Gibby

Yep, I moved to Bonney Lake last spring, up on Church Lake Drive. We might be having a mud bog only event in Bonney Lake this year as well. I just purchased 20 acres just off the Sumner Buckley highway and it's got some GREAT mud bog capabilities. Read this as bordeline wetland if you're NOT a greenie! We might run this event as a fund raiser for our free event.

Why don't you guys all come out to our event on the 17th of June. I know a couple of you have been to the faithwheelers events before. A pretty good place for an outing!

The last of the project it done! Well, it's never done, but you know what I mean...

For those of you curious, there are a few reasons for the bumper/winch change. 1. The bumper was not designed for a body lift, so I had to move it up 2" to look right. That required that I try to weld 1/4" steel to a very thin radiator support. To get the heat up enough for the 1/4" plate, I kept melting away the other bracket. I did finally get it glued together, but it didn't hold and when a strong pull was needed, it would break the 1/4" bracket off the thin metal support. 2. The bumper mounts pretty high and when I pulled, it mostly just pulled down on the suspension and dug the front tires into whatever I was trying to get over or through - not very effective - rather than pulling straight forward or even up. Yes, I tried to attach the strap as high up on a tree as I could, but it still wasn't enough. The original plan was to just lower the winch and get a more solid frame mount that would pull at more optimal angles. 3. When a a 350 equipped, dual locked rig that ramps 1200 and rides on 40s get stuck, it's freakin' STUCK! the 8000# winch wasn't going to pull me out of those situations. The last time that Markus buried my rig, the winch simply would not pull me out of that situation. The only option for a double pull with a snatch block was also a sharp sideways pull. The only tree that was in the right direction was too far for a double pull. None of the other rigs that were with us could have gotten around to get in front or behind to help. They had just spent 2-3 hours getting themselves out - in fact, I had to come rescue them and drag them along on a strap. Thankfully, we had an excavator at hand and Markus used the bucket to lift the entire front end out and then we drug it to a better position. A stronger winch with a better mount would probably have been enough to get me out. This winch also holds an extra 50' of cable which would have been enough for a snatch block pull. 4. The last part of the modification was to accomodate my offroad and driving lights. The Hella 6x9s needed to mount right on top of the bumper inside the headlights, but the winch solenoid was in the way and I had to remove the lights. The PIAA driving/fog lights kept getting knocked off so Mike's going to find a way to build in some protection for the lights. 5. I had always wanted a rear mounted winch for a couple of reasons. First, it sometimes makes sense to pull yourself OUT of a situations, rather than farther in... second, in our club we have several capable vehicles, that simply haven't got a winch yet. We try to intersperse those rigs with vehicles that have rear winch capabilities in case it's needed. Many trails do not offer a snatch pull option with a strap due to very tight corners or poor traction for the other vehicle, and turning around to use the front winch of another vehicle is not an option either. The only options for for a vehicle from behind to go past the stuck rig and then back to the stuck rig, or for the rig in front to go forward to a tree, then back to the stuck rig. We did this a few times at it actually worked pretty good. Third, when crossing difficult side hills where roll over meant roll DOWN, having a winch pulling and winch letting out would provide for a lot more safety. Lastly, this would give me the option of using a winch for braking going down very steep hills.

I'm waiting for the rest of the pics, but this is from my first trip out - between stage 1 and 2.

I think I'd commit Harry Carry (sp?) if I ever tried to figure out how much time or money is invested...

Stage II has begun... http://207.202.208.243/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST&f=3&t=2

I'm driving it now! A few little bugs to work out but otherwise it's V8 power away!

There are some fresh pics up!

More updates for ya! http://207.202.208.243/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST&f=3&t=2

That's my baby This is it now. Driving it out of the shop to get it over to the exhaust shop.

I thought I'd put this in here since I don't have a Pathfinder. I thought I'd share with you my current project... Get out the popcorn! http://207.202.208.243/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST&f=3&t=2

More pics just added!

The Faithwheelers Off Road Club ran the Naches Trail. Here's the report for you. http://207.202.208.243/faithwheelers/071704.htm The report's not complete yet as I'm waiting for pics and need some details but, the bulk of it's there. The Naches Trail, as you know, isn't very hard, but it sure keeps you busy for hours on end!

I didn't mean easy as in dollars and cents. No, I have about $15,000 invested UNDER my truck. I mean easy as in cut off the entire suspension and just weld on a new one. After doing a couple of rigs now, it's getting much less scary. It's the committment to making the first critical cut where there's no turning back that's tough. Since doing any major suspension work is not a bolt on affair, you have to make sure you're committed all the way... On the other hand, to do all this stuff, maybe we should be committed - to a crazy house!

No, not free parts. I sold just about everything. But if you want to see what I've done and get an idea about how to do something similar on your pathy, that I can do. I looks a lot more complicated that it is to get rid of that IFS. Even a Toy swap is probably easier than you think.

You know, now that I know what I know, everything I've done to my Toy, other than the dual cases could be done to a Pathfinder SAS up front, rear leaf springs. At that point, what you had is irrelevant as it's all been cut off. My rig start IFS and a 4 link rear coil system with a phenomenal ramp score of about 400 sly Now, it ramps about 1200 even with 40" tires. The point being that whether your rig started as Toyota or Nissan, If you're willing to start cutting, grinding and welding, what you started with is completely irrelevant. It's funny that after 10 years of working on my rig and several others, I've come to the realization that with some basic suspension and fabrication skills, you can take just about anything, even a Pathfinder and make it a high end trail rig. So, who's gonna get building??

