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What do you use your K5 for?

My 86 k5 is currently a project/hole to throw money in. The intent is a family rig that's dependable and used mostly for mild trails and to just enjoy. When it's done I wouldnt hesitate to take it on a longer trip. Probably not the interstate but that's more because I enjoy cruising the country back roads.
 
Mine's currently a project - got it a year ago. Hopefully it will be 'done' in the next few months. At which point it will be used to go shooting and wheeling. However, any of those places are at least an hour outside of phx on the fwy so it's still going to be used on the roads. I don't commute anylonger - working from home.
 
My Jimmy is my daily. Kind of sucks sometimes because it can be down for a decent amount of time. Like now.

But I have owned it for a while now and it has been my daily since I got it.

37s, 4.56s SF 14 bolt rear 10 bolt front. It still has issues but I'm slowly getting them worked out. I have taken it on several 600 mile trips with very little issue.

I just like driving it.

Horton well now Horton is a trailer Queen but I have driven him on lots of public roads. Drives just fine.
 
The trazer is a trail rig, not street legal. Although I wish it was cause then I'd get to enjoy it more often, hence why I'm going to get rid of it. My m1009 I used to own was my sole mode of transportation. 4" lift, 37s and a soft top made it a blast to drive. I put over 50,000 miles on it in just a couple years. I miss it greatly. I will probably buy an m1008 when I move closer to work. (60 mile round trip right now)
 
Mine's a DD. I bought it when I was commuting 5 miles a day. My job situation changed and now I drive 60+ a day. 83 K5, 31" tires on stock suspension, 350 in front of a 700R4, does 85+ without an issue. I really want to get a station car for back and forth to work, so I can keep the miles off of the K5 and work on it more leisurely - the needed repairs/maintenance keep piling up, but hardly have the time to do them, let alone take it off the road for a couple days. Can be a bit of a headache, but I love driving it, and it does great in the snow. I also like that it stands out a bit in the parking lots.
 
My 76 was my daily driver and wheeling rig 4-5 times a year from 2014 to a month ago. Now it gets driven a few times a week in sunny weather because I took the top off for the summer. It will probably never be an everyday driver again, at least not for a few years, as I restore it. It needs a solid amount of work, though it runs and drives really well, it's got rust and bondo. I have driven it a good bit on the highway, it seems to like 60-65. It drives good on the highway, not sure I would trust it on a long trip but it has never given me a reason not too so why not, have made a few trips to the lake and down to the shooting range. Nothing longer than about 1.5 hours on the interstate.
 
My '82 JIMMY is my toy.
It's pretty much built as a low budget rock crawler / desert expedition rig but I moved to Dallas a year ago and it hasn't seen any action for a while.

I still managed to put a few upgrades on it and I can't wait to test them out soon. I try to keep it ready to go all the time.

I can drive on the highway 70mph but I'm not too comfortable doing it so short distance only for me.

I haul it to the trail on a trailer.
Like mentioned before it's nice to have a full tank and I can have more fun if I am not too worried about the drive home.
 
Our 90 v1500 burb (with 2500 springs and diffs) is our family car, and is driven every day. My 91 r1500 burb (now 4x4 with tons, 40s, and 454) doesnt get driven every day, but close to. We use it to check out mountain lakes, ghost towns, and during spring hunting seasons. Last year I figured it got about 800 miles with tires at 5 psi or less and in low range over snow. This year we are at about 400 miles aired down on snow, and has been driven about 1500 miles since april 1st.

both suburbans get about 15k a year with mostly just maintenance.
 
My K5 isn't a K5 anymore. I got it when I was seventeen, and over the past 8 years it has been a DD, a wheeler, a road tripper, a hauler, and everything else you can think of. It's been off the road for the past 6 months as I am finishing up my Trazer swap.
 
Mine largely holds down the floor in the garage. I do drive it around town for errands when the weather co-operates (no climate control). While she'll do 60 or 65, I wouldn't take her for long highway distances. That's the dictionary definition of either "project", or "I should sell it". ..shrug..

-- A
 
The K10 continues to evolve but prior to the latest tear down it could handle the freeway speeds, trips to home depot & the dump or pretty much anything else I used it for. All that keeps the wife happy, camping and wheeling trips are the real reason why I built the truck. With the new upgrades it should be more reliable and perform better.
 
