Nothing Special home ('wheeling) movies

Gary Lewis wrote

Man, in the first video it is wild how RED the mud is.  Like being in western Okiehoma.  And yes, I can tell how steep it is from the tires.  STEEP!  "Wrong gear."  You need a front locker!  Or a winch!  But, you made it.  "Ok.  Glad I'm off that trail."  

This park in northern Minnesota is in a part of the state called the Iron Range, and it has that name for a reason.  There's been a lot of iron ore mined there.  So our red mud is wet iron dust.  In other words, rust.

And I do have both a front locker and a winch now!

Gary Lewis wrote

Part 2 starts out looking at BIG rocks.  And "Its narrow in here" was very true!  But that Bronco just motored on through, around the corners and over the rocks, slowly but very surely.  I think I'd have taken the road 'cause Big Blue would not have fit through or over any of that.

Part 3 is ditto, save for the "OH!" at 3:00.  And yes, the camera got that.  But the Bronco didn't seem to care - right on over.  And Kirby seemed cool with everything - except when she saw "her person".  As for challenging, man some of those places looked impossible, and you went right on through, slowly.  "Nice bouquet of oopsy daisies."

Lesley gets a little spooked at times.  Go back and look at the 2006 trip to the Iron Range and hear her response when her 10 year old son started driving up the bank!  Dad (in the passenger's seat) was a little calmer.  I just grabbed the wheel and spun it out of his hands!  But she comes with me and mostly lets me play (although it's always a bit of work to get her into the right frame of mind at the start of each trip!).  Another way I know I've got a keeper!

And I also liked Mike's commentary on his younger brother's driving (although Dan was a LOT better here at age 19 than he had been 9 years earlier!).  I know I've watched this video several times since 2015, but neither Lesley or I remembered that line when I heard it while editing that video!

Gary Lewis wrote

Part 4 starts with what looks really hard, both steep and rocky, and gets harder!  At 5:20 and after looks to be a commercial for why the OX locker was needed.  At 8:10 there are some wild angles. At 8:30ish "You did it again."  But what?  Anyway, over it you went on the next try.  Well done!  

All in all, I am blown away with how you can get that Bronco seemingly anywhere.  It goes so much better than the Jeep there is no comparison.  Oh wait!  There IS a comparison.  Let me go watch it.

Actually I don't think a front locker would've made much of a difference on a lot of that.  For instance, at 5:40 when Dan is rocking the Bronco I'd stuck the rear diff on a rock so both rear tires were just kissing the ground.  A front locker would've helped a little there, but not hitting the diff on a rock would've helped a lot more!  Wait until I get the 2017 trip to the Black Hills loaded.  You'll really see a commercial for a front locker there!

I didn't hear a "you did it again" at 8:30 in part 4, or see anything I took a second try at.  Am I missing something?

As to driving the Bronco anywhere, yes the drivers and vehicle are getting better and we can do a lot.  But as amazed as you might be at what we do, I'm amazed at what others do that I can't touch.  And there are people who would look at what you do with Big Blue and say the same thing.  That's the beauty (and the dangerous lure!) of 'wheeling.  You can have fun at whatever level you're at, and there's always another challenge to try (or try to avoid!).

You have a KEEPER!  The fact that she goes at all is amazing, but to have fun and even suggest the harder way is wonderful.  

On the red mud, I didn't realize there were other parts of the country that have it.  But down around OKC the dirt is RED.  And there's one pond near the turnpike that looks just like the mud you were running through.  

I'll have to go back and find "You did it again."  I know it is in there, but I must have gotten the wrong time.  I open two tabs and work on my response in one and watch the video in the other.  Hmmm, in the shop I could watch on one monitor and respond on the other.  Or do both on the big monitor, side by side.

As for others doing even more difficult things, I'm sure that's true.  But what you and your family have done with the Jeep, and moreso the Bronco, is amazing to me.  The Bronco seems to be just the right size to take all four of you, and the dog, and yet get through some really tight places.  And the ground clearance and articulation are excellent.  But the biggest change, as you've said, was to change the crawl ratio.  All together it just works.  But a winch and front locker would still help.  

