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Post by ES_97Sport on Apr 28, 2014 17:50:21 GMT -5
Nice!! Ah, who needs lug nuts. Those are for sissies. LOL!!! Oh, good God. Yea, some of the Cherokee guys still put their spares on top. No way I'd try that with mine. 7' roof line and a 100 lb tire/rim combo. Eeak! I finally took all of mine off when they redid the roof. Tiped it on its side and the right front upper corner of the rack smacked a rock. Good Garvin rack. It didn't bend, but most of the roof did. And the A pillar. And the windshield frame. Prior to that I managed to tear it off on an overhanging tree limb while snow wheeling over a 6' snow drift at 2:00 AM in the morning in the middle of January in -18 temps. Nothing like trying to manhandle an 80 lb Garvin, Hi-Lift, axe and shovel off the top of your vehicle sitting in 6' of snow while trying to keep from sinking up to your waist. After that I started going out to Moab. My big Sport barely clears some of the overhangs like the one at the top of Horse Creek in Needles. And by 'barely' - I really mean barely. A couple inches at best. The guys did Pickle Gulch last month. They made a point of warning me off that trail because of the overhang towards the end. 25" of ground clearance is really nice, but it doesn't do anything for the roof. I do miss having somewhere to mount my lights. IPF used to make a really good set of 8" lamps that could be mounted to the front. A nice wide, flat beam so they didn't reflect off the hood and blind the people in the front seats like most of them do. But, since I rarely do any night wheeling anymore .... Actually, my top lighting priority now is a set of corner 'turn signal' lights. So, when you turn on your turn signal, a flood on the corresponding front corner comes on so you can see where you're turning. I love the '97-'99 head lights but you can't see anything on the sides when its dark, even in town. Edward
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Post by jay4x4 on Apr 29, 2014 0:17:23 GMT -5
Yes very dangerous...glad the wheels didn't fly off...I must say if you had a roof load I'd imagine you would need one of those ladders considering how high you are lol...I'd love to add lights on mine...I guess at the end of the day its like you've said before, depends on terrain, although I suspect being top heavy is bad no matter what. Terrain well determine how much it'll effect you....guess fitting into parking garages is a plus too..I swear after hearing all your stories, I need to make a trip to Moab. I just recently visited utah (ST George) and that was a 6 hour drive, so I think moab might fall under a vacation trip rather than 4 day weekend deal lol.
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Post by ES_97Sport on May 5, 2014 15:33:00 GMT -5
...you would need one of those ladders considering how high you are lol... Yep, just one more thing to catch on stuff. You don't realize how big a PITA a lot of 'cool looking' stuff actually is until you really take something off road. All those mall crawlers covered in lights, ladders, racks, jacks, antennas, etc.? - those things wouldn't last one season off road. Top heavy is ALWAYS bad no matter if you're on the street or trail. And it isn't always terrain. A top heavy, slab sided vehicle in the wind can be a huge problem. I have less of a problem than a lot of more stock vehicles due to design, thank God, but we've had a couple lifted Jeeps blown off the highway below my house just in the last couple months. You start matching a flexy suspension with 5-6" of lift and then dump 20-300 lbs on the roof and you'll have a huge - dangerous - problem waiting to happen. LOL!! Its an interesting place to go. There aren't too many places that even come close to being like it from a wheeling standpoint. After growing up wheeling in CO, I can truthfully say Moab is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like CO. CO isn't as dangerous, that's for sure. And, CO is a lot more irritating. If you want to understand what I mean, do 7 Mile Rim outside Moab. Just like CO. Blea! You ought to think about making it out to Easter Jeep once. Its crazy, but its also one way to get to see and wheel a lot without having to worry about being on your own. And, you DO NOT want to just wander off on your own if you're new to wheeling, have a new/untested vehicle, or new to Moab itself. Too easy to do something stupid there that you'll regret. Edward
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Post by jay4x4 on May 13, 2014 2:12:13 GMT -5
...you would need one of those ladders considering how high you are lol... Yep, just one more thing to catch on stuff. You don't realize how big a PITA a lot of 'cool looking' stuff actually is until you really take something off road. All those mall crawlers covered in lights, ladders, racks, jacks, antennas, etc.? - those things wouldn't last one season off road. Top heavy is ALWAYS bad no matter if you're on the street or trail. And it isn't always terrain. A top heavy, slab sided vehicle in the wind can be a huge problem. I have less of a problem than a lot of more stock vehicles due to design, thank God, but we've had a couple lifted Jeeps blown off the highway below my house just in the last couple months. You start matching a flexy suspension with 5-6" of lift and then dump 20-300 lbs on the roof and you'll have a huge - dangerous - problem waiting to happen. LOL!! Its an interesting place to go. There aren't too many places that even come close to being like it from a wheeling standpoint. After growing up wheeling in CO, I can truthfully say Moab is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like CO. CO isn't as dangerous, that's for sure. And, CO is a lot more irritating. If you want to understand what I mean, do 7 Mile Rim outside Moab. Just like CO. Blea! You ought to think about making it out to Easter Jeep once. Its crazy, but its also one way to get to see and wheel a lot without having to worry about being on your own. And, you DO NOT want to just wander off on your own if you're new to wheeling, have a new/untested vehicle, or new to Moab itself. Too easy to do something stupid there that you'll regret. Edward funny you should mention that.. the more and more I read about your wheeling stories it really starts to click in my head. The whole bare minimum type deal. I have always been fascinated by the camel trophy rovers, and maybe its me being a noob but they seem practically stock (skinny tires too) and handle quite well....I must say though watching some of the videos It also really shows how top heavy they are, and yes I think weather on tarmac or dirt it will be a negative factor. lol I've seen those jeeps the tall guys but soft springs and super felxy.
