Sniv's Custom Long Travel Build

[snivilous]

Alright, so another wheeling trip report from yesterday! :clap2:

Actually it's more like a stuck report, but I got some nice pictures I think. It's amazing since I think I go wheeling a lot but there always seems to be new issues/challenges that show up that me/crew have to figure our way through. I guess that's one of the reasons I like offroading so much, it's always dynamic and there is SO much that can happen between the weather, trail, vehicles, etc. Anyways, onto the story:

My buddy called me up earlier this week wanting to wheel really badly, he had just gotten a new tranny installed and was dying to wheel. So we planned for Friday and to go up to a place near Beaver ski resort called Franklin basin. The idea was to do this couple mile loop around the ski resort, maybe explore some side trails. It's (I believe) forest service land and I expected the roads to be slightly maintained or at least packed down since it's a really common area and pretty major access roads. Turns out that idea was completely false...

It was tricky enough getting through the parking lot where there were some trucks that had hauled in snowmobiles earlier. Then there was this burm where the trail entrance used to be, and then it went off. It took some momentum to get over the burm, but everything else looked decent.

Literally about 150 feet past the burm and onto the trail the Wrangler with me sinks.

And I'm essentially following his path so I start to sink a bit and have to stop, which now means I'm screwed too since I lost my momentum. At the parking lot the Wrangler had aired down to 12-15psi and I already was at 15psi since I haven't aired up since the semester started (no point when 95% of my driving is offroad).

Kind of a bad picture, but there was literally at least 3 feet of powder where the sides of the vehicles had gone in. My passenger side tires were totally covered up, the passenger side doors couldn't be opened, and the tires were nowhere near solid ground.

We started getting a little antsy now, we had two stuck vehicles far enough from the trail a winch couldn't reach us, and beside one tiny tree off to the passenger side the next closest trees down the trail were further than the Wranglers winch (75 feet) plus all our recovery gear (around another 75 feet) could reach. I wouldn't of doubted if someone had told me they had to leave their vehicles if they were in the same situation; on the upside I had "wanted" to get stuck at some point in my life in a similar situation where the only way out is using the vehicles because there is no winching or "external help"...kinda like the Top Gear Polar Special

Anyhow, so I told the Jeep I would winch him backwards and see if he could get backed onto the more packed ground which we had marked where that was in the snow. That didn't work at all though, and he just slid deeper. At this point I aired down to 10psi and got my pair of chains out, and we laid them on the ground and used my winch to slowly crawl onto the chains and chain up the front tires. That worked really good actually, and then with the chains and using the winch to help us we slowly had the 4Runner crawl out of the hole it was in and back onto the "packed snow".

All of that took probably an hour.

The plan was then to back the 4Runner to the parking lot, turn around, and back up the trail to the Jeep so I could use the snatch strap to pull him out. We also then dug deep paths/ruts for the Jeeps tires so that he would be directed to slid back onto the trail while being pulled back.

The first pull with the snatch straps and I hardly felt anything and the Jeeps bumper got ripped off.

Recover today, repair tomorrow.

So then we looped the snatch strap around his frame and gave it a whole lot of tugs and he popped onto the trail with no issue

What we THEN found though was that his frame had been bent where we had hooked the snatch strap up to... On the plus side it made it easier to hook onto it as a recovery point

So with both of us on the packed down snow we then got back to the parking lot with no issue, screwed around there for a bit towing [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] on his board/sled and watching all the snowmobile trailer haulers get stuck

Though I also got stuck towing [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] around and showing off to the giant diesels what my little 4Runner could do. Apparently snow that's above my bumper slows me down :wow2:

Thanks for reading! For anyone super interested in the LT, sorry for the delay and the spam of all my wheeling trips. The week of March 7th hopefully the long travel will start coming together.

 

[Mr. B]

Then Sunday after we realized the Broncos were going to get demolished, we got a call from a guy that had gone off a trail and needed help. So me and two other guys and then the ZJ went up and met with an Xterra who took us to a ZJ that had gone off the road.

Thats a WJ...


