hard wheeling with overland setup?

as i am making the list for my next string of mods i am wondering. how many of you wheel hard with full setups I.E. rooftop tents coolers weeks worth of food? or do you take a trailer to stash most of your unneeded weight during these times?
While in moab i saw a few overlanded trucks but most swore by ditching the weight for hard trails and said it was almost impossible to do metal masher and others with full overland setups because the weight.

Do any of you do this or do you stash weight somewhere in a trailer?
if you do it without ditching weight what kind of mods did you do to beefen up susp/engine.

Show pics of wheeling with your setup or if you have a sweet trailer show that too.

 

Anyone!? Reviews pet peeves of their setups anything! Lol Come on guys my credit card is ready to give my taco some love!

 

Bump

 

I wheel a full setup. Front and rear plate bumpers, full steel skids, sliders, bed rack, rtt, 2 plastic bins worth of camping supplies and spare parts, cooler, recovery gear, spare tire, etc.

As far as mods, I'm supercharged for power though I don't think it would matter. Extended Kings with 700# coils and most supporting mods.

Wheels fantastic

 

How about in the rear? Do you have any fully loaded pics

 

Just extended Billies and Dakar for now. Early next year I'm doing chevy 63 swap with 16" Kings. I'll look for a pic fully loaded

 

Here is the only rear pic I could find for now. I think I have a bunch on my camera

It doesn't squat at all if that is what you are getting at and rides like I'm on a cloud (thank you king!)

 

Yea I have kings upfront they absolutely blow my mind

 

heres how im sitting currently with front skid sliders and rear bumper im worried more weight will kill my clearance

 

Anyone else? What are your rear leafs ect how hard do you wheel full set up

 

I wheel mine fairly hard and shes a heavy pig. One thing to consider is that I still have to drive home after a wheeling trip, so I try to keep that in consideration. It's a fine line when you are wheeling and overlanding. I would love to have a trailer to put my RTT and heavy gear in when I make long trips that I can park while running tougher trails, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. I run Dakars in the rear with Icon RR 2.0's 11" travel. I might change my setup down the road, but so far I am satisfied.

 

I ran up to Gemini bridges (easy trail) this week with my RTT plus about 200lbs in the bed. I have stock springs for now and they are NOT up to any sort of trail with weight in the truck. I was driving super conservatively and still bottoming out over just about every feature.

 

I've a wooden bed drawer system loaded with shit I'm in the process of ditching/revising for this exact reason. Truck just doesn't seem to like wheeling with that much weight. I'm riding the clutch more, brakes have to work harder, leaf springs getting a workout etc., etc.

 

Did chickens corner, white rim trail and fins and things, with the overland set-up. Only fins and things was a challenge, made it through,except for one climb.. dakars in back and bilstein 6112 in front .

 

For pickups, the added weight in the back can be very advantageous because of better front-back balance. However, this also makes your center of gravity higher, which could be a problem, too. If you have a 4cyl, I wouldn't even bother, lol, but a properly geared v6 (esp if you are one of those guys with a SC), you should be able to handle a decent amount of weight.

I would think that if you have a shorty rack on the bed with your RTT at about cab height, that would probably be an "ideal" compromise, but what do I know... no seriously, I don't really know - I don't have an overland build (yet). The other option is to just ditch the RTT entirely and just bring a tent in the bed. People have been wheelin' without RTTs for generations - they are merely a convenience. I personally don't plan to do that hard of a trail, so an RTT on a mid level rack is what I plan to have.

 

Travel lite. A few years back I did a couple long trips on a motorcycle. You learn to leave shit at home when you do that. Travel like you're backpacking. Even if you can build the truck like a tri-axle dump truck.....WHY?

Lightweight gear. Minimize what you carry. Don't kill your truck.