TrailChaser

Mine will go to 40degs easy, but feels really tippy at 45. I've got a inclinometer that shows up to 45degs. I've had it passed the 45 mark but had a couple of guys holding the roof to get thru a washed out obstacle. The trail was fine a couple of weeks before then 2inches of rain changed all that. You also have to factor in the pitch while off camber. It feels alot more unstable when going down a steep hill off camber than it does going up the same hill. It's fun to scare the crap out of people riding with you when you can see your gauge(they can't) and get it real close to flopping just for effect. Other than that little trick I'd say inclinometers are not necessary equipment because you kinda instinctively know how far you can push it. That little gauge is the last thing I look at while wheeling in a risky situation. I only check sometimes for reference when the thought hits me.

That's the one. Looks like a better deal than I got. My complaints about the ready welder: It's a little too powerful with two deep cycles for most of the stuff that most people weld at home.It would be nice to dial down the power for some welds. A 6v would probably solve that problem on most things. The drive wheels that feed the wire could be tighter. Tthe wire tends to "stick" in the tip alot more than it should. (There's suppose to be a way to tighten the spring.?) The battery longevity was an issue while using crappy 3+yr old car batteries. I was getting real nice welds, but only for about 10 minutes. Now that I have the two biggest reserve capacity deep cycles I could buy on the Oreilly employee discount. I have welded with it for long periods of time and haven't ran them down completely yet. I'm planning to test how long the batteries last when I teach my buddy how to weld in a few weeks.

Do yourself a favor and pass on ANY welder you can plug into a 110v outlet. It's says it can weld 1/4" steel and that is a lie. It will stick pieces of 1/4" steel together, but it won't "weld" it so to speak. Your best bet is to buy a Ready Welder. For the price you will not find a better welder if you're comparing power to price. It welds like a 480v commercial grade 100% duty cycle welder with only two 12v batteries. I've been welding with a 480v for a living for the last 5yrs, and my ready welder welds just as good if not better. I already built a rear bumper/tire carrier for my pathy with mine. So for $400 shipped off ebay I'd say it already paid for itself. Good luck with your purchase

If it were my buggy I'd list it on ebay and make sure to put "AS IS-NO SHIPPING" I bet it's a fun slide back down the hill to ride a buddies bike up. Do you rope down or just do a controlled slide?

Here is the main support to protect the latch from getting damaged if the tire catches a ledge. Here is the latch. It works very good to hold a decent amount of pressure on the tire carrier to keep it from rattling. That's also the reason I mounted it at an angle, so it holds the arm down and back. Here's the hitch. I made it as low profile as I could without making it weak. I put a nice thick weld around it for extra strength. Here is the bumperless truck and then finally the bumper is done. Well almost... Check out the new improved departure angle. I wanted to make it as close as possible. There are a few more pics at my photobucket site.

I just finished the bumper today. All I have left to do is attach the lights for the license plate. I still need to pressure test it to see if it leaks. I plan to keep about 125psi in it all the time. Here's a few of the pics I took while building the bumper...I did all the prep work at work and didn't get to take any pics then. All the pics are from when I brought it home. Most of the welds were done with a Ready Welder and two deep cycle batteries using flux core wire w/out shielding gas. Here's the main pile of parts. Here's a pic of the inside of the hinge. That is two 7/8" grade 8 nuts welded inside the pipe. They were both welded to each side of a 1/4" piece of steel. I cut a hole in a piece of 1/4" steel for the cap and cut the head off a 7/8" bolt then welded the piss out of it inside and out. I wanted to make the tire carrier adjustable for when I get bigger tires. I used the stock tire carrier plate that the tire mounts to. I cut out the bolts that came with it and added studs in their place. It's nice to be able to use the same wrench for the spare. I didn't like the thin 12gauge steel they used from the factory so I beefed it up a little.

