The Lone Ranger – Kage’s ’94 X-Cab Leaf SAS and Bed Bob

[99RangerOffRoad]

I am so jealous of your truck.

 

[Kage]

I am so jealous of your truck.

Everything is for sale at the right price

New tire time!






I just got them mounted up tonight so I haven't put many miles on them yet. So far on the road they seem to be quite happy, I need to get them offroad to see how I like them there. I also need to swap out my rear shocks soon as I've manged to kill the ones I have on there again (boo!).

It looks like I'm heading to Turkey Bay 7-27-13 with a couple of other folks from my Jeep club. We'll probably hotel camp on the way down Friday, wheel a chunk of Saturday, and drive back home Saturday Night. I'll firm that up as we get closer.

 

[Ford78]

They Look very good on their!! Thinking of getting a set for my ranger, getting real sick of how the swampers ride and handle.

 

[Kage]

19th Offroad trip – Turkey Bay 7-27-13

We made the trek down to the hotel room north of LBL via lots of back roads, and very minimal highway driving:




Saturday morning, we met up with XFactor (‘yota) at Mrs. Scarlett’s restaurant next to the hotel. With full bellies, the group loaded up and continued down through the LBL area to Turkey Bay:


At the park, we met up with the rest of the group. I’ll be honest, I was a little nervous as this was the largest group of people I’ve ever wheeled with (11 vehicles in total). All good folks mind you, it’s just that we don’t usually all wind on the trail at the same time together :lol: So while we didn’t cover as much ground as a smaller group, everyone seemed to have a good time.

Over the course of the day, we covered a little over 10 miles, though the bulk of those were running some easy trails on the way out of the park (West side of the park):


Our trail leader Railman immediately led us to a fun little hill climb through the woods:




When no one was looking, TJ99 decided that he wanted to put on a show for us (Photo doesn’t do it justice, but that was one steep hill he was very tippy on):


Not to be outdone, the NCL Clan…




….decided to tear a sidewall:


All within the first 15 minutes or ¼ mile of trail :lol: Thankfully that didn’t set the tone for the day, and we boogied on after the rest of the group made it up:






We then wandered off to a play area:




















We then wandered into this awesome creek-bed-type trail with some very off camber sections. It’s by far the most I’ve had my truck leaned over and I was fully expecting to dump it on its side (See the go-pro vid at the end). The only photos I have of it is Xfactor going through the same section. I don’t know how he managed to keep it off the door as well!




We then poked along until we got to the rock garden area of the park. It was a little odd riding around on loose rock like that:










After a break form lunch, we jumped back into the woods:




We came out and watched a few folks run the gauntlet (a very deep V notch):












From there, we poked our way up to Rocky Road:






And then, we took the long way back to the park gate (along the West side of the park) and I didn’t take a single dang picture of it.

Aired up, we hit the road and took more back roads home:






On a whim, we stopped here…


… and I’m glad we did! That was some dang good eats there!

All and all, another great trip with some good folks and new friends. I look forward to getting back down that way again in the future.

Link to photo slideshow:
http://saral.zenfolio.com/p271971481/slideshow

Go Pro Vids (first one is the creek trail)









Random photos from other folks:

 

[kris97ranger]

Man i love railmans truck but not diggin the bedsides that high....

Whatd he do to the front end? It matches my reg cab now lol

 

[Kage]

...Whatd he do to the front end? It matches my reg cab now lol

He snagged a root coming out of that creek trail and it just pulled the fender back. The result was some minor trail-side surgery with side cutters

 

[railman]

Man i love railmans truck but not diggin the bedsides that high....

Whatd he do to the front end? It matches my reg cab now lol

He snagged a root coming out of that creek trail and it just pulled the fender back. The result was some minor trail-side surgery with side cutters

actually, it was a tree I got stuck between my bumper and front tire that you see in the pics of that trail...

as for the bedsides, they are just as high as the stock bedsides...cause I used the factory bed header panel for it....but at least I know my tires won't rub...also,it's not finished, my plans call for some panels and to have my spare mounted inside the bed....so I wanted the bedsides that high...

anyways, I had a ball and can't wait to wheel with ya again

l8r, John

 

[Kage]

20th Off-Road trip - Flat Nasty 8/24/13

A couple of folks headed down the Friday before to do a little camping down at the park. It’s a primitive campground, and since the park wasn’t busy, we had the whole area to ourselves which made it nice and quiet. Just the way I like it. The following day, we covered about 10 ¾ miles mostly consisting of trails 5, 14, 4, and proving grounds with a few other sights mixed in for good measure. A little larger group that worked out well consisting of three yota’s, four Jeeps, and a little Ranger:


























Slide Show to all the photos:
http://saral.zenfolio.com/p903087758/slideshow

I spent quite a bit more time taking videos than photos which gave me quite a bit of raw footage to play with. I parsed it all down to about 20 minutes are so mixing all the videos that I had together into one shot. I still need to play with my Go-Pro mounting positions as I’m not happy how the first portion of the video turned out. Live and learn I suppose! If you get bored skip to the five minute mark for some different points of view, and toward the end there is some more action.