Anywho. Bro, I'm pretty freakin jealous of how much wheeling you do, and especially in the snow! I live in Hawaii so snow wheeling is well....once in a blue moon, whenever Mauna Kea mountain decides to have some kinda thing lol

 

[snivilous]

Thats a WJ...


Anywho. Bro, I'm pretty freakin jealous of how much wheeling you do, and especially in the snow! I live in Hawaii so snow wheeling is well....once in a blue moon, whenever Mauna Kea mountain decides to have some kinda thing lol

Thanks for pointing that out! :yo: Guess I was thinking of my buddies Grand Cherokee, either way my knowledge of Jeeps obviously lacks. I love snow wheeling, it makes offroading even more dynamic and always changing!

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Not much to update, took some girls wheeling with [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] the other day but don't have any pictures. Just came back from wheeling for a few hours too. Super icy since it's been in the high 30s, low 40s lately so all the snow is melting. Literally the first quarter mile at least was a pure ice sheet that also had water running down it. I don't know how the 4Runner made it up, and Traction Control overheated 3 times but she kept us moving (aired up at 20psi).

Still trying to solve my wheel sensor issue. The wheel sensors were working before the trip, so the traction/slide control/abs systems booted up fine. Worked on the trail fine, then I hit a puddle on the road coming back and not surprisingly my instrument panel instantly flashed orange with everything crashed. Then I got food, and when I restarted the truck everything worked again. The other day I took the giant bundle of electrical tape off the spliced rear sensor to see if it was water logged, which it wasn't but I didn't replace the tape. And I still have the issue that from a full stop in AWD about half the time (mainly on a turn) the power will get cut.

So what I plan to do this week is once everything is dry, I will go and silicone the shit out of all the sensors and plugs to try and stop the water and then recalibrate the VSC computer to see if that fixes the AWD issue. If not then I will need a new wheel sensor and swap it to each spot to see if it fixes it.

I realized how nice AWD is, a lot of people are like "oh just switch from 2WD to 4WD when you need to, it's not that hard". Well, yes that's true, but it's annoying as ****. Especially since I shift into 4Lo really often, hell if I'm waiting to pick a girl up I usually just crawl up the snow piles and stuff and having to wait to shift to AWD/4WD is painful. Then the main issue is that every time I corner fast or go over a curb or whatever and am trying to accelerate then my back tires will spin, and regardless if traction control cuts the power it's just annoying that I slow down for a second. With AWD I always have the front pulling me so I can hit any bump or obstacle and not worry about my speed being affected by power not getting to the ground. Hopefully I can borrow [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] and his garage to screw with the runner again Thanks for reading!

 

[D Farms]

if you have an automatic i found the fastest way to shift into awd is to click the button and shift into neutral then it just shifts nearly instantly into awd or 4wd whatever you want to call it. the mode with the 4 green tire lights and no orange light.

 

[MTD]

Sniv you know you seem like some one who would really enjoy a quality Tepui RRT . Do you do a lot of winter camping?

 

[snivilous]

Sniv you know you seem like some one who would really enjoy a quality Tepui RRT . Do you do a lot of winter camping?

Not as much camping as I want. I've never really thought about a roof top tent but that would be sick! If only they weren't so damn expensive! Maybe in the future once the suspension and engine are setup decently then I'll start my round of expedition mods.

---------------------------------------------------------

Went wheeling last night, it was more of mudding...in the winter. Again, traction control went out the instant I hit a puddle.

I just need some bigger mud tires, hopefully see some MTZs in the near future

Though the mud finally got me, soon before the gas station picture my battery light came on which I thought was weird but associated it with running all my lights. I started the truck today just fine, but about 2 miles down the road on my way to [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] house my radio turned off, then my tachometer and other gauges started cutting out, and finally she just died. I suspected the alternator since obviously it wasn't getting enough power even when running and because the battery light came on after mudding. Called Cartzo up and he came and towed me to a car wash so I could wash the alternator off to see if that would help at all.

Though for some reason it hadn't struck me sooner, but I just stuck my jump start unit under the hood and had the truck run off that and we drove to Cartzo's house.

