Edgar: The adventures and ramblings of a high mileage 1992 Chevy K1500 RCSB

[TwinDuro]

Just got back from some mischief this weekend… a full report to come. It’s slightly disconcerting having your rig rock back and forth when it’s on 3 wheels on a steep downhill rock chute, but having a great spotter helps! We had a ton of fun crawling on and around moon rocks!

 

[TwinDuro]

Lots to catch up on, but this summer has been back to back weekends of fun times… I’m a lucky SOB!

It’s not the most restful at times, but I’m A-OK with that. If that’s an actual complaint then I need to get off the soap box and split some wood or pick rocks…

When opportunity knocks, you better answer the door (or at least gander out the peep hole and reevaluate)!



This last weekend had a family backpacking trip to Packwood on the roster, but unfortunately, my sister got food poisoning (thankfully she’s fine now) and we had to reschedule.

Meanwhile, I knew my motorcycle racing and general long-time shenanigans buddies were headed down to Castlerock, WA for TheWildOne flat track event… formerly known as Dirt Quake. They encouraged me to come down and have some fun

Having the first set of plans fall through and left with a wide-open three day weekend, the only thing left to do was go racing, so I pulled the surly left-brake, right-shift ‘66 Bultaco Sherpa S (S for scrambles) MX bike out of storage.

It had been there for three long years,
mixed up some fresh 91 octane 32:1 pre-mix, gave it a once over, gave the ‘ol Amal carb a tickle, she fired right up, I adjusted some things and loaded up Edgar.



Fitting the bike under the Bestop required rolling the handlebars backward, no biggie. Sure, I could lower the Bestop, but then I’d have to do more work then loosen a few bolts…



A nice, easy and relaxing 100 mile backroads and blue highways drive found me at the famed Castlerock Flat Track.



First night sleeping under the Bestop and it worked out great. Even though it was hot out, it didn’t get too stuffy and I slept like the dead on a comfy old Costco pad.



Lots more to come, but let’s just say the next day I got a little sideways…

 

[TwinDuro]

I’ve noticed a lot of misconception of how much these trucks weigh over the last few years so I decided to weigh Edgar, with a full tank of gas (26 gallons) and my entire camping/spare parts/food setup for 4 days with a full size spare tire (80lbs). This is with me in the truck (190lbs) and 8 gallons of waste oil I was dropping off at the dump (60lbs). Right at 5k pound sans person ain’t too shabby. I try to go as light as possible… sometimes it’s not what you add to your rig, it’s what you take away…

 

[Skinny06]

I know all the other modifications and upgrades have been a major boon, but my favorite is still the reversion to normal tail lights.

 

[TwinDuro]

I know all the other modifications and upgrades have been a major boon, but my favorite is still the reversion to normal tail lights.

@Skinny06, 100% agreed!

 

[TwinDuro]

Parts on parts on parts and shocking revelations!



One of the little projects I wanted to take care of before the first big truck trip (for my rig anywho) of the season (with @Skinny06 in his awesome Frontier) was replacing the aging and leaking Monroe front shocks with a set of KYB Monomax units to match the rears that I put in last season.

I had two sets of new front shocks (due to an ordering faux paux, anyone need a new set of standard length MonoMax's for their GMT400?) to choose from, standard length like the old crusty ones pictured above and extended length, designed for 1-3” of lift as seen in the photo above (the red shock).

Originally, I was planning to go with standard length, but was unable to install them without unloading the torsion bars, as I couldn’t compress the control arms enough with the weight of the truck on a floor jack (while safely supported elseware of course) to get even close to being able to install them. The old front shocks were actually fully extended without allowing the control arms to fully hit the downward bump stops (sorry for the blurry photo):



So, without delay and feeling lazy towards the previously mentioned physics problem, I installed the longer shocks:



My worry was that the longer shock body (about 1.5” longer) on the 1-3” lift shocks would bottom out under compression, but after thorough high speed desert testing over large speed bumps (ha!) this hasn’t proven to be a problem. The down-travel has actually increased as the control arms can now extend all the way to the lower stops without being limited by the shorter shock… not what I was expecting, but I’ll take it!

Ride quality went waaaaaaay up. Time will tell, but I really like the ride of these shocks! BTW, you can't see it in the photo, but the reason I went up on this log was to avoid potenial contact with a tree on a very tight turn...

 

[xjchad]

Those look great, and glad to see the increased performance!
Do you have the part numbers for those front and rear KYB's? I'd like to put them on mine after I install the 2" lift.
Thanks!

 

[Smileyshaun]

This is just a general tip for people following , a great way to double check your shocks are the proper length is put a zip tie around the shock stem . The shock body will push the zip tie up to its furthest point of travel telling you if you have the right length shock in place .

 

[TwinDuro]

This is just a general tip for people following , a great way to double check your shocks are the proper length is put a zip tie around the shock stem . The shock body will push the zip tie up to its furthest point of travel telling you if you have the right length shock in place .

Great tip @Smileyshaun! I use that on motorcycles fairly often and didn’t even think of trying it out in the truck… we’ll now find out how much travel we’re using and see how close we are to bottoming out the shocks front and rear.

Those look great, and glad to see the increased performance!
Do you have the part numbers for those front and rear KYB's? I'd like to put them on mine after I install the 2" lift.
Thanks!

Sure thing @xjchad The fronts are KYB PN: 565073, Rears are KYB PN: 565074

 

[xjchad]

Great tip @Smileyshaun! I use that on motorcycles fairly often and didn’t even think of trying it out in the truck… we’ll now find out how much travel we’re using and see how close we are to bottoming out the shocks front and rear.



Sure thing @xjchad The fronts are KYB PN: 565073, Rears are KYB PN: 565074

Thank you!

 

[TwinDuro]

From a few months back, here is a rehash of replacing the badly leaking (from both side tanks), who-knows-how-old, factory-size Modine (a shout out to Racine, WI!) 28-1/4”wide by 1-1/4” core radiator with a drastically mo’ betta 34” wide by 2-1/4” thick core TYC unit… because I don’t like overheating… who does really? Bit of a difference…



I first drained the old coolant, which was mostly light green hose-water at this point because it was pretty much a “total loss” cooling system… not ideal for long trips! ?

 

[TwinDuro]

Oops! Well, looks like the majority of my post about updating the cooling system got chopped, so I’ll fix that here in a bit… sometimes I feel like an abacus man in a digital world

 

[TwinDuro]

The cooling system upgrade update (update upgrade?) is gonna have to wait, because adventure happens and you don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth… this weekend took me back to the Oregon Coast… my second home for the last 10 years or so and the place where my motorcycle and auto racing roots were/are cultivated thanks to good friends, booze and bad ideas…



The week started out with pulling a ‘96 Vortec 350 out of a badly wrecked z71 extended cab, but not for my truck (the TBI 350 works great for now, please and thank you), but to power a future project which may involve old Chevy Vans, but who’s asking? The route to overlanding is often shaped like a bunch of Z’s and W’s hooked together.

None of us just do one thing, we do all of the things… there’s no shame in perspective.





When driving a 3-speed, Column shift manual-van, “old” becomes perspective as well and a 30 year old truck with a dump truck 5-speed seems really damn modern by comparison…



Back to Edgar-Rose, the ol’ girl nearly broke 17mpg on this 500 mile trip, most of which was at 65-75mph. I’m OK with that.



It’s all relative…

 

[TwinDuro]

Miles bring smiles…

 

[Skinny06]

Damn it @TwinDuro now we really need to get down to there for some adventurin'!