Project trucks are never truly done. However, they need to stretch their legs at some point. It’s that time for our reborn Ultimate K10.

The Ultimate Adventure is over for 2012, and the Orange Jeep is getting cleaned up for a year’s worth of shows and trail rides. However, we still need to show you how we finished up the project.

Every year Editor-in-Chief Rick Péwé leads us on a weeklong on- and off-road adventure through the craziest trails he can find in a random portion of the U.S., and every year we build something new and outrageous to lead the group with. A year ago we built a very cool fullsize 4x4 pickup to lead the Ultimate Adventure (“Ultimate F-150,” July ’11–Jan. ’12). It worked great, but if there was one thing that we would have changed it would have been the size. It had a huge wheelbase, and though capable, it wasn’t the best vehicle for weaving through tight trail obstacles. This year we decided a small two-door Jeep Wrangler would be our lead machine wherever Péwé decides to take us, and we’d build it to be nimble to twist around obstacles.

This is part 4 of our Ultimate Adventure Jeep build. Yes, we took a brand-new ’12 Jeep Wrangler, built it once on 35s, then cut it in half and are building it a second time (read all about it in the Aug.-Oct. ’12 issues). Love it or hate it, this Jeep will get you thinking outside the box. We decided that a Jeep with front and rear steering axles (in our case, Spidertrax Spider-9s) should be able to weave its way through tight twisty trails with relative ease. And as you can read in our UA coverage, it did (page 50).

The Ultimate Adventure is a weeklong on/off-road road trip. We do it every summer with a small group of 4x4s (about 20) including readers, sponsor, cronies, and crew. And each year we build some over-the-top, superwacky, high-dollar dream machine to lead the trip. The vehicle of choice this year is a ’12 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon.

I admit I like Toyotas, and I even considered getting one for CTC. But when Editor-in-Chief Rick Péwé bought and built his Trail Toy last month for our Cheap Truck Challenge (“Cheap Truck Challenge Build, Part 1,” Aug. ’12) I knew I had to outdo him with massive American iron! I’ve never owned a Suburban before, and I figured that if I were 17 and needed a way to haul all my friends out to the woods for some camping, wheeling, mud whomping, and bonfiring then a Burb would be hard to beat.

When we at Hot Rod magazine invited ourselves to this year’s Cheap Truck Challenge, we immediately viewed it as a competition. 4WOR Tech Editor Fred Williams kept telling us that CTC was simply to show a teen on a burger-flipping budget that a 4x4 can offer big fun for a cash outlay less than a yearlong cell phone contract. But we took the position of being a very competitive teen burger flipper—and an impatient one, as our need to purchase a rig that was in CTC-ready condition (running, driving, registered, and competent) would also prove that it’s possible to get instant gratification from a project rig.

Every year brings another Ultimate Adventure, our weeklong off-road expedition, and with it a new official vehicle. In 2012 that’s a brand-new Jeep JK Wrangler. The current Wrangler is the best yet, with more power, a stronger chassis, and resilient axles like no open-topped Jeep in history. These attributes are helping Jeep sell more Wranglers than ever before, and the demand isn’t waning.

What makes the perfect wheeling machine? Is it a powerful V-8, gigantic tires, or maybe a suspension system with seemingly unlimited travel? The truth is that there is no secret formula for creating the perfect do-all wheeler. If anything, we’d say the key to wheeling success is being in a vehicle that you simply know well and feel comfortable in.

Cheap Truck Challenge: Buy a cheap truck and challenge yourself and others on the best bang-for-the-buck price and upgrades. The idea is to think like the 16-year-old kid flipping burgers for a living and wanting to get into wheeling, like many of us started as. Tech Editor Fred Williams dreamed this up and, for the second year of the challenge, came up with rules and regulations that even I had to comply with. Fred’s first rule was that I couldn’t do an open-top Jeep, or any Jeep for that matter. Why? Simply put, he knew that I could probably put together a trail-worthy daily driver cheap truck Jeep out of my own backyard for around $278.43, plus or minus. It’s true that my background and passion is Jeeps, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t built many other rides from scratch and hack, as well as nice custom creations. But this time our challenge is to get the most bang for the buck, so that is what I went for.

Going off-road can sometimes be a mix of wilderness survival and tightrope walking. While the two may sound a world apart, the reality is that extreme trails often challenge us to keep our rigs sure-footed so as not to annihilate ourselves or the vehicle. We all make mistakes off-road, and sometimes the traction that we need simply isn’t there. This is where body protection comes in handy.

The Ultimate K10 rebirth looked straightforward on paper: Replace drivetrain parts that were lifted for other projects, replace the body panels with affordable repro parts, squirt on some paint, add a seat and some armor, and hit the trail. The two biggest barriers to success were taken for granted: fuel and fire. Because we wanted to get the previous gas tank out of the bed, we knew that the fuel system would need attention. But getting power to the fuel pump became an electrical rat’s nest that GM Truck Center decided was easier to fix by completely rewiring the truck rather than trying to troubleshoot all of the rodent-gnawed and “midnight auto supply” snipped wires.

Whether it’s that one bracket that fits perfectly in place or a wild idea that turns out to be the right one, small victories can make working on a project vehicle much more enjoyable. Likely one of the most rewarding moments on any project vehicle is the first drive. This month we focused on getting our ’97 Ford Ranger project vehicle moving under its own power. This meant finishing up the solid-axle conversion we started on last month and getting our new drivelines bolted in place.

