Arizona Strip desert adventure trip preparation

[DirtyLarry]

With our big trip to the Grand Canyon Arizona Strip area coming up a buddy and I have been busy getting our trucks ready and rebuilding an off-road trailer he built several years ago. For those that maybe familiar with the back roads of the Arizona strip, we are headed to Kelly Point, Toroweep (sometimes spelled Tuweep) and all over the back roads and bad lands of the Grand Canyon area. We mainly want to explore the old ghost towns, mines and take in the beauty of the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley and more than anything, get away from civilization for over a week! Okay, we are staying at a hotel the night we roll into Utah and the night before we head home but the rest of the time it will be camping. We need a bath before driving 670 miles back home

I have read these trails are some of the most remote and deserted areas in the lower continental US although posses some of the most beautiful naturally picturesque scenery in the world. To make the trip more interesting we are going in July! Not only are we crazy for exploring the desert in July, the reality is that was the only time all of us could find 10 days straight to be away from work. At least we are renting a satellite telephone to take along. We will probably log close to 2,000 miles from Pueblo, all over Southern Utah and Northern Arizona then back in my ’78 K10, a well built ’83 Dodge Ramcharger and 3 guys (two motor heads and one automotive engineer friend that that I work with that is flying out from Indiana to make the trip).

The K10 is almost ready to go except for I need to swap out a leaky A/C evaporator and install a fresh set of tires. Have parts…need time to install them. The 56” rear spring swap seems to have been a success so far.

The Ramcharger is getting close but needs about two more days of fab work on the rear spare tire carrier and addressing a few minor fluid leaks. (It is a well built rig... 4" lift, 35" tires, Dana 60 full-floater, lockers, on board air, etc)

This past weekend we devoted most of our time working on a cargo trailer to drag behind us. I had originally planned on purchasing a new Jayco Baja tent trailer but I blew my play money on a 2005 Silverado HD I couldn’t live without….so this trailer will have to suffice. Not sure what it really started off as but it had little bitty 12” tires that were under the body of what was left of it. It looks like a relic of the early 60’s. My buddy pick it up several years ago then added a square tube stock frame and an upside down Pontiac 6000 rear axle. It worked alright for a few years but we ripped the rear axle clean out of under it going over Tin Cup pass a few years ago (another long story how we got it back home).

In the past weeks, we have added a brand new trailer specific 3,000 lb rated heavy duty rear axle, leaf springs, reworked the spring mounts and shackles, changed the trailer ball to a pintle type attachment, welded up tons of holes, applied roll on bedliner to the inside, painted it a Khaki color (it was supposed to be gray to match our trucks but it turned out Khaki which looks okay. Don't trust Ford tractor gray from the Big R ) and we found a cool set of high-rail wheels off of a whaded up BNSF Railroad Ford F150 at the bone yard. They are perfect as they have tons of negative back spacing to make up for the fact we ordered the new axle about 6” too wide! One problem with the wheels though….they are 16.5’s. 16.5's suck for off-road as the tires fall off the bead when run low on air. At least we have 2 spares to take a long.

At the moment we are still working on the hinged lid as the idea is to make this trailer as dust proof as possible. The plan is for this trailer to haul our extra tires, tools, parts, food, gas, and WATER….a lot of water.

This is what the trailer looked like 5 years ago on the trip where we broke it. It hasn’t been used since until it’s revival a month ago.


My buddy worked on the lid while I fabricated and mounted a set of fenders


Yep, my buddy is in a chair. Don’t let the wheelchair fool you… he can do anything from that chair including kicking your azz.

I might just sleep on top of this trailer being how I get so freaked out about creepy crawlers. Sleeping in the desert freeks me out (even in a tent) and it will be too hot to sleep in back of the K10.


Getting closer. Need to mount the struts, lights, propane tank, and more paint.


A nice UPS man brought these to me today. A fresh set of Q78 Swampers, my favorite tire size...tall and skinny.


We are planning one shake down test run up a rough mountain road for a day of fishing not far from here in a few weeks to see what might come loose, break, leak, fall off, etc.

This is the kind of stuff we are going to go see. Borrowed the pic from Sergeant V at the Expo Portal. TY