91TPU

how to make your rig capable huh???

go to bank, drain all acounts...
sell your house...
turn wallet upside down and open...
make purchases...

haha jk jk

to be honest imo if you just spend a lil money here and a lil there, you can go pretty far....and if your a good driver, youll go even farther..

GV27

4-low is definitely "da bomb". When I get to a trail I just throw it in low range and leave it there. It'll go 50 or so in 5th gear which is more than fast enough for anything even remotely deserving the title "trail".

But you need to find some folks to show you the ropes. Don't do anything to your truck at this point. Upgrade the driver first, then figure out what you want/need. Rolling over a curb? Heck, bone-stock your truck (assuming it's 4x4) will easily climb a set of stairs! Just put her in 4-low and give it just a tad of gas and it'll crawl up all sorts of nasty looking stuff.

My 4Runner is pretty much bone stock (came stock w/ 31x10.5s) and gets me way back in the woods for camping, gold prospecting, etc. Does some damn nasty looking trails. Pulls out stuck jeeps.

I often have uninitiated passengers absolutely convinced that we're about to flip or become terminally stuck or total the truck or some such thing, when the reality is the Toy's just cruisin'. I actually had a guy get out and walk when he saw a really steep hill I was about to go down. I ended up idling down it with my feet up on the dash just to show him what a sissy he was being. And like I said, this is just with a stock truck. Heck, according to the registration, it's a station wagon! Some of the rigs on this forum will do just insane stuff.

So you need to get your feet wet. You're worried about curbs, whereas to a lot of folks on this forum "serious trail" means that it's littered with boulders the size of Volkswagens (that universal unit of measurement!). That's a big gap that you need to fill in your perceptions before worrying about modifying your rig.

Lifelongtoy

Alright, all that is definitely reassuring. I'll just have to see what I'm capable of.

Got the curb situation taken care of.

all_terrain17

Very well said!

MudHippy

Yep, yep, well put, indeed. I actually consider anything above or beyond stock, cheating. Making me a cheater, only a little though. Just find out what your boundaries are. Your trucks boundaries may sit somewhere further than you'd like to go anywho.

91_4x4runner

To add to my previous statement, drive over the curb at an angle, it makes it alot easier to get over ;-). While you're at it, flex it on the curb and take some photos. :-)

89silverpu

On one of the trail gear tv episodes i saw, there was an ifs 4runner with only 31's and a rear locker that made it over the rubicon.

Asha'man

Nobody has mentioned truck armor yet. I'm no pro (have never been wheeling yet lol), but sliders seem like a damn good idea for even basic wheeling. Maybe they're even more necessary for a novice, since one might be sliding into more rocks and trees early on?

MudHippy

That thar is frickin' genius, I wish you'd, or somebody'd, told me a little sooner.

UK Drew

just get out there woth some more experienced guys, you are much better being out with other people to talk to and help you out of the sticky situations you are going to get into.

first stop should be rubber on the mod front. just find yourself some cheap muds, and some good guys to go on the trails with.

listen to all the advice you can get when out on the trails and just enjoy yourself. but probably the most important thing you are going to need is a sense of humour, things break, get stuck, scratched. just laugh it off and enjoy yourself.

ONE LIFE, LIVE IT

FredTJ

Yup, I got in on this thread late, but that's [b]exactly[b] what I was going to say.
armor comes first and when I say armor that also includes the bracing.
The idler arm brace and the front lower A-arm, rear brace are must have's and they need to come first.
Anyone that tells you different is just plain silly

Armor and bracing will go a long way towards protecting your investment and stopping stuff from breaking that shouldn't be breaking.

Tires, lockers, gears, lift and all the rest of that crap is secondary to armor and bracing, if you want to protect your investment.

Now, having said that, if you're just doing things like dirt roads, forest trails and that type of, for the most part, really non-required 4wd stuff, then you can get away from not doing the armor for a little while, but even then you'll eventually get bit.
Once you start doing trails that require 4wd, armor is a must, period.



Fred

slosurfer

Armor is a great idea, especially the braces. Sliders are great too, but you should probably have a plan on what you have in store for your vehicle before you get them welded on. If you plan to do a body lift down the road, you will want to do that before your sliders. Granted you could always hack them off and reweld, but that could be expensive if you can't do it yourself.

Sonofmayhem

Go wheeling with some buddies, they will help you. Find out what you dont like about your truck. i.e. The tires leave the ground too much, i spin the tires too much, i keep slamming my body and undercarriage. I have to get momentum to get up stuff. save up money for the things you need, i would get 33s lock the rear end and get armor. like sliders, belly pans. then some bumpers, it makes things alot easier when you have confidence that you wont break anything as easily.

GV27

That's excellent advice right there. An ugly truck is kinda an asset on the trail - don't worry about it so much. I set out to get a really ugly 4Runner and came home with a pretty one, thanks to the "boss" (wife). Oh well - I try not to stress about it and I'm pretty experienced so I don't get into nearly as much trouble as I did in my youth....

dijlop

dude, u make the world better. i <3 curbs!!! who needs a trail? hit up a parking lot.

rezrunner92

Put a Ford sticker over the Toyota emblem?

LGcrawler

you mean chevy emblem?