One day I hope to make it out there.. In the distant future. The Easter Jeep Safari thing isn't it only for jeeps? either way going to have to put in on my list.. I think I've seen pictures of that Moab Rim trail.. lol..... How is CO wheeling? very different that so cal I would imagine.
oh and craziest thing, I think I mentioned before that I replaced all the steering items on my vehicle and still had a wobble which led me to believe it was the steering box. Well I go to change my front brakes and I noticed the pitman arm castle nut backed out down to the cotter pin (thank god). Well tightened that back up and no more slack. funny because it was something simple that I just overlooked because I just replaced it... as shitty as that was I am always stoked to have get a fix that doesn't cost me anything.
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Post by ES_97Sport on May 15, 2014 15:09:34 GMT -5
... The whole bare minimum type deal. I have always been fascinated by the camel trophy rovers, and maybe its me being a noob but they seem practically stock (skinny tires too) and handle quite well....I must say though watching some of the videos It also really shows how top heavy they are, and yes I think weather on tarmac or dirt it will be a negative factor. lol I've seen those jeeps the tall guys but soft springs and super felxy.
One day I hope to make it out there.. In the distant future. The Easter Jeep Safari thing isn't it only for jeeps? either way going to have to put in on my list.. I think I've seen pictures of that Moab Rim trail.. lol..... How is CO wheeling? very different that so cal I would imagine.
oh and craziest thing, I think I mentioned before that I replaced all the steering items on my vehicle and still had a wobble which led me to believe it was the steering box. Well I go to change my front brakes and I noticed the pitman arm castle nut backed out down to the cotter pin (thank god). Well tightened that back up and no more slack. funny because it was something simple that I just overlooked because I just replaced it... as shitty as that was I am always stoked to have get a fix that doesn't cost me anything.
Besides weight and top heavy problems, the bare minimum is a good mantra in general. A vehicle that's easily maintainable in the field is far superior to a possibly better performing vehicle that can't be maintained anywhere outside of a full shop. Like pit-stops in NASCAR, Indy, etc. racing, an entire race can be lost if it takes eight hours to fix something that breaks in the field. Yes, they appear 'practically stock'. There are other reasons for this, of course - the 'class' they're racing in for example, but none of them are packed with useless stuff. Everything serves a purpose - they don't just jam stuff onto or into their vehicles 'cause it looks cool. That's the nice thing about racing. 'Cool' doesn't win races. If there's something on a vehicle and you don't know why, its a good idea to figure it out, 'cause those guys sure have. Tall is good sometimes. I have 25" between the ground and frame and since a lot of trails in CO don't have a lot of room to maneuver on because of trees a lot of time you're only course is straight ahead over the rocks and that much clearance means I pretty much don't have to worry about smacking something important like my drive shaft or t-case but its a trade off. The general rule of thumb for the last 6-8 years is 'the lower the better' and then armor the hell out of the belly. That works on buggies where you can design around drive shafts, transfer cases, oil pans, transmission pans, exhaust and heat build up issues relatively easily. It doesn't do so well on production vehicles unless you want to hack it apart and basically turn it into a buggy. The lower the better concept is great and I'm all for it. On the Sport, though, the only way to get upward travel in the front with a SAS is to go up about 10-12" - or hack the frame off and rebuild it and chop out the fenders - both front AND rear. Which is way more work than I can justify. While I have to deal with off-camber stuff, it's not enough to justify that level of modifications. The 'super flexy' is starting to go away, too. Actually, that's been going away for about the last 7-8 years, too. The rage in the late '90s and early '00s was ultra super duper flexy. The more flex the better. To the extent that people were actually running without shocks to increase the flex. The problem there is that all that flex comes at the price of stability. Now guys are into building in sway bars on buggies to increase stability. 10-15 years ago you would have been laughed off the trail if you brought a buggy with sway bars. What counts is stability. No amount of clearance or flex, it won't matter what tires or what gearing you have if the vehicle is unstable. There's nothing as humiliating as flipping your $150K buggy that'll max out a 30 degree ramp on its roof on an obstacle that four Cherokees promptly drive over without even noticing its an obstacle. No, EJS is for everything. Stock to buggies. They have something for everyone. Literally. They even have women's only runs just for the girls. Huge family event nowadays. I've never been myself. I go the week after typically when they have the car show. Too many people for me and my Sport doesn't really fit into a class there. The runs I would LIKE to do there have off camber crap I don't want to deal with and the next step down runs are more stock vehicle - which would drive me nuts waiting for