Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2019 i Four Wheeler

TAX RETURN SEASON? YOU MEAN 4X4 UPGRADE SEASON! WHAT BETTER WAY TO PUT THAT REFUND check to good use than to invest it in your rig, with the help of these 38 new off-road products we discovered at the 2018 Specialty Equipment Market Association (aka SEMA) Show, held each year in Las Vegas, Nevada.  DYNOMAX MUFFLER ELIMINATION KIT FOR JL WRANGLER Why it’s cool: Say goodbye to the stock muffler and low-hanging tailpipe on your JL Wrangler, and say hello to ground clearance and a deep performance tone from the mandrel-bent stainless steel piping. Info: dynomax.com  DYNATRAC PROROCK 44 FOR JL WRANGLER Why it’s cool: This axle claims to have the brawn necessary to support up to 38-inch tires with stronger axletubes, reinforced end forgings, and the elimination of the…

RECIRCULATING-BALL POWER steering is a simple design that is reliable and stout. Despite its robust design, a power steering gearbox will eventually need replacing as the seals, worm shaft, worm shaft guide, and the ball bearings that roll between the shaft and guide wear out. The classic symptom of a gearbox nearing the end of its life is play in the steering wheel, resulting in “sawing” the wheel as you drive down the road and fluid leaking from around the output shaft. Sloppy steering is tiring for the driver and a safety concern, and leaking fluid is a nuisance. Replacing the gearbox with a remanufactured one cures both ills. Like all Ford F-150s, F-250s, F-350s, vans, and SUVs of the ’80s and ’90s era with more than 150,000 miles on…

THERE ARE A LOT OF OFF-ROAD ADVENTURERS LOOKING FOR RUGGED CAMP trailers that can provide a good night’s sleep while offering conveniences that take the rough edge off boondocking—and there’s no shortage of trailers from which to choose. One that has caught our attention is the Xventure XV-2 Deluxe from Schutt Industries. The XV-2 is a robust military-spec utility trailer built with a huck-riveted frame and aluminum construction, upfitted with the basic necessities for making off-grid camping a nice step up from sleeping on the hard ground beneath the cover of a traditional tent or tarp. From the rooftop tent and onboard water system to the heavy-duty axle and traction tires, the Deluxe model is ready to make base camp comfortable wherever your 4x4 dares to tread. It’s the middle…

WHEN JEEP INTRODUCED THE JK WRANGLER with a four-door option in 2007, they created a new type of Wrangler owner. While the two-door JK customer stayed closer to the conventional Wrangler customer’s roots, the new JK Wrangler Unlimited was flying off dealer lots, often to serve a more domesticated role in some cases: commuting to work, carpooling to school, picking up groceries, and yes, crawling the mall. In 2012, Jeep introduced a refreshed JK with a modernized interior, an adequate 3.6L Pentastar V-6, and the stellar Mercedes-sourced W5A580 five-speed automatic transmission, further cementing the JK Unlimited’s place in the mainstream. Like generations of Jeepers before them, the aftermarket bug has bitten JK Unlimited owners too. Today, there are a dizzying number of options, from spacer lifts to Ultra4-inspired coilover suspensions.…

1973 K25 About a year and a half ago, my wife and I decided to purchase a truck and trailer and start “getting away from it all” a few times a year on our own and occasionally with my parents who own a 39-foot RV. This was not going to be a $100K setup of a new truck and trailer…we don’t have that kind of taste or budget. My dad and I had discussed going in on a Chevy/GMC K20, since we had both owned several through the years, but neither of us currently did and missed having one to haul stuff and tinker with. I talked with him, and he was open to the idea of it being “our” truck and my wife and I could also use it…

CHEVROLET HAS INTRODUCED THE ALL-NEW ’19 SILVERADO 1500 WITH A FRESH, SMALLER ENGINE, AND IT has also added to the off-road capabilities of the midsize Colorado pickup. We had the opportunity to drive the new four-cylinder Silverado and the dirt-savvy Colorado ZR2 Bison in Arizona. Come along as we give you details and first drive impressions of these two trucks. Silverado 2.7L I-4 Turbo A fascinating feature in the ’19 Chevy lineup is the availability of a four-cylinder engine in the fullsize Silverado. Its 2.7L displacement is similar in size to what you might typically find in a midsize pickup. However, Chevy packs the intake charge of this engine with a turbocharger and does some other tricks to derive 310 hp and 348 lb-ft of torque from this new powerplant…

WE RESTED UNDER THE SHADE OF A COTtonwood tree, staring across an expanse of sagebrush bounded by brown foothills peppered with black volcanic outcroppings. One hundred miles to the west, the high peaks of the Sierra Nevada ascended nearly to the clouds, an ominous obstacle for man, beast, or machine. Before us the dirt road divided, offering two options. If we veered left, beyond the evaporating vestiges of the Mary’s River (Humboldt), the dreaded Forty-Mile Desert awaited. The two-track to the right was less established, an unknown. But tales of reliable water and rich grasses were powerful persuaders, and it was rumored to be a shorter and easier path to California. We took stock of our supplies, discussed the options, and turned the wheels toward the path less traveled—the Applegate-Lassen…

