With a profussion of off-road trip reports going down here, right now, I'd like to spiel about the wherefores and how comes.
"XTC" (double entendre intended) is my acronym for a hard core, off road, truck camper rig. Actually, Pro Comp uses that term to describe the soft rubber compound 37X14.50R16 XTerrain tires they supply for my Jeep, so it's already been coined.
Who are all these people taking their TC's WAY off road, beyond reason and sanity?
Simple. Mostly jeepers (small j: Broncos, Samis, Blazers, Scouts, tube buggies) who have just applied the gnarly techniques, in a stretch, to
a much larger and heavier rig. They know where they want to go, and HOW to get there.
What attributes do these rigs possess? The same as their jeeps (Broncos, Samis, Blazers, Scouts, ), except larger/heavier/taller/wider/less off-road-able.
The gurus of off-road on here (you know who you are) all, all try to reinforce or replace the weak or vulnerable areas of their rigs. Their off-road technique is a direct transfer from other off-road rigs they've had. They have a vague idea of where the 'edge' is.
1. Clearance. in the boonies, you need clearance to get over rocks and other obstacles. It's a double edge sword though, as the higher you get the TC, the higher your center of gravity becomes, the more tippy you become.
1a. The best approach angle, breakover angle, and departure angle you can muster.
2. Traction. Traction improving devices (limited slips/ lockers/ or a hybrid). Some are much better than others.
3. Low gears. A low first gear, high range is desireable. A wide ratio truck transmission is desireable. I have a 6 speed manual, but an automatic will have a 2x factor on your 'creep' potential. If only you can keep it cool. Basically, heat is what does them in.
4. A dietary outlook. Big heavy campers are a lost cause when things get swinging around, off road. They will sink you, drag on every tree and bush, put extra stress on your transfer case, and maybe leave you stranded. All that weight, width and height get you too close to the edge. The common consensus is to have the lightest, lowest profile camper you can find to accomplish the off-road deed. This leads, in the end, to a pop-up of some kind.
5. Self-recovery devices. The best is to have locking differentials, front and rear. The recovery tool of last resort is the winch. You need a BIG one for a TC. A high lift jack is virtually useless with a TC. A squat 12 ton hydraulic is better. With jack board. I also carry 4 'D' rings (AKA; shackles) a length of chain with some wide gauge hooks, one or two tow straps of the 30K lb variety( one short, one long), a snatch block, and, importantly, a hooking location on your rig, super sturdy, front and rear. Not hooking on to a tie rod, or around the bumper or axle. The hard core guys know that 95% of the time, all your recovery equipment is recovering someone else.
6. Big, off-road tires. This probably makes the most difference of anything when grinding up some two track path.
7. A very secure tie down device(s). Knowing when to loosen or tighten your tie-downs. Experience here is a big help. Raise your hand (Steve) if you kept your tie-downs too tight and pulled the eye bolt out of the mooring.
8. Keep all your heavier goods down low and lighter goods up high. Don't underestimate the value of this for off-road survival.
9. A very good tire repair kit, and some kind of 'air-up' device(s). The best is "Safety Seal" for the tire repair(I've use about 45 of these caterpillar like plugs on rigs over the years. They have brought completely gashed tires back from the dead. How about 17 plugs in a hole in the sidewall, the size of a walnut, and drove it home), and either a high quality, high volume 12V or belt driven air compressor, and/or a 10 or 20 pound CO2 tank and accessories. I use both. I play with the pressure in the TC tires on almost every trip I take. I'm unafraid to take the rig on the beach, up a rocky gulch or to my favorite destination: "Terra Incognita".
