We had a successful first outing with our modified fj80 on The Rubicon Trail. Shane ran the whole thing from Loon Lake to Tahoe without being strapped, towed or winched. Our 80 did take a slight beating (fender dents, rock slider dents, bent rear control arms). But overall, our hand built hoopty armor worked great! The dents we did get, are really unavoidable in an 80 (running the Rubicon Trail in an fj80 is like forcing a square peg in a round hole!) Here is a youtube video of Shane aproaching Rubicon Springs: ShaneBeforeRubiconSprings - YouTube
My friend Chris in his 2000 Cherokee (6"lift, 32" tires,lockers, stock gears) had no problems, and in fact towed the yj most of the time. But Tom's YJ (2"lift, 31" street tires, no lockers, manual trans, stock gears) got stuck over 50 times, and let me tell you, that made for a long freakin trip! Not only did Tom and his son get stuck at every obstacle, but they were very little help getting un-stuck. Chris in the Cherokee stacked rocks, towed them and spotted them 80% of the time and Shane and I did the other 20%. That means Tom and his son really did nothing but rely on others to get them unstuck! They slowed us so bad that we were the group holding up a huge line of traffic at every turn. Tom's YJ got strapped, pulled, jerked and slammed against every rock and ended up a real wreck (dents all over, bent frame, broke shocks, broke springs, bent bumper, trashed exhaust, etc).
I'm so proud of my grandson Shane, he drove like a pro through every obstacle (and it was his first time on a real 4X4 trail!) Here are some pics of the trip.
The first pic is me starting to stack rocks, while Tom is bird watching I guess.
The next one is the green bridge and the last one is camp at Rubicon Springs. L.B.
My friend Chris in his 2000 Cherokee (6"lift, 32" tires,lockers, stock gears) had no problems, and in fact towed the yj most of the time. But Tom's YJ (2"lift, 31" street tires, no lockers, manual trans, stock gears) got stuck over 50 times, and let me tell you, that made for a long freakin trip! Not only did Tom and his son get stuck at every obstacle, but they were very little help getting un-stuck. Chris in the Cherokee stacked rocks, towed them and spotted them 80% of the time and Shane and I did the other 20%. That means Tom and his son really did nothing but rely on others to get them unstuck! They slowed us so bad that we were the group holding up a huge line of traffic at every turn. Tom's YJ got strapped, pulled, jerked and slammed against every rock and ended up a real wreck (dents all over, bent frame, broke shocks, broke springs, bent bumper, trashed exhaust, etc).
I'm so proud of my grandson Shane, he drove like a pro through every obstacle (and it was his first time on a real 4X4 trail!) Here are some pics of the trip.
The first pic is me starting to stack rocks, while Tom is bird watching I guess.
The next one is the green bridge and the last one is camp at Rubicon Springs. L.B.
