Guess who's back!?! Atl-atl's K5 Blazer + Four Wheel Camper "The Crawlin Cabin" documentation thread!

[Atl-atl]

Well I finally finished painting. Holy crap is it time consuming and tedious. Spent the last week prepping, priming and painting the front wall and cabover bed platform. Also massaged, sanded, primed and painted the trim pieces that are involved in this project. 3 coats of Kilz "Mold and Mildew" primer and 2 coats of Sherwin Williams "Resilience" exterior acrylic latex Super White base color in "6155 Rice Grain" which is an incredibly close match for the off-white color of old school Four Wheel Campers. In fact, in bright daylight I cant see the difference, I'm pleasantly surprised.

Finished installing the panels this evening. Butyl taping every corner, clear silicone on every seam and in every screw hole. Lined up and clamped and finessed the damn thing for hours this afternoon to make it all square and solid. Drilled pilot holes for every screw. Really went more in depth than I ever have on a camper and I feel great about it. Also tucked the wires for the ceiling into the wall/behind the front lift panel as best I could. Theyre almost completely hidden now which is rad except it only makes the stained canvas more and more apparent. Started installing the black vinyl trim inserts and just called it quits for the night. Ill wait to get the camper back on the truck before putting on all the finishing touches.

 

[Atl-atl]

Aaand more pics

 

[Atl-atl]

Dove in head first today...

Camper is in the driveway for a few days. Rear suspension is almost done except my shocks have eyelets for a 1/2" bolt and stock is 5/8" so unless I can find the weird K truck specific upper rear shock mounts with a 1/2" hole Im going to have a machine shop take down the mounts to 1/2" so I can run the Bilsteins I bought. Front is torn apart. It will be getting upper and lower ball joints, bearings, seals, longer studs etc. on both sides because why not while Im in there. Gotta press studs into the new flat top knuckle anyway and there was grease coming out of the back of the passenger side rotor.

Also got the steering gear and shaft pulled. It was dark by that time though so Ill have to check for frame cracks in the daylight tomorrow before I put in the PSC gear. Still undecided what I want to do for a steering shaft. I thought my truck would have the "double D" style shaft but it appears to have normal round splines on both ends. Gotta pull teh PSC gear and see what it looks like. Might be custom Borgeson territory for me unfortunately.


Arizona squat

 

[Atl-atl]

Catch up time! Holy crap the last month has been a whirlwind. I got a ton of work done on the truck in early September. Tore apart the whole front end, chopped off the stock shock mounts, installed all new outer axle seals, spindle seals, bearings, upper and lower ball joints, brakes, repacked everything with grease, installed the new crossover steering parts, new passenger crossover steering knuckle and reassembled it all.

Jacking up the truck and setting the frame on jack stands resulted in precisely zero droop from the stock suspension.






Bye bye old knuckle!


No frame cracks at the steering gear mount which is a huge relief.




Empty

 

[Atl-atl]

Springs installed! The stock springs had crappy little degree shims that I removed per the suggestion of some people on CK5.com. Hopefully the caster angle is correct without them, more on that later.



ORD front shackles, greasable poly bushings and bolts everywhere.

The crazy stock steering arm thing was insanely hard to remove. Took days of PB Blaster soaking and lots of awkward sledgehammer angles to get it loose. The weird conical shims really stay put but I guess thats good considering its steering components...


Used half a tub of grease on each side.


Crossover/hi steer studs installed into the new knuckle, blue loctite, hand tight.


New steering arms installed.


New ball joints installed.


Spacer under the steering arm because the new leaf packs are so thick.

 

[Fording]

Read the whole thing. Sheesh! What a roller coaster. I could feel the pain of selling it and then saw the extra pages and said “Huh? Must be people commiserating.“ And then you found it again!

You’ve done great work and the finished project is going to be amazing.

 

[Atl-atl]

So I have been learning a lot on this project. Ive really learned a lot on the front axle. I always wondered how alignments happened on a solid front axle vehicle. Well here you go. There is a tapered sleeve for the upper ball joint that is also eccentric. It allows you to adjust camber/caster by spinning the sleeve with a special tool. I cant imagine it gives you too much adjustment considering how limited you are by the thickness of the shim but its a noticeable change as you spin it around. I also cant imagine this is super common because it simply takes away strength of the knuckle/ball joint. Id wager most people want the beefiest ball joint possible that marries right into the knuckle, not a shim thats threaded into the knuckle. This is probably all going away in favor of 1 ton axles eventually but its been fun.

When I bought the new ball joints they came with this tapered/eccentric shim. The ball joints that were already installed in the truck were only tapered, not eccentric, so you cant adjust anything with them. I pondered this issue for quit a while before decided to go with the non-eccentric ones, assuming that camber would be "correct" from the stock knuckles/ball joints and I can tweak caster more easily but adding degree shims under the leafs if necessary. Here is a video of how the eccentric shims work.