So, to sum up the rant, the active off-road TC gurus on here have simply brought their former rig's off-road technique over to the TC end of things. It's a stretch, but we are seeing the fruits of their behavior more and more in these trip reports.
regards, as always, jefe
* This post was
edited 10/10/08 11:37am by jefe 4x4 *
'01.5 Dodge 3/4T, CTD, HO, Qcab, SB, 4x4, 6spd, D60, D80+Pwr Loc,
camper&tow pkg,Titan V, 285/75R-16 frnt, 33/14.5 Nitto super singles rr,
Rancho 9K's, Warn M15K winch. tows Jeep CJ8 rock crawler on 14' trailer
'98 Lance Squire Lite 165s, 8' 6" X Cab
jefe 4x4, good write up on things learned over time for making your rig survive the rugged terrain of beyound the mundane of commom backroads. You are correct in that each rig setup will have its own limitation and each owner (hopefully) will have the common sense not to push that rig to the breaking point (stuff does happen).
jefe 4x4, the run thru Titus Canyon narrows was a lot of fun.
* This post was
edited 10/10/08 12:31pm by c.traveler2 *
one of the first problems areas was where the leading edge of the TC was impacting the front (top) of the truck bed. Unless you use some sort of spacers, the TC's bumpstops are typ not designed to handle the increased forces when boonie-bashing. This leads to the TC denting the truck's bed and potentially some damage to the TC itself.
I noticed this both at the front of the bed and the rear inside corners near where the tailgate latches.
To remedy, i extended the TC's bumpstops (or one could just use a 2x6 along the frt of the bed), custom broke a 12 guage bed cap liner and used VHB tape to affix a 1"x1.5" EPDM rubber bumper the full length of the stainless cap.
In addition, the guage of steel in Ford's bed is not thick enough and the TC bumpstops can dent the front of the bed (unless one uses the 2x6 lumber). My solution was to custom cut an aluminum 3/16" plate that covers the entire inside front of the truck bed (below the stainless cap) and used stainless carriage bolts to affix.
2 strips of "slick tape" on the aluminum plate help the bumpstops slide when loading/unloading.
the aluminum plate has 2 large nutserts to which a 3' long 3"x1" aluminum angle quick attaches. These run from the frt of the bed to the wheel wells inside the truck bed and are squared out w/ high density polyethylene angled at the top. These are my camper guides and mitigate any side to side movement of the TC (as well as help loading).
also, 2 sheets of 1.5" extruded polystryene velcroed to the bottom of the camper w/ the sides angled in and the edge of the TC clad in custom stainless corner protection (where it interfaces w/ the camper guides).
so when considering boonie-bashing your rig, remember to pay particular attention to the surfaces that mate a very heavy TC to your truck because there is potential for damage as the 2 move in different ways.
* This post was
edited 10/10/08 11:09am by saltamontes *
I would be curious as to how or IF people have been determining their 'tipping point' with a TC on? Doug Hackney had the nice write-up on how he did it (I think there might be a pointer to it in the TCUniversity thread?) and I have to figure that would be a very good excercise to go through. Fairly easy to do with an off-road 4x4 (or by getting the feel for it by actually tipping it over on a trail....can't beat real world....) but a much more involved thing with a large hardsided TC.
Very good, savvy, and comprehensive "rant" Jefe. And from my perspective, you are right on.
My wife and I started out with backpacking to remote areas in California and the western states in our younger days. This later gravitated into wanting a vehicle to get further into rough areas and remote trailheads to go on hikes and backpacking. Getting into 4WD vehicles (we started with a new 1975 Scout II), opened up a whole new set of backcountry opportunities (especially in the west, between the mountains & deserts). On our first big trip to Utah in 1976, I broke all of the spring clamps on both rear leaf spring packs, shredded-up a new set of oversized Armstrong Tru-Trac tires (due to no suspension lift and a lack of body/wheel well clearance), screwed-up the steering, and a number of other issues. Well, that obviously wouldn't do, so before you knew it, I was on the never-ending path to significant mods to make our Scout more off-road worthy and capable. Back in those days, such mods were largely DIY and/or custom (not a lot of aftermarket kits & parts then, especially for a Scout). On each major trip we subsequently took, we broke other parts and reacted by addressing each area to get it beefed-up and more bullet-proof.