And I'm sure there are people who are amazed and what Big Blue has done.  It isn't in the same league as your Bronco, but still can go a lot of places.  However it was built for a different purpose, like the trails in Colorado and, hopefully, overlanding on the north rim of the Grand Canyon where the fire roads aren't that hard but you have to bring your living accommodations with you.  My son gets here in two days and it'll be his first chance to see BB in his current guise.  I know he's interested, but I just need him to get the time off so we can do it.

Comparing the Jeep and the Bronco, other than the crawl ratio (and now the front locker and winch) the Jeep was a better trail vehicle than the Bronco.  Its smaller size helps, it has more compliant front suspension, the engine lugged down better and the visibility was MUCH better (although the Bronco's Autolite/Motorcraft carb is better off road than the Jeeps Holley).  If I had kept the Jeep and given it the Atlas transfer case, front locker and winch that I eventually gave the Bronco I'm sure it would be a more capable vehicle than the Bronco is.

And yes, that is saying something, because the Bronco is very capable (and the low gearing was the biggest step).

But on the Bronco's side, as you say, the size is much better for a family of four (the reason I switched).  It also rides much better on the highway, it's a lot quieter on the highway (4.10 axles and an overdrive trans vs. 4.27 axles and no overdrive are a big part of that) and it gets quite a bit better mileage (again, gearing likely a factor).  And, as you also said, it's still pretty darn good on the trails!

Overall if I could have either the Jeep or the Bronco, set up like the Bronco is now, I'd take the Bronco.  It's just so much nicer when I'm not on the trail, and still very good on the trail.  Plus the "cool factor" of an early Bronco I think is higher than that of a CJ-5.

Still, I'd really like to add a flat-fender Jeep to the stable!

In 2017 we headed back to Gilbert in northern Minnesota.  This was a short quick trip, mostly to test out our new-to-us motorhome on a weekend that ended up being good for motorhome testing (cold and rainy).  The weather cooperated enough for the 'wheeling, but we didn't get a lot of video, so I threw in a few still pics.

This trip was just Lesley, my younger son and I (we did bring both dogs, but left them in the motorhome while we were 'wheeling).  Dan and I keep working better together so we keep increasing the amount of trouble we can get in!  

I had added a winch since the last trip.  It's a Warn 8000 lb with a wire rope.  It's on a receiver mount so I can use it at either end, or take it off completely when I'm at home.  I ended up getting an opportunity to try it out on day 2.

Here on day 1 we were playing at the Iron Range OHV Area again.



On day 2 we tried out a new trail nearby, the Mesabi Mountain Trail.  At least at that time it was an out-and-back trail.  I've heard they've added on to it since then, but I don't know if it's just longer or if it goes through or anything.  In 2017 there were plenty of obstacles for us, some beyond our comfort level (and probably abilities).  But there was always a bypass we could make, so we did get all the way to the end.

The one opportunity to use the winch was more an opportunity than a necessity.  I was a little hung up on a ledge, and I had slid to the left a bit, so if I backed straight up I'd be backing off the trail.  I'd like to think I could have driven out of there with some effort, but having the new winch to try out made it simple.

And VERY little video from this day, but here's what I've got.



Thanks for reading and watching!

Day 1 looks like it was fun.  More of the same kind of thing, but in many cases the rocks seem bigger than before.  Fewer of them, but bigger.

That bang at 30 seconds on Day 2 got my attention.  Was that why you were under the Bronco in a shot at the end?  

Anyway, you got to use the winch.  Made it easy, right?  Thinking back to where you were off the trail and having to jack it up and have it fall toward the trail, I'll bet you'd have liked to have had the winch then.  I know that having the winch on Engineer Mountain made all the difference for us.

I don't know for sure what that clunk was.  Tapping the rear diff on a rock might be a likely bet.  At any rate it didn't cause any damage that I ever found out about.  The picture of me under the Bronco was just putting the rear driveshaft back in after flat-towing it up there.

