-1973 K5 - Project Canyonero

[ripperj]

Those lights do look bright. I love seeing camp site shots, helps me day dream about getting my camper finished and into the wild

 

[ADVW/Liam]

good looking rig

That thing is sweet! I live near Aubrey/Little Elm and had to deal with that snow / ice too a few years back. Having a 4x4 sure makes a difference. I totally agree with your stance on Rigid. I have a pair of their Dually Spots, and I'm mildly happy with them. I bought them as a fog light replacement, but they are too bright even when angled down at the road. I have a 30 inch LED bar that I bout from TrailWorthy Fab (@$260.00) and that thing is extremely bright! I think I'm done with lights or a while!

Anyway, that is an awesome setup, and I'm jealous! I'm about to pay off my Tacoma, and I have put too much moneys into it to trade or sell it. I'll have to wait at least 5 years before I buy another vehicle, and those K5s and old Suburbans are really pulling at my "heart strings"!

Be safe out there, and maybe I'll run into you out at Bridgeport sometime.

Rick.

 

[utherjorge]

Your post fits me to a T, brother.

I bought a K5 and swapped in seats out of a 2002-ish Silverado...the 40-20-40 bench. I can now seat my entire family....and then I went camping.

I first went camping with five of my family. Truth be told, the K hasn't been on the road for ages, but a day of work and it's ready. However, we took our 2011 Grand Caravan. Love the van...but with the 5 and our gear, we had no space. And we didn't need ground clearance, which was good because we had none.

Then went camping with my full family of 6. :Wow1:

I started looking and scored an '88 2500 Burb from California. All the stock features I wanted, so not much to add to get things ready to go.

I'm taking the bench out of my K, parting it out (or selling it wholesale) and using that bench in the Burb. I'm sure you know this, but the space gained in the suburban is bananas.

 

[edlaffoon]

Thanks for the comments guys, it's always my goal to inspire envy lol (j/k)

utherjorge I think the suburban is a great rig but just a bit too long (wheelbase) although the space gained is absurd compared to the K5. That being said a trailer is crazy on a tight trail too. I feel like I'm honing in on the best of both worlds but just not quite there yet. I need to work with what I've got.

I (like most of us here) consider myself... we'll say "really good" at packing a vehicle. There is a lot of unused space in the K5 even packed like above that could be turned into storage.

 

[David Harris]

Love your truck!

 

[utherjorge]

I agree again with everything that you said.

There simply aren't that many tight trails around here, though I'll be mindful of that. I'm looking at fooling around in Vermont in July, so we'll see how that goes, too. I've been up there, and used to zip around in an old Nissan pickup truck, which were pretty narrow. I still scraped the sides...so the Burb should do nicely

The way I was looking at it was this: I've got to build them up to do more outside, and not be crammed in. I can have some comfortable room for them all, and that should make it easier to bring more stuff (bikes, for instance) and not be sardines.

I think I can get them up to a week away, and if we go back to Delaware, I can take the same rig surf fishing...and still have room for the rest.

Here's to hoping!

utherjorge I think the suburban is a great rig but just a bit too long (wheelbase) although the space gained is absurd compared to the K5. That being said a trailer is crazy on a tight trail too. I feel like I'm honing in on the best of both worlds but just not quite there yet. I need to work with what I've got.

I (like most of us here) consider myself... we'll say "really good" at packing a vehicle. There is a lot of unused space in the K5 even packed like above that could be turned into storage.

 

[Larry]

Glad to see you out using the old girl Eric! Truck is looking great…love the pack job too

 

[edlaffoon]

Thanks Larry, it was very therapeutic to get out in it vs driving up and down I35 70 miles a day.

utherjorge You should go for the burb, there are never enough squarebodies around here anyway.

 

[utherjorge]

Got the Burb, my friend. Looking to get some minor stuff done ahead of the first expedition at the end of June!

 

[chilliwak]

Eric I am glad to hear that your misses and the baby were ok after the accident. The truck looks great and the new light bar seems to do the job well. I also try to keep away from the Chinese junk and support manufacturing in the US and Canada. I replaced a 3 year old wheel cylinder that were made in china while the 22 year old one made in the US was still working. Cheers, Chilli..:ylsmoke:

 

[edlaffoon]

Got the Burb, my friend. Looking to get some minor stuff done ahead of the first expedition at the end of June!

Cool man!

Thanks Chili, yeah I'm not ever torn but on his I could not resist.

