Barstow trip on September 13th.

Anybody interested? Ryan over on ttora is setting up a "Let's break Mike's truck" run.

 

The recap...

All pretty and stuff early in the drive out to CA:


Driving into impending doom. The rain on the trip out was unreal.


Met up with some guys in Barstow behind the KFC. Their trucks were sick!


Worn out coil-overs. That didn't take too long.


Good place to stop and regroup. Johnny Racer set us up with the Barstow Main racecourse in our Lowrance GPS systems while we were sitting around.


And then the carnage came.








With the help of Cody I got my front suspension strapped together well enough to idle the 8 miles out of the desert. It came apart 6 times so I had a little break in the monotony every now and then.


Back in the parking lot, lined up, and awaiting a mobile welder.


If ever you break in Barstow, call this guy! His weld got my arse back to NJ!




Learned a lot out there, and even with the breakage it was a beautiful, fun trip.

 

Concept is that the straps will reach their limit before the shocks do, or whatever other suspension component is the limiting factor for wheel travel. For most of us, either the shocks reach maximum extension or the UCAs bind to restrict wheel travel. Do that enough times and something's gonna break. The straps are there to limit travel before anything bad happens to a critical component.

The straps are actually amazingly strong, but I'm doubling them up for the next go-around. I started replacing the coil-overs last night and got the driver's side done. I should have more pictures posted after this weekend.

Oh, and I did miss one from the return trip! My truck at 11,500 feet above sea level.

 

I think it might have been Oklahoma. You should experience Kansas on US 50. They don't call it "The loneliest road in America" for nothing!

 

Flexibility, and think of it as a fuse. If it breaks, then you're pushing pretty damn hard and had better slow down before something else goes.

I know a few rock crawler guys that use chains, but then they're not moving at more than 4mph and trailer their trucks around so the noise isn't a concern.

 

great pictures. Do you have any action shots???

 

No, but there is a video worth downloading and watching:

http://homepage.mac.com/brumz/Sites/Clips.mov

About 55MB. You get to see me almost roll because of my non-long-travel suspension and stock-valved rear shocks. Those long-travel trucks float over the terrain!