Pretty ghetto since it was just stuck in there and then a ratchet strap held the hood down, but it worked for the few miles we needed it too! Went to O'Reilly's and got an alternator for $130 with lifetime warranty. Swapped it out and no more issue! Battery seems unaffected and is running strong still.

 

[Mr. B]

You think that weak and dieing alternator could've had some affect on your traction control as well?

 

[snivilous]

You think that weak and dieing alternator could've had some affect on your traction control as well?

I had actually been thinking that, but I don't think that was the case. If anything my traction control is even more haywire now and seems to always boot up when I turn it on but if I hit a bump it shuts down, let alone a puddle. I'm gonna check all the plug connections and then probably have to get another sensor and swap it around to figure out which one is bad.

 

[snivilous]

Quick update, obviously long travel didn't happen. I couldn't afford the cost of making new control arms plus even the cheapest coilovers. Still happening but it's delayed again. Once summer comes around it'll go fast since I'll be working full time unlike being in school right now.

Last week was spring break and I was in CO. Drove 1700 miles in 8 days. Potentially had the rear main seal go out, and kept losing a ton of oil but the 4Runner seems to have fixed itself and isn't leaking anymore. Installed the LT fenders since they look boss and the one fender was messed up from rolling so the new corner light wouldn't seat properly.

Went wheeling the day after I got back, truck seems to be doing fine. Still need to replace the ABS sensors since traction control goes out if I hit a puddle.

I need to remove the rear air bags in the springs, I think they are limiting my up travel. In the above picture I am pretty flexed out but the drooping tire is still on the ground and the stuffed one hasn't even hit the bump stop yet.

Got the IFS to flex a bit, again the drooping side isn't fully drooped nor is the compressed side at the stops.

The LT fenders look kinda weird from this angle, they look totally beast though with mud splashed on them. They provide 2" of extra clearance vertically, plus the bulge which is about 1.5" it seems like. The fenders are totally level with the side of the tire, which is 1.5" more than the fender flares in the back (so 1.5" plus whatever the fender flare adds, so probably ~3" bulge). I should be able to stuff 35s with 8" of up travel from ride height, and then just need to get different back spaced rims so the tires don't stick past the fenders more than the rear tires stick past the flares.

Will keep updated when anything exciting happens. On the plus side of long travel, I can optimize my design a lot more since I've been learning about bending stresses and stiffness in Strengths.

 

[MTD]

Last week was spring break and I was in CO. Drove 1700 miles in 8 days.

You obviously like driving so you should come to this...

http://dakotacruisers.com/black-hills-cruiser-classic/

 

[Gerdo]

I need to remove the rear air bags in the springs, I think they are limiting my up travel..

If you like the airbags, keep them and use a larger (like 3/8") airline connecting the two bags together. This will allow the air to shift from the compressed side to the drooped side. It will actually push the drooped side down and under some conditions will give more traction to that drooped wheel.

 

[NHRunner]

If you like the airbags, keep them and use a larger (like 3/8") airline connecting the two bags together. This will allow the air to shift from the compressed side to the drooped side. It will actually push the drooped side down and under some conditions will give more traction to that drooped wheel.

That's a very, very cool idea, but I feel like it would take A LOT of compression on one side in order to start putting any downpressure on the opposite side. There may be some benefit over individual bags, but I'm under the impression that its provides no more flex to a drooped wheel than with no bags at all. Is that what you mean?

 

[snivilous]

Just throw this out there. The LCA is almost completely finished except for tweaks here and there. The current layout is for a 10" coilover. The stresses look fine for a 10G frontal, 5G vertical, 3G radial loading and I have a 25% factor of safety on top of that and the vehicle weight is assumed at 5000lbs, so the LCA is overbuilt to say the least! For a 2.0 I'll make it more conservative, but for my first stab into suspension design/fabrication it doesn't hurt to go overboard. LCA is weighing in at ~23lbs, which I feel like is twice what aftermarket units are, but I don't know and no idea what stock is. Again, it's super overbuilt and in the future I'll make a more competitive design. UCA design is starting now though should go pretty fast.

