of theory’s but if it’s what I think it is I don’t want to attack it on the side of the road. As it is we have A lot of winding narrow mountain roads that lack shoulders. So it’s just the safest to carry it back. I’ll keep the tracking up. But once loaded we’ll take it easy.
You made the right call, the res is not a good place to break down
I have never changed a flat with as much urgency as I did in the badlands on the reservation. As I was getting into the truck, a reservation cop pulled up. I waited. He just wanted to make sure I was good. I blew through Yuba City and kept going. So thankful I had put the 57 gallon tank in the truck.
I stopped for fuel once on the way to Moab, luckily I had my Hispanic friend and they thought he was native. He is a big dude so he bulked up and they moved away from the trailer.
Made it home with zero issues. Picked up the truck and trailer as soon as they opened. The kid and I loaded up at the loves truck stop and made the trip back without an issue.
The shower and sleep I had at the holiday inn express was definitely attitude changing. We had left over fried chicken from a restaurant in Page Bill raved about and since he had to go up to get my filters he had to get a full family order to bring back for lunch as I swapped the filter on. Given that the situation got tense shortly after they returned with the food and the filters we put the remaining in my fridge and it was great for dinner.
We ended up with a 26 footer box truck and one of the new toy hauler trailers Uhaul has now. That is one slick unit. Only thing lacking is proper straps. They have two chains they expect one to tie down with. Both of which I used mainly as
Safety backup since I bought a pair of proper tie down straps from the trailer place. The front chain I was able to tension by pulling forward a couple inches looping the chain and backing the truck up. I couldn’t have done that on the rear as that chain comes up from a hole in the deck that was behind the rear axle. Or at that point in time I didn’t see how I could. I strapped each axle down diagonally and for added security I pulled out some winch rope and put tension to the front/center tie down loop they had. Stopped outside of Cortez to recheck tension of the straps, good. Checked multiple times along the way, good.
The sad part of it being a stoopid duty ford did actually work ok as tow rig. Though the v10 didn’t make an ounce of torque below 3000 rpm. If you kept it wound up to 4000-4500 rpm it would pull for days. Wolf creek pass was pulled in 3rd gear, at 4500 rpm doing about 28 mph. For 8 flipping miles. But I’ll give it credit the coolant temp stayed rock steady and more impressive the trans temp never moved. The next four mountain passes topped over 9000 feet each went mostly the same way. Wound up.
It did ok if you just turned up the tunes to avoid listening to the v10 wailing away in front of you.
Time to crash.
The shower and sleep I had at the holiday inn express was definitely attitude changing. We had left over fried chicken from a restaurant in Page Bill raved about and since he had to go up to get my filters he had to get a full family order to bring back for lunch as I swapped the filter on. Given that the situation got tense shortly after they returned with the food and the filters we put the remaining in my fridge and it was great for dinner.
We ended up with a 26 footer box truck and one of the new toy hauler trailers Uhaul has now. That is one slick unit. Only thing lacking is proper straps. They have two chains they expect one to tie down with. Both of which I used mainly as
Safety backup since I bought a pair of proper tie down straps from the trailer place. The front chain I was able to tension by pulling forward a couple inches looping the chain and backing the truck up. I couldn’t have done that on the rear as that chain comes up from a hole in the deck that was behind the rear axle. Or at that point in time I didn’t see how I could. I strapped each axle down diagonally and for added security I pulled out some winch rope and put tension to the front/center tie down loop they had. Stopped outside of Cortez to recheck tension of the straps, good. Checked multiple times along the way, good.
The sad part of it being a stoopid duty ford did actually work ok as tow rig. Though the v10 didn’t make an ounce of torque below 3000 rpm. If you kept it wound up to 4000-4500 rpm it would pull for days. Wolf creek pass was pulled in 3rd gear, at 4500 rpm doing about 28 mph. For 8 flipping miles. But I’ll give it credit the coolant temp stayed rock steady and more impressive the trans temp never moved. The next four mountain passes topped over 9000 feet each went mostly the same way. Wound up.
It did ok if you just turned up the tunes to avoid listening to the v10 wailing away in front of you.
Time to crash.