everyone to get their Xterras over grapefruit sized rocks. CO wheeling - where I wheel - is the eastern, eastern central and northern Rockies. Its all granite. Crushed granite. Broken granite. Pulverized granite. Granite slabs. Granite cliffs. Granite shelves. Very little mud if any. Very, very coarse sand - if you can call it sand at all. Shale. Peat bogs (meadows). Lots of trees until you get above timberline. LOTS of shelf roads. Small stream crossings mostly with solid bedrock and gravel or small grapefruit to basketball sized rocks. Lots of steep inclines and declines and a pretty decent amount of off camber. The trails are mostly old mine and wagon roads but they've degraded into bare tracks in a lot of cases. Most trails are rough. Lots of small, loose rock. The bigger rocks are boulders - generally in the 1'-3' range. Bigger on the rougher trails. The biggest problem is traction. While you can wheel most of Moab without lockers, you're not going to get onto anything worse than a 3-3.5 in CO without at least one locker and good flex. Granite is very slippery. It is the polar opposite of Moab. And when it gets wet its like wheeling on glass. Its also - unlike Moab - very sharp so tire damage isn't that uncommon. Another problem is the altitude. Not as big a problem for FI vehicles, but anything with a carburettor is going to have fits going from 5K feet to 13K feet. AND, you have to deal with power loss. Even in our FI computer controlled vehicles its a problem. The 1.92 t-case gears have never been enough to crawl up a steep incline at 12,000+ feet. I don't know how many times I've stalled out and had to back down praying to God I wouldn't go sideways and roll. Very, very dangerous. And then you have the weather. Rain storms swell creeks so you can't go back. Not as dangerous as flash flooding in Moab, but irritating. More, its the chance of snow and hail at the higher altitudes. I've been caught in dozens of blinding storms in the middle of the summer even that made the trail indistinguishable or dangerous to drive on. Try wheeling in 10" of hail sometime is you want to see slippery. And then been fogged in for several hours after the storm where you couldn't see the ground next to your vehicle when looking out your driver side window. I've been all over most of the trails since I was old enough to walk so most I have memorized, but there have been several times when I was driving literally by the Brail method. I don't recommend it when you're just a couple feet from a 2,000 foot cliff you can't see. Trees are the other notable issue. Like i said, most of the trails are wagon or mining roads. They're very narrow. Since forest fires are illegal i this country, the Rockies are getting really overgrown and that makes a lot of trails very difficult to negotiate with anything wider than a Jeep, 4-Runner, Sport, etc. Even then, there's very, very little room to maneuver a lot of times. I've knocked out two windshields and one rear side window on tree branches. I even knocked out a rear tail light assembly on a tree root a couple years ago. Tilt at the wrong time and you don't know what'll happen. What I REALLY don't like about CO wheeling is the roughness of the trails. Its not obstacles - its just crushed granite rock everywhere. Nowhere big enough to be any fun, just really annoying. Much like driving Denver streets. That's where having a really plush, forgiving suspension comes in handy. Otherwise, kiss your kidneys goodbye. Turn the shocks to their softest and air WAY down. Moab on the other hand is much lower in altitude. You still have the incline/decent steepness issues, but they're a few hundred feet at most. Not MILES. AND, you're not trying to do a 35-40 degree climb at 13K feet. Traction is almost a non issue. Which is why you see lots of vehicles out there with street tries or maybe cheap A/Ts. That wouldn't fly in CO but the terrain in Moab in a lot of cases is much more forgiving. As I said, Moab is very willing to let you be an idiot and then kick you in the rear when you're not paying attention. LOL! Yea, been there before. That's why I always go back through everything after I'm finish and double check. Edward
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Post by jay4x4 on May 17, 2014 0:22:22 GMT -5
... The whole bare minimum type deal. I have always been fascinated by the camel trophy rovers, and maybe its me being a noob but they seem practically stock (skinny tires too) and handle quite well....I must say though watching some of the videos It also really shows how top heavy they are, and yes I think weather on tarmac or dirt it will be a negative factor. lol I've seen those jeeps the tall guys but soft springs and super felxy.
One day I hope to make it out there.. In the distant future. The Easter Jeep Safari thing isn't it only for jeeps? either way going to have to put in on my list.. I think I've seen pictures of that Moab Rim trail.. lol..... How is CO wheeling? very different that so cal I would imagine.
oh and craziest thing, I think I mentioned before that I replaced all the steering items on my vehicle and still had a wobble which led me to believe it was the steering box. Well I go to change my front brakes and I noticed the pitman arm castle nut backed out down to the cotter pin (thank god). Well tightened that back up and no more slack. funny because it was something simple that I just overlooked because I just replaced it... as shitty as that was I am always stoked to have get a fix that doesn't cost me anything.
