Getting turnt... hydraulicly

Hydraulic Steering 

This seems to be the line where you really commit to hardcore wheeling, you have the tires, lift, lockers... probably even some useless light bars... your rig is pretty damn capable, but the fact is, it steers like crap! Your steering stabilizer isn't cutting it on the street, and in the trails you are wrestling the steering wheel all day to get your rig to go where you want it to go. taking the leap to hydraulic steering will make all of that better, and make you wonder why you waited so long to do this?!

Options-

So what are your options? There are a few companies that can help you with your fluid power upgrade, I'm not going to go into the specifics of those but I will add some links to the end of this blog. Really there are two options, each with their own benefits and drawbacks.

1. Hydraulic Assist- This uses your power steering pump and steering box to supply hydraulic pressure to a ram that gets mounted to your axle, and the other end gets attached to your tie rod. There are LOTS of different ways to accomplish this, some guys swear by going the cheapest possible way and modifying their pump for more flow, drilling and taping their factory steering box, and adding a cheap hydraulic ram from the local farm supply store. This method will work, but isn't that reliable, so be prepared to have shit break.
   The best option is to replace the entire steering system with a complete kit that is designed for how you intend to use your rig. My hydraulic assist from PSC uses an upgraded pump, remote fluid reservoir, upgraded steering box with the ports already in it, and a purpose built ram with the correct amount of stroke. I have used this kit for the past 4 years with zero issues.
   
   
   
   
2. Full Hydraulic- This setup is more for the hardcore, trail only rigs, it eliminates all of the steering linkage from the steering box to the axle and relies solely on a ram (usually double ended) to move the tire side to side. There's no actual connection between your steering wheel and the tie rod, so there is no feedback. When it comes to shoving around 40"+ tires in the rocks it's fantastic, and packaging of your crazy suspension design is easier because you don't need to worry about steering connections beyond where to route the hoses. The drawback comes from the lack of connection itself, if you were to lose the pump, or blow a line your have ZERO steering! It's for this reason that this setup is not street legal, and isn't allowed in some racing classes.
   

The costs of either of these options can be a bit of a deterrent, an ultra cheap setup as I described above using a farm ram will probably run you less than $500, going to a complete kit from PSC is closer to $1,500-2,000 and the full hydraulic setup is closer to $3,000. But having the ability to have a rig that can go down the street with good manners, and still be able to make a turn while you are in a tight spot on the trail with big tires is pretty great. It's not for everyone, but if you are running 35" tires or larger you should definitely consider adding it to your build budget!

 PSC Steering

AGR Steering

Trail Gear

TV Magic

In recent years the off road world has finally seen in increase in the amount and quality of shows to give us our Sunday morning fix, there have been some great ones with a lot of good info, product reviews, and trail highlights... There have also been a few that just suck. 

Xtreme Off-Road

This show has been around for 15 years or so and has inspired countless offroaders to start their build, given some great info on "how to" and has shown a great variety of vehicles. Yup, for 15 years that was the go to for most of us on our Sunday mornings while drinking coffee and planning our builds in our heads... And then Ian left... And now the faithful followers of the show feel like they just got the rug pulled out from under them. The new hosts are just terrible, they don't appear to have any real knowledge, or confidence in what they are doing. And the couple of builds they have started are complete jokes! They decided to completely paint one project BEFORE starting any of the fab work, which anyone how has ever built anything will tell you should be the LAST step. I'll finish out this season with them simply because I'm hopeful that they will improve, and because there aren't many other options on a Sunday morning... Maybe I'll just start watching Spongebob instead.

Truck U

This one has been a hit or miss for me, I don't go out of my way to watch it, but if it's on I'll watch it depending on what they are doing. They tend to focus on the bolt on stuff, and newer trucks, essentially they are an infomercial that features trucks. 

Truck Night in America

Ok here it is, the new show that was supposed to be awesome, I mean, they built up the hype for months ahead of the first episode, certainly it's good right... not so much. I want to like it, but they just make it so easy to hate it. The thing I do like about it is that they feature real trucks instead of super high dollar builds, but honestly that is part of what I dislike too. If I wanted to watch some clapped out XJ with no lockers and no winch attempt obstacles that they have no business attempting I'd just go to the local park. They need to make some minimum requirements, lockers in both axles, winch, and an actual pre inspection to make sure guys are ready to compete. As for the competitions themselves... Well, that is the other place they fell short on this one. They claim it to be "The hardest course ever built" but it's really just a bunch of obstacles that don't test any real aspect of a vehicle beyond how fast you can go over big bumps, or how far you can launch a toilet... that has never happened on any trail I've been on... I would think that anyone that has competed in 4 Wheeler Magazines Top Truck Challenge would be extremely insulted by the claim of being the hardest course ever built, that course truly is the hardest, and they test ALL aspects of a rig, not just it's ability to push an ice cream truck off a cliff. I mean, they don't have one single rock on the whole course! I'll keep watching just to boost the numbers in hopes that they get a second season and improve some things, but I don't have much confidence in that.

4 Link Suspensions

This blog has been on my to do list for a while, I had great intentions of doing a full photo shoot and maybe a short video or two from the garage to show examples. The reality of that is much less exciting, as usual time is limited, and I'm stretched pretty thin. So I am going to need to share some resources in this one to give you good solid information and keep it interesting.