While I have never been a hot dog type of an off-road driver, we nevertheless did a lot of rough stuff in our Scout and we busted it up a number of times, once even completely disabling it in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, where we had to backpack a part out of the park, get it welded in Moab, backpack it back in, install it, and get back out. I have taken out two rims and two tires at the same time in the past, had to beat the rims back in shape and patch the tires to limp out of an off-road area (which will lead you to getting a Safety Seal tire plugging kit, inner tubes, and tire irons). I could go on (in fact, I could probably write a book on our off-road adventures, mishaps and jury-rigged solutions), but the point is that we learned a LOT the hard way as to what works off-road, what doesn't, and what you have to do to get your rig to a point where you can count on it making through in more or less one piece. By the time we were done with that Scout, it was almost a tank (with a blue-printed IHC 345 cid V8 engine to boot). We later got a Jeep XJ (heavily modifying that), followed by a Jeep ZJ (some mods), and then our current Jeep TJ (very heavily modded).
As we got older, the prospect of continuing to sleep on the ground or in tents got to be a bit old as well, but we were not prepared to stop our remote camping and remote off-roading. So, although we had never been the RV'ing type, we tried to come up with something that would fit the bill for us. This is what led us to consider a truck and TC. But it couldn't be just any truck or especially any TC. As you indicated, we used all of our off-roading experience with smaller 4x4 vehicles and applied that to our decision making process. We first considered an Earthroamer, but the cost was way out of our budget and we also felt the camper portion was too large for where we wanted to go. So, after a lot of further research and getting some great input from others more experienced than us with TC's, we decided that the way to go was a pop-up camper and a full-sized pickup with plenty of overkill power and load carrying capacity. Long story short, we ended up with an Outfitter Apex 8 and a Dodge 3500 4x4 CTD (with a brief miscue of first going with a Dodge Power Wagon gasser).
This led to a bunch of mods to our truck as well as the camper ... again, with the aim to make this a winning combination for relatively rough off-road use. The goal was to be able to go on perhaps 75% to 80% of the same 4x4 roads and trails that we have done over the last 35 years in our smaller 4x4 vehicles, to do so with a minimum of damage and/or pucker factor ... all while having our camper with us. And based on what we have been doing and where we have been going with our rig to date, I would like to say with hopefully a minimum of any bragging that I think we have essentially accomplished our goal (although this will continue to be an on-going and evolutionary process, just as it was with our smaller modified 4x4 vehicles).
The above is intended to reinforce your contention that approaching and putting together an "extreme" off-road truck/TC rig is in fact largely rooted in applying the knowledge, experience, techniques, and modifications gained from smaller 4x4 rigs, which I completely relate to. I am not saying that someone else could not approach this from the RV side alone, but I would submit that without the benefit of past experience dealing with off-road terrain & trails along with driving/repairing/modifying their smaller 4x4 vehicles, that the learning curve associated with a much larger and heavier full-sized truck and camper rig could be rather ugly, expensive, or worse.