Besides weight and top heavy problems, the bare minimum is a good mantra in general. A vehicle that's easily maintainable in the field is far superior to a possibly better performing vehicle that can't be maintained anywhere outside of a full shop. Like pit-stops in NASCAR, Indy, etc. racing, an entire race can be lost if it takes eight hours to fix something that breaks in the field. Yes, they appear 'practically stock'. There are other reasons for this, of course - the 'class' they're racing in for example, but none of them are packed with useless stuff. Everything serves a purpose - they don't just jam stuff onto or into their vehicles 'cause it looks cool. That's the nice thing about racing. 'Cool' doesn't win races. If there's something on a vehicle and you don't know why, its a good idea to figure it out, 'cause those guys sure have. Tall is good sometimes. I have 25" between the ground and frame and since a lot of trails in CO don't have a lot of room to maneuver on because of trees a lot of time you're only course is straight ahead over the rocks and that much clearance means I pretty much don't have to worry about smacking something important like my drive shaft or t-case but its a trade off. The general rule of thumb for the last 6-8 years is 'the lower the better' and then armor the hell out of the belly. That works on buggies where you can design around drive shafts, transfer cases, oil pans, transmission pans, exhaust and heat build up issues relatively easily. It doesn't do so well on production vehicles unless you want to hack it apart and basically turn it into a buggy. The lower the better concept is great and I'm all for it. On the Sport, though, the only way to get upward travel in the front with a SAS is to go up about 10-12" - or hack the frame off and rebuild it and chop out the fenders - both front AND rear. Which is way more work than I can justify. While I have to deal with off-camber stuff, it's not enough to justify that level of modifications. The 'super flexy' is starting to go away, too. Actually, that's been going away for about the last 7-8 years, too. The rage in the late '90s and early '00s was ultra super duper flexy. The more flex the better. To the extent that people were actually running without shocks to increase the flex. The problem there is that all that flex comes at the price of stability. Now guys are into building in sway bars on buggies to increase stability. 10-15 years ago you would have been laughed off the trail if you brought a buggy with sway bars. What counts is stability. No amount of clearance or flex, it won't matter what tires or what gearing you have if the vehicle is unstable. There's nothing as humiliating as flipping your $150K buggy that'll max out a 30 degree ramp on its roof on an obstacle that four Cherokees promptly drive over without even noticing its an obstacle. No, EJS is for everything. Stock to buggies. They have something for everyone. Literally. They even have women's only runs just for the girls. Huge family event nowadays. I've never been myself. I go the week after typically when they have the car show. Too many people for me and my Sport doesn't really fit into a class there. The runs I would LIKE to do there have off camber crap I don't want to deal with and the next step down runs are more stock vehicle - which would drive me nuts waiting for everyone to get their Xterras over grapefruit sized rocks. CO wheeling - where I wheel - is the eastern, eastern central and northern Rockies. Its all granite. Crushed granite. Broken granite. Pulverized granite. Granite slabs. Granite cliffs. Granite shelves. Very little mud if any. Very, very coarse sand - if you can call it sand at all. Shale. Peat bogs (meadows). Lots of trees until you get above timberline. LOTS of shelf roads. Small stream crossings mostly with solid bedrock and gravel or small grapefruit to basketball sized rocks. Lots of steep inclines and declines and a pretty decent amount of off camber. The trails are mostly old mine and wagon roads but they've degraded into bare tracks in a lot of cases. Most trails are rough. Lots of small, loose rock. The bigger rocks are boulders - generally in the 1'-3' range. Bigger on the rougher trails. The biggest problem is traction. While you can wheel most of Moab without lockers, you're not going to get onto anything worse than a 3-3.5 in CO without at least one locker and good flex. Granite is very slippery. It is the polar opposite of Moab. And when it gets wet its like wheeling on glass. Its also - unlike Moab - very sharp so tire damage isn't that uncommon. Another problem is the altitude. Not as big a problem for FI vehicles, but anything with a carburettor is going to have fits going from 5K feet to 13K feet. AND, you have to deal with power loss. Even in our FI computer controlled vehicles its a problem. The 1.92 t-case gears have never been enough to crawl up a steep incline at 12,000+ feet. I don't know how many times I've stalled out and had to back down praying to God I wouldn't go sideways and roll. Very, very dangerous. And then you have the weather. Rain storms swell creeks so you can't go back. Not as dangerous as flash flooding in Moab, but irritating. More, its the chance of snow and hail at the higher altitudes. I've been caught in dozens of blinding storms in the middle of the summer even that made the trail indistinguishable or dangerous to drive on. Try wheeling in 10" of hail sometime is you want to see slippery. And then been fogged in for several hours after the storm where you couldn't see the ground next to your vehicle when looking out your driver side window. I've been all over most of the trails since I was old enough to walk so most I have memorized, but there have been several times when I was driving literally by the Brail method. I don't recommend it when you're just a couple feet from a 2,000 foot cliff you can't see. Trees are the other notable issue. Like i said, most of the trails are wagon or mining roads. They're very narrow. Since forest fires are illegal