Also got some slotted/drilled rotors and new pads installed this weekend with [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] help. Brakes feel a lot more firm and no more insane shaking! Hopefully I won't get a rock lodged in the slots and chew up the rotor like happened to my previous set! Thanks for reading!

 

[MTD]

Just throw this out there. The LCA is almost completely finished except for tweaks here and there. The current layout is for a 10" coilover. The stresses look fine for a 10G frontal, 5G vertical, 3G radial loading and I have a 25% factor of safety on top of that and the vehicle weight is assumed at 5000lbs, so the LCA is overbuilt to say the least! For a 2.0 I'll make it more conservative, but for my first stab into suspension design/fabrication it doesn't hurt to go overboard. LCA is weighing in at ~23lbs, which I feel like is twice what aftermarket units are, but I don't know and no idea what stock is. Again, it's super overbuilt and in the future I'll make a more competitive design. UCA design is starting now though should go pretty fast.

Also got some slotted/drilled rotors and new pads installed this weekend with [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] help. Brakes feel a lot more firm and no more insane shaking! Hopefully I won't get a rock lodged in the slots and chew up the rotor like happened to my previous set! Thanks for reading!

Neato! Overbuilt is the Toyota way you know lol so thats good. It's looking really good starting to come together

 

[snivilous]

So I had an offroad adventure I just had to share, probably my most intense one too date. As usual, shit gets real the week that I'm about to head home to CO (this is finals week) and everything starts breaking. This story is more text based since we didn't take many pictures.

So to start things out [MENTION=89531]Cartzo[/MENTION] and I decided to take an hour or two cruise on Saturday up Left Hand Fork near Hyrum, Utah. This was the second time I had done this trail, or the beginning anyhow--the first time being a week earlier. There's a decent 10 mile drive off the highway until you get to the "start" of the trail, and then it's pretty mellow for the next 5 miles with a bit of more gnarly rock crawling. Really made me wish I had 33 or 35s, since my undercut 31s had issues but they gripped fine and with some spotting everything was a none issue.

A half mile past the rocky section is a fork in the road, to the left a sign said it lead towards the highway and main canyon near campus. We didn't want to go back down the rocky section, so we figured we would see how far we could go and if we could loop around. Probably 3 miles later down the road, which at this point is a pretty average dirt trail but super slippery from rain earlier in the day, we come across the first blob of snow or snow drift, whatever. We creeped onto it and sunk a bit, backed up, and then figured if we hit it with some speed we could float across. That didn't work at all and we got halfway through and then sunk and got high centered! No problem, spool out the winch and grab some tow lines since we only needed to move forward like 15 feet. There were some aspens probably 90 feet up the trail, so we hook up all the straps and then the winch and sit tight to begin reeling the line in.

The first tree we use starts bending over, so I run over and move the winch line to a bigger tree that was further down. Reset and try again, we start reeling in and we hear a pop and crack and are like oh ****! :scared:

We get out, and one of the tow lines had snapped resulting in the winch hook flying back and blowing through the drivers side headlight :jaw: I'm pretty lenient about draping stuff on my winch line, never had any issues but you learn from experience! So don't give me too much shit...

So we're like, that sucks ass but no time to waste since the sun is going down and we are way deep in the woods with no hope of communication. Rehook the winch up and start pulling again, no luck at all and we start pulling the bigger tree over. And I have my snatch strap looped around the base of this big ole aspen, so it's not like I've been using small trees... I've obviously done a lot of recoveries and winching so I was surprised this tree couldn't hold or budge the 4Runner. At this point we even took the shovel out and dug out the tires but no luck, she wouldn't budge going forward.

