The Pack Mule
By Tom Neal
Bigfoot Trails Basecamp | Independent Adventure Media
By Tom Neal
Bigfoot Trails Basecamp | Independent Adventure Media
I picked up this 1995 Chevy Silverado K1500 almost six years ago. It sorta fell in my lap. I wasn't looking for a truck. I had my F250 at the time and didn't need another truck. When I heard the price he was asking, I just said, “OK, I'll take it,” before I even realized what I was saying.
Well, hell. Guess I just bought myself another truck. Wonder what the wife's gonna say?
After I got home, I mentioned it to her. She just rolled her eyes, shook her head, and asked when I needed the ride to go pick it up.
I said, “Right now.”
My initial thought was to fix a couple minor things on the truck and sell it. That was the plan, anyway. But the more I drove it, the more I liked it.
My F250 was a 1987 2WD with a big-block 460, long bed, extended cab, and it was set up nice. That was a great truck. But this Chevy was a completely different animal. Small block, short bed, stepside. Not really what I was looking for, and honestly, not really what I thought I liked.
But after about six months of trying to figure out which one I wanted, I decided to keep the Chevy and gave the F250 to my son.
Now, anyone who knows or remembers the '80s and early '90s knows that most vehicles came with either a blue or red interior. I hate both!
The F250 had blue, but this K1500 was tan inside and out. I wasn't really a big fan of it at first, but it grew on me. The blue and red never did.
For the last eight months or so, I've actually thought about selling the Chevy in favor of another old pile. But every time I start thinking about it, I remember those ugly interior colors and keep falling back on keeping this pile. “Pile” probably just isn't the right word for it. It's a straight, super-nice rig for being 30 years old. It's not perfect, but it's a nice daily driver and adventure rig. So I decided I will more than likely just keep this truck and make it as close as I can to what I'm looking for in an adventure truck.
The extended-cab back seat is now completely useless, at least for people. I built a platform back there for my dog that takes up the entire area. She can walk around, turn around, and not fall down at all. Our little Rottweiler loves it. She can walk around and stretch out, and when she's laying there she can rest her chin on the window, get some fresh air, and watch all the scenery go by. If she gets tired of that view, she can lay down with her head between the front bucket seats and rest it on the center console. Happy girl.
The Z71 suspension has been awesome for comfort, as are the factory seats. That's something I really like about this truck. It isn't fancy, but it is comfortable.
The interior is still fairly stock. I upgraded the stereo and speakers, added some power ports, put all-new LED lighting in the dash, upgraded the HVAC controls, tinted the windows, and a few other little things, but it still looks pretty stock.
The exterior is also fairly stock-ish. I upgraded the wheels to some nice, period-correct aluminum wheels and put Falken Wildpeak R/T tires on it. I keep screwing up the exact size when I try to remember it, but they're basically 33x12.50s. They're a nice aggressive tire without the humming and howling you get from a real mud tire. I also upgraded the lighting all around and built a hard tonneau cover that basically consists of plywood and a canvas tarp. That cover was supposed to be a test unit. I wanted to see if it would make any difference in fuel economy before I spent money building something nicer. Well, the test unit is still there. At this point, it may stay there until something breaks and I have to rebuild it.
Mechanically, the truck has been pretty damn good. The transmission was rebuilt by a fellow drag racer, and I put an aluminum radiator in it, converting it to electric fans at the same time. I've also done the typical ball joints and control arms that go bad on these trucks. Surprisingly, I haven't had to replace the idler and pitman arms. I swear EVERY one of these trucks needs those things. Seems like you can replace them, and before the truck even comes off the lift, they need to be replaced again.
That's pretty much how this truck has evolved. I haven't been trying to build some perfect, finished adventure rig all at once. I've just been fixing things, changing things, trying things, and keeping the stuff that works. If something makes the truck more useful, it stays. If it doesn't, I'll change it eventually.
There are still things I want to do, though. To make this thing into the adventure truck I have in my head, I need some good shocks, a new A/C compressor, and a few other minor things. The exhaust is another big one. These trucks have shit exhaust from the factory, and the flow is so choked off at the Y-pipe that I'm going to replace the head pipes, Y-pipe, catalytic converter, muffler and tailpipe. Shit, just figure from the heads back.
Part of the reason I'm doing all of that is because I don't want to build some big, lifted truck that gets terrible mileage and needs a trailer just to get to the place where the adventure starts. I want to be able to leave the driveway, drive hundreds or thousands of miles, get off the pavement when I want to, carry the gear we need, haul the dog, and still have something that's comfortable enough to drive home afterward. If I can get this old TBI 4WD truck to 20 MPG on the open highway, I'll be pretty damn happy. I'm not sure I'll get there. Honestly, I'd be happy with 18. But getting 20 MPG from a 30-year-old four-wheel-drive truck would be pretty damn awesome.
And that's where the Pack Mule name really started making sense to me. I didn't set out to build an adventure truck when I bought it. I wasn't even sure I was going to keep it. It just slowly turned into the truck that made sense for what I wanted to do. It's not a show truck, and I don't need it to be perfect. I need it to carry the stuff we need, get us down the highway, handle the dirt when the pavement ends, and keep going when things aren't quite as easy as they were when we left home.
I've already started making plans for it. The first big trip will be an on-road/off-road adventure to the SEMA Show in 2027. I want to take it to Moab and play on the slickrock, and I'm also planning a serious trip to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. I've even been kicking around the idea of leaving our basecamp here in Washington State, running the Pack Mule all the way down to Key West, Florida, and then turning around and driving it all the way up to Prudhoe Bay. The southernmost point you can drive to in the United States, then the northernmost. That's a hell of a trip.
That's really what the Pack Mule is about. It started out as a truck I never intended to keep, and somehow it's turned into the truck I'm planning some pretty serious adventures around. I guess that's how some of the best projects happen. You don't really know what you're building when you start. You just keep driving it until you figure it out.
About the Author
Tom Neal is the founder of Bigfoot Trails Basecamp, an independent adventure media project built around real experiences. He’s spent most of his life around vehicles, motorcycles, racing, travel, and projects that tend to take longer and cost more than originally planned.
After decades of doing all that stuff, he’s learned that the best stories usually aren’t the ones you planned. They’re the people you meet, the places you stumble across, the things that go wrong, and the moments you never expected.
That’s what he wants to capture with BTB.
He doesn’t want to write about adventure from the outside. He wants to go experience it, then tell you what happened.
