K5 Camper. My offroad home away from home.

[zoomad75]

Final trip for the season before the snow flew was a simple one. My nephew had asked to go on one of our runs since he's never been off road before. My buddies Bill and John had a weekend free to go out for an overnighter to see some of the leaves changing. We decided to head south and hit up Medano Pass into the Great Sand Dunes National park. Not crazy technical as trails go, but never fails for checking out the aspens changing color. Plan was to get down to the dunes and come back up the trail to find a place for the night.

Getting in sight of the dunes.

Even with stopping for lunch on near the top of the pass, we made insanely good time coming down. Medano can be done in just about any stock 4x4 truck so for us to get down to the dunes quick was pretty easy. It was barely 1:00pm when we were discussing our next move.

Bill is the most knowledgable of local trails and normally fearless when it comes down to taking on tough ones. Given the time of day if we headed back up Medano we'd be set up in camp before 3:00 and that leads to some bored dudes with a lot of time to kill before the sun goes down. Bill throws the idea of taking on Blanca Peak as it's mere minutes from where we are. We have talked about this before but usually, it gets brushed off due to the difficulty of the trail itself. The trail is one of the hardest in the state. We begin to rationalize this idea knowing Bill's Tacoma is fairly stock and mine is huge by wide. John's TJ on the other hand is more than ready for the trail with a recently installed long arm suspension system and ARB's front and rear. We think about it for a couple of minutes and decide to send the Tacoma upfront as the canary in the cage. When he couldn't make it we'd stop and come back down.

We made our way up the rocky ride leading to the main start of the trail.

The trail makes its way up via many switchbacks gaining elevation quickly. These are tight and narrow requiring multipoint turns for everybody but the TJ in our group. It's steep too. Really steep. But it did make a great view of the San Luis Valley below.

The main gatekeeper to the trail is a slab of rock called Jaws 1. Just before reaching it we found this very wounded Cherokee. It was obviously rolled and beat on every panel.

Here we can see the slab. It's set to toss you off the trail and down the side of the mountain. We study it close and realize if we get Bill's rig over it, we have to get him back. Plus the next obstacle called Jaws 2 is way worse than this one. We finally make the wise choice to head back down and find a campsite for the night. My spider-sense for something to go wrong was on tilt for the last half mile or so, making the choice to turn back fine by me.

My Doggo was happy with the change. We stopped part way down to help some Texan hikers change out a flat tire.

I found a break in the Juniper trees with a couple of two tracks. Turned out to be a solid campsite out of the wind.

I cooked up a mess of steak to make phlly cheesesteak sandwiches for the group as the sun went down. It was a good little run.

 

[1leglance]

Bill is always a trooper when it comes to trail runs, and he knows how to handle his rig.
You and he should match up times to come down to Baja again or just come play in the Arizona desert instead of that cold, white fluffy stuff.

 

[Adventurous]

Love this thread and Medano Pass!

You are making me miss CO. I didnt get to explore half the stuff I wanted when we were out there and wish I could go back. Theres more than one can see in a single lifetime.

 

[zoomad75]

Bill is always a trooper when it comes to trail runs, and he knows how to handle his rig.
You and he should match up times to come down to Baja again or just come play in the Arizona desert instead of that cold, white fluffy stuff.

I've been wheeling with Bill since we moved back to CO from Detroit in 2003. He's got skill and a level of no fear that sometimes is scary to follow him. It's uncanny how he just knows where the corners of the truck are. Don't matter if it was his Ram 2500 or his Tacoma, he just knows. Now I will say since we've wheeled together so many times I've seen him hit his limit with his old J20 Jeep truck where the slope of the snow covered trail and the Lincoln locked rear diff wanted to pitch the rear of the truck off the trail. It's the only time I've seen him throw in the towel. A solid hour of winching commenced to try and reach the next switchback above us and we finally caught up to Larry who was breaking trail with his 78. He couldn't make it further so we all started coming downhill.

We each questioned our sanity after going over Red Cone Pass in '18. We slightly underestimated the trail and ended up doing some serious rock crawling while in the trees and it got even crazier when we had to come down the three serious downhill sections from the summit. Outside of Moab we've never been on such a steep descent. But Bill did the creepy crawl down the worst section letting all the Taco's techo-wizardry do it's magic. Like a pro.

I'm trying to find a way to make a Baja trip possible for sure. Bill and I spoke while you guys were out and I could tell by his tone he was loving it for sure. I like snow, but I like the desert too.

Love this thread and Medano Pass!

You are making me miss CO. I didnt get to explore half the stuff I wanted when we were out there and wish I could go back. Theres more than one can see in a single lifetime.

It's still here! All you got to do is come back. I will say this, compared to previous trips over Medano it's almost like a paved road now. I don't know why the FS or NPS felt the need to run a bulldozer on the east side of the trail below the summit, but it's better graded up there than it is on the dirt road coming in off of the highway. Short of a Subaru, any basic 4wd truck, mid or full size can drive that pass without issue. In the fall the creek crossings aren't very deep so again it's very stock vehicle easy. Spring runoff would make the creek crossings much more challenging for a stock vehicle, but doable if you go in slow and easy.