In the final analysis, anyone can do what they want, go where they want to go, and to attempt to do so in whatever rig or ride they have. However, how successful they are in the effort could vary greatly. For example, when I have answered some folks on the forum as to whether they can make it up a given 4x4 trail with their dually hard-sided camper or not, I sometimes get the feeling that there are those who take some form of umbrage in my responses that maybe it wouldn't be a good thing to do. It's not that I am trying to set myself up as some "expert" on extreme TC off-road driving, as I make no such claim (as I am frankly still on my own learning curve with my current rig in terms of truly defining the outer edges of its off-road performance envelope). However, if the folks who might be asking such questions appear to have little or no prior experience in challenging 4x4 driving, or have rigs that are very large, heavy, and long (and may not be set-up in any way for real off-road travel), then I can't help but feel that I would be doing a disservice in just saying in some cavalier manner, "sure, go for it dude!". When I provide some caution along these lines, it is based on my having done the route, backed-up by paying a lot of hard earned dues learning over the years on just how easily one can find themselves in a real pickle from either getting stuck, damaging, or even disabling their rig. That said, I also believe that determination and luck enter the picture, and if someone really wants to get somewhere bad enough, they might just be able to make it on that alone (although again, it's just not my style to recommend that approach, as I believe it will likely fail you at some point when your luck inevitably runs out). The other thing I want to mention without getting too dramatic is that some of these 4x4 trails in Utah and especially Colorado have some sections that are frankly bad a$$ and can qualify for being in the realm of "the quick and the dead". It is no exaggeration to say that there have been a number of past occurrences when people have let their attention stray, perhaps picked the wrong line or didn't make a good choice on tire placement and ended up going off an overhang or a cliff to injury or even to their demise ... and this was in smaller, lighter, shorter and more maneuverable 4x4 vehicles. The potential for exacerbating such issues with a much larger full-sized truck with the weight of a camper on board (adversely affecting vertical COG as you pointed out), only makes it all the more dicey in some places and circumstances.
Anyway, sorry for my long rant Jeffe ... and while I am probably preaching to the choir, I just wanted others to know where I am coming from. By the way, I do like your "XTC" acronym.
btggraphix wrote: I would be curious as to how or IF people have been determining their 'tipping point' with a TC on? Doug Hackney had the nice write-up on how he did it (I think there might be a pointer to it in the TCUniversity thread?) and I have to figure that would be a very good excercise to go through. Fairly easy to do with an off-road 4x4 (or by getting the feel for it by actually tipping it over on a trail....can't beat real world....) but a much more involved thing with a large hardsided TC.
Anyone do it?
Brian,
This has been an age-old issue for discussion in the small 4x4 vehicle arena. And while it may be an interesting exercise to quantifiably determine side-to-side tipping points for a given off-road vehicle, I question the value of this information in the practical world.
Here's my perspective on this. As I mentioned above, my first for-real 4x4 vehicle was a 1975 Scout II. I initially did the same thing a number of other 4-wheelers did at that time ... I went out and dutifully purchased a "Lev-O-Guage" and carefully installed it above my rear view mirror on the upper section of the metal framework of my windshield. In this position, it was very readable for both the driver and passenger. Now here's what I experienced in actual practice. When in extreme off-camber situations where the pucker factor and white knuckle quotient was off the scale, guess what was the last thing you were focusing on? You guessed it ... the Lev-O-Gauge and its reading by way of the bubble versus the degree marks. In these cases, the driver is exclusively focused on eyeing the 4x4 trail and steering/controlling the vehicle, while the passenger (aka DW) is holding on for dear life. The point here is let's say that you empirically determined that 50 degrees was the side-to-side tipping point for your vehicle. When in a real-world off-camber situation, who is watching the Lev-O-Gauge (or similar device) for the bubble to reach or approach that 50 degree mark? Again, no one.
Because of this, I have typically just used a seat-of-the-pants method. When the 4x4 vehicle starts "getting light" on the high side and teetering on something of a balance point, you have essentially reached or are pretty darn close to reaching that magical tipping point and are taking a chance of a flop.
Now, if there was a more sophisticated type of Lev-O-Gauge unit where the bubble (or equivalent reference point) could be audibly alarmed on a go-no-more basis just below the empirically determined tipping point ... well, that might just be user-friendly enough to be useful (sort of a "PULL UP, PULL UP, PULL UP" kind of aviation alarm ... or I guess in this case, "TIP OVER, TIP OVER, TIP OVER"). But short of that, I just don't see the practical use for spending a lot of time trying to determine the tipping point, because I submit no one is going to be paying sufficient attention to that information or using it in a real time manner for it to be useful.
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