 

[hidesertwheelin]

Any ways here is a photo of the gear that is labeled. I really like everything that I have ended up using although I've been debating moving to a different oven. The Camp Chef oven is nice but it's large and flakey about lighting. It could be an issue with the regulator, regardless the only other real option is a camp partner/dutch oven combo witch would almost require a wood fire to use the oven. I love dutch ovens but gas is just too easy.



.

How do you like the FOR65 bags? Are they water resistant? I found a guy kinda local selling 3 of them. Any idea what a good price is?

 

[edlaffoon]

How do you like the FOR65 bags? Are they water resistant? I found a guy kinda local selling 3 of them. Any idea what a good price is?

Buy them, they are amazing.

What condition are the ones you found in?

I paid $20 a piece for mine shipped... that is a really good price. Mine are very well used, missing wheels etc. Even still it was too good an offer to pass up.

I'd leave them out in a downpour and not worry too much about my gear (I'd be more worried about my bags getting dirty lol). They would probably hold off heavy rain for several hours.

If you can get them for between $20 and $100 a piece do it. Remember these are a surplus item as they are issued by the USMC so they can be bought cheap.

 

[RigidIndustries]

What a crazy year it's been. Around the time of that last post a lot has been going on. My wife who is 4 months pregnant with our third (it's a boy!) was hit by a Tacoma in her X3 on her way to pick me up from the airport three weeks ago. Totaled her car (probably) and flipped the Tacoma into a third vehicle. She spent one night in the ER but is totally fine and so is the baby. Thank god our girls were not in the car.
Short story is we will be probably replacing the BMW with a much more capable off road vehicle. It will probably be a 5th Gen 4Runner Limited… but more on that in another thread at a later time.
Needless to say I'm ready to put a bullet in 2014 come 12/31.

I don't know why in the world you would need more light than that. It's a crazy amount of light over stock much less my old halogen headlight/KC Hilite combo.

Here is my disclaimer; I'm a big believer in buying local when you can and buying American when you can't. there is no doubt in my mind that these Chinese lights hurt companies like Rigid Industries to a degree, but I also think RI hurts themselves with their insane prices. The same thing goes for companies like Yeti etc, some of this stuff is really cool but REALLY overpriced.
Rigid Industries stuff is great, but when my house is spending $400 a month on milk and diapers I cannot justify buying a $600 20” bar when I can get the same thing at 1/5th the price. So far this light has never let me down and probably never will.
Ok rant over.

Seriously we were holding our breath when we started reading this! So glad to hear that everyone was ok! We couldn't imagine going through that situation.

Such a cool build so far! Thanks for the feedback also!
There are so many options out there these days when it comes to LED lighting and it ultimately boils down to what you're happy/comfortable with. We do take tremendous pride in our products and go through (this might get a little "salespitchy") the most demanding, industry leading quality control and torture testing measures along with patented optics to ensure the best lights available all backed by our warranty — phew... ok glad that part is over Quality does however come at more of a cost no matter what the product. We try stay very competitive with our prices and are actually not the most expensive, just the most popular which sometimes leads to the most criticism unfortunately.

Regardless, we are looking forward to following your build and seeing it progress and all the adventures you take your family on with it!

That thing is sweet! I live near Aubrey/Little Elm and had to deal with that snow / ice too a few years back. Having a 4x4 sure makes a difference. I totally agree with your stance on Rigid. I have a pair of their Dually Spots, and I'm mildly happy with them. I bought them as a fog light replacement, but they are too bright even when angled down at the road. I have a 30 inch LED bar that I bout from TrailWorthy Fab (@$260.00) and that thing is extremely bright! I think I'm done with lights or a while!

Rick.

Hey Rick, first of all thank you for grabbing a set of Rigids! We are sorry to here that you aren't crazy excited about them though!
The Spot is a really bright 10 degree pattern with only 4 LED's focused on distance with a concentrated beam (truly meant for distance while fast driving). So they would be extremely bright if angled towards the ground. It sounds like a Dually Flood, D2 Driving or Wide patterns would be the best option for your needs based of mentioning a fog light replacement and the Spot being too bright.

Something to think about anyways.

Here is a simple illustration showing the spread of the different patterns:

Cheers!

 

[ADVW/Liam]

Yeah, I agree RigidIndustries, I ended up putting the ARB fogs back in place and use the Dually Spots along with the 30inch bar I got from Trail Worthy Fab for the off road fun. I'm done buying lights for a while, but I will check out RI if I'm in the market again.