Great White: A Chevy K10 Build

[Ouiwee]

I guess I should provide an update on the pull out kitchen. I recently got back from a two week trip to the north rim of the Grand Canyon. It was roughly 5,500 miles in total...and I won't even mention the fuel costs.

It was a fabulous trip.

Here is a shot of the kitchen in action.

And another.

It worked like a charm and made cooking/eating on the road significantly more convenient. I think I might consider a similar pull out for the pantry.

I might have already started it.

Anyway, that isn't the point of this update.

 

[Ouiwee]

We stopped along the way to see the Great Sand Dunes National Park. It is a strange sight indeed to see sand, mountains, and snow all together.

We stayed at the lodge there since there seemed to be no sites available at the camp ground. I awoke to find this in the morning.

We had little difficulty driving out of the snow on our way west and south.

Compared to the drama including an ER visit on the hike to Shiva Temple, point sublime was a pleasant evening shared with new friends. It is difficult to take a bad picture there.

Here is a picture of my buddy's set-up on his Ford Raptor. It is just about the same as mine.

Well, I won't bore with an endless stream of Grand Canyon pictures. We visited swamp point and remote camped in a hollow.

It got into the 20's that night and I nearly froze to death.

 

[Ouiwee]

We stayed one night at Jumpup Cabin, which was a nice change. One can rent the cabin for $35 or so. There are trails to hike as well.

There is a nice look out point roughly 5 miles from the cabin that few know about.

 

[Ouiwee]

We took the time to go to Toroweap Overlook. It is a drive to get there, but well worth the time and effort. We stayed at Tuweep Campground, which is right next to the overlook. The last few miles of trail is a bit rocky, but not bad at all.

I lack the facility with words necessary to explain what it feels like to stand over an abyss with a river 3,000 feet below. It is awesome.

The Tuweep campground is mostly rock, so there isn't so many places for a ground tent. The rock makes a nice floor when taking a shower. Having an awning sure makes the difference in the desert sun.

Overall, a great trip. The drive back was not nearly as much fun as the drive to get there...

 

[Todd780]

Looks like it was a fun trip. The pics are amazing! I'd really love to get to the Grand Canyon one of these days.

 

[nomad.dream]

An epic trip

 

[zoomad75]

Man, we got back from our trip to Utah last Friday. We could have run into each other if you came east to Lake Powell. We were at Valley of the Gods Thursday.

Tuweep is a great place. I've got similar pics and parked at that exact campsite in 2019. Worth the 70+ miles of dirt to get there.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Ouiwee]

Man, we got back from our trip to Utah last Friday. We could have run into each other if you came east to Lake Powell. We were at Valley of the Gods Thursday.

Tuweep is a great place. I've got similar pics and parked at that exact campsite in 2019. Worth the 70+ miles of dirt to get there.

Thanks for sharing.

It's good you guys made it back with an integer number of trucks, rather than a fraction like last time.

 

[zoomad75]

It's good you guys made it back with an integer number of trucks, rather than a fraction like last time.

It was somewhat a redemption run for Larry. The poison spring canyon section was probably the one that finished off his frame last time. He started to feel the strange feeling late in that day. The next day the feeling got worse.

Watching his truck this time you could tell the frame had more rigidity as the normal high amount of deflection between the cab and the box has been reduced to a small amount. The suspension is it’s job rather than the frame flexing instead.

 

[I play outside]

Dude. Proper job. Attention to detail, do it yourself, quality of parts and work, well though out. Love it. Well done man!

 

[Ouiwee]

My buddy took this picture.

 

[Ouiwee]

Dude. Proper job. Attention to detail, do it yourself, quality of parts and work, well though out. Love it. Well done man!

Thanks.

 

[Gorehound]

New Friends indeed! Glad you could join us at sublime point and thanks for the inspiration of your great build.

 

[Ouiwee]

I managed to make it out to Tuscarora State Forest the other day. It was hot during the day but got down into the high 60's at night. It was a quick trip, but nice to get away. Campsite 70 (40°13'31.1"N 77°35'44.3"W or 40.225300, -77.595630) is just fine.

It was maybe 10 or so degrees cooler in the forest and still nice and green. I think the fall colors are on the way.

The usual camp set up.

One can never be too safe when it comes to bars.

I hope to make it to the Adirondack mountains this fall to see the fall colors, but life is attempting to get in my way. I remain stubbornly optimistic.

 

[Ouiwee]

As a bit of an update, I have been using a mechanical speedometer rear tail housing in the Atlas II transfer case. The reason for this is that when I started the build, I did not know what I do now. I used a Dakota Digital 128k sender to get a 40 pulse per revolution signal to go to the ECU. Without the speed signal, the ECU limits the engine to 30% throttle and throws a code.

The real trouble with the set up is that the Dakota Digital sender is not smooth. It causes the speedometer needle (which is read from the ECU) to bounce around, which caused the cruise control to surge. It drove me nuts.

So, I decided to pull and refresh the transmission while at the same time upgrading the Atlas output tail housing to a GM speed sensor version and a 300M output shaft.

Everything in the transmission looked great, but the main shaft free play was way over spec.



I have a Dodge transmission with the cast iron rear housing and it has a place for an oil seal. The usual approach is to use the seal on the transfer case to keep fluids separate. However, I have had that seal fail in the past. So, I milled out the output seal to accept the same seal used on the transfer case.



Now there is a seal on each side. If one fails, perhaps the other will hold.



Here is a shot of the new tail housing with the GM speed sensor.



I then had the ECU calibrated to the actual speed, so that I do not have to make any adjustments to the Dakota Digital gauges. The speedometer now reads smoothly and the cruise control works fine.