As to using the winch instead of the jack and come-along a long time ago in the Black Hills, I'm not sure it would've gone much better with a winch.  The first issue was that we needed to get the rear axle up and over that stump.  Just using a winch might have moved the Jeep forward, but it might have left the axle on the other side of the stump!  It certainly would've been quicker and easier to rig the winch than the come-along, but I'd have still needed to do the jacking.

Then when I was trying to tip the Jeep off the jack to move it sideways, a winch would've helped then if it could've been rigged to pull from the side.  But that would likely have required at least a couple of snatch blocks, and so far at least I don't have any.  Without snatch blocks I think I'd still do it the way I did back then.

On the other hand, that mud hole a few years back???  I'd have loved to have a winch then!

I forgot you didn't have the rock sliders on then.  And I was assuming you have snatch blocks so you could come in from the side.  But w/o those things the winch wouldn't have helped - much.  Just some.

And yes, in the mud it would have been a huge help.  

A couple months after that trip we went back out to the Black Hills.  This was our fifth "last family vacation," and so far at least it really was the last.  Lesley and both boys were on this trip, but it's the last 'wheeling trip either of my sons have been on.  Hopefully we'll change that sometime.  It was also our last trip to the Black Hills, at least to date.  I expect we'll go back there again though.

For some reason we didn't get any video until the last day of this trip, but this day was pretty good.  This might be some of the most serious rock crawling that I have on video.  Not saying it's extreme by YouTube standards, but it's pretty good, at least for me and my vehicle.  And while my and my vehicle's abilities have been improving, I haven't had the opportunity for this since.  Ouray just doesn't have much of this type of rock crawling.  Spring Creek Trail would've exceeded this, but I didn't feel up to it on my own so I ended up skipping the "best" rock crawling there.  And while some of the 'wheeling in Moab is simply incredible, it's not this type of rock crawling either.

This is the good commercial for the need for a front locker that I had promised.  Much of the video shows us struggling to get over things that would be a lot easier if I could just make that right front tire keep turning!

At 3:55 there's also a commercial for rock rails.  It doesn't show real well in the video, but that's where I did probably the worst body damage I've done 'wheeling so far.  I have added rock rails since then, and in doing that I cut off all of the damage I did here, so it's all good now!

And one other thing to note, I had torn a motor mount earlier in this trip.  I didn't realize that until I got home and started looking things over.  But by this point I had certainly noticed that I had torn the exhaust open.  Turned out that the engine moving had pulled the pipe off the manifold, so it sounds a little rougher than normal (and that's putting it charitably).



And that might about be it for this thread.  I think I have separate trip reports for the trips I've taken since this one, so I think I'll go back to those threads to add video rather than posting the video here.

Thanks for reading and watching!

It’s amazing watching these. I don’t think the video gives you a true idea of how hard it is to maneuver through these trails. Or how steep it is.

I’m impressed that that was the most body damage you had done. You’re right doesn’t look that bad in the video.

I imagine a lot of people watch these type of videos and go out thinking the trails are easy.

Steep never shows well in pictures or video.  That's too bad, because frequently steep is what]amps up the excitement /fear level when you're there.

Whether I've careful or just lucky, I've really done very little damage to my vehicles through all of this.  I've crunched both rockers on the Bronco (but have cut that out and replaced it with rock rails) and crunched both rear corners on the Bronco a bit (but not enough to worry about it).  I've also added some "pinstriping" to the paint of both the Jeep and Bronco, but I don't know if that counts as damage.

Otherwise I've torn a couple motor mounts with the accompanying exhaust system damage, bent the front bumper on the Bronco, crushed a hub cap (on the nice Alcoa wheels I have on the Bronco, that one hurt me the most) and have some rock rash on the rims of those nice wheels.  That's really about all I can think of.

And it is tricky looking at video of other people doing a trail and figuring out if you'll be able to.  It's still a really valuable scouting tool, but if their rig flexes a little more, or if they have a better spotter, or if you just aren't reading the steepness accurately you can find yourself in over your head when you were expecting just a fun challenge.  That's why I keep telling people (like Gary!) that the important thing isn't to make it through, it's to make it back and have fun doing it.  Nothing wrong in getting to something that's beyond your capabilities and turning back.  Just never go past something that you can't go back over if you decide you do need to turn around.