I'd just remove it and buy yourself some rancho 5000's. As long as you drive it like a truck/suv you'll be fine with the slight body roll. You will most like roll it before sliding sideways in a fast turn tho.

Who's doing the window repair? I've had mine replaced twice at $100 each time, and they came to my house and replaced it in about 20mins. I'd shop around, and call the local JY's to find out who's buying lots of used windshields. That'll be the place to call were you'll get a better deal. Good luck and sorry about your windshield. Glad it wasn't your head.

lol... Just DL firefox and it'll let you know what you misspelled as you type in any window. I'm glad it doesn't show other peoples mistakes.

The air blower/dryer at the touch free car wash always blew mine off. I had to look like a idiot stopping the next person in line so I can find my crap in the tunnel. So I got some clips from oreilly that go to a ford and now the only problem is I'll have to break something if I ever need to remove them. Some highschool kids play a game called stupid steal. It's pretty self explaining. You win if you steal the stupidest thing of the day. You may have been a victim. I was. They stole all the door lock things that screw on and off. I got'em back about 3 days later with a note stuck under my door handle.

I mainly get tailgated by the little punk kids in there coffee can exhaust tip having weedeater engine running POS. To those dumb kids I feel no remorse in letting them crunch up their pretty aftermarket fiberglass hood that their dad/mom bought'em to go with the POS their dad/mom bought on my custom built steel bumper. I'll even get out to make sure they realize exactly how stupid it was to run into my truck and make sure I get the perents phone # so I can let them know exactly how the accident happened. When I was a trucker I would lock up the trailer brakes with the dummy handle and make'em smoke real nice when someone was tailgating a little too aggressively. Kinda freaks people out to see all that smoke and hear all the noise, but the rig doesn't slow down a bit. It's not too good on the tires tho. I called in over 50 drunk driver in under 3yrs and watched 14 of those driver being put into the patrol car to spend a little time in jail. One guy parked on the white line when the officer pulled him over. He then got out of his car and stumbled and fell down in the middle of the right lane on I-10 out in Arizona where the speed limit is 75mph. That guy would be dead today if it wasn't for the cop risking his life to drag the guy out of the interstate while cars and a couple of rigs swerved to avoid hitting them. When the cop got the drunkin idiot to the shoulder he was PISSED. I though the cop was gonna beat that guy to a pulp, but he stopped after a few blows to talk to whoever was calling him on the radio. That call saved the drunk guy from a good beating as far as I'm concerned, but after he talked to the guy on the radio he just put the cuffs on drunk guy(REAL TIGHT) and told me to have a nice day and thanked me for calling.

You can get a flex shaft for a dremel and drill a small hole in each stud then use a bolt extractor with a wrench. You might even try heating up the area around the stud with a small propane torch right before extracting each one. It would be a pain in the ass, but not too bad. If you need the bolts(used 12point ones) let me know. I'll ship them to you at the cost of shipping. I need to take the other CV off the parts pathy in the garage anyway.

The problem with the dash is that the clutch pedal is mounted to a bracket, and that bracket(and the brake) has to pretty much bolt up behind the a/c ducting in the dash. If there's a way around that I'd like to be informed. Like Sammy said about the brake pedal. You don't have to replace it, but you will have to at least cut off the half by the clutch. Otherwise they will touch each other,,, which would be a bad thing. I did about 85% of the swap by myself in my garage. The only special tool I needed was a big floor jack.(I made a tranny cradle for it) You might want to look into renting or buying a tranny jack. They're even better than having a buddy drinking all your beer, er I mean helping. You're luck. chances are you'll get a tranny from a earlier model and you won't have to deal with swapping an electronic speedo for a analog(cable) speedo. The worst speedo's are the ones on the fat guys at the beach. :oops: Take a bunch of pics and do a nice write-up. I wish I would have, but I was in a hurry to get it back on the road. Good luck if you decide to do it.

