Quote:
Originally Posted by firetruck41
Chico, it sounds like Joe doesn't know what he's talking about, even though it seems he has an 80 series. Go over to IH8MUD.com and check it out for yourself. The prices are reasonable, moderate lifts are cheap, maintenance is simple and if you DIY, not expensive at all, and they are very capable for a wagon.
Here's one of those mall crawlers from 'mud:
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I didn’t think my post was that bad – I gave the 80 series credit for trying – it wasn’t designed for the type of terrain we try to traverse with it. It’s too damn heavy, wide and underpowered in stock form to perform well. I wouldn’t even have bothered to answer back if you hadn’t challenged my veracity by stating “even though it seems he has an 80 series.” It’s not seems, I actually have an 80 series and on the net it’s referred to as “Slee’s School Bus”, you know that yellow snorkeled monster Slee built for his testing projects. Damn thing has everything except a kitchen sink in it. The only things it doesn’t have and needs badly are 5:29 gears and a crawler box. A few hard core SAS 4Runner guys refer to it as the “Yellow Lemon”, as I followed them around in it for a few days and took a couple of bruises doing so. It kept up with a little effort but it’s very well built. If that 1st picture you put up is suppose to show the capabilities of the 80 series, then I think you made the point I was trying to convey. With a decent driver I think a Camry could run that picture portion of whatever trail that is. The other Mudd site you posted has a couple good pictures of built 80’s on trails – Christo is attempting a hard climb with his short bus – now that is a very well built “half cruiser” and goes everywhere Christo wants to, either under its own power, winch or tow rope – Christo will get to where ever he intended to go. He’s a hell of a good driver and has a great shop to repair whatever he breaks and he does break a few parts every now and then. Some pictures are poser shots, no doubt as all sites have a few of those – Pirate has several forums and each vehicle type think they are the cat’s meow and post pictures to prove it. Moab wheeling is very different, as slick rock has unbelievable traction and if you have the ground clearance to get over you can usually climb it. There's tons of basically stock vehicles out there running all but the difficult trails and they all make great photos, like Hell's gate etc - very easy but "scary looking" on photos. All I can say is any day wheeling is better than most days working (I would say all work days but payday is pretty hard to beat). A do it yourself kit from Slee for a 6" lift is $2600 - If you possess the skills to put this together it's reasonably priced, if you don't it could get a little expensive. If you build it right the first time there’s nothing cheap about building a cruiser up for “serious” off-road. Maintenance will be a couple hundred plus a year on average providing you do it yourself and have nothing major go wrong. When you say maintenance is simple and not expensive that is a little too simplistic, as a head gasket replacement doesn't cost much if you can do it yourself - if you can't, well then it becomes expensive as is doing the birfs up front every two years - isn't terribly expensive, if you can do it yourself but it’s a $ couple grand at the dealership. Cruisers are very capable in certain environments - more so than most in what I would call scenic trail adventures. When Chicho wrote he wanted to replace his '05 with something he could really wheel off road I took that to mean more than powder puff trails - maybe like moderate to hard trails? That's why I replied like I did but then, if you're an avid Mudd guy (no disrespect intended), I can understand why you posted that picture, site and believe I'm full of BS.
We just travel different trails and break our sh*t in different ways. All is good as long as you’re happy with what you got.