Four Wheel Blazer Pop-up, Finally found one

[PokyBro]

Zoomad,

Great job on your continued build. Nothing like warmer weather to get you motivated!

Regarding your furnace wiring, I had a lot of trouble figuring that out too, and difficulty finding a diagram that made sense. But here is the information you're looking for. The black wire is ground, the red wire is positive. the blue wire goes to your thermostat, then the other wire that will leave the thermostat also goes to positive. On mine, I hooked the red wire to a fuse block, black to a ground bus bar grounded to the frame, and as I indicated above, there will need to be another wire leaving the thermostat that also got connected to the positive fuse block. Your thermostat will have two screws to attach wires.

Hope that helps, give it a try!

Poky

 

[Zoomad]

Zoomad,

Great job on your continued build. Nothing like warmer weather to get you motivated!

Regarding your furnace wiring, I had a lot of trouble figuring that out too, and difficulty finding a diagram that made sense. But here is the information you're looking for. The black wire is ground, the red wire is positive. the blue wire goes to your thermostat, then the other wire that will leave the thermostat also goes to positive. On mine, I hooked the red wire to a fuse block, black to a ground bus bar grounded to the frame, and as I indicated above, there will need to be another wire leaving the thermostat that also got connected to the positive fuse block. Your thermostat will have two screws to attach wires.

Hope that helps, give it a try!

Poky

Thanks Poky! I figured it was something simple, but didn't want to hook it up wrong. I was at least smart enough to leave the wires hooked up to the thermostat and just unplugged them when I removed it. So those two wires are still attached. Just need to add some to connect the two blue wires together and run the power wire to the fuse panel. Then power to the furnace, hook up ground and it's done.

Quick question to that though? What should I run for the fuse rating on each? I do have a fuse buddy i can install in place of a fuse and monitor the load and size that way. But I'm sure the furnace will need a higher rated fuse over the t-stat. Question is how much more? My thought is 20-25 amp to handle the startup load of the blower motor and 10-15 amp on the t-stat. Seem OK?

Thanks again!

 

[Robb13425]

Zoomad...GREAT post and love the continued activity. I also just purchased a 1978 FWC for my 1971 Blazer that is needing similar repairs. I am sure I will have some questions for you as I get started and get caught up on all the pages of this thread.

 

[PokyBro]

Zoomad,

Here is a chart of fuse sizes I got from someone else on WTW from their FWC.

Poky

 

[Zoomad]

Zoomad...GREAT post and love the continued activity. I also just purchased a 1978 FWC for my 1971 Blazer that is needing similar repairs. I am sure I will have some questions for you as I get started and get caught up on all the pages of this thread.

When you are ready, you know where to find me. Good luck on your build. Going on a 71 I'd suggest getting a second top to use the front section with the camper. Problem is, the first gen Blazer tops are much harder to find than the second gen tops like mine are. There's another guy here that has a FWC on a first gen and it's a sweet setup for sure.

Zoomad,

Here is a chart of fuse sizes I got from someone else on WTW from their FWC.

Poky

Well that's way less than I assumed. Great info for sure. Thanks again Poky!

 

[Robb13425]

When you are ready, you know where to find me. Good luck on your build. Going on a 71 I'd suggest getting a second top to use the front section with the camper. Problem is, the first gen Blazer tops are much harder to find than the second gen tops like mine are. There's another guy here that has a FWC on a first gen and it's a sweet setup for sure.

I bought mine as a package with a near perfect, cut top.

mine seems to be pretty similar to your in conditioner. two particle board sections bad and the front by-fold need work. silicone all over the top as well. vinyl, windows and screens all in good shape overall. mine has a propane furnace, sink and stove, but brainstorming how i want to back with it.

 

[Zoomad]

I've got some cleanup to do. The College Larry and I both graduated from is having a car show and Alumni event this Saturday. Larry's taking the Burb and I'm taking my ride, as a work in progress. But the last couple of weekends worth of work and getting the camper installed has stuff everywhere. It's good to cleanup the mess and reset for the next stages anyway. It's clean on the inside now. I even wiped out the last of the Utah red dirt that was evenly coated throughout the back of the truck too. Ran out of light so I had to flip the camper lights on. First time I've had them on when it's dark out. I'm pretty sure I've got enough light for right now.

