The_Magicians_Eye

I'm not sure what most of you expect from a long travel 4x4 but these seem to be doing everything I'd want to do just fine. With a solid axle.

Not saying it impossible I'm saying it's impractical. I'd be willing to bet that it couldn't be done, work properly and be reliable for anything close to $5000. But until someone is willing to put there money where their mouth is this is all pointless. Saying it could be done for $5000 is like these shows on tv that declare we can build ?whatever? for $5000. Then you find out they got $20000 in free parts from some place and they didn't account for all the nickel and dime expenses that added up to a few thousand dollars. Or they just happened to have high dollar parts laying around their shop that they didn't declare a value for.

You want some fskced up news? That red Pathy sold for $4000 just like you see it in the pics. It was forsale for about a month at that price on the desert rangers forum. And he threw in a 4 inch wider rear axle with it. That brings a tear to my eye. If I would have known that before today I would have bought it.

Has anyone bought these seats before? The shop next to my work sells them for $250 a set with the sliders. I told him I'd buy a set of the gray and black ones on Wednesday when I get paid. I know these are the bottom of the barrel as far as after market seats and many companies sell crap that look just like them. My question is how well do they hold up to wheelin with a fat guy sitting in them? Again anyone have any experience with them or seats just like them?

Looks like the solid axle is working damn good to me.

Here is the problem with making a long travel 4x4 kit. "Long Travel" will result in a very limited mid travel when compared to true long travel suspension. Think about it, there is still a very long "dif" that looks more like a solid axle with CVs on the ends stuck in the middle of most production trucks. Now keep this in mind, there are two ways to get long travel suspension. #1 you can install longer axles and longer arms. The problem with this is that you'll end out with the front suspension about a foot wider than the rear to get some real long travel suspension because of how wide the front dif is in a production truck. #2 you could cut the whole front end off the truck and completely redesign the drivetrain. You'd have to install a center mounted dif that is essentially just the pumpkin with CVs mounted directly to it and move those long arms and axles closer to the center of the truck to limit the width of the front end. You would be basically be building a race truck and if that's the case might as well buy a race ready ultra 4 from someone and save some money on trying to build it yourself. Take a look at this pic of a pro 4wheel drive race truck. The engine is located basically in the passenger seat area to insure that the front drive line runs down the center of the truck to the center mounted diff. Also see how close those upper and lower arms are mounter to each other? This is what needs to be done to get a real "long travel" suspension out of IRS 4X4. I hope I'm not coming off like a dick or anything. Just trying to pass along a little more insight on the subject. Personally I really like the mid travel red pathy in the pics with it's 4x4 setup. However I go back and forth with whether I would want a setup like that. I don't like how wide the front suspension is compared to the rear end at all. Id have to widen the rear too. But then I ask what's the point in doing that when I'm only going to get about 5 more inches of travel. That's a ton of money, time and effort for very limited results. I'm constantly having to remind myself if I want a race car then I need to build/buy one rather than trying to make my daily driver capable of performing like a race car. It would be cheaper to just buy a race car. This is why people build those ugly ass rock rigs. It's cheaper because they don't have to worry about all the details that they would have to worry about if they needed to drive the thing every day.

You need to spend a little more time checking out the rigs that run the Hammers with solid axles. These guys are hauling ass through the desert. Back in the day it wasn't practical but now days with the shock technology and the the solid axles setups it's a whole different ball game.

All steel after market wheels will clear the hubs.

My spare tires have after market chrome steel wheels that I painted black. You just need to rough up the chrome finish and the paint will stick. Adhesion promoter like Danger said is also highly recommended. I wouldn't bother on the stock chrome wheels though. I think it will just make your ride look ghetto/redneck. Might as well save the money you're going to spend on making your stock wheels look even worse and save up to get some cheap black steel wheels from Jegs or some place else. Then you can at least try and sell your stock ones on craigslist.

