Off Road: News, Information and Reviews
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Trussing An Axle The Right Way Don't Let Your Axle Fall Down Imagine your 4x4 equipped with larger-than-stock tires ripping across the desert or mud bog when all of a sudden a hidden berm, log, or ditch sends you skyward. You land with a crash and likely do one of two things: get out and check for damage, or spin a U-turn and do it again because it was so much fun. Either way you may want to consider just how much abuse your axles are taking. Photo Gallery: Trussing An Axle The Right Way - 4-Wheel & Off-Road Magazine Trussing An Axle The Right Way Digg It Add to del.icio.us
Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:03:00 -0800
30-Spline Dana 30 & Eaton’s ELockers Switch-On Traction Axle guts are not pretty. Spending the time and money to pull out your open differentials and add lower gears, stronger axleshafts, and locking diffs will never win you a trophy at the show ’n’ shine. It won’t impress the layman like shiny wheels and big tires. However, when the going gets tough, the rocks big, the mud deep, and the trail steep, you’ll be glad you invested in your axles and not your glossy paint and loud radio. Photo Gallery: 30-Spline Dana 30 & Eaton’s ELockers - 4-Wheel & Off-Road Magazine 30-Spline Dana 30 & Eaton’s ELockers Digg It Add to del.icio.us
Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:03:00 -0800
How Lower Gears & Lockers Affect Your 4x4 Cure The Peg-Leg If you’re new to four-wheeling then you’ve probably heard about changing gears and adding lockers. If you pictured shifting your transmission with locking boxes in the bed, that is not what we are talking about. Four-wheeling gears and lockers can change your truck from zero to hero as much as suspension and tires. Photo Gallery: How Lower Gears & Lockers Affect Your 4x4 - 4-Wheel & Off-Road Magazine How Lower Gears & Lockers Affect Your 4x4 Digg It Add to del.icio.us
Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:03:00 -0800
Narrow Your Own Axle At Home At-Home Axle Hack Big tires are often to blame for projects that grow larger and larger over time. For example, if you’re building an old Jeep, a small Suzuki, or even a mini truck and you want big tires (35s or larger) you may soon find that you want larger axles as well. The stock parts are great to a point, but eventually the leverage of big tires, low gears, and locking differentials can take their toll on axleshafts, gears, and housings. A lot of us keep running the small parts to eke out every last bit of use, while others like to upgrade for the security of not having to wrench on the trail. Photo Gallery: Narrow Your Own Axle At Home - 4-Wheel & Off-Road Magazine Narrow Your Own Axle At Home...
Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:03:00 -0800
March 2012 Nuts & Bolts Your Tech Questions Answered What’s the Case? Q: I finally decided to step into the 21st century with regards to my daily commuter. As much as I love the four-door JKs, the used ones are still really pricey so I have decided on a ’99-’04 Jeep Grand Cherokee WJ. They seem to have all of the modern amenities that will keep my wife and kids happy. Plus, I can cruise the highway at modern speeds without concern and they appear to have plenty of aftermarket support. March 2012 Nuts & Bolts Digg It Add to del.icio.us
Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:03:00 -0800
How To Plug A Tire On-The-Trail Tire Repair Vroom! You’re heading down the trail. Pop! What was that? Sssss! Uh oh, a tire’s got a problem. This happens every weekend on trails across America. It happens to the best of drivers and the best of tires. Nothing is perfect, so round up a tire plug kit and throw it in your 4x4. Photo Gallery: How To Plug A Tire - 4-Wheel & Off-Road Magazine Photo Gallery: How To Plug A Tire - 4-Wheel & Off-Road Magazine How To Plug A Tire Digg It Add to del.icio.us
Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:03:00 -0800
Tire Review: Falken WildPeak A/T Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing We enjoy testing new tires. And more often than not we find ourselves putting the most aggressive and knobby mud-terrain varieties at the top of our test list. For our most recent tire review we put aside our mud-terrain bias and grabbed a hold of Falken’s WildPeak All Terrain. Falken is among the few tire companies that are virtually reinventing the traditional all-terrain. This means fitting A/Ts with larger, deeper, and more aggressive tread patterns to improve not only the tire’s looks but also its off-road prowess. Tire Review: Falken WildPeak A/T Digg It Add to del.icio.us
Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:03:00 -0800
Low-Buck Spare Tire Mount Ranch Raptor’s Secure Spare BluFerd, our ’79 Ranch Raptor (aka F-150) is a good truck, but even though it’s shod with the tough General Grabbers we’d hate to walk home from the back forty if we ever encounter a flat tire. We mounted up a fifth 35-inch Grabber on a 15x8 Mickey Thompson Sidebiter as a spare tire and in an afternoon wrangled a homebrew bedside mount for the big rubber. Photo Gallery: Low-Buck Spare Tire Mount - 4-Wheel & Off-Road Magazine Low-Buck Spare Tire Mount Digg It Add to del.icio.us
Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:03:00 -0800
Dynatrac Pro Steer Ball Joint Upgrade Better Axle Ball Joints The high-pinion Dana 30 and Dana 44 front axles found under the ’07-to-current Jeep Wrangler JK are a vast improvement over the low-pinion front axles of the previous generation of Wranglers. While the current Wrangler front axles are fine in stock form, when larger tires, heavy bumpers, and hardcore wheeling are put into the mix the factory front axle inherits a few problems. Photo Gallery: Dynatrac Pro Steer Ball Joint Upgrade - 4-Wheel & Off-Road Magazine Dynatrac Pro Steer Ball Joint Upgrade Digg It Add to del.icio.us
Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:03:00 -0800
Jeep Wrangler TJ Axle Swapping On The Cheap 8.8-Inch Ford-to-TJ Rear Axle Conversion Out of-the-box the ’97-’06 Jeep Wrangler TJ is an extremely well-performing off-road machine. Add a small lift, lockers, and knobby tires and it will take you far. Unfortunately, many of the open-top wheelers have a ticking time bomb of a rear axle, known as the Dana 35. In the stock configuration the 71⁄2-inch ring gear and 28-spline C-clip axleshafts on the Dana 35 are adequate at best. When you add big tires and tough terrain into the mix the light-duty diff just can’t keep up. So what’s a wheeler to do? Photo Gallery: Jeep Wrangler TJ Axle Swapping On The Cheap - 4-Wheel & Off-Road Magazine Jeep Wrangler TJ Axle...
Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:03:00 -0800
Cooper Discoverer A/T3 Tire Test Tow Rig Tires What you want and what you need are rarely the same. Often our eyes go for the bigger slice of cake, the higher-horsepower engine, the more extreme tire. Truth be told, most of our 4x4s live on the street, and although massive muddies may look the best and work better in the slop , when it comes to a daily driver or tow rig those tires are, as Mr. Spock would say, “simply illogical.” Photo Gallery: Cooper Discoverer A/T3 Tire Test - 4-Wheel & Off-Road Magazine Cooper Discoverer A/T3 Tire Test Digg It Add to del.icio.us
Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:03:00 -0800
Mounting Tires At Home Backyard Beadlock Install One of the cheapest and simplest ways to improve your 4x4’s off-road performance is to reduce the air pressure in your tires. When you lower the pounds per square inch (psi) inside your tire, it allows the tire to flex and grip the terrain more effectively. For light-duty wheeling a traditional tire and wheel set can safely be aired down to 12-15 psi. While those air pressure numbers may seem low, on today’s Load Range D and E tires they often barley put a bulge in the tire—especially when mounted under a lightweight rig like a Jeep Wrangler. To get the most performance out of the tire while safely running extremely low air pressures, a beadlock wheel is an excellent...
Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:03:00 -0800
How To Pass Emmissions Testing Smogging an Old Truck If you live where there is no smog testing, this story will either bore you or humor you with all the crap we have to deal with. If you live in a smog-check state like us, all we can say is good luck, it’s a pain if you own an old truck, maybe start looking for property in one of those less stringent states. Photo Gallery: How To Pass Emmissions Testing - 4-Wheel & Off-Road Magazine How To Pass Emmissions Testing Digg It Add to del.icio.us
Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:02:00 -0800
Hercules Trail Digger Tire Test A Tire for All Reasons When Hercules Tires introduced the Trail Digger M/T line it was only offered in a few sizes and only as a two-ply tire. We were pleased with the performance of the two-ply tire when we tested it back in 2007 (“Massive Mud Tire Test,” Apr. ’07) but wanted to see what the new Strong-Guard three-ply technology had to offer. Photo Gallery: Hercules Trail Digger Tire Test - 4-Wheel & Off-Road Magazine Hercules Trail Digger Tire Test Digg It Add to del.icio.us
Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:02:00 -0800
February 2012 Nuts & Bolts Your Tech Questions Answered Doorless Legal? Is it legal to remove the doors on my ’92 Jeep XJ and drive it on the street in Pennsylvania? Most of the local police don’t have a problem with it, but one in particular said I needed to contact the state department of transportation for a yea or nay. After a year of trying, I keep getting the same response: “This has been turned over to our research department, who will contact you via phone in seven days.” Of course seven days comes and goes with no answer. February 2012 Nuts & Bolts Digg It Add to del.icio.us
Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:02:00 -0800
January 2012 Nuts & Bolts Buggy Building, Dry Sumps, New Frames, and More! Been Framed I have owned a ’61 CJ-5 since 1993. About five years ago I rolled it and bent the frame pretty badly. The cost to straighten the frame is almost as much as getting a new one, and then I’d have a 50-year-old straightened frame. I’d rather go new. If it makes any difference, the rig will be built primarily for overlanding—my wife and I are planning a yearlong expedition around the U.S. when we retire, and I want the Jeep to be as bulletproof and self-sufficient as possible. January 2012 Nuts & Bolts Digg It Add to del.icio.us
Sun, 01 Jan 2012 16:01:00 -0800