Miller Jeep Trail 2013

yeah we are going to set up another run soon.wish i would have got that pic of kevin standing up his truck.awesome.i sent wyatt some pics i took ,he ll post them up soon. good times

 

Kevin had that passenger wheel a good 4 feet off the ground if not more.

 

Very cool pictures.

 

For how big are group was today we moved pretty quick well done guys.

 

That was 5th gear in the crawl box. Needed to give it a little bounce, and when I did the front came up. Felt it rise up, but it felt controlled, and was still moving forward, so I went with it. I'm sure nobody expected that from the old man. Had a lot of fun wheeling with you guys, see you next time, Kevin.

 

Kevin, You did an awesome job on that one. You got MAJOR air on that right front but it was controlled and you didn't look out of sorts at all.

 

X2

 

So, the question was brought up yesterday as to how much it cost to do Rays Beast. When I gave the price it seemed to shock people. I guess they don't really see what really goes into one of these builds so last night I broke down just the material cost of what Ray spent on parts for this truck. Thats not including the labor at $50.00 an hour which is cheap

Just to give a time reference for labor, if you've seen Kevins truck and how clean the crawler shifter came out with his six speed Tacoma, that took Ray and I three hours to do. Now I'm sure there are those who can do it faster but faster is not better. Kevins truck looks and functions like it came from the factory with that crawler box installed. The shifter boot for that was made by Bill Dunn upholstery in Huntington Beach and their hourly rate is $95.00 an hour at 3 hours. You do the math.

When I totaled what Ray spent on this truck with axle's, coilovers, Crawler box, RST FJ t case, wheels, tires, steering system which includes hydro assist, brackets, bolts, nuts, washers, reducer washers, safety washers, skidplate crossmember combo, driveshafts, pinion flanges, link material, speed sensor, shock towers and shock hoops, tower brace, and the other stuff I've missed. it came to $26,496.00 Thats just the parts and material. No labor costs.

It took 31 actual days to complete this truck with 4 people at times. The man hours were 776.5 hours. At $50.00 an hour which is still low. You do the math again. Oh yeah, Thats not Rays time either since it's his truck so we'll take that out of there.

So you see it's not cheap to do these builds with all new parts that won't break on you on the trail. You can do it cheaper with less expensive parts or leave stuff out or go leaf springs or do it yourself but then you have to have all the tools to do the job. You don't have to have a shop as we proved with this build. It was done in a driveway.

So there it is. Thats about what it cost to do Rays build. We wont talk about mine. Now Ray is not rich. Just a regular guy. But he's not married either so it made it easier to do. No one to answer to except himself.

Here are the pictures Ray took and sent me last night. I have some on my camera that I'll get downloaded today.















I'll get mine up a little later today.

Had a great time with all of you and met some very nice people. All of you were very good wheelers to boot too. Never did see the TTORA group after we went to the play ground. Haven't seen anything posted up on their site either. Hope everything went well with them. they were a very nice group and I met some nice people there too.

Looking forward to doing more runs with you guys. Had a blast.

Wyatt

 

Didnt shock me at all. Just looking at the work I can tell what goes into it. I have build a lot of custom cars from the ground up. I have around 30K in my 40 Ford now and it is not even finished. Most of the time it's not the big parts but all the necessary little parts that add up the most... Both of those trucks are very nicely built. Something to be proud of for sure...

 

We need to set up a John Bull to Holcomb to dish pan run. Keep it around 5 to 6 trucks or so..

 

Yeah, lets do that. It'll be fun.

 

Yeah, I've got a 56 ford F100 that I'm going to build and my budget for that is $50K with me doing all of the labor except paint and upholstery. It aint cheap if you want it good. But it'll be something that I can daily drive or take it across the country if I want.

 

We had a guy on stock tires with a 2.5 lift sliders and stock skids do this trail with us. It's all about line choice.

 

Nice. Yeah only things I don't do are paint and finish body work. I don't have the patience it....

 

There was a basically bone stock Taco out there on stock tires with just an Icon suspension package that went everywhere we did. He didn't take the same lines as we did but he got through without issues. Since you have a rear locker you should be good to go. Don't wheel by yourself. make sure you have a buddy system going. You dont want to get stuck out there with no help.

 

im on stock wheels and tires with an icon stage 4 thats only set to 1.5" all around right now. with sliders and my rear locker i had zero actual problems. i dinged the skid plate one good time and before i set in my locker i slid into a rock around a turn.. once i locked in the rear i just rolled right out of it though.. so.. taking it slow and a suitable line youll be fine. i was a little anxious showing up with the nearly stock truck and seeing all these guys with their set ups... but i was fine and you should be too.

edit: i rolled my 2011... in 2011... so... theres that.

 

yesterday was the first time ive wheeled with anyone else since i got this truck! though, im lucky enough to live in the san bernardino mountains.. and i dont wheel too far from home. if need be im never too far from a main road... and id say im moderately experienced outdoorsman. im much more comfortable wheeling with others though.


anyone want to do a run by my house? theres one pretty good trail.. and if youre not suited to it or uncomfortable there are bypasses nearly the entire way.

those two rigs with the LT and SAS might be a bit wide for it though. it runs alongside the PCT from silverwood lake to hwy 15 in the cajon pass... perhaps someone else knows the name of it...

 

Well done yesterday.

 

That sounds like Cleghorn. I'll be fine on Cleghorn.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAmeDEES_Oc

 

And then there are those that should have had a little more practice before going on cleg... IIRC this guy's FJ was less than a week old and ... had a brand new one to replace this one, not too much after this day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_57ow2Uld-Q&feature=player_detailpage