K10: Built HP60/241-205 Doubler/tons of tube

[Avery4jc]

I started doing some stuff under the hood...

I moved the battery on the firewall, wired up a main shut off switch and a nice little switched distribution block for power/grounds.

I swapped on a new starter, an edelbrock intake manifold, holley 600cfm carb, some headers and an electric fan...
Pics are out of order but you get it...

 

[Avery4jc]

I posted something here but it was obviously way out of order... carry on.

 

[Avery4jc]

I have no idea what started it but it's a slippery slope. I pulled the bed, did a shackle flip with some 57" ford springs, and took a trip to Bald and Pismo...

 

[Avery4jc]

I lengthened the rear d-shaft at work to get it mobile for a couple trips...

 

[Avery4jc]

The guy I wheel with was good friends with the late Noel aka dozer. He took me over to dozer's house to use his rti ramp to see how stuff worked and figure out how to setup the shocks, bump stops and limit straps.

I got a ride in dozer, cool rig!

I hacked the rear bumper off and got the shocks and stuff on...

 

[Avery4jc]

Took it up to Bald for a day trip. Didn't trailer it or anything, just drove up, played around and drove home...

 

[Avery4jc]

That same summer of '09 I took it back to Pismo. The shackle flip and soft 57" ford springs brought on some nasty axle wrap in the sand so that and the fuel system were to be addressed when we got home...

 

[Avery4jc]

I think somewhere in here I got my trailer...

I picked it up off my wheelin' buddy when he got a bigger trailer. I re-decked it, painted it and have used the crap out of it the past couple years. It's been a nice addition to the stable. 5k axles and brakes on both.

 

[Avery4jc]

I got a 17 gallon fuel cell and put it behind the cab. I built a floor out of expanded metal to start putting stuff on too...

 

[Avery4jc]

To fix my new axle wrap problems my friend and I built a traction bar. It uses a ballistic joint up top and spring bushings at the axle. It works awesome and has eliminated my axle wrap completely.
You can also see in the pictures I made a rear bumper with hitch/lights and finished running the expanded metal all the way out.

I went back to Pismo with the traction bar and had a lot more fun without all the axle wrap...

 

[Avery4jc]

June 2010 Chevysmithz71 on here and myself went up to a men's retreat and took our trucks. On the way back down the mountain we stopped to camp and play around at Bald with frizzlefry on here.

 

[Avery4jc]

My friend and I started work on the cage, it's a long slow process and is still in the works.
Over a couple of weekend we did this...

 

[Avery4jc]

Some of the copes were far from a standard notch, good thing someone knew what they were doing
It was a good project for me to start learning how to do tube work the right way.

 

[Avery4jc]

I painted the cage even though it wasn't done because I didn't want it to rust. So we did that part of the cage between that last Bald run and my first run to Coyote/Red Lake. That trail has kicked my butt twice now. Someday I'll be built enough to walk through it.

You'll also notice this is where I start losing the nice sheetmetal.

 

[Avery4jc]

Somewhere about this time I started beefing up tools and equipment at home. I picked up a huge drill press from a friend, bought a nice welder and built a big steel work bench that weighs a ton.

..and the workbench

 

[Avery4jc]

Things slowed down to a crawl on the k10 because I sold my k3500 and bought a '94 dodge diesel.

For info on how it went from this...

to this...

check out the build thread...

http://coloradok5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=282856

 

[Avery4jc]

At some point during the dodge build the k10 got an XJ steering shaft, the front end was rebuilt for the second time (actually I think that was right before the dodge was bought) and the front 8" superlift springs were swapped out for some 4" ones my friend had laying around.

The next big thing was some rock sliders. We were planning a return trip to Coyote/Red and I didn't want to be on the doors the whole time again so I did this...

My friend bought shewheeler's truck from her family and made a new front tube bumper for it so he offered me the one that was on it. It's kinda cool running her front bumper and I'm sure she'd be happy to know it's still being put to good use.
I welded some 1/4" plate to the inside of the frame and filled all the existing holes in and drilled new ones to match the plates on this bumper.

 

[Avery4jc]

I built a rear tire carrier as well. It's simple but gets the job done...

 

[Avery4jc]

We went back to Coyote/Red and with my sliders/bumper and a few other changes I thought things would be a hair better. Well I guessed wrong, I lost every last piece of sheetmetal I had left on this trip and it became the motivation for what I started doing for the next phase...

 

[Avery4jc]

Before that last Coyote trip I was having trouble with my right ankle, I'm on my feet all day at work and kind of ignored it for a while until I got home one day and couldn't walk from my truck to the house.

So long story short I had broken off a piece of bone on the inside of my right ankle and it shifted out and was rubbing on on other bones. They said I couldn't make it any worse so I went ahead on that last run and then in late October they did this to me...

I'm about 2-3 weeks from going back to work right now. All this time off has given me time to ponder life's meaning and what needs to happen to the k10...