 

[badm0t0rfinger]

I love it dude! Thank you for sharing!

 

[zoomad75]

Here's some of the amateur videos I've taken over the trips we've taken.

Hell's Revenge- Moab

Flat Iron Mesa- Moab

Rimrocker and La Salle Pass= CO & UT

Red Cone Pass- CO

Medano Pass and The Great Sand Dunes- CO

 

[jfman]

What a sweet rig. I have always luster after k5's.

Recently I learned about k5 chalet and now I see this one. Shows what can be done with these.

 

[zoomad75]

What a sweet rig. I have always luster after k5's.

Recently I learned about k5 chalet and now I see this one. Shows what can be done with these.

Thanks sir! The Chalet's are pretty cool too. Just too tall and long for the trails I like to take. I'd love the extra room but not at the expense of height and increased CG. I'm pushing my luck with some of the trails I've been on with this setup for sure.

 

[zoomad75]

Plans are now getting set for our annual desert trip in June. I was hoping to have an increase in displacement and conversion to manual trans but I'm still in the parts procurement phase and not ready to disable it prior to June. The swap will happen at Larry's Bigassgas Garage and the increase in displacement will go up to 8.1 and trans (or sex change operation as Larry calls it) will move to a NV4500 5 speed. The good news is the engine and transmission have been obtained so the biggest puzzle parts are secure. Another hard to get part is the clutch and brake pedal assembly. The plan is to use the late squarebody hydraulic clutch and upgrade to hydroboost brake booster at the same time. That need reduces availability by a lot because it came in '85 and later trucks and the manual trans was getting used less the later time moved on. But I managed to find that unicorn last summer at a private boneyard north of Denver.

Major parts still needed is the ORD tubular engine cross member to clear the 8.1 pan, 8.1 standalone harness, ECM, Exhaust manifolds, clutch, clutch hydraulic parts and various bits and pieces to complete the changover.

It will be following Larry's original 8.1 recipe pretty closely with exception to the axle gear ratios. I'm running 4.10's vs 4.56's in Larry's rides. I'll have a little better crawl ratio in low/low at 62:1 with my 241 t-case vs Larry's K10 with a 205 t-case at 50:1 even with my lower numerical axle ratios. It will be almost double the crawl ratio I have now with the 700r4 at 33:1. Which should make my downhill descents have much less pucker factor than I have had the last couple of years.

So since the truck isn't being torn down for a major rebuild I can focus on some other items to prep for DT20. Our esteemed colleague and DT regular Don has asked for an upgrade in communications within the group as CB just isn't cutting it for clarity or range when we spread out on dusty tracks. We are making the move to GMRS for the groups simplicity and clear, longer range reach. Most in our group are not into dialing in and optimizing CB antenna strength so this will help and I won't need to break out my SWR meter to dial in the antennas. I'm going a touch further for a dual band HAM unit that I can unlock the GMRS frequencies on. Yes I will be working on my HAM ticket too.

I also plan on covering the lower bench with carpet (like speaker box material) as an added measure to quiet things down and safer surface to set up my Klymit sleeping pad on.

Mechanically it's due for servicing the front and rear diffs, t-case and another oil change before we go. I'll probably spend a Saturday afternoon at work knocking that stuff out on a lift that crawling around in my driveway.

 

[1leglance]

I have one of those ORD tube crossmember for a 72 frame....as far as I know it won't work for you but if you find out otherwise it is yours.

 

[edlaffoon]

Cool, I've been waiting to see more of this truck for a while now, basically since you guys dragged it home. I'm super envious of the camper too. It's a perfect rig when correctly built.

 

[zoomad75]

I have one of those ORD tube crossmember for a 72 frame....as far as I know it won't work for you but if you find out otherwise it is yours.

So looking at ORD's site I don't see the 67-72 crossmember as an option. They just list it for 73 and up trucks. Let me do some research and I'll get back with you.

 

[1leglance]

I will take pics and measurements and reach out to my buddy Nick (72 burb with the 5.9 Bill and Larry talk about) and see if he remembers.
Maybe it is someone other than ORD or something else.....I was planning a 6.5 diesel swap into my burb so maybe we got something odd at that time.

 

[givemethewillys]

I'm going a touch further for a dual band HAM unit that I can unlock the GMRS frequencies on. Yes I will be working on my HAM ticket too.

I'd be interested to hear which unit you end up going to, as my buddies and I mostly use frs band, which I believe gmrs radios cover, but I'm also interested in ham. We've had terrible luck with CB range in the Virginia mountains.

 

[zoomad75]

I will take pics and measurements and reach out to my buddy Nick (72 burb with the 5.9 Bill and Larry talk about) and see if he remembers.
Maybe it is someone other than ORD or something else.....I was planning a 6.5 diesel swap into my burb so maybe we got something odd at that time.

I've picked up some parts for Nick up in Denver and talked to him a bit over the web. Cool dude. Let me know what you find out. ORD shows a small block version and a big block/LS/6.5diesel version. So if it was the ORD big block version it should work.