And I think I am being careful.  Yes, I push my limits some on most trips, that's part of what makes it fun.  But I try not to push too much.  Leave something to accomplish on the next trip!  And that's especially important since I'm usually not with any other vehicles.  Most of the trails I'm on aren't deserted, so someone would come along eventually who might be able to help me out.  But no one wants to count on that.  So I 'wheel keeping in mind that I need to get back out and then flat-tow the Bronco home.

Nothing Special wrote

....  And that might about be it for this thread.  I think I have separate trip reports for the trips I've taken since this one, so I think I'll go back to those threads to add video rather than posting the video here....

I guess I spoke too soon.  I thought I had a thread on my trip to SMORR in 2020, but turns out I just had included in in my Bronco thread.  You can look that up here if you want, and I will edit the videos in there.  But I'll post them here as well.

To refresh memories, on this trip I was invited to go to the Southern Missouri Off Road Ranch to meet up with a group of guys I know from another board.  This board is dedicated to old flat-fender Jeeps from the '40s, so out of the 12 vehicles in the group, only 2 were newer than my 49 year old Bronco!

I drove the Bronco 600 miles down to Missouri (with just my dog, Kenzie), 'wheeled 2 days and then drove home.  Definitely a memorable trip!

Here's some video of my Bronco on the trails.



And if you've been thinking that I can drive my Bronco just about anywhere, these next two videos are places I wouldn't even try!  Here's some video from a ride we were given in one of the Jeeps:



And here's three of the Jeeps on a hil climb (the third Jeep in this video is the one we rode in above):



Thanks for reading and watching!

On the first video, things got a bit tippy a couple of times!  I hadn't expected that in MO, but as I think about it we have plenty of really steep stuff in OK at Disney.  So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised.

At 10:40 where you said "I think we'll call it at that", did you winch out?  That seemed like a pretty tough climb and you were starting to go sideways.

Part 2 is insane!  I can't believe they can make it up those places.  I'm not sure the RZR's we took to Disney would have done that.  How's that for going for it?!?!  Ouch!  He hit hard.  I'm glad he has that arrow showing which side is supposed to be up 'cause I don't think he knows!  

Part 3, why did he say to unlock the rear?  To be able to turn tighter?  I laughed at "How's it look?  Not good."  Man, that was scary.  But it is hard to believe what they can do with them.

I thought I might want to go to that park, but I sure don't want any part of those trails.  

Gary Lewis wrote

On the first video, things got a bit tippy a couple of times!  I hadn't expected that in MO, but as I think about it we have plenty of really steep stuff in OK at Disney.  So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised.

At 10:40 where you said "I think we'll call it at that", did you winch out?  That seemed like a pretty tough climb and you were starting to go sideways.

Blueberry, the blue Jeep that goes up the hill first in part 3, had just gone up ahead of me.  We hooked a strap between the vehicles and I made it up easily with a bit of a tug.

The Jeep that was behind me (not shown in any of these videos) was about the same capabilities as my Bronco.  He made it up this on his own, but it took a pretty good "bump".  I'm pretty sure I could've done the same but I didn't want to risk the sheetmetal damage that rock wall on the left could cause, or breaking something that might mean I couldn't drive it home 600 miles that afternoon.  So taking the strap was an easy, safe call.

Gary Lewis wrote

Part 2 is insane!  I can't believe they can make it up those places.  I'm not sure the RZR's we took to Disney would have done that.  How's that for going for it?!?!  Ouch!  He hit hard.  I'm glad he has that arrow showing which side is supposed to be up 'cause I don't think he knows!  

Jeff, the driver of the Jeep in part 2, has one hobby: building and 'wheeling Bam Bam.  He's been doing it for quite a while, he's really good at it (both the 'wheeling and the building), and he doesn't mind rebuilding things if it turns out he took a little too much risk.  I'm envious of his skills, and I would never "throw shade" on his technique.  But given who I am and what I want to do, I don't think I'm going to try to copy him.