No real damage to report other than a dagging caliper in the rear, and my rear drive shaft is a wee bit more bent than it was. It still goes down the road good enough though so I'll let it ride for a bit. Especially since I have a nasty habit of destroying 'fresh' drive shafts on their maiden voyages.

 

[Kage]

21st Offroad trip – Interlake 9-21-13

I like this park, I like it a lot more when it’s dry. Sadly though, it rained about 1.5” the day before we headed out to the park which made getting around to some of the parts we wanted to get to impossible as the hill climbs would have just been a winchfest. So in spite of being denied early in the day, and with a little U-joint carnage, we still managed to cover about 10 miles of the park:



Some random photos from the day:




















Slide Show to all the photos:
http://saral.zenfolio.com/p324718771/slideshow

Short video from the trail we got denied on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzvaEbsGwwg


Going by what the Park Ranger was saying, this will no longer be a “free’ Park starting in 2014. The Gatehouse is already under construction near the south entrance of the park, and someone has been busy putting up trail signs (still a lot more to go, but there is progress being made). No further details on the park at this point.

 

[Kage]

22nd Offroad trip – Stocker no Locker at Moonlight Racing 9-22-13

While I’m far from being a stocker, and I definitely have lockers, I rounded up a noob driver to chaufer me around during this local even put on by Mo4wd. We wound up having a blast on the easy trails in the morning, and in the afternoon I graduated my noob to a few of the harder trails


We managed to cover a little over 5 miles of trails:


I didn’t take too many photos, but here’s what I got:























There was a heck of a turnout! This was group 2 from the morning run. I think the total count was somewhere around 35 rigs split between the morning group, and I don’t know how many in the afternoon:


After lunch, we ran "That One Trail".






Time Lapse video from the day (turned out okay)
http://saral.zenfolio.com/p232563141/e79d86a05

Quite a few more photos in the ink to all the photos from the day (slideshow link):
http://saral.zenfolio.com/p232563141/slideshow

 

[Kage]

30,000 mile update

The truck really hasn’t had any major changes since Nov of 2011 when I swapped in the front D60. So I figured it was about time to do a bit more or a long term update. At this point, I have put 30,000 miles on this thing since the initial build back in early 2011. So I’ve been putting miles on it at roughly the 15,000 miles/year mark which is cool. I wasn’t lying when I stated that my wheeler tends to see quite a few road miles

For the past month, the truck has been pulling DD duties as I had sold my little race car and looked for something else to drive. During that time it has performed flawlessly banging it back and forth to work, and all the other little driving I tend to do. It still pulling down 13.5-14.5 mpg’s on average with the A/C blasting.

The ‘new’ tires that I’ve been rocking (Old style MTR’s) have been pretty damn awesome compared to the last set of .mil takeoffs I was running. I’ll post an update on those in a day or so.

The only negative thing I can really say about the truck is that I’m not completely happy with the steering. It isn’t bad enough that I feel like doing anything about it, it’s just more vague than I wish it was. I’m starting to think that’s just the nature of the kingpin setup with using the springless arms.

While we’re on the topic of steering, I haven’t really found the need for hydro assist. Sure there are times when things get bound up and I can’t turn, but usually I can just pop the clutch a little bit and things will unlock enough for me to turn.

The rest of the truck just works. Every time I think about changing something around I wind up losing motivation to do it. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” I suppose applies here as I’d rather spend my free time in the woods at this point rather than tearing the truck down to peter with it.

 

[RangerSVT]

Interested in the old MTR's, where did you get from again? The treadwrights are the same pattern as the ones you have, right? I'm thinking about getting a set for HWW...

SVT

 

[Kage]

Interested in the old MTR's, where did you get from again? The treadwrights are the same pattern as the ones you have, right? I'm thinking about getting a set for HWW...

SVT

I picked them up from Trail Worthy Fab, but it appears they no longer have them listed on their site. The treadwright Guard Dogs have very close to a similar pattern as these MTRS. But the treadwright uses the old MT carcass which is only D rated. The MTR's are E rated, and have a much more durable sidewall.

 

[cdawall]

I picked them up from Trail Worthy Fab, but it appears they no longer have them listed on their site. The treadwright Guard Dogs have very close to a similar pattern as these MTRS. But the treadwright uses the old MT carcass which is only D rated. The MTR's are E rated, and have a much more durable sidewall.

Aren't both 10 plies? The MTR has a stronger sidewall, but is still weak compared to a pitbull radial or any bias crawling tire in that size...

 

[RangerSVT]

True, but the treadwrights have both shredded walnut and glass into the tread, giving more grip in the offroad world. They don't have the size I'm looking for anyways, I'm wanting something 35-37" for a 15" rim, the biggest they have for a 15 is 33"...

SVT