I'm 100% sure a cheap cutting brake would be way easier, cheaper, and more reliable than trying to do this.

thank you

I guess that's why I'm retired lol.

Oh come on... I was doing great up until that point lol. I'm just wondering what KovemaN was saying/thinking when I told him what happened over the radio? His day wasn't going so well at that point. Plus we were almost back to the paved road at that point after hours of "smooth trail" lmao. No matter how crazy things were I had a blast. I'll remember that trip forever. No one got hurt. All the trucks made it home on their own power even if it was the next day. Plus life long memories. Sounds like a good time to me.

Or maybe because I was able to drive it home without any issues other than a headlight bouncing around lol.

Damn it!!! I'm still upset that I got hung up on that line. I could have made it lol. That upsets me more than driving off the cliff lol. How f-ed up is that lol.

It's a pain in the ass. Their is no easy way. Do what ahardb0dy said. I used a big ass flat screw driver to pry it into place while I put the bolt in. Putting a floor jack under the lower arm and trying to raise or lower the suspension arm may help a little too. This is assuming you have the frame supported with jack stands.

Thank buddy. Yeah I'm not upset about it. Once the truck came to a stop and everyone was ok I was fine. When I realized the truck wasn't junk I was pretty happy about the whole thing. Someone was looking out for us. All that bad luck I complain about got cashed in big time. As far as help... As of right now I'm going to replace the split strut rod bushing and then take it in for an alignment. If all is good at that point I think I'm going to experiment with the fenders and and see what I can come up with. Oh and fix my head light.

Sorry Phill I didn't get any still pics of you wheelin because I'm stupid and didn't have a memory card in while taking pics on the way up. However I found my video camera out there today and have some video. Will post that in a few.

Oh by the way I earned that Crown King (CK) sticker this time out

So this was my view as I was driving toward the turn. I don't know about anyone else but it sure looks like a long sweeping turn so I didn't slow down much. And then when it was to late I ended out down there. Yup head first into that bush that just happened to have a big ass bolder in the center of it. And this is the only visible damage that it did.

What made me drive off the cliff was a whole bunch of stupid on my part. I couldn't tell how sharp the turn was until it was way too late. I was going to fast. The gravel was loose in that area so stopping in time wasn't an option. I could have tried forcing the turn but the last thing I wanted to do is slide off the cliff sideways. We might not have been around to laugh about it if I did that. As soon as I knew I wasn't able to stop. I planted my foot on the brakes and did my best to drive down it to avoid flipping. I'm heading back to that spot in a few to try and find my camera. If it's not dark I'll try and get some pics to clearly show how it all went down. I'll post picks of the truck a little later. I'm telling you that you would never believe I did what I did based on the damage. As far as steering and suspension goes. I know one of my strut rod bushing is split and the alignment is off. Outside of that I don't see any other mechanical damage done.

Just got home. Truck made it home just fine. That bumper of mine saved my truck. Driver door is hard to open, driver front fender is complete junk, driver side lights have damage, and I'm still not sure how much damage is done to the front suspension/steering. Really though, I'm f-ing lucky. We flew off that cliff like Thelma and Louise. We hit really hard, bounced the front end up and then slammed into a bolder with the front end. The front bumper isn't bent at all. No one got hurt. One of the kids scraped her elbow and my neck and shoulders are starting to really tighten up. So considering I flew off a cliff I think I'm damn lucky. We had allot of fun and came home in one piece with a life long story to tell. Couldn't have had a better weekend lol. No $hit really. When you think of how bad it could have turned out. I'm a happy camper. If all is ok on the truck when I give it a once over in the morning I'm going to head back out after work. I lost my damn video camera and think it fell out when I opened the door to get out of the truck.

Drove my truck off a cliff into a canyon. Still derivable. Will give and update later. Just got to KovamaN's house.

I plan on being at that staging area between 8 and 8:30am. I called KovemaN to make sure that works with him too. I'll let you know when I know. Or he can respond himself lol. See you tomorrow.