And some pictures, eccentric on top, non on bottom.


Overpriced "tool" that is just a socket with notches to fit into the shim.


Installed





All buttoned up!

 

[toddz69]

Those eccentric shims have been around for what seems like forever - these days they're made and sold by Specialty Products Company in CO. They usually offer up to about 1.5 deg. of adjustment with caster/camber. They're actually pretty common and don't affect the strength of the knuckle/balljoint arrangement. You use those threaded adjustment sleeves on any solid front end like this with ball joints - adjustable or not. The special socket might seem expensive but it's a requirement for not stripping out the adjustment sleeves. I think I paid about $15 for mine off the Snap-On truck 20 years ago and it's been worth every penny I paid for it - same as the spindle nut socket that we all use.

Todd Z.

 

[Atl-atl]

I was so sick of suspension and axles that I moved onto steering. This involved ditching the stock "4WD" steering gear in favor of a "2WD" gear and crossover steering from Offroad Design. I opted for a PSC steering gear that is ported for hydro steering, because you know...planning for the future. Once again after cleaning up and inspecting the frame, no cracks anywhere.

I also installed an Engineered Vintage winch mount. This not only mounts a winch behind the stock bumper but also reinforces the entire front of the frame and steering gear. Install was relatively straight forward once I figured out which bolts went where. At this point Im only about a month behind on updates. Dont worry, it gets really good soon.







I know what youre thinking, yes the winch hangs upside down!


Steering gear installed.


Whoops, need a bigger drop pitman arm. Thankfully ORD shipped one out no questions asked.

 

[djp73]

Noob here. Read the whole thread over the past couple days. Awesome build. Not a whole lot to add other than Holley makes more period correct looking led headlights.

Looking forward to more.

 

[Atl-atl]

Noob here. Read the whole thread over the past couple days. Awesome build. Not a whole lot to add other than Holley makes more period correct looking led headlights.

Looking forward to more.

Thanks! I saw the Holley ones but they are 3-4 times more expensive so I decided to try out these ones first. If they crap out I will get the Holley ones.

 

[Atl-atl]

I got the U bolts cut down, ORD swaybar and disconnects installed, new pitman arm installed and decided I would throw the wheels back on and go for a spin around the block!!







It literally lasted around the block. Obviously the alignment is way off, the brake lines are at their limit at ride height and the front passenger wheel is rubbing on the new crossover steering arm. Also there are no shocks and it rides like crap so I pulled it straight back into the garage and went to Hawaii.


Had no fun and didnt do anything cool so we went back to Flagstaff because a "package" arrived at the house. More on that later...

 

[Kingsize24]

I like your package! ?

Wait, wut? ???

 

[Atl-atl]

Aaaaanyway...

Things are starting to get juicy in Blazer-land. Got extended front shock mounts from Offroad Design, which regretfully are simply stock Ford Superduty shock mounts. Not pumped about having Ford parts on my Chevy but whatever. They are very much "make them fit" type parts. You chop off the stock upper front shock mounts, line up the new mounts, cut them down to the length you want/need, mark and drill holes and bolt it all up. Relatively simple process if you have minimal fabrication skills. In the end its pretty simple and works really well, I can see why they use these mounts.




Rough reservoir location.


Something Im particularly proud of here, this is the first time Ive welded something on a vehicle that will actually be used. Its small and its simple but Im proud of it. My entire automotive modification life has been confined to bolt on mods...until now. These are Kartek reservoir mounts. Just two little pieces of bent metal that you weld in place to hang your shock reservoirs from. Seems so basic but its a pretty big leap forward in my ability to mod stuff on my vehicles and Im really pumped about it.


After some grinding and paint it looks really good.


Finished product.


The only hiccup was the shocks I chose use a 1/2" heim instead of rubber bushings. They come with spacers that allow the heim to move freely in the 1 1/2" normal shock spacing which made the front shocks easy to set up. The rears were a different story. The stock setup is a single shear "bolt" that hangs off the frame and is notorious for failing. Mine hadnt failed but I didnt want to have to think about it so I got some double shear mounts from Offroad Design. The problem is the factory rear upper mounts use a 5/8" bolt because of the single shear design and the shocks I chose werent going to work. After numerous conversations with Chevy guys and my local fabricator I decided to take down the stock studs instead of just through bolting with 1/2" hardware. Keeping the factory mount and adding the double shear should be plenty of strength even stepping down to a 1/2" bolt. I had a local maching shop take down the studs but they still required a little massage from the bench grinder to fit through the heims. In the end it all worked out really well. Time will tell if it holds up.

Before machining.

After machining.


All mounted up.

 

[djp73]

Looks great! On the front shock mounts did you just through bolt them?