I finished college and got home at the start of May, and I was not able to get starting working on the Bronco until June. I spent a month building the lift, and I was not able to go wheeling for all of august. So I only had two months to get out, and there are other things to do in life. Next summer there will be many more trips. :D
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Climbing a log pile. Beware, trees and logs bite brake lines....
Out with my friend Sean in the 100 Acre wood.
Below are some shots of Bronco flexing for the camera. Before building/installing the lift I tested flex by lifting a tire with the tractor. Not as accurate as a ramp, but I think it got an RTI score something around 550 with stock suspension. After the lift I did the same thing and I had not really gained, scoring only a 590. I was disappointed, the tires had all this room to move, and nadda. BUT! Then I tested it again with all my 500 lbs of gear on board, the tires aired down a bit (18psi), and me in the drivers seat. There I gained! Now I scored 730+. I going to try and modify my way up to scoring 900. The RTI Scale for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about is a system for calculating a trucks offroad potential.
I was curious and took my Bronco to the public scale the other day, with all my gear out and winch off...
Front axle: 890 kg (1960 lbs) 54%
Rear axle: 750kg (1650 lbs) 46%
With all my gear on-board and Winchy re-attached.
Front axle: 1030 kg (2270 lbs) 52%
Rear axle: 940 kg (2070 lbs) 48%
(I'm over the GVW of 1886 KG, and I don't even have any passengers, lol. Thats OK thought, more weight equals more flex) Heavy 4WD tractors that live a life of pulling are supposed to be weighted so 55% of the weight is on the front axle. So, I guess I'm a good puller???? lol. I don't know if thats what I want thought, I want the front to be lighter so when I hit the nasty stuff offroad I can keep the front end up, and not have to use my shovel to get to Winchy. In these pics the tire that I drove up on had to scrub the bottom of both my front and rear bumpers. It's a 31" tire, but due to the squish factor I can't say how high my tire was.
Oh look, a Bronco sized hole.
After getting out of the Bronco sized hole I was headed back home and I saw a fun looking puddle. It started out tame, then suddenly there was water just outside my window. That was exciting, in a scary way, lol. Anywho, I floored it and made it out. I <3 you welded diff.
This is my wheeling buddy's sweet Toyota on a reasonably scary side-hill, what you can't see is how slippery it was, and if you slipped of the ledge/edge the hill got steeper and went a long ways down. Possible serious injury to driver/passenger, and defiantly to the truck! And thats his daily driver! It's a badass DD, he gets a kick out of people getting out of the way of his completely ARB armored front end. He has rebuild the 22R and put on a Holly carb that pulls air through the snorkel.
Here is the Toyata again, I had already throttled it through the tiny creek, my locked rear end helped alot. We considered useing the quad bridge (presumibly made by hunters) but we figured they'd be pissed if we broke it, besides, we have winches.
Me, being a cowboy out my passenger window as my swamper gets more acquainted with my rig on the easy stuff, headed down TO the Smokey river.
IN the Smokey river, goodbye wheel bearings....
The Yota' and Bronco posing by the river, complete with pilots!
On the way back UP the river valley hill. Here is the spot where the trail and the water run down the river overlapped for about 120? ft. Uphill, and mud, it was fun, and challangeing.
A little further up my left tires found their way into a veryvery soft rut, and sunk out of site. While I was winching out of that, the Yota' choose to try the "go around and run over all the trees" method, which works good for him, he has very little body to damage and the truck is extremely rugged. It can take abuse better than my Bronco. He got around, but he had to winch too. :D
Once we got the top of the river valley hill we took a different way out, the way out was far more swampier. It was also a ton of fun. Full throttle through muskeg narrowly missing massive truck eating holes. Eventually we found some puddles that wanted us to stay and, you know, visit, have a cup of coffee, maybe some cookies?? ? ?
Thanksgiving weekend, went out for a nice autumn wheel. Like the hula girl? She's my fav.
My pal Philip showing of his marauder skills with my machete.
Bronco in it's natural habitat.
Now THAT is what I call an undercarriage wash.
I believe that ^ little stunt led to the engine breathing in some water. It sputtered and lost power while frolicking along the river shallows, and later when I inspected my airbox I found water splash marks all over and dried mud coating the bottom, that can't be good.
Bronco posing on a some rocks that my friend with the Toyota and I collected. The plan is to build a 'state of the art' ROCK-stacale (rock-obstacle) in my grazing pasture. That's about 1/4 of the rocks we have collected.
Page 1: The Beginning
Page 2: The Lift Build
Page 3: The Bumper Build
Page 4: Summer of 07' Wheeling, - YOU ARE HERE X
Page 5: Fall of 07' Wheeling
Page 6: Winter of 07' Work
Page 7: Ongoing/Winter of 08' Work
Page 8: A cool day of work
Page 9: Uploads for other pages, Ignore...
