Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2016 i Four Wheeler

TACO SNUG SnugTop now has a full line of bed tonneau and cap products in all sorts of styles and configurations ready to go for the popular ’16 Toyota Tacoma pickups. Now you can keep your gear safe, dry, locked, and protected with high-quality SnugTop product. INFO: SnugTop, 562/432-5454, snugtop.com WELD IT UP Although most serious wheelers probably won’t select the 20x8.5, 20x10, or 22x9 size, Weld’s new one-piece forged REKON XT does come in a sidewall-friendly 17x9 size for 5, 6, and 8-lug axles. The forged construction means higher strength with no excess weight so you get the maximum performance with the minimum drawbacks. INFO: Weld, 800/788-9353, weldwheels.com RADAR LOVE Radar tires? Never heard of ’em, right? Well, now you have, and they actually come to the table with…

What’s New The big news for the Range Rover Sport is the 3.0L Td6 turbodiesel engine. This engine has been available elsewhere in the world but has only now made its way to North America, with some tweaks. The engine makes 254 hp and 443 lb-ft of torque, and it achieves an 8 percent increase in overall fuel efficiency. Among other things, the Intelligent Stop/Start-equipped Td6 has a compacted graphite-iron block, one-piece structural aluminum oil pan, two-stage oil pump, revised injector design, and water-cooled turbocharger with new ball bearings, vanes, and nozzles. Further, the injection cycle employs a two-stage process to eliminate the traditional knock associated with diesel engines. Also worth noting is the new low-pressure EGR system that helps cut emissions and improves fuel economy. This system takes gases…

FIRST CAME THE OLD FALKEN Wildpeak A/T. It looked like something you’d see on a factory pickup truck on a dealership lot, but it came in sizes up to 37 inches in diameter and flatout kicked ass in the dirt. In our testing, it actually out-performed many more-aggressive-looking all-terrain tires and, in many environments, mud-terrain tires. Clearly, Falken did its homework. Then came the much-anticipated Falken Wildpeak M/T. It had a high-void tread design and burly sidewalls, and picked up the ball where the Wildpeak A/T went to its muddy knees and ran it through the goal posts. Now, there’s the Wildpeak A/T3W. A tweener tread—if we’re honest—blurring the lines between the A/T and M/T offerings. But the problem with being a tweener is potential for being outshined on either…

NOBODY THINKS ABOUT trailer tires until it’s time to actually use your trailer. And naturally, when it’s time to use your trailer, there’s usually no wiggle room in the schedule for unforeseen problems. But because trailers just sit around between uses, these inopportune moments are usually the time your trailer tires choose to let you know you’ve neglected them for one trip too long. Diligent preflight tire pressure and wheel bearing checks will help prevent on-road tire blowouts, but improper long-term storage, sun damage, dry rot, improper inflation, insufficient load-carrying capability, bad bearings, and damage from physical contact are all regular players in early tire demise. For us, neglectful storage and old age finally caught up with our 7,000-pound flatbed, and the last time we pulled it out to get…

FOR WHATEVER REASON, SOME people just seem to have all the luck. For us, whenever we throw down good money on a new set of tires, we invariably pick up a screw, nail, or other puncturing debris within the first 500 miles. Normally the tipoff is when one of our friends casually looks down at our tire and asks, “You building a house?” In our sport of off-roading, tire damage is as inevitable as fuelling up. It’s gonna happen sooner or later. A source of onboard air to fill your tire back up and a tire plug kit are a must-have. For us, we’re big fans of the Pro-Series Tire Repair Kit (PN 8134) from Power Tank. It includes all the tools, lube, plugs, stainless wire, and other related things…

FOUR WHEELER OF THE YEAR 2016 CONSISTED of vehicles from two legendary nameplates: Jeep and Land Rover. Both have a long, storied off-road history that is known the world over, and this year’s multifaceted, mega-terrain throwdown included the Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited V-6, Land Rover Range Rover Sport HSE Td6, and Land Rover Range Rover Sport SVR. Both on paper and in reality, the SUVs in this year’s competition were different in their own way, especially in regard to powerplants. The Grand Cherokee was sporting a 3.6L V-6 gas engine, the Range Rover Sport HSE was propelled by a turbodiesel 3.0L V-6, and the Range Rover Sport SVR had a supercharged 5.0L V-8 engine. However, for all their differences, these vehicles had some surprising common elements, including eight-speed automatic transmissions,…

ONE OF THE MOST MEMORABLE QUOTES IN Anchorman, the Will Ferrell movie that is full of them, is “That escalated quickly.” Ferrell’s character, Ron Burgundy, uttered these words following a gang fight with rival news teams. The same quote would equally apply to Nick Nelson’s ’13 JK Unlimited. Nick started with a capable Rubicon model, but before the first oil change was due, he headed to Adam’s High Rollin’ Customs in Reno, Nevada, for a complete makeover. First on the list was a new set of axles that could live with 40-inch-tall Nitto Trail Grapplers. The factory Dana 44 axles were sold before Nick had a chance to bend them, offsetting some of the cost of adding Currie RockJock Dana 60 axles. The RockJocks came complete with all the mounting brackets…

