Indholdsfortegnelse for January 2023 i Four Wheeler

HIGH-UP TENT Quadratec’s Lost Canyon brand Rove Edition Rooftop Tent is engineered to bring comfort and convenience to off-road enthusiasts. The tent is said to mount to any vehicle equipped with a roof rack or crossbars and offers a 96x49-inch sleeping footprint, providing enough interior space for two people. The spacious rooftop tent offers the comfort of home with thoughtful, modern features while still allowing users to immerse in the outdoors with a quick-release skylight and large screen side windows. Designed to withstand heavy-duty adventures, the Rove Tent uses rugged 600D ripstop polyester fabric to protect occupants from the elements, and mounts using sturdy honeycomb aluminum and a one-inch aluminum exterior platform for additional strength. Other unique features include dual interior climate control venting, USB-powered LED lights, a shoe bag…

You’d probably think we were huffing fairy dust if we told you there was a single bolt-on aftermarket product available to lift your Jeep Wrangler or Gladiator, which also provides the correct gearing for your new larger-diameter tires. When we told you that this same product offers significantly more ground clearance under the axles than traditional lifts, it reduces stress on the drivetrain, comes with larger brakes, and it can be installed in your garage with common handtools you’d most likely give in and say, “Shut up and take my money!” Well, it’s time to crack open the piggybank. All of those advantages and more are a reality with the 74 Weld bolt-on four-gear Jeep portal boxes. Portal axles have been around for decades. They are essentially gear reduction axle…

DAN’S ’56 WILLYS TRUCK I enjoyed the September ’22 Trail’s End article on the ’56 Willys truck. I have a ’49 with a Buick 231 V-6, ’84 Chevy Blazer axles, Mercury short-back bucket seats, and 33-inch BFGs on the Blazer Rally wheels. The Blazer’s highway gears are not cutting it. I’m not sure what direction to go yet, steeper gears or new axles? It has the stock three-speed transmission and transfer case. I drive it around town for fun and have taken it to the beautiful Silver Lake State Park sand dunes here in Michigan. DAN VIA EMAIL STEPHEN’S ’56 WILLYS TRUCK This is our wonderful ’56 Willy’s pickup truck. We purchased this from a ranch in Colorado with a gas can strapped to the hood. Just looking for attention.…

editor@fourwheeler.com Of all mechanisms designed to propel the horseless carriage, the venerable Dana 30 axle has enjoyed one of the longest tenures in the industry. Introduced in the 1960s for medium-duty use, it was the next iteration of the Dana 27 and could be found in the first Ford Broncos (1966) as well as the International Scout 800. The axle made its way into Jeep vehicles in the late 1960s and would be the company’s go-to front drive axle for more than 50 years. Beginning with the AMC Eagle (1980) and later in the Jeep Liberty (2002), it can also be found as an IFS. There are millions of them in service, and as you might guess nearly as many variations. What follows is a look at the Dana 30,…

ROSCO P. DRIVETRAIN REVISIT I have a question about your Rosco P. Drivetrain Tahoe project. What would you do differently if you started over again? Had you considered swapping the Tahoe onto a JK frame and reusing the LS? At that point, other than custom body mounts everything could be off-the-shelf parts. How has it held up on the trails as your family JK/JL cheaper alternative? I know the Tahoe has the same wheelbase as a JK/JL, but with a much more fullsize body, has that been a hindrance on trails? I’m just dreaming and game planning for one day in the future and love the idea of replicating your build. TREVOR VIA FACEBOOK Rosco P. Drivetrain was a project vehicle I built for our sister publication Petersen’s 4-Wheel &…

Clarence Kozuszek’s ’79 International Harvester Scout II was one of about 300 Scouts to be graced with the Midas Edition touches, and by the looks of it not much has changed with this 4x4 since it was featured in Four Wheeler. The Binder crossed our radar recently, prompting a look back to the September 1988 issue of our magazine and a dive into the Scout’s whereabouts. This Scout’s life began at the International Factory in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where it exited the assembly line on February 13, 1979. This Scout then went to the Midas Van Conversion Company where it received somewhat of a royal treatment. The Midas touch meant that the SUV was treated to padding and carpet throughout the interior, swiveling front bucket seats, reclining rear bench seats,…

In the News • Most stolen whips in 2021? The National Insurance Crime Bureau’s Hot Wheels annual theft list found that fullsize pickups ranked highest, with Chevy taking the top-stolen spot, followed by Ford. GMC fullsizes ranked 6th. The Jeep Cherokee and Grand Cherokee landed at No. 9 (and debuted for the first time in the top 10). Vehicle thefts overall were up 8 percent in 2021. • J.D. Power 2022 Tech Experience Index Study is about ’22 model year vehicles and their advanced vehicle tech—and problems using said tech. The fingerprint reader was the biggest problem reported in the study’s history, beating out the previous winning loser, gesture controls, which is not what you think, but probably would have been more successful had it been. • We’ll just set…

Josiah Backus’ first car was a ’90 Honda Integra. That’s not the way a feature story about a superbly designed and built custom four-wheel-drive truck like this ’09 Chevrolet Colorado LT rockcrawler typically begins, but in this case, it makes all the sense in the world. Josiah has always loved making big power out of little engines, and he has honed that craft to a razor-sharp edge over the last dozen or so years. The off-road bug bit Josiah early on, and a handful of off-road trucks powered by Honda engines of one sort or another have led to this most recent creation. When we photographed Josiah’s Colorado in the California desert, the truck was still a work in progress. The Honda K20A2 i-VTEC 2.0L four-cylinder engine had been nestled…

editor@fourwheeler.com We awoke to the cry of coyotes howling in the distance as the sun illuminated the eastern horizon. Rekindling the campfire and pouring a cuppa joe, we thought about our previous afternoon’s debacle deep in the Sierra La Giganta. We had followed a thin red line on the map in an attempt to locate a backway to San Ignacio but our ’02 Toyota Tacoma 4x4 ended up pointed at the dead end of a precipitous arroyo shelf road. Cautiously retreating, our decision to travel solo was on the forefront. But this was Baja Sur, La Frontera, the land of Spanish missions and conquistadors, and what is a south-of-the-border adventure without an occasional infusion of adrenaline? Although most visitors witness the peninsula from 30,000 feet while en route to the…

In 2021, we acquired one of the five CJ-7s from Mark Smith’s 1978-’79 Expedicion de las Americas trek from Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska—a Jeep affectionally referred to as Edla. After surviving 21,000 miles across the Americas and the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama, Edla didn’t see a lot of maintenance love. As we began her conservation project, we realized that with an AMC Model 20 axle out back she was the perfect candidate to highlight this old-school axle that’s ubiquitous with the era. While the AMC 20 has received a bad rap over the years (some for good reason), it is a reasonable choice for Jeeps running a stock powerplant and 33-inch tires. At a lofty 8.875 inches in diameter, the ring gear stands 0.375-inch…

When the ’21 Ram 1500 TRX took top honors in the 2021 Four Wheeler Pickup Truck of the Year competition, it wasn’t a huge surprise. The TRX brought to the table some incredible credentials, including a fire-breathing 702hp 6.2L Hemi V-8, active Bilstein Blackhawk e2 electronic shocks, internal front jounces, 35-inch tires, and over a foot of suspension travel. What was surprising, especially after the year we spent with it, is just how quickly it endeared itself to our team. While it lived up to every ounce of hype off-road, it also proved itself a capable and reliable family hauler, daily driver, and road trip companion. We towed with it, we pre-ran events with it, and we used it for cross-country trips on more than one occasion. Ram says that…