1986 GMC S-15

[Andrew_S]

Dang dorman manifolds are garbage - went through several myself before going with headers and custom cats to avoid having to replace them every 6 months to a year. Oh well. It is what it is.

Definitely is what it is haha. I still have the hybrid 3500 motor sitting on a stand as a back-up. I keep telling myself I'm not going to fix "x" because I'm going to swap the motor soon. Maybe another broken manifold will be the push across the finish line to swap that engine in...

What's your pinion seal replacement method? Do you count the threads, remove, and replace to the same place? Or, do you do something different? I'm getting ready to replace the seal in my Jeep's Dana 30 and dana 44, and would love any advice.

Great work as usual by the way!

I usually mark everything with a paint marker and re-align. I'm not sure if that's the recommended method but it hasn't failed me yet. Thanks for the good words!
As promised we just wrapped up an 8-day trip to Kinbasket Lake. Cue up the canoe/camping pics...

Quick stop at a somewhat secret swimming hole to beat the heat (no ac on this old girl) on the way to Revelstoke.

Spotted this beauty on the way out.

Stopped for lunch on the shoreline of upper arrow lake

Revelstoke Dam in all it's glory

The theme of this trip was big lakes & calm waters

No issues getting a prime spot on the water mid-week

No luck fishing but can't beat the weather and the water.

Pit stop on the way to Golden

First camping spot of the trip on the big Kinbasket lake. Totally solo.

We spent a lot of time doing this during the trip. I wasn't much of a reader through my youth but I've really taken to reading a book each trip now.

The next am, for perspective this lake is 200 km's/124 miles long & covers 43k ha or 169 square miles.

Old dozer boat abandoned on the shoreline

I love seeing these old "bush" fixes. Nothing like some 25m bare to make sure your prop protection is sturdy.

I love seeing this old equipment but it tears me up a bit to see this polluting the lake. 6 large batteries, oil, trans fluid, etc, etc. This thing will likely sit here for another 30 years...

Heading further into the bush, a quick hike up the Valencia river. Pictures don't do this justice but it's literally cut a +100' deep trench in this canyon.

Further down the road, this massive blow out from freshet was pretty unreal. Easly 200' wide and the amount of raw gravel that moved was really impressive. Would have loved to have seen this in the moment.

This one is going to haunt me for a while...

We were planning to travel another 20 km or so up this road but the river took out a short section. It was only a couple of feet deep but loose gravel and fast-moving water. If I had the air lockers hooked up I would have been extremely tempted. As much as I wanted to cross the voice of reason (wife) said absolutely no way, not this far out without a winch or a second vehicle.

At about the 80km mark into the bush now, amazing braided channel feeds into the main lake. Lunch & a swim.

 

[Andrew_S]

Setting up camp at the 3rd spot of the trip. Again totally solo right on the water.

Hooked up to a couple of nice Bull trout, note the proximity to camp!

Paddling up to the headwaters

Walked the canoe for about a km. This section was straight silt and really quite smooth on bare feet.

It's amazing the amount of fines that get transported into the lake.

On the way back to camp, couldn't beat the conditions we were getting for paddling.

Making our way further into the bush, at about the 100km mark there was a small spot fire.

At the next campsite this scene was on display, approx 110km away from asphalt. This is the things nightmares are made of for me.

Paddling up Sullivan Creek. Water visibility was down to about 1". As soon as your paddle went in the water it disappeared. About as fresh from the glacier as you can get.

Another breathtaking site on night 4, no one in sight.

Day 5 we made it out to about the 150 km mark, the end of the road for us. We found another amazing spot.

Pictures don't do it justice but it was like we were on the ocean with 4' swells breaking at the shoreline. As much as I wanted to spend the night the wife's wanderlust took over and she made the call to move on after lunch.

We are both a bit nerdy when it comes to rocks. Here was the small collection that stacked up while we were walking the shoreline.

On the way back out, it's not too often we see triple-digit mile markers on trips.

We found this beautiful spot on a sandy point, proceeded to pop the top and go for a skinny tip on the nicest beach I think I've ever experienced. As isolated as we felt, not long after a tacoma came down the steep goat trail stacked with about 8 guys in the cab & bed about to set up for a party. Needless to say, we moved on.