i this country, the Rockies are getting really overgrown and that makes a lot of trails very difficult to negotiate with anything wider than a Jeep, 4-Runner, Sport, etc. Even then, there's very, very little room to maneuver a lot of times. I've knocked out two windshields and one rear side window on tree branches. I even knocked out a rear tail light assembly on a tree root a couple years ago. Tilt at the wrong time and you don't know what'll happen. What I REALLY don't like about CO wheeling is the roughness of the trails. Its not obstacles - its just crushed granite rock everywhere. Nowhere big enough to be any fun, just really annoying. Much like driving Denver streets. That's where having a really plush, forgiving suspension comes in handy. Otherwise, kiss your kidneys goodbye. Turn the shocks to their softest and air WAY down. Moab on the other hand is much lower in altitude. You still have the incline/decent steepness issues, but they're a few hundred feet at most. Not MILES. AND, you're not trying to do a 35-40 degree climb at 13K feet. Traction is almost a non issue. Which is why you see lots of vehicles out there with street tries or maybe cheap A/Ts. That wouldn't fly in CO but the terrain in Moab in a lot of cases is much more forgiving. As I said, Moab is very willing to let you be an idiot and then kick you in the rear when you're not paying attention. LOL! Yea, been there before. That's why I always go back through everything after I'm finish and double check. Edward Haha very interesting how much things can change. Honestly I wish in so cal we had more trees in our trails, not to the point its crazy like you describe, but out this way is I guess like moab except our rocks aren't smooth. Funny you should mention the "flexiness" I recall reading a jeep article about that. It was about how everyone would brag about how much they can flex but then heading out to the trails and have the tire pull them down into a ditch. As for the whole KISS concept, I think it will workout quite nice for my sport seeing as aftermarket has just the bare minimum that I need, nothing more, nothing less....well sort of lol
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Post by ES_97Sport on May 19, 2014 14:13:10 GMT -5
Haha very interesting how much things can change. Honestly I wish in so cal we had more trees in our trails, not to the point its crazy like you describe, but out this way is I guess like moab except our rocks aren't smooth. Funny you should mention the "flexiness" I recall reading a jeep article about that. It was about how everyone would brag about how much they can flex but then heading out to the trails and have the tire pull them down into a ditch. As for the whole KISS concept, I think it will workout quite nice for my sport seeing as aftermarket has just the bare minimum that I need, nothing more, nothing less....well sort of lol I know people rail about this all over the boards, but you're right. Having just the bare required parts available really does have the affect of keeping vehicle modifications simple and keeping the cruft from accumulating. Unfortunately, it also has the affect of keeping the business market for parts very small. Companies can not afford to put $100K into development for a product they're not going to sell enough of to make even the dev costs back. I've put probably $20-30K into dev over the last 15 or so years and I have yet to make even $1000 of that back. There aren't enough of us owners to take a 'build it and they will come' standpoint. If you don't already have the customers (and I don't mean just two or three) committed to purchasing, the risk that you'll commit a couple hundred thousand that you'll never get back is too high. Some companies can off set this with the product price. Hummer, Land Rover, BMW, Mercedes owners will pay a premium for parts so you don't have to sell as many to make those small markets viable. Montero and Montero Sport owners, on the other hand, behave more like Wall-Mart shoppers. Price is their only concern. Doesn't matter if its junk - it just has to be cheap. And that attitude is completely counter to the entire off road market. I don't know of any manufacturer that can afford to sacrifice durability for price in a market where your entire reputation rides on how good your product actually is - and your reputation is what sells your products. What it comes down to is that there's just no viable Montero/Montero Sport market. My business partner and I have been through this for years. We've worked and reworked the numbers over and over since the beginning of the 2000s and no matter how you go at it, there's just nothing there. Especially in the US. Strange thing about business. If you can't make any money at it, pretty soon you have no business. I'd be happy to give you some of our trees! LOL!!! Yea, the mega-flexy fad was entertaining. I remember people giving me flak for having limiting straps on my big Sport back in the early/mid 2000s. Now you go onto Pirate and no one bats an eyelid when someone mentions limiting straps. You HAVE to have articulation. How much is dependent on your vehicle. There is a HUGE balancing act - no pun intended - wrapped around how much is too much and how much is too little and there's no magic formula for figuring this out. Every vehicle is different so the correct 'numbers' are different for every vehicle. Yep, seen that. Suspension geometry is an interesting science and it is incredibly complex. I've been through my share for race cars, but off road geometry is some amazing stuff and nowhere close to comparable. Building a street/off road vehicle suspension is even more complicated because a lot of the things that make for a good street vehicle make for a very poor off road vehicle and the reverse is also true. Not for someone with no abilities in math. Edward
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Post by jay4x4 on May 21, 2014 11:25:26 GMT -5
