zoomad75
K5 Camper guy
This isn't a build thread. In as much as another way to track what's been done as I go along. From work to upgrade to being out in the wild with it. I've got a full blow by blow build over on CK5.com if you want to go down that rabbit hole, but I'll start out with the 50,000-foot overview from the beginning.
This is the start. Squarebody nuts might recognize it as it was Larry's truck to start with.
Eagle eyes might be able to spot the big brother lurking in the garage behind it. That truck has it's own following and rightfully so as it's a masterpiece of a Squarebody with modern muscle and it's own house on back.
Mine came off the assembly line late in 1991, the last year of production for the remaining squarebody line and was delivered to the U.S. Government as the original buyer. Near as we can tell it was not for the military but some other agency that needed a bare bones solid axle SUV.
The truck was as base model as one could be. No power equipment on the inside, no A/C, plain rubber mat and no interior paneling. A perfect blank canvas despite the lack of A/C
Oh and one very important detail that it lacked, rust. This truck was clean in all the right spots.
My last K5 was the exact opposite of this truck in regards to rust. Not having to deal with major rust mitigation saved dollars on the budget and lots of time.
The truck lacked an engine when Larry picked it up from some country bumpkins east of Pueblo, CO. Originally it was built with the standard TBI 350 and 700r4 trans backed up with a 241 t-case and a pair of 3.08 geared 10 bolt axles. All we ended up keeping was the 241 and 700r4 by the time phase one had been completed.
The bumpkins were not kind to it. They had made attempts to retrograde the truck back to a carburetor and when that failed they harvested the 350 for something else. By the butchery that Larry had to fix under the hood they might have used pitchforks to help remove it.
The plan of action was to leave it at Larry's place as he'd plug away at stuff when he had free time since I really don't have much free time. I helped when he needed me but during this stage my role was to obtain and deliver parts he needed to keep going. I already had a 5.3 engine pulled from a customer's truck and Larry had an 8 lug Dana 44 along with a 14bolt axle I had horse traded for. We'd reuse the lift and other key parts from my old K5 and get it rolling and back into my hands.
Fast forward a little and you end up with a very clean LS engine swap.
We got it running and the ball got hit into my court for my fitting out phase to begin.
The first ride out on the road bringing it home to my house.
The plan at this point is to get the truck on the road and driven a lot to work the kinks out of the new build. We were prepping for me to go on my first Desert Trip with Larry and I needed to make sure it was reliable.
The interior got a layer of Raptor liner and a new rubber floor mat. I reused the 2001 Silverado bucket seats from my last K5 and added the Cabela's trail gear seat covers. A Tuffy security console was coated with the Raptor material and loaded in between the seats.
This was the basic form that the truck went out on the Desert Trip in '17. We did add a vintage Warn winch bumper up front and loaded it with a Warn xd9000i winch.
Desert trip '17 had us in Utah to explore.
I'll add a link for the trip report.
Desert Trip 2017
The cliff notes version was that we had a blast. I broke a Stub axle, fixed it and only had to deal with running hot/stalling during the higher temps of the trip as we headed south and on the way home. I got hooked.
One of the outcomes from the trip was living out of the back of a K5 for a week in the desert wasn't quite as cool as it sounded. I needed a better way. Larry and Ty were living easy with campers getting set up and into Beer:30 mode in mere minutes compared to unloading, setting up a tent and all the fun that involves. Larry and I had talked about me getting a Four Wheel Pop-up Camper and how cool it would be when camping. I had been looking, but could never be in the right place at the right time. Efforts were ramped up on the search and oddly I found one for sale out of Grand Junction while we were on the trip. Again bad timing. Determined I kept the search going. Finding a few more but as I found most were attached to a K5 I really didn't need nor want to add as a project to flip at the same time. Eventually not too much longer after coming back from Utah I found it on Craigslist. The bonus was the guy was willing to split the pair. I blew up the guy's phone.
This is what I found.
A fellow squarebody member 1976K5Chalet even linked the Craigslist ad over here, adding more hits to the guy's phone.
I was up there by the weekend with cash in hand and checked it out with my Dad. It was rough in spots, but complete. The roughest was what I was to find was a common theme on these and other early FWC campers which was the insane use of particle board in the cab over and cab wall areas. This stuff had gotten wet and swelled to the point of it blowing out and resting on the cab of the K5 it was sitting on.
I made a lame attempt to dicker on the price knowing he probably had guys waiting to come in. But $300 for the camper alone was insane and dropped the cash on him to make it mine.
These are pretty unique setups compared to standard FWC campers or any other slide in setup. They don't have any bottom to them. We had talked about transporting the camper to Pueblo from Denver on a small trailer, but the back wall extends below the sides enough it won't sit flat. So the best solution was to install it on my truck and haul my top down on the trailer.
The Drive down was fine if the speeds were under 65. Anything faster and the darn camper was lifting. Between the air coming in the hole in the cab over and the fact the only attachment was the 6 bolts per side on the top of the bed there was not a solid enough connection to the truck for this guy. We were going to change that during the camper refurbishing.
Dropping it off at Jeep buddy's place as he's better in woodworking than I am.
We worked on it together over many weekends and replaced the particle board with plywood, gutted the interior to reconfigure the cabinet and re-install it with a small section of a K5 top to give it 6 more points to bolt the camper to the cab. This would get us ready for the 2018 trip to the Mojave Road and whatever else we could get into trouble with.
