Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2021 i Four Wheeler

36,000-POUND CROWN! If you haven’t been paying attention to the towing capability wars, we’ll give you a recap. Chevrolet has dethroned the Ford F-350 Super Duty and its 35,750-pound towing capacity. Here’s how you can put the power to pull 18 tons in your driveway: order a two-wheel-drive, regular cab, dual rear wheel Silverado 3500HD equipped with the Duramax diesel engine and Allison 10-speed automatic transmission. It will also need to be a Work Truck trim and equipped with the NHT max trailering package. What kind of dark magic did the engineers wield to pull off this feat? The recipe included swapping aluminum wheels where steel ones once lived, retuning the front shocks, tweaking the spring rate on the front torsion bar, and a few other tidbits. Pikes Peak in…

There’s a core group of guys who spend an inordinate amount of time and/or effort to get Ultimate Adventure planned, executed, and covered in a way that everybody who cares about the event can maximize their enjoyment out of it. Fred Williams is always good for a solution to a problem or an industry contact who may be able to handle a need. Plus, he and his Dirt Every Day co-host Dave Chappelle shoot video for Dirt Every Day Extras during the event that you can watch on Motor Trend On Demand. Harry Wagner is our former 4-Wheel & Off-Road staff member and longtime photographer. Playfully dubbed our “Tactical Cameraman,” Harry’s twin-gun Canon DSLR rig and artistic eye has brought the finished quality of the event coverage up significantly compared to…

In Part 1 of the 2020 Ultimate Adventure Long Range Jeep (UALRJ) build series, we introduced you to the source material for the theme of the build. Namely, the World War II SAS-piloted jeeps that helped win the war for the Allies in North Africa. We also introduced the drivetrain components and gave you a rough idea of how all these parts would be assembled to power the UALRJ. In this installment, we dig deeper and show you how we mounted the drivetrain in the vehicle. We’ll show you and tell you how we built motor mounts to secure the Cummins R2.8 turbodiesel and how we built the stout center crossmember to hold the transmission and transfer cases. From there, we will delve into the control arms and control arm…

If there is one product we can’t live without on a camping trip, it’s probably a portable powered fridge. Seriously, we’d rather have a fridge than a tent, and maybe even a sleeping bag, and if you think that makes us spoiled, we think it’s because you’ve never had the pleasure of eating ice cream at the end of a hot and dusty day on the trail. Not to mention we never have to worry about replenishing melting ice, the inevitable ice slosh making its way outside of the cooler after an errant g-out at speed, and we certainly don’t have to worry about soggy sandwiches. If you’ve never used a portable fridge, well, then you are missing out on one of the greatest camping innovations of our time. Dometic,…

We’re always happy when we get to introduce a new long-term test vehicle. Without further ado, for the next 12 months we’ll be taking a look at the good, the bad, and everything in-between of our ’20 Ford F-250 Super Duty. This vehicle comes to us by way of our sister brand Truck Trend, as the winner of its 2020 Pickup Truck of the Year award. Because Truck Trend leans a bit more street-oriented, it’s no surprise that the rather opulent Limited trim pickup claimed the title. Despite its massaging seats and chrome towhooks, the F-250 is still equipped with four-wheel drive, a solid front axle, and an electronic locking rear differential, which make it worthy of our review. Let’s address the elephant in the room right away; this isn’t…

As we put hands to keyboard on this issue of Four Wheeler, Jeep has only begun to tease us with its latest entry in the premium luxury SUV field: the Grand Wagoneer concept. While we ogled the elegance of the concept’s enormous touchscreen displays, full-pane glass roof, and teak wood accents, we decided to calm our anxious nerves by delving into the Four Wheeler archives. May 1966 found us looking at Kaiser Jeep’s first wholehearted attempt to attract a higher-class buyer to the Wagoneer platform with its Super Wagoneer. The Wagoneer followed in the steps of the Willys Jeep Station Wagon and was already known for pioneering four-wheel drive in a truly passenger-friendly platform. It accomplished that task using an independent front suspension setup with a Dana 27 centersection, a…

EASY BREATHING Get the air flowing into your ’18-up JL Wrangler and ’20-up Jeep Gladiator with Mishimoto’s Performance Intake. The precision-engineered and rotational-molded design is said to increase the airflow into your engine by up to 36 percent with dyno-tested gains of 10.8 hp and 11.4 lb-ft of torque. Your stock lower airbox is retained, the filter can be cleaned and reused, and the system is said to install in about an hour. INFO: Mishimoto, 877/466-4744, mishimoto.com RUGGED RUBBER Need rugged new rubber for your truck or SUV? Your local 4 Wheel Parts has the Factory Xtreme R/T tire that is sure to satisfy all your on- and off-road needs. With aggressive looks, a three-ply sidewall, and a robust tread pattern, the tire is designed to excel in sand, rocks,…

