Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler My new hobby - wheelin (4x4)

The wife got me a 4x4 safety clinic class for my birthday. That was FUN.

Fun trip this weekend, I had a complete blast at Hollister, CA which has an off road park nearby. I thought it would be fun, but not this much. Definitely gave me the wheelin bug.

The clinic was run by a group called Esprit de Four. The Esprit group is very mellow, not intense at all. Great for newbies. Reminds of the differenct between the cycling crit folks and cyclocross folks.

Day starts off w/ check in and inspection. There's about 41 cars, so they split us 4 groups. Pretty broad range of vehicles, including 2 other FJs but not in my group. Lots of Jeeps, mostly from the club. Most of the clubbers noted they wanted to see mine in action since they hadn't before.

In class we learn the basics. That was pretty helpful, though most of it was familiar to me. The same concepts apply to mountaing biking/cyclocross.

We headed up to a trail on the way to a ravine that we were given the choice to straddle w/ a spotter. A couple heavily modded CJs did it and then a stock Land Rover Discovery. After seeing that, I figured that my Toytec lift could handle it. WHAT A BLAST!!! The spotter was FANTASTIC, definitely made the experience much better. And it's very evident what a good spotter can do. Apparently I was the fastest up the cross and everyone seemed pretty impressed w/ the FJ's capabilities.

Bummer for one of the Scout's on our trip. Looked cool but had way too many mechanicals, including front hubs that didn't lock. I almost had to tow him.

We headed out to the obstacle course and stairs. I was aired a little too high and spun a bit but made it on the 3rd try at the stairs. Some hit the gas too much and bottomed out, including an Xterra that flattened his tow hook. In the obstacle course, I was fine. But the spotters took others like an Xterra, on a different route and broke some mud flaps. I don't think the spotters were as good as the first one, but the driver was also a little heavy on the gas.

We then took some practicing reversing on a hill. Myself and the guide were iimpressed when I let off the brake and just had the emergency on. It held w/ no lunge. Nice work Toyota.

All in all an great day and FANTASTIC intro for a newbie. Highly recommended.


http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y98/old...2007-medium.flv

You're right, it is a blast and very addicting.

My brother and I used to 4 wheel a lot when we were younger. He had an old military style jeep, 1952 Willy's I believe. We would drive it to the Sierra National Forest above Shaver Lake, full of camping gear. Stay a couple of days and hit the nearby trails for fun.

He no longer owns the Jeep, but drives a range rover (late 80's model) instead. This thing is great. With only a small lift kit and 31" tires, it can run the trails as good or better than the jeep. Plus it's more comfortable to ride in with the leather seats and all.

Hopefully we will make it to Courtright Lake this year for a couple days. That will give us the opportunity to hit the Dusy Trail for a mile or so before we reach our camping destination.

Cool. Mine has a 3" lift but every thing else is stock.

Shaver lake? Cool. I actually have a friend who grew up there. We went to his wedding in his home town and there was only one motel that our whole group ended up renting out. Pretty cool place, but MAN, that's in the middle of nowhere.

I'm a city boy at heart...

Shaver Lake is only a 40 min drive from my house. I've driven through that area hundreds of times. Photography is a hobby of mine so I often head up there to snap photos.

Bald Mountain Route(above Shaver Lake) is a pretty challenging course. The trail leads to the top of Bald Mountain. Once you're there, you get to see expansive views of the Lake and surrounding mountain peaks.

I'll see if I can find some photos of the Jeep and Range Rover and post them here later.

It is much fun. FYI Hollister is the town where an incident involving a motorcycle rally in 1947 got a little testy then was blown out of proportion by the newspapers and became the genesis of the modern day stereotype of the "outlaw cyclist" as well as the inspiration for "The Wild One" starring Marlon Brando.

Ahh, my first over expensive hobby I couldn't afford before I bought Axioms. I'm actually a member of the NB(New Brunswick) Jeep Club because PEI has nothing to offer trail wise except a few pits and some nice red colored mud in the spring.