 

[Andrew_S]

Night 5, we ended up on the water solo again. A real nice creek directly next to us for some white noise, I'm a sucker for white noise when camping.

This is about as good as it gets for us. Feast of fish, cold beer and a sunset over the glaciers.

Day 6, heading back to town for some supplies. Look at this friggin lake!

A quick stroll through some old cedar forests

Again photos just don't do this justice. Easily 4' diameter cedars.

fishing on the Blue river at this wicked little campsite.

Lunch on the Columbia/Blue River junction. Mesmerizing to watch the two rivers merging.

If it wasn't so early we definitely would have camped here.

Campsite on night 6/7, Gold arm.

By far our favourite spot of the trip. Steps to a sandy beach, no one else around and Glaciers in the background.

We spent two days eating, drinking, swimming, paddling & overall relaxing.

One last outing on day 8

Camp in the background

Short road trip before we headed home. About 40 km into some old roads.

Came across this really nice old trappers cabin someone was taking care of.

All said and done we travelled about 1500kms and over 500km's of bush roads. A lot of the roads are like driving on flour at the moment because it's so dry. This thing needs a serious wipe down and greasing of all joints.

I dubbed the truck the GT model (good truck) after this trip because it was not an easy slog. A lot of washboard and beat-up sections and it took it like a champ.

Overall awesome trip to a spectacular area, can't wait to go back with lockers, a winch and hit that washout...

 

[NevadaLover]

Night 5, we ended up on the water solo again. A real nice creek directly next to us for some white noise, I'm a sucker for white noise when camping.

This is about as good as it gets for us. Feast of fish, cold beer and a sunset over the glaciers.

Day 6, heading back to town for some supplies. Look at this friggin lake!

A quick stroll through some old cedar forests

Again photos just don't do this justice. Easily 4' diameter cedars.

fishing on the Blue river at this wicked little campsite.

Lunch on the Columbia/Blue River junction. Mesmerizing to watch the two rivers merging.

If it wasn't so early we definitely would have camped here.

Campsite on night 6/7, Gold arm.

By far our favourite spot of the trip. Steps to a sandy beach, no one else around and Glaciers in the background.

We spent two days eating, drinking, swimming, paddling & overall relaxing.

One last outing on day 8

Camp in the background

Short road trip before we headed home. About 40 km into some old roads.

Came across this really nice old trappers cabin someone was taking care of.

All said and done we travelled about 1500kms and over 500km's of bush roads. A lot of the roads are like driving on flour at the moment because it's so dry. This thing needs a serious wipe down and greasing of all joints.

I dubbed the truck the GT model (good truck) after this trip because it was not an easy slog. A lot of washboard and beat-up sections and it took it like a champ.

Overall awesome trip to a spectacular area, can't wait to go back with lockers, a winch and hit that washout...

Beautiful pics, looks like a really great trip.

 

[YetiX]

Looks like an amazing trip Andrew!!

 

[Dougnuts]

Wow! The pictures and scenery were amazing. Thank you for sharing with us!

 

[1stDeuce]

Man, Wife and I need to get up there... Such awesome terrain and pretty much nobody around... Might have to pick up a canoe instead of kayaks though...
Keep up the posts, some of us have to enjoy the scenery from far away!!

 

[Canlib]

Drove up to the last operational part of the mine,

The guys running these places were not idiots, not by a long shot. The system in place with these rail cars and dumping off the side of the hill was genius.

It started to rain pretty well so we took off for camp.

This is the last part of the operation still going by the looks of it.

We had intended to stay out another 2 nights but we experienced the first major mechanical failure with the camper as we got to camp. Actuator #4 failed to chooch.

We weren't too far from home so instead of trying to fix it in the field we called it a trip.
I 100% wanted to know what the failure point was in case I had 3 others to address as well.

You get what you pay for holds true in this scenario, these things are pretty cheaply made. It's amazing they've held up this long.

Found the culprit. This little red wire connects to the upper limit switch and it was likely 3/4" short and that caused it to break off. It also looks like it was barely soldered in place.