So now we're worried, but I have the brilliant idea to pull the 4Runner towards the river we were paralleling in this little ravine, and then we will be getting pulled into shallower snow, as well as a bit downhill. There is a couple foot strip of dirt on the side of the trail that I hadn't originally gone on since I was afraid it was too close to the river, but at this point we said what the hell it's worth a shot to get to that strip. The only issue was, there weren't any trees unless we crossed the river. So I stripped my shoes and socks off, and rolled up my pants and went to cross. It turns out this fairly calm looking river is like an average of 3 feet deep even though it's like 12 feet across. After scouting for like 15 minutes and finding no good crossing, I say screw it and start creeping across. When the water splashed up onto my pants I made this leap for this rock in the middle, got onto it and was like wow this sucks ass. I then dropped down from the rock and almost went up to my waste and couldn't feel anything on the bottom (reminded me of river monsters). So I stood up and made this awesome running jump off this rock to the other side, and all of this is bare foot and now my pants are wet.

So cool cool, I run over, grab the winch line that I had thrown across the river and secure it to a tree. Cartzo tightens the line down, so we have this sweet winching operation of going to a tree--across a river--that is like 60 degrees over from the front of the 4Runner and like 20 feet higher. I go back across the river from a different area that wasn't quite as bad. This time we have a jacket thrown over the winch line, but honestly I don't know how much that little thing would of done so we just hid under the dash as best as possible. Finally this time we start moving and pull the 4Runner until the front is getting traction. Awesome! Not quite... we are now like 2-3 feet from going into the river and dropping a few feet in, and the back end is still stuck on the snow bank and the front is on a combination of snow and wet dirt.

So I cross the river again, and we move the winch line to the opposite hill side to try and anchor the 4Runner and pull the front around (and this tree is almost perpendicular to the runner, and like 45 feet higher). Sweet, except now the back end is sliding down whenever we move. We got the front to a spot that seemed solid, and then aired down the rear to get a ton of traction and stop us from sliding down towards rolling into this river. We aired the rears down to 8-9psi, which was the lowest I've ever gone, and then aired the front down a bit to like 20psi, but it wasn't as pertinent as the rear. With the winch loose so it wouldn't try to rotate the rear around, we creeped forward and were good!

So we are saved, but figure we should see if we can still loop around unless it gets bad again since we would still have to get over this stupid snow bank that we had only carved tracks through half of. We move on, and come across some less deep snow. So I jump out and air the front down to 10psi and we move on doing fine and not sinking at all. From there on, it was fast cruising (relative to safe driving with tires at 8-10psi). We got out of the ravine/little canyon and came to another fork, so we go to the sign to see what it said which involved crossing said river.

At this point we had spent 2 hours recovering the 4Runner, had left at 6, and it was about 10pm. The river crossing was no biggy, though it was deeper than my sliders which was fun... We went back across the river since it said to stay on that path to reach the main highway.

On we go, no idea where we are and no idea what the little side trail signs are referring too. Compressed down, we went super far down this trail and over a lot of snow banks until we got into some heavy forest with a lot of snow and didn't want to risk getting stuck since we didn't know where we were so we turned around, that was like midnight... So we are heading back, going down that same stupid ravine we were stuck in and the steering feels on weird. Jump out, front right tire is popped. Oh, bead probably came off since it was at 8psi. No biggy, through the spare on.

We were near the snow bank we originally got stuck in, so figured we would air the tires up with my portable compressor once we crossed that. Went through it with a little hassle, but didn't have to get out. Other side of the snow bank we aired up too 15psi and moved on. Went all the way back, checked out that first fork in the trail but it was snowed in a quarter mile down so we were forced to go back down the rocky section. No worries, I've done that trail before and know the lines! We get a quarter mile down it, and boom! There goes the spare tire! :frusty:

Hope out, totally unseated from the rim and has a giant 4" gash down the sidewall. Okay, this sucks hardcore and it's only like 2am... we grab the original tire and figure we can reseat the bead somehow, either by igniting shit inside the tire or sitting on it or whatever. We then find this inch cut in the sidewall, right next to the rim! Somehow, aired down to 8psi and with the tire bulging out insanely far a rock or stick was able to get near the rim and pop the sidewall!

