- Thread starter
- #21
Good story with pics, re_guderian, thanks for sharing!
8000 lb rig, Really??
- Thread starter patrickfinley
- Start date
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Where you draw the line is up to you. You drive a 6000lb truck. Why not a rav4? it's a lot lighter, get better gas milage, can carry all your light weight camping gear? Why not a subaru?
It apears you have a roof box for skis. Ditch that thing. Put the skis in the truck. Save 1mpg, park in parking ramps again. Could have saved 40lbs of box
Build your truck the way it works for you. Without sliders I wouldn't be able to open the doors by now. Without a front bumper, where are you gonna mount a winch. Think you don't need these items? You don't drive where we do, it's that simple.
I haul a pop up camper. Leave it at camp. Ever camp in your lightweight backpacking tent with a family of 4? have it snow 18" over the weekend while you chill in your tent entertaining 2 kids under age 5? When we got the camper my wife went from tollerating camping to enjoying it.
I had the lightweight camping stuff when I was 20 years old, life changes, so do your needs.
It apears you have a roof box for skis. Ditch that thing. Put the skis in the truck. Save 1mpg, park in parking ramps again. Could have saved 40lbs of box
Build your truck the way it works for you. Without sliders I wouldn't be able to open the doors by now. Without a front bumper, where are you gonna mount a winch. Think you don't need these items? You don't drive where we do, it's that simple.
I haul a pop up camper. Leave it at camp. Ever camp in your lightweight backpacking tent with a family of 4? have it snow 18" over the weekend while you chill in your tent entertaining 2 kids under age 5? When we got the camper my wife went from tollerating camping to enjoying it.
I had the lightweight camping stuff when I was 20 years old, life changes, so do your needs.
Thanks re_guderian, for illustrating with a real life experience the points we have been trying to put into words.
It also reminds me of the potential we have for an "escalating series of mistakes" (term used in aircraft mishaps). For example trying to recover from somelike this with limited gear, you could injure yourself.
I guess I have
enough to make point about safety tradeoffs.
- Thread starter
- #25
I hear you Farinvail, it makes sense. There was a thread a while back and people with their 8000lb rigs where having ride performance issues. I thought if the rigs could go lighter it would help, but I suppose there is only so much to prune before we wind up in a Rav4.
Lets just say it where possible to shave 300lbs off your weight. Would your ride improve much? Or is it the suspension mods that cause the ride performance issues?
This is the thread that started my thread:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/100-series...ension-set-up-what-does-your-truck-weigh.html
Lets just say it where possible to shave 300lbs off your weight. Would your ride improve much? Or is it the suspension mods that cause the ride performance issues?
This is the thread that started my thread:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/100-series...ension-set-up-what-does-your-truck-weigh.html
take out the 2nd/3rd row to save weight. front passenger seat too. I did that when my truck was stock, definitely was faster.
no need for it, heat seater doesnt work.
Read this story, granted it is rough overland tripp through congo with a rig not equiped with such roads. He would have probably saved 5-7 days in is month long crossing of Congo and mechanical destruction of is cruiser, if he had a simply winch..(i guess it depends really where you are traveling) For the record the cruiser had around 450,000km on the clock.
Democratic Republic of Congo: Lubumbashi to Kinshasa - Expedition Portal Forum
BTW, very very good story, beware....
Democratic Republic of Congo: Lubumbashi to Kinshasa - Expedition Portal Forum
BTW, very very good story, beware....
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blanc - I too was thinking of them when I read this. They are proof that you can go far with little though you will pay a price along the way.
When you compare an up-armored Hundy to some of the other expedition vehicles out there (ie a MAN) it can still qualify as a moderately lightweight vehicle. If you want to see some really beefy trucks check out the Expo forums. Gives you an idea of what a heavy vehicle really is.
When you compare an up-armored Hundy to some of the other expedition vehicles out there (ie a MAN) it can still qualify as a moderately lightweight vehicle. If you want to see some really beefy trucks check out the Expo forums. Gives you an idea of what a heavy vehicle really is.
IMHO the issue, for those of us with the heavier trucks, is the limited travel of front supension. With enough supension travel even something like M1 tank can float like a butterfly.
300 lbs would be interesting for most but my truck weight varies by over 1200 lbs depending if it is day trip for me or a week in BFE with 3 buddies. And that is with lightweight backpack camping gear, water, food, people, cooking, extra gas, etc. it adds up.
To give some insight into those of us with heavier trucks search for the holly grail. I think we all are happy with how the truck rides on just about everything, streets, dirt roads and low speed crawling. The one area we want improvement is washboard roads, we drive on hundreds of miles a year of really bad washboard and we want to fly, not poke along at 20MPH.
I think I am going to try to find a way to put 1,000 more pounds in the truck just to see if i can do it.
1) Two cases more beer
2) 3KW Portable Generator
4) Card Table and four folding chairs
5) Two more cases of beer
6) Four Spare axles (because I might need them)
7) Second spare tire
Don't forget the beer!!!
I about pooped my pants when it slid down..... Man to have been driving at that moment.......
Great reason why this stuff is good.... although, I am not sure that" extreme" is my style.... maybe in a few more years with more experience....
I missed the point
- Thread starter
- #37
Damn, that's scary. I like the smoke coming off the bumper as it tears up the rock. Wild.
That is certainly not the kind of terrain I ever imagined a hundy on, very cool.
toyota did...and thats why our rigs weight almost 6000#..stock.
90MPH smoothes things out pretty nicely.
In the desert there is rarely a tree to winch from. I bought a pul-pal for that reason. I never want to have to dig a hole to to bury a spare tire. Lucky you had a tree! probably the only one within a hundred yards.I'll give you an example... It's not rock-crawling at all. Eight years ago I went by myself on a trek to drive from the AZ/Mexico border to the AZ/UT border on 4WD trails and dirt roads. No rock-crawling whatsoever. In hindsight, going solo was stupid, but I follow the old Boy Scout motto of "Be Prepared" pretty well. I had 2 spare tires, gas, water, food for a month, tools, shovels, high lift jack, 3' iron pipe
I ended up driving at night on the Apache San-Carlos reservation east of Young, AZ. Total and complete B.F.E... I was going about 15 MPH when I took my eyes off of an innocent dirt road for just a flash, and ran my driver's side tires off the road indicated in picture 1. Instantly flatted both tires and bent the front rim. No lockers, trailer hitch buried and both DS tires spinning. That was 9PM. By daylight, I had managed to get myself back on the road. I had to use the indicated tree as an anchor point. If you're wondering if that's within the 100 ft. of winch cable I had, it isn't. I had to shackle the cable to a 30 ft, 30,000 lb strap, which barely reached the 6' tree saver around the tree. If you're wondering if my carb float floated at the angle I was at enough to keep my truck idling to charge the battery while I winched, it didn't. But the highlift with bumper attachment helped. I also used the highlift and the 3' iron pipe to un-invert my shackle and get my leaf spring back to where it would "kind-of" spring. It's all about getting home... Without extra "weight" I would have waited DAYS for someone to come by and help, maybe even longer. Because I had a steel front bumper with a winch, and was dragging a trailer full of crap, I was able to spend a glorious AZ night getting unstuck. That was pretty much the end of my trip (1/2 way), but I made it home under my own power.