I drive an 03 Jeep TJ, Rubicon, with a 3" lift and 33" tires, Warn 8000 Winch, extra skid plates and some other engine related goodies. It's my 3rd Jeep but my first serious off road version. I'm not as big as many of the Jeeps in the club but the air lockers front and back let me follow the big boys up and over almost anything they can do. Only thing ever that stops me is if I get high centered or the fear of rolling my daily driver.

Definitely a super fun adrenaline pumping sport and like many, niche hobbies, the people are generally super friendly to extremely nice to new people trying to learn. (Much like this board ) Always helping out one another regardless if they just met or knew each other forever.

Cool.

Mine's a daily driver so I'm keeping the mods low key. 3" Toytec/EMU lift, Demello sliders, 285 BFGs. Actually had the lift installed at a Jeep shop.

The new FJ has a locking rear diff that worked great. The only I want now is a roof rack. Looking at Gobi but that's expensive so trying to find a machiner that can make me some Yakima adapters that'll fit the stock mounting points.

Geez, I think we drive the same vehicle. Mine is red, how about yours ?

2003 Rubicon, 3" Tera lift, 265s, Warn 9500, engine & gas skids, RockHard cage (still in the garage ), plus a proud collection of dings and scratches.

On a whim I signed up for the JP magazine "Vegas to Sturgis Mayhem Tour" a couple of years ago, which included wheeling in Farmington, Moab and Engineer Pass. There was a centerfold calendar in the JP magazine with the article; mine was the red Jeep overlooking the Colorado river.

Glad you posted; didn't know there were any other wheelers on the board.

What was that thing... With a Jeep, there is no such thing as "broken", only "opportunities for upgrade"?

Saw on a Jeep license plate holder recently - JEEP = Just Empty Every Pocket

Sounds like fun.

Yeah... the nice thing about the HT world is that you upgrade when you can afford it and just spend the rest of your life suffering low-grade EP600 envy.

In the 4x4 world your vehicle and driving habits determine when you will upgrade, and if you don't upgrade you stop wheeling for a while ;(

Hey Bridgeman, same vehicle indeed. Mine is Inca Gold and our parts have different brand names and numbers but essentially a similar setup. I didn't know what color I wanted but the sales guy promised me the 4x3 solid backed poster of the gold Rubicon on a rock if I ordered Inca Gold so they could see what it looked like. I was leaning towards it anyways so it was a deal.

I'm jealous of some of your wheeling locations. I've never been out of the Maritimes with it. We have some really nice clas 7 & 8 trails but thats mostly because they contain a half dozen or so really tough, challenging sections to give it the rating but not days and days worth of fun lke Moab.

Do you know what edition month/year you were in JP Magazine. I have gotten it for a few years now so I may have seen it or can go back to it.

If you have your own pictures of the event somewhere, you
need to share the links!

Andy

As for Jeep upgraditis, when I traded my 97 TJ in for a 2003 Rubicon, I swore to myself I would leave it stock until the warranty ran out. That lasted less than 4 months and I ordered a 3" BDS lift and 33" tires. A little hight is really all a Rubicon is missing for recreational wheeling but I still save pennies for more and more goodies.

I should note that the dealer was very good to me about replacing anything that was still a Jeep part even after they did the mods and knowing what I was up to with it. Of course, after building whats indisputably, a factory built rock crawler, they could hardly say it was only meant for the street.

Curious what you guys think of the new 4 door Jeep.

I've seen it a few times, looks pretty nice. I've even seen a nice one w/ a lift and mudders, I like it.

I spoke to the guys at the Jeep shop that did my lift. They complained that most of their old custom hardware won't work on these new rigs. Even though it looks the same, it's completely different. Hence a whole new cycle of creating custom gear.

For my FJ, the nice thing is that it's based on the Land Cruiser Prado which is sold in other parts of the world, so those parts would even work on an FJ.

Speaking of two-letter off-roaders, have you seen these pics of the concept Jeep JT in action?

http://www.autoblog.com/photos/jeep-wrangler-jt-concept/

Heep war! J/K.

Yes, I have an '07 FJ. At the top of the thread is iPhoto vid of my wheelin at Hollister this weekend. LOVE it. More than capable off road, 3" lift and Demello sliders.

I do give respect to Jeeps, but only if they have round headlights...