Went off-roading, sweet!

So I went offroading with my buddy and his wife yesterday. He drives a Tundra but took his wifes wrangler. I obviously had my sport there. I was a bit worried about the lack of a locker, but it did pretty good.

We went to the badlands offroad park in indiana. Quite a haul for me, about 3 hours each way. They had a bit of everything there. Rock climbing, sand dunes, trails, etc. Temperature was 31 degrees and the entire place was frozen. Any time I got out of my truck I was sliding on ice. I don't know what kinda impact that had on wheeling- good because the sand and mud were frozen and not soft. Bad because everything was slippery then.

There were some different sand hills. Some of them I went up just idling, some of them were so soft that I had to get a running start or I couldn't make it up all the way. Any mud hills I just drove up no problems. Going up the rocks was the only thing the wrangler couldn't do too well that I just drove right up on. I only slightly highsided going up one hill that the wrangler didn't want to attempt.

I went into a trail and almost got stuck in the ruts. The wrangler turned back and I was commited at that point to go in and try to turn around since I was in a bit too far. Well, one spot I was in pretty deep and I went to just reverse back out, but the damn mud flaps were getting stuck... So instead of ripping the mud flaps off I tried to plow through it. Got stuck but managed to break free. after a running start I made it through though. No without tearing one of my front mud flaps off though I hit another spot where I hit the cross member before I was able to turn around and go through it again. Made it out, but man was I scared. I couldn't even open the door since the trail was cut in so far.

I had my buddy check my wheels when they were spinng on a hill- one front and one rear. When I applied the brakes per the suggestion of someone here it got both fronts to spin and one rear. Using that technique helped me out a bit during the day then. I think had I been on the stock sport tires I would have been stuck at a lot of places.

The jeep had factory tires on and did quite well. I thought the tires would have prevented it from doing a lot of things, but I guess not. It had a locker though. It appeared to go up the soft sand dunes way better than my tacoma though. Maybe the weight and locker helped.

All in all it was a fun day. Nothing really broke and I learned that my truck could do a heck of a lot more than I thought it could. The sport suspension is a bit soft and I bottomed out in a few places if I was going too fast. A mechanical LSD would have been nice and a locker would have been better, but I managed without it pretty good. If I was doing serious off-roading or did this a couple times a month I would def. get a locker so I could abuse my truck to the max.

The wrangler was 100% stock with the front sway-bar disconnected. I am 100% stock with General grabber at2 tires.

My buddy got some great shots of me in action, I can't wait to see them. Here's a link to all the ones I shot: http://crawlinvette.com/2008badlands

 

Looks like fun... Nice Pics.

 

Good Times!

 

I uploaded my buddys pictures into my album. Might have to refresh. Couple pics he took of me

 

I didn't even read 'where' this was...but I recognized the orange flag.

Kyle & Stephanie Knosp used to own/operate Paragon Adventure park. And since Paragon closed, they went out to Badlands to operate that park.
I hope they're doing well.....

Looks like fun. Never been there myself. Soooo far away....

 

Damn nice day. Makes me jealous.

 

Nice pics! Thanks for sharing

 

Awsome pics!, Looks like I need to make a trip to badlands

 

man that place looks fun! good pics.

about the only spinning on front and one back tire... thought the sports has limited slip... and ive never heard of the lightly applying the brakes and both front will spin. whats up with that?

 

it stops the wheel from spinning and should send equal amounts of power to both wheels, like some ghetto locker.

http://www.tech78.com/auto/Theory-U...raction-with-an-open-differential_623691.html