I've been following Jeff on YouTube for quite a while, and have been in a number of conversations with him on a bulletin board (he was one of the guys who helped me plan my first trip to Moab).  It was great to meet him and to ride in Bam Bam (but I think I enjoyed the ride a lot more than Kenzie did!).

Gary Lewis wrote

Part 3, why did he say to unlock the rear?  To be able to turn tighter?  I laughed at "How's it look?  Not good."  Man, that was scary.  But it is hard to believe what they can do with them.

I'm not sure where someone said to unlock the rear, but I'm guessing it was Brian (the driver of Blueberry, the first Jeep in this video) talking to Dale who was driving Olive Oyl, the second Jeep.  Both Blueberry and Olive Oyl have selectable lockers in both axles (Bam Bam was running an automatic locker in the rear, selectable in the front).  And yes, a locked rear selectable will significantly hurt turning ability.

And Brian, who was spotting for both Dale and Jeff, is simply a phenomenal spotter.  You can see that a number of times here as he suggests something and a previously stuck vehicle goes up easily.  Jeff has said a number of times that Brian is better at driving Bam Bam than he (Jeff) is, and Brian's never even been in Bam Bam!  I know Brian helped me a number of times on this trip.

But yes, I also laughed when I heard Brian ask Jeff how it felt, Jeff asked how it looked and Brian said "not good!"

Gary Lewis wrote

I thought I might want to go to that park, but I sure don't want any part of those trails.  

I said this when I posted about this trip in my Bronco thread, but this park has trails with ratings from 1 to 6.  We were mostly on 3 and 4 rated trails, but the "big dogs" would occasionally take on a 5.  Pretty much all of the video is from the stuff that looked the best, so the 4s (if it included my Bronco) and 5s (parts 2 and 3 here were all 5s).  If you were to go there and focus on the 1s, 2s and 3s I'm sure you could find stuff you could handle.  And the 4s and 5s will be there when you're ready!

Gary Lewis wrote

....  Part 4 starts with what looks really hard, both steep and rocky, and gets harder!.... At 8:30ish "You did it again."  But what?  Anyway, over it you went on the next try.  Well done!  ....

I found it.  That clip starts at 10:00 in the 2015 Iron Range 2015 video.  I'm not sure why Lesley said "you did it again" right then, because I don't know when I had done it before.  I mean, I know I've done it a lot before, but I don't know which time was significant.

Anyway, what "it" was was hit a rock with the front diff.  You can see the back end of the Bronco swing around right as it came to a stop.  I'm learning (through "spotting" on YouTube videos) that when forward motion suddenly stops and one end swings around it's often that they hit the diff at the opposite end.

To keep the searching to a minimum, here's the video Gary was asking about.  Just after 10:00 you can see what happens.  And as you look at it, try to see what point the Bronco is pivoting on.  It looks like it's the front diff.

Another example of it is just after 13:30 in the SMORR part 1 video.  It's even more obvious here (if you know what to look for).  As the Bronco stops the front end moves to the left, the right rear tire moves forward and the left rear moves backward.   The Bronco is pivoting around the rear diff which had just hit a rock.

When this last one happened, and the first time I watched the video, I was amazed at how quickly Brian knew what had happened and what I needed to do to fix it.  You hear him immediately say "rear diff, ... scoot this way about a foot and a half."  I said above that Brian is a fabulous spotter.  But watching this more I can see why it was obvious to him.  That's the kind of thing I'm trying to learn as I watch my own, but especially others videos.

I thought I'd provide some closure to this thread.  I don't intend to post to it anymore, as I add videos they'll probably be from trips that I'll have trip reports on, so I'll post the videos there.  But for anyone coming upon this thread in the future, here's a link to my YouTube channel if you want to see if there are any more videos.

Good thread.  I appreciate it as it has helped me learn.  Maybe it isn't "Bullnose", but it sure has helped me use my Bullnose.

Gary Lewis wrote

....  Maybe it isn't "Bullnose", ....

Well, my '71 Bronco and my '97 F-250 average out at '84!


And I'm glad you've enjoyed it!