WE LEFT THE OVERLAND EXPO WEST IN Arizona, an annual event for do-it-yourself adventure travel enthusiasts, in the early morning light on a 500-mile, mainly off-pavement journey from Mormon Lake, Arizona, to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, with Jake Quinones, owner of New Mexico Backroads. Jake’s company is devoted to vehicle-supported exploration throughout remote areas of the American Southwest. Jake provides years of valuable knowledge and experience for the expedition members seeking to better their skills in the lifestyle of overlanding. Not unlike the gunslinger in Stephen King’s The Dark Tower novels, Jake transported us into another realm rarely seen. The expedition included five days of professionally guided overland/expedition (4WD vehicle-dependent) travel across rugged backroads of Arizona and New Mexico, exploring areas of the Gila National Forest, White Mountains, and…

HERE IS YOUR 4X4 TRIVIA QUESTION FOR THE day: What was the first luxury SUV? If your answer was Range Rover, that’s a good guess, but an incorrect one. The Range Rover started out in 1970 as a modestly trimmed two-door 4x4 “Estate Car” (station wagon in Brit-speak), and it stayed modestly trimmed for most of a decade before beginning a march upmarket. Beating the British to the luxo punch was the ’66 Jeep Super Wagoneer. The J-Series Wagoneer set a high mark when it debuted for 1963, answering new market demand for carlike four-wheel-drive station wagons. Full details on Kaiser Jeep’s early steps to the Super Wagoneer have not been found, but we know the company’s product-planning people had a clear market trend to follow. Documents from November of…

While sifting through the Four Wheeler archives one night, something sprang forth from the pages, pouncing on us like a tiger on an unwitting gazelle. Something Taxi Fleet Yellow with big tires and off-road lights—Tiger’s van had us by the tail. The van’s story appeared in the December 1989 issue of Four Wheeler, but its saga dates back even farther to when Tiger LeBrun visited the scrapyard. The year was 1973, and the National 4WD Center mechanic from York, Pennsylvania, had just salvaged a pair of 1⁄2-ton Dodge W100 axles and replaced the bearings, seals, and wheel studs. The axles sat dormant until 1982, when Tiger slapped down two Benjamin Franklins for a neglected ’65 Chevrolet 90 van, and then the project began. Tiger was no stranger to 4x4 van…

THAT’S INTERESTING 2019 Kelley Blue Book Best Buy awards: fullsize SUV, Ford Expedition, and Ford F-150 for pickup. Ford and Mahindra will be collaborating/sharing powertrain and connect-vehicle projects, but in India only. For now. Ford’s also buddying-up with Avis Budget Group to make for better user experiences when it comes to vehicle rentals, and also when it comes to efficiency for that process via connected tech. Production on the ’19 Ford Ranger is officially in action. It’s happening at the Michigan Assembly plant that the Blue Oval invested $850 million into for building the pickup and also the ’20 Bronco. Which one of you did Ram want to know that its “Farmer” commercial turned 5 years old? They must think a lot about your interest in this commercial, as this…

IT’S THE CAR SHOW TO END ALL car shows! It’s the Specialty Equipment Market Association (you might know it as SEMA) Show, and for 2018, it returned to Las Vegas, Nevada. For a bit of scale, laid down on its side, the Empire State Building could fit inside just one (there are seven) of the SEMA halls where 162,000 attendees come to ogle 2,400 exhibiting companies. The general public isn’t allowed in, but those in the industry are invited. We swooped in with cameras blazing to document the SEMA Show, including the many show vehicles—from the Big Three automakers to specialty fabricators—looking for the zaniest and most capable rigs we could find. Read on for a look at what was seen at SEMA this year.  Red Cummins Panel Truck The…

THERE ARE AFTERMARKET SUSPENSION SYSTEMS THAT DELIVER ALL the goods (improved wheel travel, handling, and ride, for example), but they come with a larger-than-average price tag. With a reputation that precedes it, Carli Suspension is one such company known for offering some of the best suspension lifts money can buy. We recently stopped by Flynn’s Shop in Alexander, Illinois, to get the lowdown on Carli’s Backcountry 2.0 system, which was being installed on a Cummins-powered ’12 Ram 2500. Advertised as a 3-inch lift kit with progressive-rate coil springs, an adjustable track bar, and front and rear Fox 2.0 remote-reservoir shocks, the Backcountry kit looks promising on paper. Out in the real world—and with the optional high-clearance control arms, torsion sway bar, dual steering stabilizers, and full Deaver spring pack on…

WE’VE PUT SEVERAL THOUSAND miles on the Maxxis ST Radial M8008 trailer tires without any issues. Our car hauler weighs in at about 1,500 pounds and regularly carries a 4x4 that weighs about 5,000 pounds, for a total of 6,500 pounds of rolling mass. Anyone that’s regularly towed his or her 4x4 cross-country on a car hauler has likely experienced a trailer tire failure, and understandably so. There are many different things that can cause them to come apart like a Cinnabon in a blender. These include sun damage, old age, overloading, low tire pressure, impact with a foreign object, and so on. The thing to remember is that not all trailer tires are equal. Some trailer tires are of a better quality, more robust, and more UV-resistant than others.…

RUBICON FRONT OR REAR DRIVE Q Assume you have a typical Jeep, say a JK on 35-inch tires. You have to run the Rubicon in two-wheel drive. Would you choose to run rear-drive only, or front-drive only, and why? @DAVIDFREIBURGER VIA INSTAGRAM @CAPPAWORKS A I can’t imagine doing this on purpose, although given these parameters it would have to be something done purposely. You typically don’t get to decide which axle fails to transmit power to the ground in the middle of a trail. Regardless, I’ll go ahead and assume that you won’t let me switch from front- to rear-wheel drive when I want to, depending on the obstacle in front of me. Given that I have to stick with my choice through the entire trail, I’m going with rear-wheel…