Four Wheeler Magazine did a great write up

Here is some info on front suspensions

There are tons of different ways to set up your own custom suspension, sure you can wing it, it might work, but chances are it won't work the way you had in mind. There's also the chance that in an attempt to make your rig ultra cool, and the baddest thing on the trails ends up with bad behavior, it could be set up in such a way that you can't actually put the power to the ground, or worse, be so unstable that it rolls over rather than crawls the obstacles. And then there's the safety factor, we are talking about welding and bolting the pieces that are holding your entire rig together here, be honest about your welding skills, if you can't put down top quality welds you should find someone that can.

Luckily there are now lots of companies making tabs, brackets, and all of the other parts to build your own suspension. But there are always guys that feel they can "do it better" in an attempt to save a few bucks they make all of their own parts, this is not a great plan for a beginner. The pieces available are well thought out, laser cut, and CNC bent pieces that have been proven on some of the hardest trails out there. And the price of these parts isn't that expensive when you take into account the material costs, your time, and the tools needed to make them. For me I would rather be able to open a box and immediately start fitting and mocking up pieces rather than spend my day trying to make a basic link mount.

Ruff Stuff Specialties

Artec Industries

I am by no means an expert on suspension design, and tuning. But there are a few places I did my research in order to feel confident enough to start building custom suspension, rather than repeat all of the info here i will just supply you with the best links I have used to figure out the different terms and what they all mean. There are lots of "rules" people use to build there suspensions, but once you understand what each piece does it will all make sense.

Excel suspension calculator

It's pretty amazing how 4 little links can have so many functions, but they are all important and must be addressed in order to have a properly functioning rig. The other factor that will limit you is the available space under your vehicle, there isn't much room under a Jeep once you start putting all of these pieces in there so you will probably need to either compromise on proper suspension angles or cutting away parts of your vehicle or moving things like fuel tanks and exhaust.

   

Creating a work plan... when you don't have time for the work

Most people have many different layers to their lives, to who they are, what roles they play in others lives. As much as I hope to one day be able to focus my career in the off-road world, living out my childhood dreams of spending my days building rigs, being able to business expense a trip to Moab, everyday living the life we imagine the reality TV personalities live; I'm not there yet. For now I have to juggle the same things most others do, a full time job that often requires me to travel to different places for extended periods of time to manage a project, or perform some field machining/welding miracle in a tight timeframe. I am a husband to a wonderful woman whom has some fairly serious medical conditions that requires my attention to help her get through the rough times when her lupus makes it so she can't function as she once could. I'm a father to some pretty amazing kids, and now a grandfather to a young boy that will surely be riding trails with grampie SOON. And since I had a few extra hours in a week I am now a full time college student... Somewhere in there is where I get to schedule work days in the garage, clearly they don't happen as much as I would like, and normally there are time limits to them; luckily I am normally awake before the rest of my household on the weekends, so I use that early morning time to satisfy my need for building rigs.

So how then do you make the most of the few hours here and there that you can get away to the garage to work on the stuff that you need to get done? Like most things you need to have a plan, you need to have a clear picture of what you want to get done in the given time you have. It's important to be realistic about what you can actually get done, it's not realistic to think you are going to build an entire roll cage in one day, but if you break that project down into small bites it makes it much more manageable. Instead of trying to get the whole cage done, make a goal to get the rear section done, or the node at the top of the cab that you know will take the most time. It's also important to give yourself some alternate tasks for when you hit a roadblock, maybe you get into your scheduled task and realize you don't have all of the parts, that special tool you need to do the job is broken, or you just aren't feeling it.

That last one is the hardest, tools and parts can be sourced pretty easily, but motivation to do something can be tough. especially if it's a tough task, or one that you don't have a lot of experience with. hitting a mental roadblock can take some real work to get through, and most professionals can attest to how important it is to refocus rather than just pushing through when you aren't 100% in the project. Have a small list of sub-tasks that you can work on, it can be something small, but sometimes just the feeling of accomplishing something is enough to get your head in the game.

Make a List! How are you going to know what to do next? How are you going to know what you have left? How are you going to know what you need to order? It doesn't have to be a super organized list, I've tried a few different types from handwritten notes, whiteboards, to Excel spreadsheets, for me having a mixture of all of these works best. I like to have a whiteboard in the garage right by the project, that makes it easy to look at it between tasks to decide what the next step should be. I like to have a written plan of the project with a little more detail than the whiteboard, and finally I like to have an Excel spreadsheet to list the parts needed, this makes it super easy to get a rough total for parts and helps to bring the whole picture of the project into reality.

Most times I really enjoy my early weekend solo mornings in the garage, music cranking, sparks flying, getting shit done. It calms me, re-centers me. Other times you look at the workload ahead of you and need to plan out a big boys "Play date" set a date, and a list of projects, then invite your buddies to come lend a hand, most will be happy to help out where they can (especially if you feed them) when they show up make sure you have a task to give them, nothing is worse than giving up a Saturday to help someone out and them not having a plan of attack on the project, often the day is wasted trying to figure out what to do, and then nothing really gets done. Have a list of tasks you want the group to get done, and make sure you have enough of a variety of tasks that people of different levels can work on independently, it doesn't make sense to have someone come over to help then you need to show them every damn step!

I hope this blog will help you guys focus a bit, sit down and make a list, come up with a plan, that way when you only have 4 hours to get something done you can actually get 4 hours of work done.


Words of wisdom from a master