Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2018 i Four Wheeler

I’m 54 years old as I’m tapping this into a computer, and there are so many places I’ve yet to explore in a 4x4. Places I want to explore. My first 4x4 magazine gig was in 1989, so as of 2018 I’ve had the privilege of “wheeling for a living” for almost three decades. By default, I’ve had the opportunity to damage 4x4s in just about every discipline of off-roading, and along the way I’ve explored trails in just about every state in the U.S. I’ve been off-road on sand in Michigan, North Carolina, and Oregon; in the woods of Maine, Iowa, and Wisconsin; in the hills of Arkansas and Missouri; on the rocks of California and New Mexico; in the mud of Florida and Michigan; on the rocky trails…

AXLES ARE THE LEGS OF YOUR 4X4. THEY WEAR THE SHOES AND lug tons of iron across trail and tarmac alike. However, overburden these legs, and you risk them folding like the knees of an overzealous weightlifter. The benefits of upgrading your stock axles aren’t limited to safely running larger tires and wheels. The aftermarket is teeming with bombproof racing axles for high speed and heavy horsepower, factory replacement axles that slide easily beneath your rig without compromising things like steering geometry, and axles engineered for improved gear reduction and ground clearance. The task is yours to determine which combination of weight, brawn, and gearing best suits your on- and off-road needs. To make that decision simpler, we’ve gathered 19 axles from fully custom to factory replacement for you to…

editor@fourwheeler.com THE LONGEST-RUNNING NAMEPLATE IN TOYOTA’S history, the Land Cruiser, still to this day is one of the best off-road SUVs on the planet. We took the legendary vehicle on a camping trip and did some wheeling to see if it is still as good as we recall. Introduced way back in 1955, the Land Cruiser was originally meant to be a Willys Jeep competitor with a design and name so closely aligned to its competitor that Willys sued Toyota. Nowadays, the Land Cruiser is nothing like a small Jeep. With a 112.2-inch wheelbase, a 5.7L V-8 engine, and a new eight-speed transmission, it can hold eight passengers while crawling on gnarly trails. Still equipped with a two-speed transfer case and featuring body-on-frame construction, the Land Cruiser is filled with…

EDITOR@FOURWHEELER.COM WITH THE WORD “TRAILHAWK” IN THE name of your vehicle, expectations for off-road performance are high. And given the nature of what we do on a daily basis, you’d think we were bumping down desert washes and mountain trails in various states of disrepair every single day. Unfortunately, the past 5,000 miles of testing our 2017 SUV of the Year winner have been slightly less exciting than that, with our daily trail often encompassing 50-80 miles of pavement with only the occasional weekend off-road foray. So, in this installment the reality is we’ve been using our Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk in pretty much the same manner as 99 percent of the people who might purchase this vehicle: mundane daily commuting, running errands, and a smattering of unpaved trails. So let’s…

“THE RIG PUT A 90-DEGREE SPIN ON A TYPICAL FWD TRANSMISSION AND SHOWED WHAT COULD BE ACCOMPLISHED WITH SOME INGENUITY AND TRANSAXLE GEAR REDUCTION.” Concept vehicles are exciting for both sides of the automotive community. Manufacturers get a chance to bring platforms to life showcasing prospective new technology while us consumers get to sit back and watch the parade, left wondering which of these creations will make it to the assembly line. Back in 1990, C&C Incorporated of Brighton, Michigan, introduced a 4x4 not much different in size from a Suzuki Sidekick or a Geo Tracker. The spritely little rig was called the LifeStyle Vehicle (LSV) and measured 140 inches long, a hair over 6 feet wide, and could fit a standard golf cart within its 91-inch wheelbase. The LSV…

BRENT REDERICK AND AMBER WEST OF CHANDLER, ARIZONA, spend a lotof time in the dirt. That is to say, you’ll often find them exploring the Southwest backcountry in some manner of 4WD vehicle. They’ve built a handful of highly modified trail rigs and had used this ’04 Chevy Silverado 2500HD as a tow vehicle for a number of years. But needs and goals change. They decided the tow rig would take on duty as an expedition-style four-wheeler, and so they donned their work gloves and dug into some serious modifications. What you see here isn’t a diesel with shorty-sidewall tires rolling coal on neighborhood streets. This is a purpose-built recreation rig intended to take this couple exploring over thousands of miles of trails per year, and it has the dirt…

jered.korfhage@fourwheeler.com FANS OF THE NISSAN TITAN LOOKING to boostground clearance and curb appeal, listen up! Nissan and ICON Vehicle Dynamics have joined forces to create a factory-authorized suspension lift kit for select models of the Titan and Titan XD fullsize pickup trucks—and we got to test it out in the snow. We headed to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, not for skiing, but to check out some of Nissan’s impressive fleet, including the Titan, which was loaded with the new ICON suspension lift kit and General Grabber X3 tires. The adjustable coilovers in the front and 2-inch rear shocks had no problem absorbing the rough stuff when we turned onto the snowy trails, and were stable and capable on the winding mountain highways. Two separate kits were developed and tuned specifically for…

editor@fourwheeler.com THE TOYOTA FJ40 LAND CRUISER IS A FOUR-wheeling legend, but when viewed in the context of today’s technology, some say that it’s an anachronism and ill-suited to the modern highways. An owner of a vintage FJ needing a refresh has some major choices to make: restore to stock, or nearly stock, or bring it up to modern technological standards. Kelly Pfledderer, of Indianapolis, Indiana, faced such a choice, but fortunately his choice was easy, and he could avoid becoming a target for restoration purists because his ’73 Land Cruiser was already a basket case and missing a lot of original gear. Kelly was looking for an expedition-style Land Cruiser, one that was long distance–capable on or off the highway, with good all-around trail capability and more than a little…