I know people rail about this all over the boards, but you're right. Having just the bare required parts available really does have the affect of keeping vehicle modifications simple and keeping the cruft from accumulating. Unfortunately, it also has the affect of keeping the business market for parts very small. Companies can not afford to put $100K into development for a product they're not going to sell enough of to make even the dev costs back. I've put probably $20-30K into dev over the last 15 or so years and I have yet to make even $1000 of that back. There aren't enough of us owners to take a 'build it and they will come' standpoint. If you don't already have the customers (and I don't mean just two or three) committed to purchasing, the risk that you'll commit a couple hundred thousand that you'll never get back is too high. Some companies can off set this with the product price. Hummer, Land Rover, BMW, Mercedes owners will pay a premium for parts so you don't have to sell as many to make those small markets viable. Montero and Montero Sport owners, on the other hand, behave more like Wall-Mart shoppers. Price is their only concern. Doesn't matter if its junk - it just has to be cheap. And that attitude is completely counter to the entire off road market. I don't know of any manufacturer that can afford to sacrifice durability for price in a market where your entire reputation rides on how good your product actually is - and your reputation is what sells your products. What it comes down to is that there's just no viable Montero/Montero Sport market. My business partner and I have been through this for years. We've worked and reworked the numbers over and over since the beginning of the 2000s and no matter how you go at it, there's just nothing there. Especially in the US. Strange thing about business. If you can't make any money at it, pretty soon you have no business. I'd be happy to give you some of our trees! LOL!!! Yea, the mega-flexy fad was entertaining. I remember people giving me flak for having limiting straps on my big Sport back in the early/mid 2000s. Now you go onto Pirate and no one bats an eyelid when someone mentions limiting straps. You HAVE to have articulation. How much is dependent on your vehicle. There is a HUGE balancing act - no pun intended - wrapped around how much is too much and how much is too little and there's no magic formula for figuring this out. Every vehicle is different so the correct 'numbers' are different for every vehicle. Yep, seen that. Suspension geometry is an interesting science and it is incredibly complex. I've been through my share for race cars, but off road geometry is some amazing stuff and nowhere close to comparable. Building a street/off road vehicle suspension is even more complicated because a lot of the things that make for a good street vehicle make for a very poor off road vehicle and the reverse is also true. Not for someone with no abilities in math. Edward[/quote] I totally agree with all that lol. No market for it, wouldn't be a good idea to invest. I will say I wish we had a bit more bumper options and armor but other than that it seems to have all that we need...you know what I find interesting is when I browse the wrangler forums its the complete opposite. The whole 33s vs 35s, 35s vs 37s threads always get a 90% verdict that spending an extra $$ is always worth the .5 clearance or whatever it truly be beneficial or not, Hell I've seen threads where a budget boost with cheap suspension lift to get 35s was their main goal with no future plans for a regear. Wranglers will always be my favorite vehicle and I would probably trade for one in a heart beat if i had the chance but I must say their crowd sure has a lot of mall crawlers who just want to have the biggest looking truck, Oh I should point out that this describes the minority of wrangler owners and not all. I think they know who they are the guys who dont wave back,soccer moms, etc etc
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Post by ES_97Sport on May 21, 2014 14:06:17 GMT -5
... I totally agree with all that lol. No market for it, wouldn't be a good idea to invest. I will say I wish we had a bit more bumper options and armor but other than that it seems to have all that we need...you know what I find interesting is when I browse the wrangler forums its the complete opposite. The whole 33s vs 35s, 35s vs 37s threads always get a 90% verdict that spending an extra $$ is always worth the .5 clearance or whatever it truly be beneficial or not, Hell I've seen threads where a budget boost with cheap suspension lift to get 35s was their main goal with no future plans for a regear. Wranglers will always be my favorite vehicle and I would probably trade for one in a heart beat if i had the chance but I must say their crowd sure has a lot of mall crawlers who just want to have the biggest looking truck, Oh I should point out that this describes the minority of wrangler owners and not all. I think they know who they are the guys who dont wave back,soccer moms, etc etc I tried doing a bumper. I got the entire design done and was ready to prototype. The minute everyone found out they were going to cost $1000, no one was interested. Didn't matter that it would have been four times the bumper ARB's Bull Bar is. No one wants to spend any money in the Mitsu market. There are basically two markets in the off-road product arena. The poser mall-crawler market - this is the market that that's only interested in loading up what ever it is with whatever they think will impress their buddies and what they think is cool. Then there's the market of people that ACTUALLY use their vehicles off road. Unlike the former, their purchases are made based on functionality and durability. For instance, I wouldn't think twice about spending $16K on a pair of beefed up monster axle because I need the durability and functionality. I could care less if anyone's impressed by them - their purpose to me is to keep me from ending up dead or stranded in the middle of BFE nowhere and that's all I care about. On the other side of that, I'd NEVER EVER spend $1000-2000 