Spoiler alert: The title of this piece gives away what we found when we went to work on our ’05 Dodge Power Wagon when it came time to replace some wear items. But let’s back up a bit. Our Power Wagon was brand-spankin’ new when it arrived at our office. The exterior was shiny and unblemished, and the interior had that new truck smell. That was way back in 2005. Since that day, our Power Wagon has been a faithful workhorse. The truck has carried us over some of the most popular trails around Moab, as well as on trails in a number of states, including Wisconsin, Illinois, South Carolina, Florida, and California. It has towed everything from other 4x4s, to a travel trailer, to a gooseneck horse trailer, and…

When Joel Lawrence grips the wheel in his ’15 Toyota 4Runner, he feels like he’s back in high school with his ’88 Ford Bronco. He’s momentarily transported back to Imeson Park, in Jacksonville, Florida, where buggies, trucks, and SUVs would gather to test their might at the sand climbs and bottomless swamps. Joel remembers, “Big trucks would tear it up through a pond and I tried to follow with my Bronco (with 33-inch mud-terrain tires). Next thing I knew, I was diving down like a submarine and the hood was under water.” Joel and the Bronco (except for its alternator) emerged from the slog unscathed and from there he knew that his off-road adventures were only just beginning. “It was seriously tough,” Joel chuckled about his next truck, an ’01…

OVERSEAS DANA 44 FOR A YJ Q I came across an SJ rear Dana 44 on eBay, which are super rare near me (I’m a service member in England, so there are zero American axles around me), and I jumped on it without much thought. It’s from a ’78 SJ, narrow track width, 4.09 gearing, coming out of a Quadra-Trac vehicle. So, the rear differential is offset, which I’ve never heard of until now, and I couldn’t really tell from the pictures. I can find astoundingly little information on this axle or people who have successfully swapped it. Most magazine articles reference how great old Wagoneer axles are, without mentioning to steer clear of the Quadra-Trac ones with rear offset differentials. Now that I’m stuck with it, what are my…

THIS IS BETTY Well, here we are with our ’46 Willys-Overland CJ-2A in Moab. We have been to Moab twice and once to the Flatfender Fall Colors event in Colorado. I thought I would drop you a line. We have two ’46 CJ-2As. One I have had since 1972, Old Red, my beater. The one in the photo is Betty, that is what my wife named it. Got it four years ago. The wife found it. She dragged me out to look at it, just had to have it. So we bought it and became personal friends with Kaiser Willys. You know the story. Everything is manual, comfort is one step above a covered wagon. It’s fun to drive. Don’t have to worry much about anyone stealing it … they…

We left Ultimate Adventure last month snoozing at camp after climbing to the top of a mountain to visit the incredible McKelvey Lake outside McAllister, Montana. And while unique museums, ghost towns, and abandoned train tunnels were in the event’s rearview mirror, that’s not to say our bag of surprises was empty. On the contrary, Ultimate Adventure had just been warming up to this point, with visits to several of America’s bucket-list destinations in store, as well as some truly world-class wheeling. DAY 5: Gold Mine Ghosts, Old Faithful, and Road Day Carnage We awoke on Day 5 to another chilly early fall Montana morning and wasted no daylight packing up camp. Our site for the night had been down toward the end of the unpaved North Meadow Creek Road,…

Video is an incredibly powerful medium, and until Smellovision becomes a reality, it’s the best way to capture the full picture of what we’re out there doing, the places we’re going, and the obstacles we’re tackling. That’s why we invest so heavily in getting the best video crew and support staff we can. For the second Ultimate Adventure (UA) in a row, that means inviting the talent of Ryan Foss Productions to shoot our shenanigans. This year, our video crew was comprised of UA alumni Cameron Hotchkiss (director), Austin Atencio (cameraman), and Jeremy Foss (GoPro and production assistant), as well as first-time UA attendee Colin Leibold (cameraman/drone operator and video editor). These guys are energetic, enthusiastic, and damn hard working, capturing all the UA action from sunup to sundown. And…

Jen Usinger and Jared Simpson watched as their Jeep was loaded into a shipping container, ready to begin its journey across the ocean without them. For Jen and Jared, this was the beginning of a new lifestyle that not only required selling their house and quitting their jobs, but building a machine capable of traversing a foreign land while still feeling like home. Both Jen and Jared began their outdoor pursuits at a young age. Jen called it car camping. It was how she and her family explored the less-traveled parts of Idaho, California, Nevada, and eastern Oregon when she was a child. “I didn’t even see a campground with a toilet until I was 12 or 13,” she recalled. Jared’s introduction to driving 4x4s was on his family’s eastern…

One of the least expensive and quickest ways to lift torsion bar-style IFS vehicles is by increasing the preload on the torsion bars, commonly referred to as “cranking the torsion bars.” There can be downfalls to this method, though. A harsh ride quality, limited suspension travel, and increased CV shaft angles are just some of the possible downfalls. However, it is possible to avoid these following a torsion bar lift. How, you may ask? Well, there are complete kits available from aftermarket suspension companies that address these issues. For this project, we set out to address these issues by using the a la carte method for our ’95 Chevy Suburban, which came to us with a torsion bar lift completed by a previous owner. When we purchased this Suburban, plans…