EDITOR@FOURWHEELER.COM MIX-MATCH ADAPT Q I love the mag, the online articles, and so on. Thank you! I decided to mall-crawl my ’68 half-cab Bronco that I originally intended to build as a crawler. Early Broncos are becoming too valuable for me to feel good about beating it to death. This left me with nothing to wheel. Since that wasn’t going to work, I recently picked up a ’83 CJ-7 roller with a 383ci stroker GM V-8, military kingpin Dana 60 front axle, and a 14-bolt rear axle with a Detroit Locker. Both axles have 4.56:1 ratio gears. The transmission is a T-19 manual and the transfer case is a Dana 300. It also came with some extras like a Blue Torch Fabworks full width kit on the front, some Poison…

THAT’S INTERESTING The ’19 Toyota Racing Development (TRD) Pro Series will be available in the fall, so starting pining now for your TRD-tuned 4Runner, Tacoma, or Tundra with possible add-ons like a lifted suspension, Fox shocks, Desert Air Intake, 18-inch black forged-aluminum wheels, and more off-road-y-ness. Did you know TRD’s been at it since 1979? That’s Ivan Stewart era. Jeep achieved Cult Brand Honoree status from The Gathering (Society of Cult Brands). It’s the first automaker to be honored by the org. The 2018 Annual Top Picks list from Consumer Reports? Hey there, Ford F-150 in the fullsize pickup category. Peugeot’s got a new concept 4x4: Rifter. That’s a five- or seven-seater with various gas and diesel engine possibilities. Don’t giggle at what the four-by system is called: Dangel. We…

SEVERAL YEARS AGO 4X4 ENTHUSIAST INTERest in portal axles had been piqued, and rightly so. No other modification offers the same increase in ground clearance, lift, and the low gearing needed for bigger tires all wrapped up into one convenient component. Early adopters made use of aged existing parts, and some even developed complete portal assemblies and knuckles, but the limitations ultimately dampened portal axle enthusiasm. Overall strength, packaging, available wheel lug patterns, steering scrub radius, and parts availability were some of the portal problems that needed to be overcome. Portal axles are not new to 74Weld. The company was one of the early adopters that made use of stock Unimog 404 portal gears and loaded them into custom-machined billet aluminum boxes and steering knuckles. Today, 74Weld has pushed the…

THE CITY OF GRAND JUNCTION, IN WESTERN COLORADO JUST A FEW MILES FROM the Utah state line, is an amazing locale for the off-road enthusiast. Within an hour and a half are some of the most scenic and most challenging 4x4 trails in America. The Grand Junction–based Grand Mesa Jeep Club is one of the most active in North America, and with the playground it has, there’s good reason for that. Since 2008 the club has showcased the trails in the area with its annual Rock Junction event. It’s always the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday before the first Saturday in June. Saturday is always reserved for a huge Off-Road Expo and vehicle show. For 2017, the club leased 22 acres west of Grand Junction near Fruita, Colorado, to stage the…

FREE HORSEPOWER HAS A NICE RING TO IT, doesn’t it? In this day and age, it’s almost a foreign concept to think that you can add power to any vehicle without first opening up your wallet. However, there was a time when turning wrenches led to solid performance gains. For the ultimate example of low-buck power-adding, look no further than the ’94-’98 3⁄4- and 1-ton Dodge Rams equipped with the 5.9L Cummins. Thanks to being graced with the Bosch P7100 injection pump (aka the P-pump), 100 hp or more can be unleashed once a few key areas of the mechanical pump are modified. All that’s required is a little bit of your time and a few simple handtools. If you’re still using one of these old Dodge workhorses around the…

THE STORY OF THE ’82 JEEP CJ-7 30th ANNIVERsary Jamboree Edition begins in 1952. In that year, a group of Georgetown, California, residents worked to revive the failing economy of their Sierra Nevada foothill town. Georgetown dates back to the 1849 Gold Rush and was in the epicenter of the gold mining industry until it played out in the early 20th century. By the early 1950s, the town subsisted on logging and little else. A new gold rush was needed. Tourism became the new Georgetown gold, and to further that, a group of pioneer four-wheelers in town concocted an event called the Jeepers Jamboree. The first in 1953 brought 55 vehicles and 155 participants, and that was a good enough crowd to warrant a second Jamboree. It’s been an annual…