Flash on.

Flash off..

Got the outside and the engine bay to do tomorrow night.

I bought mine as a package with a near perfect, cut top.

mine seems to be pretty similar to your in conditioner. two particle board sections bad and the front by-fold need work. silicone all over the top as well. vinyl, windows and screens all in good shape overall. mine has a propane furnace, sink and stove, but brainstorming how i want to back with it.

That's great you got a cut top to come with it. Just before I found this one, I found another on Craigslist on the western slope that was for sale but was set up for a first gen like yours. Almost got it, but found it while I was on the off road run in Utah.

You need to start a build thread too. Post up pics. I love seeing another one of these units get back on the road.

 

[Zoomad]

I didn't get as much done as I would have liked this weekend. Hanging out at a car show that was raising funds for the automotive program I graduated from was time well spent. I did get another set of lights installed and one of many USB charge ports installed.

This latest setup I've installed has a couple of uses. One obvious use is the added light. But this setup has the ability to change colors. The idea I had was being able to light up the inside with a color like red that is night vision friendly and less apt to attract bugs. I ended up buying a kit on Amazon that is normally sold for lighting up truck beds. 2 strips of 60" each with a remote control to change colors and modes. Here it is with the white lights on.

With the red lights on:

I had the idea to put one strip low under the cabinet after watching a walkaround video on a new FWC where they had the lighting down low to light the floor/entry area and liked the concept.

As you can see the colors (8 in total) are pretty darn bright and vivid. Blue below.

The added feature to this kit is the ability to sync the lights to music. It's ridiculous. It's like having a rave in the back of the camper. It makes me laugh if you see it from the outside. That feature probably won't get used much except to show other people to make them laugh too. But I will say this, between the lights I already installed with these on white, I've got enough light inside to allow a surgery to go on. I'm done adding lights. Moving on to power outlets.

 

[Zoomad]

Nothing notable accomplished this weekend. I drove the K5 to Denver this weekend to visit my parents and prowl a couple of u-pull it yards for some parts to the K5 side of the project. I drove the K5 as a test run to see how it would handle at highway speeds and see how the fuel economy is impacted.

I figured out a couple of things.

#1. The blind spot created by the camper on the passenger side of the truck is large enough to hide a semi in. Even with the mirror adjusted out. Did ok until a couple of miles out of my parents place when I missed seeing a smaller car that was lower than the window line of the camper. I got a honk and some stern looks. Whoops. Blind spot mirrors are on order.

#2. I now can say what the impact of the camper shape is on the fuel consumption. I totally knew it was going to have an impact, but wasn't quite sure to what extent. I tried to keep it at 65 mph, but without cruise control i found my foot creeping the speed up. Still it knocked 4-5 mpg off of the normal the truck is capable of without the camper. As one would expect, the faster I go the worse it gets. Duh right?

#3. Handling didn't seem to change at all though. Even with wind. The truck was pretty high profile to start with, but I drove up in a pretty good storm Saturday, rain/snow mix plus wind. Didn't phase it.

#4. Driving a rig like this invites strangers to talk to me about it or get the "thumbs up" as they passed me on the road. Got chatted up when I stopped for fuel in Monument. The guy saw me fueling it up and asked a ton of questions and commented how cool it would be to go where ever I wanted to camp. Good thing I'm not shy.

I'm disappointed most in the loss of fuel economy. Makes me regret not going with an 8.1L big block or at least going deeper with the gearing to keep the 5.3 more in it's natural torque band. I can't complain much, because I didn't think a camper was going to be a real possibility when the K5 was put together. I can go down that path later, don't have time before the desert trip.

 

[CougarCouple]

Thanks for the update Zoomad.
Have a good trip Desert is always cool.

Russ

 

[Zoomad]

Thanks for the update Zoomad.
Have a good trip Desert is always cool.