The Pathy was my second choice when I was shopping for me new rig. The deciding factor for me was the availability of cool stuff for the 4Runner vs Pathy. There just aren't as many Pathfinders going offroad as Toyotas and it's much harder to find Pathfinder offroad part. I'm not referring to brush guards and fancy lights, I mean suspension systems, lockers, drive train upgrades etc. So I bought my Toy. I then took just about everything Toy off the rig. Go Figure!

Nah, they wouldn't like me. I drive a Toyota!

It's dropped by me. I don't want to step on everyone's toes. Jim's a really cool guy and he informed me offline about what you guys have done for him. Thanks for looking after your fellow wheeler and friend. I still look forward to having a big NPORA showing. If we can get a plan together early enough, we can have your local guys help build a course that would challenge your rigs and make a course perfect for the guys and girls that are travelling in from out of town. No hard feelings here. I like to lay my positions out on the line. I hope I didn't offend anyone.

How many guys in the NPORA are in the Northwest????? I'm curious. I know how frustrating it is to try to organize something and have your people around you not follow through. I don't know who was who, but Jim said he had 4 people to help out and noone got back to him over the last week and didn't return his communications. This is what frustrated me, on Jim's behalf. It's not my business to know who backed out, nor do I care. I hope the people that backed out (without even letting Jim know) will be more considerate for any future plans. I've had people suggest charging money, but if I can keep getting enough sponsors, I'd rather do it for free. I'd rather have people by up more raffle tickets, hot dogs, etc and set up a donation area somewhere for next year.

I don't know if my response counts since I'm not a member. But I got a point to make here. Jim has worked his butt off make a place for you guys to belong, play and learn and not a single guy showed up to help out. Not only was he asking for people to show up, but to help out with our spotting/marshalling duties. I wouldn't have mattered didly squat if your rig wasn't tough enough (and apparently from reading some of the posts, some of the guys just don't think their pathfinders ARE tough enough) you could have supported Jim's efforts and come out to help. We will have the same event on next year, same weekend (the last weekend before July 4th). It'd be great to start planning now to get your rigs ready, plan vacation days etc and make this an NPORA event. Get everyone together to meet up who normally don't get to meet. You can create your own intraclub challenges, get together for a BBQ afterwards. Maybe take a run to Greenwater and watch Jim go airborne (sorry Jim, I can't let you live that one down!) on Sunday, etc. I think it'd be great to see 50 pathfinders roll up all at once and then show their stuff on the courses. If I knew that we had a committment from a club like yours, for some decent numbers, we could make you part of the event. I could see it now; using the Obstacle Course (Not the Tuff Truck Course) for a Pathfinder race. Running in both directions, winner would have the best time with the fewest penalty points. Next year I hope to put in the mud prix. We just didn't have time to put it all together this year. We can run a mud bog competition for just the pathfinders. Whaddya think folks? Jim showed well as the only Pathfinder there. He breezed through the Obstacle Course and just about made it out of the mud pit. Got any interest in making this a club event for 2005?

We got some good news today. The quote for insurance is only a ball park estimate, but it was $2500/year. I was thinking that much per month! It looks like we can overcome this obstacle. I still have to be able to purchase the property where the building sits, but the opportunity to run a rental shop will help make the property more cost efficient. Keep the ideas coming, and we'll keep in touch with how the process is going. Gibby

Those are the kinds of things we'd be looking at, club discounts, group buys, etc. I'll have a quote tomorrow hopefully on insurance. That will be the #1 barrier to this working.

Good points, and here's how I deal with them. Say you need those gold plated studs. The reverse cut, off set ones... The proposed location has enough space (26 acres in all ) that the vehicle could be moved out of the shop while you wait for parts. Or if there's enought space, this is what the place that I used to use would do. They charge you full rate for the space while you work on it. If you left it for the day, or to go find parts, etc, it was $5 an hour for storage, UNLESS you were using the sandblasting or paint booth, or hoist. This will be marketing towards the offroad crowd. Who couldn't figure out a way to move a rig without a suspension??? I realized that they are extreme situations where you start a project, can't find the parts, and can't find a friend, but they can happen. There would be a lot of consideration being put into policy to handle those situations. To tell you how I deal with these things in business... I treat a customer how I would like to be treated in his shoes. I may lose a couple of bucks stopping the clock while he searches for a ride, but he'll come back and bring his buddies. On the other hand, if the guy's an idiot, the clock will keep ticking and ticking and ticking... I don't pretend for a second to know the answers to every question that will posed, but trying to answer them is exactly what we have to do. How we answer them will determine whether or not the business will be a success. One of the things I do in our club garage now (mine) is that all spare parts, nuts, bolts, washers, brackets, hoses, brakelines, etc, get stored there. We have Bronco parts, to Willys part, Toyota, Izuzu, Jeep, etc (no Pathfinders yet) in my garage. If we encouraged eveyone to leave their extra parts (I know, you guys never have nuts and bolts left over ) then we'd eventually get a good supply of different size "stuff" that can do in a pinch. My garage is really a co-op and I think that it we go ahead with this project, we'll see the same kind of co-op behavior so that everyone can benefit. Find your missing parts in the free bin, but don't forget to leave your extras for the next guy.