on a roof full of chrome lights and light bars trying to outdo the nit-wits around my office that apparently keep trying to see who can fit the most lights on a roof before the FAA throws them in jail for interfering with the airport. But, I know people that are the exact opposite. They'll dump thousands into useless lights, roof racks, bumper racks, brush guards, electronics, etc., but they're still tooling around on 20 year old Dana 30s with 35"+s and the stock gearing. The parts that count aren't sexy so they're not interested in spending money on them. Which creates a problem. Its almost impossible to make a viable business on producing products strictly for the non-poser market. Percentage wise, we're a fraction of the total "off road" market. That's why parts like skid plates, gears and transfer cases seem so expensive. If businesses could sell more the price would go down, but there's a limited market and that keeps the prices up. Like I said, if you can't make any money pretty soon you don't have a business. No, I think that describes the majority. That's what I see at the shops and that's what I see driving around the Denver front range. More than 90% of the vehicles that go through the shops I deal with never leave pavement. You'd think it'd be the opposite because Denver isn't LA or Jersey - there's TONS of places to wheel within an hour of Denver but of the tens of thousands of Jeeps on the road here every day, I see maybe a handful that actually see any off road use. All the rest are just mall crawlers. Edward
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Post by bdmontero on May 21, 2014 17:14:50 GMT -5
Edward is right. I do more wheeling than my coworkers. They own 3/4 ton diesels with huge tires and lifts. They drive them to work and back.lol;D ;D
Sent from my SM-N900V using proboards
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Post by jay4x4 on May 21, 2014 19:09:43 GMT -5
Edward is right. I do more wheeling than my coworkers. They own 3/4 ton diesels with huge tires and lifts. They drive them to work and back.lol;D ;D Sent from my SM-N900V using proboards sounds like my part of so cal, they love their huge trucks with their 22in rockstar wheels and low profile mud tires or whatever crap they have. it about who has the biggest truck with the most expensive LEDs on the roof lol. sounds similar to your co workers ES hahaha. I must admit though that now that I sit down and think about it 90% of the jeep community do seem like show ponies or mall crawlers.. the few that I do see actually out on the trails are beat up XJ,WKs, and ZJs (almost more beat up than mine) and a few stock looking wranglers usually TJs and YJs. It almost seems the guys with the "not cool" looking jeeps are the only ones using their rigs. Bdmonteo ive read through some of your posts. did you get your ball joint spacers from tuffpans? did not see a follow up thread, how did it go? ES LOL if I did not have so much to do on my sport before a bumper id totally jump on that deal seeing as I have a 2000 and the ARB one doesnt fit either way, shoot doesn the ARB bumper for ours cost about $1000 anyways? *EDIT speaking of all this mall crawlness my buddy with a 2wd tundra is getting his 6in lift with 35x12.5x17s on Friday lol, going to take him out to a easy trail next weekend, ill make sure to take some pics for you guys. Honestly I think he should have gone with a 16s but he got some fancy black wheels..he seems pretty confident after I told him he should get a rear locker because it will do him better off road than lift and tires seeing as he is 2WD.
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Post by bdmontero on May 21, 2014 21:06:45 GMT -5
I can't remember where I got them from. I think it was from a guy on 4x4wire.com I had some made up and sold them all. Too expensive to keep up though. I'm a college boy.;D
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Post by ES_97Sport on May 23, 2014 14:49:37 GMT -5
Edward is right. I do more wheeling than my coworkers. They own 3/4 ton diesels with huge tires and lifts. They drive them to work and back.lol;D ;D Sent from my SM-N900V using proboards sounds like my part of so cal, they love their huge trucks with their 22in rockstar wheels and low profile mud tires or whatever crap they have. it about who has the biggest truck with the most expensive LEDs on the roof lol. sounds similar to your co workers ES hahaha. Yea, that's what I see here in CO but with Jeeps and Toyota FJs. 37" ulta-agressive M/Ts on 17"+ rims giant bumpers and roof racks with multiple $500 a set LED lights. All on stock axles and gears. Not a speck of mud, rock rash, or trail pin striping. They all look like thy just rolled off a showroom floor. Honestly, its embarrassing. It really doesn't do anything for the 'off road' industry's image, either. I don't know why, but the FJs have really taken off here. Its probably a good thing they DON'T actually try to take them off road, though. I thought WE had limited visibility with our Sports. Those things are horrid. That's probably the only vehicle that actually eclipses the Montero and Montero Sport in the top heavy category, too. I wheeled with a mostly stock one a couple years ago on a 3 trail here in CO. My little '97 was more capable with that with no modifications and it couldn't even come close to my stock '03. Pretty sad. See, this is what drives my nutty when people say things like there's no parts. My stock Sports are more capable than a modified FJ. So, if that's the case, why do you need parts? No 'co workers' here - just employees. And none of them wheel - even my business partner. They all think I'm nuts. Especially when I told them I was going to build a second one. My office is on the outskirts of the two biggest office parks in Denver and all I see are mall crawlers. You wouldn't believe the dirty looks I get in my Sport. Its great!! LOL!!! No, that's backwards. That's what I've been talking about. Those that really wheel their vehicles realize that all that stuff is just cruft. Which