Russ

I'm excited for the trip. One item to note for the upcoming trip is I'll have a co-pilot again. My buddy that rode with me last year is not going to have his K5 ready for the run, so he's going with me. Should be fun as we had a riot last year. It also means I have to get the lower bench completed so he has some place to sleep!

 

[Zoomad]

So even though I've got my FWC camper, I have the insane sickness that still has me looking on Craigslist for more. Just to see, copy the pictures and catalog for later. Since I've found mine, at least 3 have popped up (pun sorta intended..) on the Denver Craigslist in the last 8-9 months. One having been picked up by another member of CK5.com who lives in Denver and another from Expo Portal that flew into Denver a couple of weeks ago and drove his all the way back to Texas.

I've been talking too and met the guy from Denver as we've horse traded some K5 parts and got to meet in person up there and down here. He actually was the one that found the free used top and chopped it down to an easy size to carry for me. Cool dude for sure and he's in the midst of doing a similar fixer-upper job that i'm going through. His K5 and Camper had to have been joined very early in it's life (the truck is a 1977) as it was very original and came with darn near every piece of paperwork for the truck and the camper including the original FWC manual. His is equipped with an Icebox and has diamond quilted aluminum siding I have yet to see on another FWC Blazer/Bronco/Scout camper much less any other model of FWC camper. It's really different, but cool. His was bolted to the cab through the front cab wall of the camper. His is the only example I've found that was so far. Here is a link to his build on CK5.com https://ck5.com/forums/threads/77-k5-just-had-to-do-it.331436/

The guy from Expo just popped up in the last week or two, but the 1978 K5/FWC camper had been on Craigslist off and on for I think the last year. I remember seeing it prior to our desert trip last year. Each time it was reposted the price came down a little, but the guy wanted a fair chunk of change for it and was unwilling to split the pair. I joked about buying it, swapping the camper to mine and flipping the 78 back out minus the camper and putting a stock top/gate back on it. The part that scared me was the amount of rust on the exterior panels of the K5. I've had that in my 75 and figured I didn't need to go through that again. Besides, I think my tetanus shot is out of date! I responded to the guy's thread and it sounds like the crust was only on some of the exterior, but the floor was solid. Good to hear. I have to give the guy credit for flying into Denver and driving an unproven 40 year old relic/camper combo all that way. He even noted he experienced the camper lift at speeds above 65mph too. His, like mine on the 87 we pulled it from lacked any attachment to the cab structure. Just the bolts on the bedrails. Here's a link to his thread on expo about his: https://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/1978-blazer-fwc.192204

Going back full circle to me surfing for more FWC Blazer campers tonight, I stumbled across an ad for an '87 K5 Blazer that looks really familiar. It seems like the guy I bought the camper from sold the K5 sans top/gate/rear seat to this guy. He even references the camper in the ad as an explanation for adding the top and truck tailgate to it. It's just funny to see stuff come back around on Craigslist.
https://denver.craigslist.org/cto/d/1987-chevy-k5-blazer/6556529472.html
Got to work a half day at the shop and it's back into high gear. I need to finish the electrical and seal the plywood that's still exposed in the cabover floor and wall. After that it's the bench, bumper and spare tire carrier.

 

[Zoomad]

Nothing amazing completed this weekend. Just finished adding all the USB and 12v outlets throughout the camper. I also started to tidy up and get wires loomed up and tied down. Each USB outlet has two ports, a 1amp and a 2.1amp, there are 4 total in the camper. I've also added two 12v sockets as well.

This pair is located next to the upper cubby door. I cut a chunk of aluminum composite (I think it's sign material) to make a bezel for the sockets to attach too.

Below the cabinet in the location of the factory K5 rear ashtray I have two more. Again I used some more aluminum composite for a piece to fill the hole.

This one is on the passenger side located in the upper cubby facing down.

The last one is located in the rear most cabinet. The idea behind putting this one here is that I can plug in my knock off go-pro camera that can be connected via wi-fi as a quasi-backup camera. It will connect to my Ipad I run for navigation.

Looming it all up.

