Long Travel BS Thread

See, people say the same about Robbie Gordon & he may very well be a giant DB but the one & only time I've met him was on an off weekday & he rolled up to the store in Ocotillo to get some shit & we chatted for about 20 mins. & he was totally receptive & a very likeable guy, probably on race day like most professionals prolly better to give them space which is understandable...

 

No.shit

 

What are your guys thoughts on having Armor Bumpers, Sliders, and full skids on a long travel truck?

 

Plate bumper up front with a winch on it is going to work your frame over if you try to do the high speed stuff your LT is capable of. I know that one from experience.

I moved my winch to the rear, switched to a tube bumper, and I continue to rock crawl the truck and still do LT stuff. Sliders / skids are pretty inconsequential, as that weight isn't hanging off the front end of the truck for the most part.

 

The sliders might even give a little rigidity to the frame I'd think.....

 

It all depends on the use of the truck. If you're gonna be crawling at hungry valley then it probably won't matter. If you're trying to blast thru plaster city then it won't help you

 

No, you need an iron lung & a filtron for your mouth for that...

 

is there a happy medium?

 

Sure keep the sliders, get lighter skids and know the limits of your trucks protection.

 

Keep weight behind the front suspension as much as possible.

 

Why not

 

too much weight?
I have an extra 1,000 lbs of armor on my truck

 

Meh. I have a full cage and a winch and sliders. It's fine

 

Spring it and valve it accordingly, keep it as light as possible when you're hanging weight outside of the wheelbase, and reinforce the shit out of everything.

Jumping a truck with a plate bumper and winch will break things that trucks with lightweight bumpers do not.

 

I hate to inject any level of truth in to the hate fest because I don't claim to be a BJ Baldwin fan but I will say I think some people seem to have an overwhelming sense of dislike for him that skews their perspective a bit. Obviously he's created this whole online persona, and maybe it's reality too, but no doubt it rubs people the wrong way. Myself included. But from a marketing stand point he's obviously made it work...if you want to be a "sick" energy drink pimping mega star I guess that's what you have to do. But anyway, dude won the 2012 and 2013 1000. The 2012 1000 was the "protest" year but even if you asterisk that one in 2013 he drove the full race himself and beat everyone.

I don't care who you are, I am willing to bet that not a single one of you has ever driven a Trophy Truck. Driving one 800+ miles, virtually non stop, at the highest level against serious competition takes talent. Beating the crap out of your race truck and pushing it's limits for hours on end is not the same as making a few sweet passes along a whoop section in Barstow and calling it an afternoon. It's hard to drive at your best and be competitive for that distance against that competition. If it were easy everyone would be doing it, but they aren't.

The "sick" year was 2014. And they went 350+ miles before getting stuck in the silt, snapping the axle, and calling it a day. Even with the lack of wins over the last 2 years, if you count up the number of dudes that have won SCORE and BITD races overall you're talking about a small handful of dudes. And BJ is one of them. During that stretch he won some BITD championships and a SCORE championship too.

In my opinion BJ's personality/marketing strategy is dual edged. It's probably contributed to his visibility and therefore increased opportunities but it's also damaged his perception among a lot of off road fans, etc. I'm guessing he's willing to accept that some people are put off by his "schtick" because it's apparently working for him. Again, personality issues, etc all fair game I think but hating on him because of his Dad's money, or the fact that he hasn't won a race in two years is a bit silly to me.

I'm not clear on what the Toyota deal is but if it's actual full Toyota (drivetrain, etc) and not just a body and sticker package and signals Toyota's re entry to the off road scene on a national level (marketing, etc) then I think this deal is pretty cool, regardless of what I think about BJ as a person.

 

Is there a easy way to put mud flaps on front fiberglass? I tried searching and can't find anything. Just washed my truck yesterday and the whole rocker panel is covered with rock chips.

 

Fox coilovers should be in this week and wanting to install my Camburg kit sometime within the next couple weeks. Only thing holding me back is the 4 wheel drive axles and the (apparent) difficulty of disassembling/reassembling them so I'm kind of hesitant to start. Only reason why is I need to complete this over a weekend as this is my DD and I'm doing this at work so we need the space come Monday (if I started on a Friday night). Is it really that hard putting together the new, longer axles? Or is it doable within a day or two? Any suggestions, advice, whatever, would be GREATLY appreciated. I live out in NC and will be doing this myself so keep that in mind.

 

I'm going to have to do that. Pretty cool though.

 

i dont see the issue of putting axles together, its normally easy. you can also do it in two steps. just get it all installed minus the axles then do those the next weekend.