[TNToy]

We ran the Superlift ORV park (www.orvpark.com) this weekend. This video is from Rock & A Hard Place. As usual, the "flat" hill is about 45 degrees, and also faily off-camber.

I've got a couple more videos from this same spot (including me snapping a front shaft here, and a buddy finessing his rear-steer fullwidth TJ through it). But I only have so much sever space. Hopefully by tomorrow night I can get everything up for you guys.

Anyway, here's a link to the vid. It's 23MB and over half of it is just me getting into the passenger seat and adjusting my seat belt... so I'll hopefully get a much shorter, smaller, more dial-up friendly version up soon. I hate quicktime.

[edit:]Almsot forgot: RIGHT CLICK AND CHOOSE "SAVE AS"... you'll be wasting your time doing anyhting else.

 

[SR5Dave]

evil, evil quicktime.

going to take about a minute and a half, looking forward to seeing it, thanks for the link

EDIT: Dammit, I dont even have quicktime!

 

[TNToy]

Evil Quicktime? Yes. But with a FUBAR'd PC... it's all I've got.

Hopefully tomorrow night all the vids will be available in a nice, friendly DIVX format (avi)... and edited for both length and to make them easier to download.

 

[TNToy]

This pic is of the Buggy as I arrived. 10 minutes on the trail resulted in a shredded 4.10 E-Locker.

I brought a spare third which we welded up at the trailhead and bolted into the housing. But since most of the studs on the driver side of the housing didn't line up, the 4.3L nearly threw it out of the housing about 20 minutes after I shot that video.

Oh, and I had 3 ring and pinions there, but none of them woulda worked. Apparently the E-Locker out of a taco which was in the axle uses a gearset with a larger diameter pinion with more splines, so there was no way to put new gears in the original third.

On the plus side, since it was my third member in the buggy, I got to drive it. That bitch is FUN, and it turns sharp as hell with the 60 outers up front and a 100" wheelbase. I want one.

See those mufflers? They're off of a Suzuki ATV. It sounds schweeeet.

 

[LUVMYTJ]

Its hard to see the big rock on the right in the vid. The first attempt the right front tire was on that rock right?? Second attempt you went around it on the left correct? The last time i was there I went at it like your first attempt and got hung up after the right front went over the rock. I wanted to back out to try it to the left but it was too damn slick to get out of it. Had to pull the out the cable.

 

[TNToy]

The line that works is to climb the high left bank until you start to roll, put your foot in it, and swing back downhill around the rock, like Domenic did. (I was the passenger).

Or you cheat like Dan here did (this is a different trail), activate the rear-steer, and turn your rear tires AROUND the rock. Bastard. I've got video of his run up it I'll post later too.

This ain't really a rubicon, BTW. He got it for pretty much free with no drivetrain... It's got the drivetrain out of his old CJ7 (Howell EFId I-6, stock tranny and D300)... and the axles are both fullwidth Chebby D44s.

 

[convertiyota]

So is Frankie keeping the buggy??

 

[TNToy]

Trying to sell it to buy more land for the shop. Wants 25K for it.

 

[DBrown2]

What about just some more action pics.

 

[chevota]

it was awesome to run with you guys at hot springs. Thanks for the invite. The wife even enjoyed the run.

Where are you going to post the other pics?

 

[Bones]

How'd the IROK's fair in the goooy goo?

Someday someday someday I'll make it there. How far is it for you TN folks? I hear about 8+ for me

 

[TNToy]

Okay... back from lunch. Here's some of the pics I shot, and I'll do the vids (hopefully) tomorrow. All of these pics are small enough to upload onto the BB. Click on one of them and you'll get the humongous fullsize version.