I filled the last hole I had open in my ashtray switch bank. One issue I discovered though. I tied the same circuit that feeds the 12v outlet there, which is hot at all times. The USB outlet stays lit as long as it is powered up which is probably going to kill my main battery. So I added a switch to allow it to be shut off.

Need to order a new fuel pump and the truck has a date to get the exhaust fixed soon. Then it's on to the bumper and bench.

 

[Zoomad]

Been busy this weekend. One big problem with the Blazer/camper combo is space. The stock spare location in the Blazer is normally inside, which would be right where the lower bench resides in the camper. With the intended purpose traveling off road without a spare is not wise. Going where we plan it's downright stupid to run without. So I need a spare tire carrier and quick. My original plan was to get a whole bunch of steel and build a complete rear bumper with swingout tire carrier. My buddy Bill is our resident fab guy of the group and he wised up and reminded me that we don't have the time for a full on build. We brainstormed and came up with a design that would be simple and strong. Plus it will double as a step to aid getting in.

The base started with dropping the fuel tank and adding a platform receiver hitch. While the tank was down I swapped a fresh fuel pump in to address my fuel problem.

Moving up with the vertical support.

Mounted up.

In the down position. We'll be adding a step to aid getting in and out.

Final setup ready to roll.

I had to pick up a little care package from my sisters that they made yesterday.

Yep it looks an awful lot like what's used on the Woolrich Edition. I like how that looks, but no way could I afford one. Besides, they don't make them for Blazers anymore so it's up to me to do my own.

Rear door.

Side and rear windows.

Still have the lower bench to build but from there it should be as close as it will get to completed for the desert trip. As we all know, they are never done so I'm sure I'll find things I don't like that I want to change. Getting close for sure!

 

[ntsqd]

When I was racing we always said that the reason that we schedule races is to that we'll quit improving the car and put it together long enough for it to actually run! I've come to think of trips in the same vein.

 

[Rush4x4]

So even though I've got my FWC camper, I have the insane sickness that still has me looking on Craigslist for more. Just to see, copy the pictures and catalog for later. Since I've found mine, at least 3 have popped up (pun sorta intended..) on the Denver Craigslist in the last 8-9 months. One having been picked up by another member of CK5.com who lives in Denver and another from Expo Portal that flew into Denver a couple of weeks ago and drove his all the way back to Texas.

I've been talking too and met the guy from Denver as we've horse traded some K5 parts and got to meet in person up there and down here. He actually was the one that found the free used top and chopped it down to an easy size to carry for me. Cool dude for sure and he's in the midst of doing a similar fixer-upper job that i'm going through. His K5 and Camper had to have been joined very early in it's life (the truck is a 1977) as it was very original and came with darn near every piece of paperwork for the truck and the camper including the original FWC manual. His is equipped with an Icebox and has diamond quilted aluminum siding I have yet to see on another FWC Blazer/Bronco/Scout camper much less any other model of FWC camper. It's really different, but cool. His was bolted to the cab through the front cab wall of the camper. His is the only example I've found that was so far. Here is a link to his build on CK5.com https://ck5.com/forums/threads/77-k5-just-had-to-do-it.331436/

The guy from Expo just popped up in the last week or two, but the 1978 K5/FWC camper had been on Craigslist off and on for I think the last year. I remember seeing it prior to our desert trip last year. Each time it was reposted the price came down a little, but the guy wanted a fair chunk of change for it and was unwilling to split the pair. I joked about buying it, swapping the camper to mine and flipping the 78 back out minus the camper and putting a stock top/gate back on it. The part that scared me was the amount of rust on the exterior panels of the K5. I've had that in my 75 and figured I didn't need to go through that again. Besides, I think my tetanus shot is out of date! I responded to the guy's thread and it sounds like the crust was only on some of the exterior, but the floor was solid. Good to hear. I have to give the guy credit for flying into Denver and driving an unproven 40 year old relic/camper combo all that way. He even noted he experienced the camper lift at speeds above 65mph too. His, like mine on the 87 we pulled it from lacked any attachment to the cab structure. Just the bolts on the bedrails. Here's a link to his thread on expo about his: https://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/1978-blazer-fwc.192204