FabWorx Offroad has a new solid-axle swap kit for ’01-’07 3⁄4- and 1-ton GM 4x4s that uses a four-link and track bar system to locate a solid Dana 60 where the torsion bars and A-arms used to live. This system incorporates coilover shocks for 10 to 12 inches of lift to clear massive tires (up to 40s, depending on wheel opening) . We recently upgraded our ’03 Avalanche to this setup and noticed improved ride right out of the shop. Using rebuildable 12-inch-travel, 21⁄2-inch-diameter Sway-A-Way shocks we can further fine-tune the suspension for greater high-speed control whether we’re heading to the desert for the weekend or across the barren wasteland should we encounter the zombie apocalypse in our flat-black monster truck.

Welcome to part 3 of our Ranger Rehash project. Over the past couple of months we’ve torn down the well-used ’97 Ford Ranger (Mar. ’12) and hung the new rear axle and suspension in place (Apr. ’12). This month we’re turning our attention to the front of the truck. This means getting our new front axle prepped and starting in on the solid-axle conversion.

If there is one project I’ve been working on longer than any other, it would have to be Pete’s Jeep. It’s an on-again, off-again, on-again project that just never seems to go away. Not that we would want it to, as it’s one of my favorites, but enough has been modified since the last redo that I figured it needed a good recap of recent mods.

Every project has places where you want to spend time and money and other places where you want to save. Since we’re basically starting from scratch with our ’97 Ford Ranger’s axles and suspension, we have a clean slate. It’s at these times that your imagination can run wild with ideas of mega-suspension travel and monster full-width axles. Ultimately though, you have to be realistic with yourself and what you plan on doing with your rig.

Nearly five years ago I began my stint here as feature editor. Like many of you I was a longtime reader and never could imagine that I would actually land what I truly considered to be my dream job. It wasn’t long after getting my position at the magazine that I got the opportunity to transform my completely stock ’97 Ford Ranger 4x4 into a truck capable of surviving our Ultimate Adventure. With little money and limited time I managed to convert my TTB (twin traction beam) Ranger into a solid-axle crawler in just five weeks.

Old trucks can hide surprises. Rewiring wasn’t originally on the menu for our Ultimate K10. At our project headquarters, GM Truck Center redid the fuel system (Dec. ’11) then connected the existing wiring to the new fuel pump. The truck cranked but wouldn’t fire. Troubleshooting uncovered multiple issues: wires to nowhere, snipped leads at the electric fans, an intake manifold and EFI harness that were in the early stages of removal, missing and broken gauges, rodent droppings, and more. After half a day of detective work, the unexpected upshot concluded that sorting out the existing wiring would be more time-consuming and less reliable than starting from scratch.

My first 4x4 was a Jeep CJ-5, but it is long gone. At some point last year I realized that I wanted another CJ-5. I’m not sure why since the CJ-5 isn’t everyone’s favorite Jeep. Flatfender guys hate it for its round fenders, CJ-7 guys hate it for its annoying door hump you have to climb over, YJ and TJ guys dislike the short wheelbase and less-than-plush ride, and JK guys just think it’s old. But I wanted one again, so I found the perfect CJ-5 for me.

Our Ultimate Adventure F-150 is a project to push boundaries from our other projects over the years. We started with an ’11 Ford F-150 with the new EcoBoost V-6, a groundbreaking twin-turbo, direct-injection engine designed for power and mileage. The truck was taken to Randy Ellis Design, where the body was armored and the suspension overhauled to better control the 40-inch Nitto Mud Grapplers over whatever extreme trails our Ultimate Adventure troop may encounter. Our biggest challenge was to build an independent front suspension (IFS) that would be strong enough to withstand the rocks, ruts, and roads of the UA while leading the 20-some 4x4s filled with readers, sponsors, and cronies for a week.

Our Ultimate K10 is mobile again now that fire is back in the proverbial hole. In its previous life, the truck relied on a custom in-bed aluminum fuel tank, a quick-fix way to get the K10 to the 2005 Ultimate Adventure. This 8-gallon cell served its purpose back then.

Ultimate Adventure is over. Our truck survived and made it home in one piece, but we can’t say it was easy. There was carnage, things broke, but we fixed them and kept going. In the end that is all that matters: Can you keep going?

Our Ultimate K10 is getting close to exceptional again. To bring first-time readers up-to-date, we built this ’75 Chevy for the 2005 Ultimate Adventure. It tackled some of the country’s toughest trails on 39-inch BFGs. Then the truck was parked and pillaged. Even its license plates and insurance fell to the wayside. To get this popular truck back in circulation, we are doing a budget-conscious street/trail buildup. It will ride on 37-inch Mickey Thompsons and will be able to hold its own on the trail and also spend time as a Jeep-tower .

The Ultimate Adventure is a weeklong wheeling road trip where we head to a small segment of the United States (different each year) and explore the trails and tarmac. The trip is made up of around 20 vehicles, including selected readers, sponsors, old cronies, and staff. The lead truck is our official Ultimate Adventure vehicle. For 2011 we are building a new Ford F-150 to lead our expedition of off-roading.