Fixed and ready to go back together,

Reassembled, back in the camper and working perfectly again. Think I may order a spare to have on hand. It would suck to cut a longer trip short for a $200 part.

I agree on the actuators. One of mine failed this spring...water leak and the bottom bearing failed. I'm looking for alternatives...hydraulic, air, ?. I guess the TV lift market doesn't plan on weather and off road use.

 

[Todd n Natalie]

How are you doing doing there with the wild fires?

 

[Andrew_S]

I agree on the actuators. One of mine failed this spring...water leak and the bottom bearing failed. I'm looking for alternatives...hydraulic, air, ?. I guess the TV lift market doesn't plan on weather and off road use.

When I saw the external mount I was worried they may have issues with the elements. Think you could just seal them up a bit better than out of the box? Maybe an o -ring on the rod?

How are you doing doing there with the wild fires?

It's been a very weird week over here. The house survived, but definitely had a few scary nights where we didn't think we would have a home to go back to after we were allowed back...

We were Evac'd a week ago, Thursday afternoon.
When I got home from work the fire was several km's behind our house and pretty tame.

30 mins later the wind started kicking up and it was obvious that things were escalating. All of our neighbours had left or were leaving already.

About 20 mins later we were on full evac order and cops were pushing everyone out of the neighbourhood
We went to the other side of the lake and watched the fire for about an hour and half.
In that time it went from this:

To this in about 1 hour, consuming over 50 homes.

Another hour later it made it all the way down to the lake and had consumed the entire hillside. Shortly after this it jumped clear across the lake (over a mile) and lit the hillside adjacent to us on fire.

We spent the next few nights extremely anxious as the fire crept up on our neighbourhood, literally burning lawns and fences behind us.

By some miracle, every house was saved directly behind us. A block or so away some of our neighbours were not so lucky. Debris was falling out of the sky a couple of km's away in the 6" plus range

The total count is around 180 homes that were burned in the last week. We are going to head out for a walk later today, the entire park is scorched. We were extremely fortunate. I cracked a joke when we were evacuating that we might be picking mushrooms in our very own backyard next year, never did I expect this.

 

[N.Penley]

Wow! Praying for you and your community brother. I can’t imagine the devastation from smoke damage and loss of businesses revenue to loss of life and property.
Glad to hear your doing good.

Once the smoke clears and your fall hunting trips are done we need updates on that AWD swap.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[NevadaLover]

Wow, glad you guys survived safely and still have your home, fires suck.

 

[Kingsize24]

Unbelievable. Will keep you and the families around you in our prayers. Glad you guys made it out okay though.

 

[Todd n Natalie]

It's been a very weird week over here. The house survived, but definitely had a few scary nights where we didn't think we would have a home to go back to after we were allowed back...

We were Evac'd a week ago, Thursday afternoon.
When I got home from work the fire was several km's behind our house and pretty tame.

30 mins later the wind started kicking up and it was obvious that things were escalating. All of our neighbours had left or were leaving already.

About 20 mins later we were on full evac order and cops were pushing everyone out of the neighbourhood
We went to the other side of the lake and watched the fire for about an hour and half.
In that time it went from this:

To this in about 1 hour, consuming over 50 homes.

Another hour later it made it all the way down to the lake and had consumed the entire hillside. Shortly after this it jumped clear across the lake (over a mile) and lit the hillside adjacent to us on fire.

We spent the next few nights extremely anxious as the fire crept up on our neighbourhood, literally burning lawns and fences behind us.

By some miracle, every house was saved directly behind us. A block or so away some of our neighbours were not so lucky. Debris was falling out of the sky a couple of km's away in the 6" plus range

The total count is around 180 homes that were burned in the last week. We are going to head out for a walk later today, the entire park is scorched. We were extremely fortunate. I cracked a joke when we were evacuating that we might be picking mushrooms in our very own backyard next year, never did I expect this.

That insane! My folks live in Vernon so have been keeping tabs on that fire. I knew you were in Kelowna so figured I should check in.
Glad you are safe and sound and that your house survived. Very scary indeed.

 

[YetiX]

I'm really happy to hear you all were spared! Fires are no joke.