Going back full circle to me surfing for more FWC Blazer campers tonight, I stumbled across an ad for an '87 K5 Blazer that looks really familiar. It seems like the guy I bought the camper from sold the K5 sans top/gate/rear seat to this guy. He even references the camper in the ad as an explanation for adding the top and truck tailgate to it. It's just funny to see stuff come back around on Craigslist.
https://denver.craigslist.org/cto/d/1987-chevy-k5-blazer/6556529472.html
Got to work a half day at the shop and it's back into high gear. I need to finish the electrical and seal the plywood that's still exposed in the cabover floor and wall. After that it's the bench, bumper and spare tire carrier.

I'm the guy from Expo. I have the same "sickness" and stumbled on another one up in Colorado on Craigslist today. Put a link on the Gear Exchange page. It's funny, before I got mine, it seemed like they were never around when I had the money, and plentiful when I didn't. This one I got was meant to be as the stars aligned perfectly and it was the only one available anywhere when I had the money. Thankfully, it worked out perfectly. But like I've said before, I spent so much time looking for it, that now that I have it, I almost don't know what to do with myself if I'm not scouring Craigslist looking for one before I hit the sack every night. Sickness, indeed!

 

[Zoomad]

I'm the guy from Expo. I have the same "sickness" and stumbled on another one up in Colorado on Craigslist today. Put a link on the Gear Exchange page. It's funny, before I got mine, it seemed like they were never around when I had the money, and plentiful when I didn't. This one I got was meant to be as the stars aligned perfectly and it was the only one available anywhere when I had the money. Thankfully, it worked out perfectly. But like I've said before, I spent so much time looking for it, that now that I have it, I almost don't know what to do with myself if I'm not scouring Craigslist looking for one before I hit the sack every night. Sickness, indeed!

I'll have to go look at that post.

So out of the three you put up there, I hadn't seen the first one. My Buddy in Denver that has the 77 went and checked out the unit in Conifer CO. That unit was fairly clean but needs the usual particle board replaced. The third unit in Vegas has been on for a while. There is a build thread in Expo about it too. Not a big thread but it does share some info on it.

The sickness is real. I'm itching to hit the road with mine. As long as my buddy Shane shows up Sunday, the bench should be complete and I can start the game of "Camper Tetris" to figure out what is going where. As sick as it sounds, I love that part. Plus it means it's getting close to GO time. We leave on the 2nd of June for the trip. I'd leave tomorrow if I could.

 

[jmodge]

I have my spare on the front, no cooling issues and doubt it changes fuel economy, since there is no "economy" to it anyway . May want to consider something to hold your curtains open while driving. I have an elastic band with a snap on it attached in the corner for both curtains. Opening up that blind corner helps in traffic. very nice rig you have there.

 

[Zoomad]

I have my spare on the front, no cooling issues and doubt it changes fuel economy, since there is no "economy" to it anyway . May want to consider something to hold your curtains open while driving. I have an elastic band with a snap on it attached in the corner for both curtains. Opening up that blind corner helps in traffic. very nice rig you have there.

Having a warn winch and bumper out front limits my ability to hang a spare up there. It's proven pretty handy so it stays. I'm with you on the fuel economy. It sure took a hit on mine. The 5.3 did get a decent average around 15mpg prior to the camper install. That's pretty good considering my lift, 35's and 4.10 gearing.

I agree on the tie backs for the curtains. Thankfully my camper still had them in there. Same setup as yours, elastic bands with a snap. The rear door didn't have any so my sisters made some from scrap material. I did add some 2" blind spot mirrors Sunday. Big difference on visibility. I can see 2 lanes over if need be.

Thanks for the compliment too!

 

[Zoomad]

T-minus 1 week to go for desert trip 2018. The camper is ready to load. The truck got a fresh oil change and lube. I have a handful of little things to address this weekend, but it will be packed with the majority of my gear by Monday. Then it's four painful days at work before we leave. Can't wait.