Innehållsförteckning för May 2015 från Four Wheeler

DANAFORD After 60ish years since its development, Dana has finally entered Ford 9-inch market for real with its Spicer third member drop-out housings. The new Spicer third members are available in either nodular iron or premium-grade aluminum. The Spicer third members come with a built-in fill plug, billet adjuster nuts, an anti-stick reusable gasket, and can be had with a carrier bore of either a 3.25 inches for 35/40 spline ’shafts or 3.062 inches for 28/31 spline ’shafts. INFO: Dana, 800/621-8084, danaunleashed.com. LIGHT MIGHT Trail Products has added to its recently launched line of UTV parts its Trail and Rock Series Front Bumper and Rocker Guards for Jeeps. Designed and manufactured in the USA, Trail Products offers top-quality parts at affordable prices. All Trail Series parts are manufactured out of…

editor@fourwheeler.com INSTALLING YOUR FIRST SET OF BEADLOCKS CAN BE A TOTAL GAME CHANGER off-road if you have figured out how to properly manipulate your tire pressure. If you are a careful driver, you can get down to about 12-15 psi in your tires without running a beadlock wheel. Heavier 3⁄4 and 1-ton-rated vehicles might need a bit more air pressure to support the increased weight. However, to truly get the full traction and performance potential from your 4x4, most tires can be aired down to between 1 and 10 psi, depending on vehicle weight, tire size and design, terrain, wheel width, and so on. The only way to be able to successfully utilize these single digit pressures off-road without unseating tire beads regularly is with a set of beadlock wheels.…

editor@fourwheeler.com THE RAMCHARGER WAS A FULLSIZE SUV INTRODUCED BY DODGE AS A ’74 MODEL AND WAS BASED LARGELY on a short-wheelbase Dodge pickup truck chassis. It would see its U.S. existence span two decades until the final ’93 Ramchargers rolled off the assembly line. Ramcharger’s cousin, the Plymouth Trailduster, was also offered but production stopped with the ’81 model. By the mid ’70s, the Chevy Blazer, Ford Bronco, and International Harvester SUVs all had a foothold in the market for those looking for a backcountry camping vehicle or a large 4x4 that was different than a pickup truck. With seating for five or six adults and healthy V-8 power, the Ramcharger offered Mopar fans their own fullsize SUV. 1st Generation (1974-1980) The first Ramchargers were quite similar to the Dodge…

editor@fourwheeler.com EACH MODEL YEAR, PICKUP TRUCK MANUFACTURERS integrate new features onto the trucks they create and every few years manufacturers introduce significantly changed or all-new trucks. This perpetually changing truck landscape means that to keep up requires a lot of research. For those who are in the market for a new truck, it translates to a lot of visits to dealerships to inspect and drive these rigs. Dealerships can be accommodating, but they’re probably not going to let you have each truck for a week so you can pile 900 miles on them in a variety of terrain both on- and off-road. And even if they did, you probably don’t have time for that because you need to work to earn a living. This is where we come in. Each…

christian.hazel@fourwheeler.com SOMETIMES YOU GET LUCKY and stumble into a wheel and tire combo that just clicks for you and your vehicle. The stars shine, stormy seas part, angels sing, and killer traction is yours in every terrain you and your 4x4 frequent. They roll smooth, quiet, and round on the street with no funky treadwear, and they look good to boot. That was the perfect combo we broke up in order to test Mickey Thompson’s new Baja ATZP3 on our ’89 Wrangler. Indeed, it was with more than a little trepidation that we drove our Wrangler to our local Discount Tire store to have our trusty old 31s removed and a quintet of 31x10.50R15LT Mickey Thompson ATZP3s mounted and balanced. However, within the first mile leaving Discount Tire, our fears…

KEN.BRUBAKER@FOURWHEELER.COM We were thumbing through the Apr. ’82 issue of Four Wheeler when we spotted this great road test story about a Ford F-150 Styleside versus Dodge W-150 Utiline. The two trucks were really cool, but what made the test even more fascinating is that each truck was powered by a six-cylinder engine that was bolted to a four-speed manual transmission. The Ford had a 300ci I-6 engine and the Dodge had a 225ci “Slant Six” I-6 engine. The Ford ’plant made 122 hp and 255 lb-ft of torque and the Dodge mill made 95 hp and 170 lb-ft of torque. Yeah, by today’s standards, the power ratings are amusing. The test took place in the Midwest at the farm of a man named Fritz Sundermann. This immigrant farmer had…

THAT’S INTERESTING The winner in the Full Stock class at the 47th Tecate SCORE Baja 1000 was a ’15 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro Series truck. The coach of the winning desert team was the Ironman himself, Ivan Stewart. While we’re talking Toyota, it’s expanding its southeast Michigan R&D facility, making it a total of $126 million going toward expanding Toy’s powertrain/vehicle development in the Michigan area. History made: The first time the military auctioned off surplus Humvees was through govplanet. Com, an online marketplace for buying and selling government assets. Thank the Department of Defense. The 25 available Humvees were going for as much as $41,000. The Tweel lives. It’s an airless radial tire from Michelin. The company has opened a plant in North America to produce the nonpneumatic tire…

Scoring gets thrown out the window here. We asked the judges which vehicle they’d most like to own, and why, based on their own personal wheeling style and preference. Here’s what they chose. Ken Brubaker, Four Wheeler Senior Editor The Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro was a hoot to drive, and it’s the truck I’d like to own out of this group. I dig how well all of the TRD Pro-specific upgrades work together to make the truck capable and fun both on- and off-road. As a bonus, it’s rated at 21-mpg highway, and it’s one of the least expensive trucks in this group. I think the truck is a great value. I really like the truck’s stance, too. Ali Mansour, Jp Technical Editor This is a tough one. All of the trucks…

editor@fourwheeler.com YOU KNOW THAT FEELING YOU get when something really outstanding happens in your life? You know what we’re talking about: things like a past-due promotion, inheriting your grandfather’s cool old truck, or being witness to your newborn child coming into the world? OK, well, we might be overstating this a tad, but that’s kind of the same type of “happy” we get when a manufacturer gives birth to a new mud-terrain tire. Maybe it’s the possibility that these new sneakers will be the end-all, no-compromise answer to our off-road-rubber needs, or maybe it’s that we just don’t care. It’s another mud-terrain option to choose from, and that’s never a bad thing. As a direct result of our magnetized draw to the backcountry, we just happen to be addicted to…

editor@fourwheeler.com IT’S NOT A TIRE BRAND THAT immediately comes to mind, but chances are Atturo will be coming on your radar if you’re looking for good tires at a great price. Lots of people shop for tires by price alone—That’s setting up yourself for failure. You’ve always got to give more weight to your end goal than price because you’ll be living with your choice for at least a couple years, and in most cases, 30,000-60,000 miles, depending on how much tread life you can squeeze out of your tires. When you factor in a $20 or $30 difference in price per tire, it makes more sense to spend a little extra to make sure you’re living with something you can, well, live with. In this case, we had a…