Here's a link to the trip report:
2018 Desert Trip
This is the start. Squarebody nuts might recognize it as it was Larry's truck to start with.
Eagle eyes might be able to spot the big brother lurking in the garage behind it. That truck has it's own following and rightfully so as it's a masterpiece of a Squarebody with modern muscle and it's own house on back.
Mine came off the assembly line late in 1991, the last year of production for the remaining squarebody line and was delivered to the U.S. Government as the original buyer. Near as we can tell it was not for the military but some other agency that needed a bare bones solid axle SUV.
The truck was as base model as one could be. No power equipment on the inside, no A/C, plain rubber mat and no interior paneling. A perfect blank canvas despite the lack of A/C
Oh and one very important detail that it lacked, rust. This truck was clean in all the right spots.
My last K5 was the exact opposite of this truck in regards to rust. Not having to deal with major rust mitigation saved dollars on the budget and lots of time.
The truck lacked an engine when Larry picked it up from some country bumpkins east of Pueblo, CO. Originally it was built with the standard TBI 350 and 700r4 trans backed up with a 241 t-case and a pair of 3.08 geared 10 bolt axles. All we ended up keeping was the 241 and 700r4 by the time phase one had been completed.
The bumpkins were not kind to it. They had made attempts to retrograde the truck back to a carburetor and when that failed they harvested the 350 for something else. By the butchery that Larry had to fix under the hood they might have used pitchforks to help remove it.
The plan of action was to leave it at Larry's place as he'd plug away at stuff when he had free time since I really don't have much free time. I helped when he needed me but during this stage my role was to obtain and deliver parts he needed to keep going. I already had a 5.3 engine pulled from a customer's truck and Larry had an 8 lug Dana 44 along with a 14bolt axle I had horse traded for. We'd reuse the lift and other key parts from my old K5 and get it rolling and back into my hands.
Fast forward a little and you end up with a very clean LS engine swap.
We got it running and the ball got hit into my court for my fitting out phase to begin.
The first ride out on the road bringing it home to my house.
The plan at this point is to get the truck on the road and driven a lot to work the kinks out of the new build. We were prepping for me to go on my first Desert Trip with Larry and I needed to make sure it was reliable.
The interior got a layer of Raptor liner and a new rubber floor mat. I reused the 2001 Silverado bucket seats from my last K5 and added the Cabela's trail gear seat covers. A Tuffy security console was coated with the Raptor material and loaded in between the seats.
This was the basic form that the truck went out on the Desert Trip in '17. We did add a vintage Warn winch bumper up front and loaded it with a Warn xd9000i winch.
Desert trip '17 had us in Utah to explore.
I'll add a link for the trip report.
Desert Trip 2017
The cliff notes version was that we had a blast. I broke a Stub axle, fixed it and only had to deal with running hot/stalling during the higher temps of the trip as we headed south and on the way home. I got hooked.
One of the outcomes from the trip was living out of the back of a K5 for a week in the desert wasn't quite as cool as it sounded. I needed a better way. Larry and Ty were living easy with campers getting set up and into Beer:30 mode in mere minutes compared to unloading, setting up a tent and all the fun that involves. Larry and I had talked about me getting a Four Wheel Pop-up Camper and how cool it would be when camping. I had been looking, but could never be in the right place at the right time. Efforts were ramped up on the search and oddly I found one for sale out of Grand Junction while we were on the trip. Again bad timing. Determined I kept the search going. Finding a few more but as I found most were attached to a K5 I really didn't need nor want to add as a project to flip at the same time. Eventually not too much longer after coming back from Utah I found it on Craigslist. The bonus was the guy was willing to split the pair. I blew up the guy's phone.
This is what I found.
A fellow squarebody member 1976K5Chalet even linked the Craigslist ad over here, adding more hits to the guy's phone.
I was up there by the weekend with cash in hand and checked it out with my Dad. It was rough in spots, but complete. The roughest was what I was to find was a common theme on these and other early FWC campers which was the insane use of particle board in the cab over and cab wall areas. This stuff had gotten wet and swelled to the point of it blowing out and resting on the cab of the K5 it was sitting on.
I made a lame attempt to dicker on the price knowing he probably had guys waiting to come in. But $300 for the camper alone was insane and dropped the cash on him to make it mine.
These are pretty unique setups compared to standard FWC campers or any other slide in setup. They don't have any bottom to them. We had talked about transporting the camper to Pueblo from Denver on a small trailer, but the back wall extends below the sides enough it won't sit flat. So the best solution was to install it on my truck and haul my top down on the trailer.
The Drive down was fine if the speeds were under 65. Anything faster and the darn camper was lifting. Between the air coming in the hole in the cab over and the fact the only attachment was the 6 bolts per side on the top of the bed there was not a solid enough connection to the truck for this guy. We were going to change that during the camper refurbishing.
Dropping it off at Jeep buddy's place as he's better in woodworking than I am.
We worked on it together over many weekends and replaced the particle board with plywood, gutted the interior to reconfigure the cabinet and re-install it with a small section of a K5 top to give it 6 more points to bolt the camper to the cab. This would get us ready for the 2018 trip to the Mojave Road and whatever else we could get into trouble with.
Here's a link to the trip report:
2018 Desert Trip
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