THE CREATIVITY OF THE WHEELING WORLD KNOWS NO BOUNDS, AND JOHN MEARS’ INCREDIBLE ’74 FORD Bronco trail machine is a prime example. “It was found in a field by my nephew in southern Idaho. Paid $500 for it and brought it home,” John says of the Bronco. The rig was mostly stock, had no engine, and each body panel was dented in varying degrees, but it was the perfect foundation on which to build this very unique rig. Mears’ Bronco has outstanding approach and departure angles, which enable it to ascend and descend obstacles with ease. Twenty inches of length was added to the factory frame, and new frame members were added in front of the engine and at the T-case. The tube chassis from the cab rearward is all…

OK, A “MAKEUNDER” SOUNDS like we’re diminishing the looks of our truck. But we’re pretty sure that phrase with the word “makeover” is copyrighted. Actually, what we mean is, clothes may make the man, but wheels and tires definitely make the truck. If you really wanna change the entire vibe of your 4x4, start under the fenders with a new set of wheels and tires. Nothing shy of extreme bodywork and a fresh paint job will do as much to transform your rig’s mojo. Don’t believe us? Heck, we had a page to kill in this issue, so we thought we’d show you a quick peek at our ’01 Tacoma project. Check out what a fresh set of General Grabber AT2 tires mounted on a set of the newest offerings…

SOMETIMES IT JUST HURTS TO put a modern tire under a vintage rig. Take our ’59 CJ-6: Other than a Pertronix electronic ignition conversion inside the factory distributor, it was all factory spec. Why on earth would we bolt a set of radial tires mounted on fancy aluminum wheels to the Dana 25 front and Dana 44 rear? Exactly! We wouldn’t! Coker Tire offers vintage reproduction rubber for all sorts of antique vehicles going back to the turn of the century (that’s the 20th century for all you millennial brats). From wide whitewalls to fat cheater slicks, Coker has the vintage enthusiast covered. And one of its coolest 4x4 offerings in our opinion is the Firestone ANS Knob. Known simply as “knobbies” for short, the “all-non-skid” tread is as dirt…

THAT’S INTERESTING What does the ’17 Ford Super Duty mean beyond being an allnew truck? To make it happen, Ford is creating 2,000 more jobs and kicking in $1.3 billion for its Kentucky Truck Plant to handle the job. You can now tick the box for box delete on light-duty Regular Cab Chevy Silverados and GMC Sierras. Like the midsize pickups got. By the way, the Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon diesels are seeing 31 mpg highway. A report called Collision Avoidance System Market by Device, Technology, Application (Automotive, Aerospace, Railway, Marine, and Construction & Mining), and Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and RoW) Global Trend & Forecast to 2020 is a long walk to get to the fact that the market for collision avoidance systems is likely to be…

What’s New The 3.6L Pentastar V-6 has been reworked and it debuts in the ’16 Grand Cherokee as the standard engine in all trim levels except for the SRT. Features include two-step variable valve lift, cooled EGR, upgraded variable-valve timing, a new intake manifold, high-tumble intake ports, shrouded combustion chambers, eight-hole fuel injectors with optimized atomization, multiple friction-reduction features, and an increased compression ratio of 11.3:1 (yet it still only requires 87 octane fuel). The V-6 also features fuel-saving Engine Stop-Start (ESS) technology, which shuts the engine down when the vehicle is braked to a stop and restarts the engine when the driver’s foot is removed from the brake pedal. The engine also sheds weight. Despite the addition of content weighing 13 pounds, the 3.6L engine has shed 4 pounds…

IF YOU DIDN’T LIVE THE COLD WAR, YOU probably have seen the campy old movies depicting everything from do-ityourself bomb shelters to teaching kids to duck and cover under their school desks during a nuclear blast. It may seem a bit silly now, but people took that stuff pretty seriously back then and the U.S. Government had civil defense assets all over the USA, ready for use in the event of nuclear war. The heart of Civil Defense took place at the local level where village, city, county, and state governments maintained a certain level of preparedness. When the Cold War ended, or maybe warmed up a little, many of the assets allocated to Civil Defense took on another role: disaster preparedness. Most of the gear associated with all that…

THE DATSUN 4WD ARRIVED ON U.S. SHORES JUST A BIT BEHIND THE 4WD Toyota mini truck, and both would find eager customers waiting for the small pickups with a transfer case. It was a time when mini trucks were taking off in popularity. The medium-length wheelbase, narrow body, and cargo bed would make these pickups popular for camping and back-country exploration. We look at the specs and history of the Datsun/Nissan pickups and some of the more popular builder models. 720 Model Pickup (1980-1986) The Datsun 4WD truck was introduced to the U.S. for the ’80 model year as the 720. In those years, the body badges prominently said DATSUN with “by Nissan” in smaller print. Later the names would flip so the Nissan name was more highlighted, and then…

The all-new third-gen Ford Explorer debuted as a ’02 model, and we trotted out a First Look at the SUV in the Apr. ’01 issue of Four Wheeler. This new Explorer was a significant change from its predecessor. It continued to be a body-on-frame design with independent front suspension (IFS), but the body of the five-door was 21⁄2 inches wider overall, the vehicle had a 2-inch-longer wheelbase and an independent rear suspension (IRS). The change from solid axle and leaf springs to IRS was a first for Explorer, and it allowed Ford engineers to integrate a third-row seat (also a first for Explorer) that folded flat to the floor when cargo space was needed. Two engines were available: a 4.0L V-6 that made 210 hp and 250 lb-ft of torque…