I got mine.(a long time ago)

It's pretty obvious why they make these type of laws when you see 80% of the 4x4's driving around here. The ford, dodge, and chevy guys don't consider it lifted unless you need a freakin latter to get in and out of the truck. I laugh every time I see their junk with a 6-8inch body lift and 6-8inch blocks between the axle and leaf springs. We have a word for those guys around here... Poseur :oops: -thnkboutit- Every once in a while I'll invite one of'em to join the club on a trip to the trails.

From what I've heard over the last few years lights are lights. If you get a light with a 55watt halogen bulb it's not gonna be as bright as a 100watt bulb. Other than that the major light companies lights don't do any magic tricks or anything special for all the extra $$$ you spend. Tree branches do tend to like the more expensive brands like you listed better than the cheap ones. They all break off and get smashed the same. The cheaper lights are just cheaper to replace and don't come with cool lens covers that let everyone know how much you spent. That pathy is looking real nice. What rearend do you have under that thing? It doesn't look like a H233b?

If you forget to unlock a hub you will probably know somethings not right when you get up around the 55-60mph mark. The only reason you'd know somethings not right is because the cv's aren't balanced(at least mine aren't) so they vibrate pretty bad at high speeds. I don't think it would hurt anything as long as you didn't put thousands of miles on it like that. Then it would just hurt you wallet(in gas) and maybe rip a boot. If you want to lock just one tire to make the other one power the truck(one that's spinning in the mud) then you need what they call line lockers. It's basically a brake lock. You install it on the brake lines. Then when you press the brake you lock in whatever tire is spinning and unlock it when you get traction again. I get kinda sick of hearing that driving your truck in 4wd on pavement will break something. 99% of the time you will be fine driving on pavement, rocks, ect with your truck in 4wd. If you break something in the system because you were driving in 4wd on the pavement that piece probably needed to be replaced anyway. Think about climbing a 50deg incline on decaying granite. You have to use 4wd, and you can bet your truck will have more traction than on pavement. I'll drive around in 4wl all day at the offroad park with no problems and most of that driving is on decaying granite where the traction is better than on pavement. I don't drive my truck around on pavement in 4wd because that's just not a smart thing to do and it's hard it steer. I do however know I CAN without worrying about breaking stuff if I need to. So what ended up being wrong with your auto hubs?

The RPM's(tach) shouldn't have anything to do with the tranny. Maybe if you get the tach working the ecu will know what's going on and then maybe it'll stay locked up. My tach never stopped working when I swapped out the automatic tranny for a 5 speed. I do however have a check engine light that I can't get to go out because the ecu doesn't know how fast the truck is moving. (Speed sensor code 14)

Torch off the old ends(ball joints), and weld the new tubing/casing on each side, then press in the two bearings on each side. From what I've read so far you'll pretty much HAVE to have a machine shop do the bearings if you want them done right the first time. PS: Don't press the bearing in first and then weld it to the CL. Not unless you like the smell.

I was kinda wondering the same thing, but it it starts to get bashed in I'll just plate the bottom with some 1/4". I was actually thinking of mounting the tire kinda high because I've seen guys come off rock ledges and twist the hell out of the tire carrier. Lots of undue stress on the hinge and lock.

The one I bought was $399 shipped off ebay. I'm pretty sure it was drop shipped from the factory. Here's the one I bought. The swap is up and running good. I've already put a few thousand miles on the new(to me) 5 Speed. I've had it out on the trails 3 times also.

I'm almost 100% sure it's going in the middle. I can still find room for the HiLift and gas can somewhere. I'm probably going to make the carrier adjustable both up/down and in/out for when I decide to change the tire size in the future.

Glad to hear you got'em. I think I have the tiny screws that go to the back of the gauge cluster in my ashtray... I forgot to add'em to the shipment. If you need them let me know and I'll mail'em to ya.

Thanks guys, I appreciate the advice and compliments. I'll post more on it as the work progresses. Later, David

OH, and sorry about the video quality. The sound is off track or something, adn don't look at the mess in my garage.