And we are still insanely far from anyone we had seen driving up, let alone cell service, and only one person knew where we were but we hadn't given her a timeline of how late we'd be out so she didn't think twice when she hadn't heard from us for the past 8 hours. We were getting pretty low on hope, but figured we would attempt to patch the little sidewall gash with some superglue and duct tape since we didn't have an option really, and if it didn't work we'd sleep there and hike out in the morning. While attempting to patch it, we used the bundle of firewood I had and made a sweet little fire and then used the coals to try and heat the superglue and make it out gas and cure... whatever, obviously it didn't hold pressure. We found that out at 3:30 in the morning. We only had the one sleeping bag I always carry, so regardless one of us would freeze (at least my pants had dried out by now). So Cartzo bundled down in the back, and I just laid the drivers seat back and I would idle the 4Runner for a bit every hour or so when it'd start getting cold.

Sun rose, and we got moving at 8am hiking out. We were deceived by how far up the trail we were, we thought it was 5-6 miles to get to the highway. No food or water, though I have a water filter I carry but it didn't seem worth it to haul gear down. We started hiking, and after an hour and a half or so we came across a sign saying rough road next 6 miles, from that we calculated we were averaging a 16 minute mile walking pace. We continued hiking for over 2 hours, and finally a truck came up the road and he stopped by and I asked him how far to the bottom of the canyon (we were gonna hitch hike down) and he said it was insanely far, and asked if we had broke down and needed a ride. He ended up giving us a 20-30 minute ride into Hyrum where we got cell service and dropped us off at the McDonalds in town. I called up my Cherokee bro, and he headed over no questions asked and stopped at Cartzo's place to grab a spare with the correct lug pattern. They picked us up, we drove for an hour to get to the 4Runner, swapped the spare in within a few minutes since that was the only thing wrong and then headed out.

No issues going down, I had an Evap cannister code and rear O2 sensor code get thrown but I'll fix that when I get home. All in all, we spent 16+ hours in the woods, and by the time we got back home it was well over 20 hours since we had left. It wouldn't of sucked so much if I wasn't worried about studying for finals. Nonetheless, good story and lots of lessons learned.

I carry a ton of emergency gear normally, but I'm going to be adding too it for sure. Carry spare cans of food, bottled water, back pack with emergency clothing, winch line hanger, more snatch straps, etc. In the future I'd like to carry two spares, even if one is super small or something since I can practically rebuild the entire vehicle and pull it out of anything with enough time but never thought I would blow two side walls (I've never blown a tire in the first place). And of course, I'll give people directions and time lines for my future journeys. I know solo exploration is dangerous, but I like it and often it's not practical or no one is able to drive along. I've also concluded I'm gonna get some kevlar MTRs, I'm all about that sidewall thickness now! Anyways, if anyone read all of this congrats :tea: Back to studying and thanks for reading!

 

[MTD]

! Anyways, if anyone read all of this congrats :tea: Back to studying and thanks for reading!

I did! I'm glad you made it back all right!!! This kind of stuff makes me nervous just hearing about but I'm glad I all worked out!

 

[smallfry]

Sounds like quite the adventure.

 

[NateMob]

What a time, i have spent the night in a jeep before stuck in the woods. Not a fun time, glad to hear you're getting rid of the Wal-Mart Goodyears.

 

[snivilous]

Just got back home to CO. I found out 30 minutes into the drive my front left shock is blown, and then the left rear drum is leaking, and then the bendix in the starter got jammed with mud and stopped working for awhile at a gas station. Probably the hardest drive of my life, 10+ hours of controlling a swaying 4Runner and constantly altering steering and throttle to counteract the swaying was not fun and limited my top speed. But I'm home, so time to start fixing things again!

 

[KidVermicious]

I carry a ton of emergency gear normally, but I'm going to be adding too it for sure. Carry spare cans of food, bottled water, back pack with emergency clothing, winch line hanger, more snatch straps, etc.

Been there, it sucks to learn this lesson the hard way! Add a tire repair kit to your list. I've had luck repairing gashed sidewalls by jamming lots and lots of plugs in there.

These were the Walmart Goodyears you were running? I've been talking shit on those tires since they came out, good to hear I was right.