Mine switches DD duties with my Lexus. And I use it to explore the local deserts on weekends.

I have driven it about 400 miles in one day before, I was perfectly comfortable.
 
Used to DD mine for about 6mo back in the day while my normal DD vehicle was down. Since then it has all changed.

It is street legal, and mildly road worthy. I can drive all over the place in town, but can't go much above 50mph. 90% of the time it is a trailer queen crawler. The other 10% is pure stress relief.

I hope to get a second K5 in the next year or 2 to D.E.D.
 
I use mine as a truck, as much as a K5 is a truck.

It's a non-stop project, sits 95% of it's life, but has been pressed into DD service (when car was being warrantied), and I'd have no problem trusting it to drive across Country. It hauls the trailer to the dump, and gets me into the mountains in summer and winter.I know it goes faster than 85 but starts to shake pretty good over 70.

I actually enjoy driving the truck, but the newer car is infinitely more practical...less work, more mileage, all sorts of electronic gadgets, handles better, and I care less what happens to it than I do the truck.
 
dyeager535 said:
It's a non-stop project, sits 95% of it's life, but has been pressed into DD service (when car was being warrantied), and I'd have no problem trusting it to drive across Country. It hauls the trailer to the dump, and gets me into the mountains in summer and winter.I know it goes faster than 85 but starts to shake pretty good over 70.

I actually enjoy driving the truck, but the newer car is infinitely more practical...less work, more mileage, all sorts of electronic gadgets, handles better, and I care less what happens to it than I do the truck.
Click to expand...

This is pretty much where I am. What I need to decide is whether the K5 could realistically do what my 2011 Wrangler does. That thing is my DD, it drives straight and easy and rides on 35's. The engine is a dog but it'll cruise the interstate no problem at 85 mph. I like it a lot, but it's just so cookie cutter and everyone has one.

I don't know how many of you guys are shooters, but it reminds me how I like M1's and revolvers so much more than modern guns, but eventually you have to cave and admit that Glocks and AR's are so much more practically useful. They just have no character.
 
I like driving the truck, I'm just not sure why. I'm pretty basic when it comes to vehicles anyway, but I have to admit that things like a decent sound system/quiet vehicle are nice, as is bluetooth for the phone and MP3's, outside temp, PW/PDL, and easy to shift transmission/more gears...it all just makes driving the modern vehicle more practical. Not any more fun, just more practical.

I'm comparing a car to a truck though, and that's not fair. But from what I've seen, the modern SUV's/trucks are just as well equipped as cars, so it's probably nearly a wash there. It's also not fair that some of the truck components are ~35 years old, and the car is new...reliability is unlikely to come from a vehicle/components that old. I just got sick of working on my vehicles until midnight just to make it to work the next morning.

My $9000 2004 Hyundai went 140K and 11 years before being totaled, and the only "hard" part I had to replace during those 11 years was a piece of the exhaust. So I find it somewhat hard to say the old stuff is made to last any better than the new stuff.
 
dyeager535 said:
So I find it somewhat hard to say the old stuff is made to last any better than the new stuff.
Click to expand...

I don't think old (60's 70's and some 80's) stuff was made any better - tolerances were terrible, materials weren't that great. 100k miles and much of an older vehicle was used up. Modern vehicles make 100k and still run great. The difference is the old stuff you can fix w/ a handful of wrenches/sockets and a couple of screwdrivers. Just like fixing an old farm implement. Todays vehicles have dozens of 'special' tools involved electronic or metallic that are generally expensive and/or hard to find.
 
Mine is an adventure vehicle, but it mostly just takes up space in the barn. I used to DD when it was 3 miles - now that it's 30, the K5 does the commute once or twice a year. I keep it on the borderline between a wheeler and a street vehicle and pretend that it's great at both :). I do take it on short jaunts here and there throughout the summer, plus usually a couple adventures of several hundred miles or more. Real wheeling only happens a couple times a year. The soft suspension is nice on the road and for wheeling, but without sway bars curvy roads demand a lot of attention. It sits in the winter unless there is firewood to haul and the snow is too deep for the Yukon.
 
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