is why its not there. Its not that they're the only ones that wheel, its that real wheeling precludes putting that stuff on. I can't imagine having a snorkel. I've tore off three antennas and routinely knock off my CB antenna. At least once a trip (which is why I have a magnetic mount). I've knocked the roof rack off twice and if it weren't for the fold in mirrors, I'd have had to replace those at least three or four times by now. Probably more. Hell, I'm on my third tire cover. And this is mostly running fire roads, not hard core crawling - its the kind of wheeling most people do. Uh, stay away from the ball joint spacers unless you plan to drive around with spare CV shafts and want the fun of replacing 'em on the trail. Especially, if you don't have lock out hubs on the front. Nope, I paid $800 for mine year before last including shipping. Sure, I probably could have gotten 3 or 4 people by now. Maybe even 5 or 6, if I did one for the '00-'05s. Considering I started that project in 2004/2005, that means I might have sold one very two years if I was lucky. In order to make it even get close to paying for itself, I'd have to sell 4-5 a month @ $1500 each. I can't even get a fab shop to even talk to me if I can't do at least a run of at least half a dozen a year and such small runs drives the prices WAY up. A more realistic price would have been closer to $1500-$1600 each to cover the cost of such a small production number. There is a FINANCIAL REASON ARB doesn't have a '00-'05 bumper. '97-'99 development is a sunk cost. They're just harvesting. They'd never get their dev costs back on the '00-'05 let alone make any profit. Toasty is doing a deal for the Monty (only) crowd on Wire. But, he's doing this out of the goodness of his heart. I on the other hand expect to get paid for my time (what little extra I have) and effort. I don't run non-profs. The closest I get to not making money off my time is my 4x4 web site. I still intend to open a fab shop in UT when I retire at which point I'll revisit doing the Montero and Montero Sport stuff, but only as a side to whatever the primary stuff is. Sorry if I sound like "The Man", but this is how real business works. Hey, no slamming on the 'pre-runner' crowd! Some of those, when done right, are wicked and do a good job of keeping 4WDs in a lot of cases. But, if he thinks he's going to do ANYTHING without that rear locker, he's nuts. That's the one part that makes this idea actually work at all. The other part he needs is a gear reduction box. Not a t-case, just a gear reduction box. Of course, he could use a t-case and just leave the front unhooked, but a reduction box would be cleaner and he'd probably have better ground clearance. 17"? Good God. "Why ya gotta be so stupid?! " Sigh. And those are probably 10" or 12" wide rims, huh? Well, hope he didn't pay much for them 'cause they're not going to last very long. Especially on a 2WD that he's going to have to muscle through stuff. Sounds like the two Rubicon guys my X and I hauled out of the snow on one of the trails a few years ago. Guy spent $10K on his brand new Ruibicon, took it wheeling once (and got it stuck), got a couple tiny pin scratches on it and refused to take it off road ever again. I saw a good one coming into work this morning. Toy pickup running about 8-10" of lift more than my big Sport on what looked like 36"s or 37"s with a bent driver side front axle. Beyond stupid lift to start with. But, he was running on stock axles. I know the Toy axles are good, but they're not that good. Obviously. Edward
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Post by bdmontero on May 23, 2014 19:35:49 GMT -5
I've driven on my bj spacers for about two or three years. 0 problems. But I have AISIN hubs;D although I do agree with ES. Don't use duct tape when a grade 8 bolt is needed. It really grinds my gears seeing mall crawlers. I have scratches down the side of mine. That's the least of my concerns. Lol There was a choice to drive THROUGH a row of cedar trees, or go off a 100 ft ravine.;D ;D
Sent from my SM-N900V using proboards
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Post by ES_97Sport on May 26, 2014 14:24:10 GMT -5
I've driven on my bj spacers for about two or three years. 0 problems. But I have AISIN hubs;D although I do agree with ES. Don't use duct tape when a grade 8 bolt is needed. It really grinds my gears seeing mall crawlers. I have scratches down the side of mine. That's the least of my concerns. Lol There was a choice to drive THROUGH a row of cedar trees, or go off a 100 ft ravine.;D ;D No, you've got it right BD. Its the hubs. That's a lot of angle to put on a CV if its rotating all the time - which is what happens without manual locking hubs. Lloyd or one of the others was commenting on this on the Wire recently. Combine no lock outs and spacers with 35"s and I'm pretty sure the CVs wouldn't last more than a couple years at most. Anyway, that's the impression I get from the Monty crowd. I don't have CVs to deal with and haven't for more than a decade. Having the driver side go out at the top of 14,000 ft. Mount Antero here in CO and having to wheel 15 miles back down to the road in 2WD drive while almost sliding off a 2000 foot drop at 12,000 feet was enough to make me fix that so I never had to deal with it again. Yea, I think its the attitude from them that irks me the most. I don't know what they're thinking but they definitely seem to look down on anyone with a real off road vehicle here in Denver. Kinda the same attitude we get from Subaru drivers in Boulder - our version of SF. Strange people. Yea, ditto. All my pin striping and rash is earned. One of these days I'll have to start over. I think after the little '97 is built, I'm going to get the body work done on my big Sport. I'm finally getting some rust that has to be taken care of here in the not too distant future. Tell you, though, they're always REALLY happy to have you haul their butts out when they get stuck. LOL!! Edward
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