When chopsuey & I arrived in the park saturday morning, Dom had already busted the ring gear on the buggy on friday night so it was just sitting there:


So I took a couple pictures of it for everyone to enjoy:




Frosty:


Front links:


4.3 Chebby:


Interesting approach to full-hydro on a Toy: All-pro arms with the tie rod UNDER the arms... and the ram over the arms on the same bolt:

 

[TNToy]

So over the course of Saturday, I flop to the drivers side (cracked corner of windshield and a huge ass dent in the bed), a couple guys break and trail-fix... including Dave stripping a hub off his Toy axle on 42s:


Then we finally got to run the rock garden. I was having fun for a while, until the discovery that the right rear U-bolts weren't no longer quite torqued to spec, and the that tire really didn't want to follow the rest of the Toy. I got that all fixed that night, and Domenic, David, and Scott got a hold of Frankie, who told them to do whatever they needed to get the buggy moving again. So my spare third got welded up and stuffed in the buggy. At least 5-6 studs were removed (housing set up for e-locker) to allow my third to drop in. Oh well.

So sunday rolls around, and this group heads out: Scott in the CJ on 42s & 60s on the right, Davids toy on 42s, My toy, and the buggy. Dan's rear-steer TJ isn't in the pic, but he went too.


We finally got to Rock and a Hard Place, which was the one trail left that I really wanted to hit. Scott oopmhed up it (a 258 and 35spl 60s let you be liberal with the momentum)

Dan rear-steered his way up it nice and elegant (as usual) while I shot video. I tried next and busted a front shaft, which Chopsuey got video of. I rode with Dom while he scooted the buggy up, and that was that. On the next trail, we found out what that "clunk" I heard was. Apparently you *DO* need all the studs to hold a toy third in. No big shock there. That was pretty much it for the weekend.


Here's one more pic of the rear-steer TJ... Dan built it in about 3 months of weekends in the garage. He used to run the tough-truck circuit (the one they showed on 'Monster Jam' on TNN) and the electric-over-hydraulic pump for his rear steer is the same one some of the monster trucks use. It's REALLY fast - I'd say it goes lock to lock in about a second.

 

[TNToy]

How'd the IROK's fair in the goooy goo?

Someday someday someday I'll make it there. How far is it for you TN folks? I hear about 8+ for me

Bring it.

Can't really tell you about the gooey stuff. It's mostly wet rock @ Hot Springs. Takes us about 2.5-3 hours to get there from Memphis. I will tell you that under a 3100lb buggy, that motor had no problem moving a buggy on 40s with 4.10s. I've abandoned any and all plans of rebuilding my motor and adding some nitrous. I liked the Vortec/auto combo too much.

You need to plan on coming down here in about 1 month. A certain orange buggy owned by a guy who's name rhymes with Ban Bibble is almost done, and that'll be it's shakedown run.

If you can get a room at the Knights Inn (800-the-knight I think?) it makes for a really good weekend. You're about 5 minutes away from the trailhead, and you've got a bed and shower.

What about just some more action pics.

Done.

it was awesome to run with you guys at hot springs. Thanks for the invite. The wife even enjoyed the run.

Glad to hear it. We had fun... I broke something at both ends of the 'Runner, and accidentally narrowed the bed about half a foot right behind the cab... so I got my money's worth.

 

[ChopSuey]

I want my damn credit. 95% of all video and still shots were done by me and my damn camera.

Dan rear-steered his way up it nice and elegant (as usual) while Chopsuey shot video . I tried next and busted a front shaft, which Chopsuey got video of.

There I fixed it for ya.

 

[TNToy]

:shaking:


:flipoff2:

 

[Bones]

If I'm lucky I'll be this close to moving in a month. We'll see though.

 

[TNToy]

1. Hurry up, Bones.

2. Forgot to mention that all the pics are here: http://home.off-road.com/~mithrandir/trails/turkey day/

I'm partial to this one. If you're using a recent windows OS, hold your mouse over the bottom right corner and click the resize icon that pops up after about a second. Good detail of the back of the buggy.

 

[Rustyrunner]

Thanks for the vid, very nice. That buggy looks awesome to say the least, plus I really dig the exhaust tone.

 

[TNToy]

Yeah, Frankie's skills have come a long way since his first Reaper chassis. It was fun, but someday I look forward to heading out west... being comitted to one line on a sticky surface like the BTG guys are on a trail like twisted is completely different from where we're at: You can almost always back down, and simply apply a different line or more throttle until you either break or make it up.

EDIT: And if/when I DO swap a 4.3 in my rig, I'm gonna try and source some of those mufflers. That thing was fun as hell to drive, and sounded NICE.