Bumpers check, Skids check... Supercharger or gears?

I have everything you listed except for a winch and I only have a 265 for my spare. But I've been scanning CL for a rather bald 33 that I can keep around if needed. Gears is what I'm leaning to right now and clearing up my rear end would be nice. I completely agree on the recovery gear too. I've been shopping for a winch a lit lately and haven't pulled the plug yet.

 

sounds good

 

You know one problem I am facing with the winch purchase is really how heavy do I need to go. A 8000lb mile marker will get ME out no problem but what if I need to pull something out like a Land Cruiser stuck in snow? Aaron was just talking about how his rig is over 7500LBs now. I wouldn't want to use a 8000LB winch on that. I have been debating this one for a while also but its twice as much

MILEMARKER 7650251

http://www.amazon.com/ELECTRIC-WINC...7UDY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1313793223&sr=8-2

Oh well some day I'll get one

 

Rule of thumb is 1.5 times the vehicle weight. Keep in mind that you might be towing bigger vehicles, so going big ain't bad. I chose mine after hearing from a lot of guys that a 9k is a good size.
A winch can perform beyond its specification (there's a test out there where a Superwinch 9k and a WARN 9.5ti pulled 15,000 lbs. ... but were basically trashed once they got to that point). However, the better option is to get snatch blocks.

Use a scale at a truck stop, or sometimes you can use the lesser-used ones along the highway. There's a good one on Ehlen road near Donald, if I remember right.

 

ive wheeled with my supercharger just fine.

 

There's nothign wrong with wheeling with a s/c. But he listed options and with those options the s/c is more of a luxury, where most people would feel things like gears and a winch are priorities. As for a winch You can get a 10k smitty for 400 or less. If you're really not worried about the brand you can get a 12,500lb "tuff stuff" for 350 new, though I know nothing about it.

 

I was looking at that smitty too. I feel like I'm going to use it the most in the snow to be honest so the added weight is a must. I REALLY want to SC but then again I could get gears, rear bumper and many more for the same price as one SC.

 

I feel ya man, now that I have all my armor on, rock'n 33's and a full 33 spare I want a sc too. I don't really want to re-gear because honestly, it's low enough as it is for me right now as I do mostly highway (I drive a lot, the off-road it does see I abuse it though haha). The SC should make up that lost power and then some without having to regear. At least, for me that's the route I think I'm going to go. Plus having to pull the front diff out too for regearing... such a pain

I picked up a Warn VR8000 from Sierra Expeditions for about what was it, 380 I think new? Haven't installed it yet... but should serve that one time I *might* need it in AZ lol... or if I ever come back up in the winter for another TSF run

 

double post? lame...

 

?

 

Sorry it double posted so I edited it... lol

 

Did you ever try running your stock fog lights with your AP bumper?

 

They're "mounted" in there now with ghetto rigging. I'm going to rip out my ghetto rigging and just silicon them in place and do a 3k 35w HID conversion to them when I install the winch though.

That or I might just run some of these http://www.visionxusa.com/LED-Solst....html?osCsid=6e25ef4b7688cc5dccc6b8225d56ab4d

Probably go with option 1 though lol...

Here's a pic on how my first attempt kinda failed lol...

 

I REALLY want those LED's but until I buy them how can I run my stockies?

 

I'm planning on installing this tomorrow

 

I'd say just silicon them man. Amaes has all his lights silicon'd in and they're holding fine haha. Wouldn't be to hard to clean off after if you do end up switching.

 

Might try it!

 

SC then SAS when u can

 

I'm taking donations from the rich ass SoCal Peeps

 

what the hell kind of stuff does that guy have on his rig to weigh almost 8000 pounds?!!

That's like TWO Tacomas!!!

An 8K winch should be roughly 2x the weight of a Taco. That should be more than enough.