Nothing Special

And keep in mind this is with only one of the BFGs! It was a lot louder with all 4. No. They mounted the tires on the rims yesterday afternoon, but we're getting ready to leave on a vacation (without Pluto) today. So the tires will sit in the garage until we get back. But Pluto isn't quite as "planted" and Oswald is (was?), so I expect a little wandering anyway. "A little" dissonance is fine. It can definitely add to a musical composition. But eventually it needs to be resolved! And in this case the resolution was replacing the tires.

Thanks all! This is an example of what a guy I work with calls an "allzagatta." Allzagatta do is tie the two sides together! About 4 years ago I put a set of ProComp Xtreme MT mud tires on Pluto. They've always been louder than I've wanted on the highway, but otherwise good tires. So I kept running them until I sliced two of the four in Moab this summer. I've had four sets of the original BFG Mud-Terrains (before the "KM" designation) on trucks and my Jeep before. They weren't as quiet as highway tires, but they were very easy to live with. I was hoping that 40+ years of R&D had led BFG to still have a quiet mud tire. And number of people I asked said that the KM3 was the quietest mud tire on the market. So I decided to get a set of four. I quickly realized that they are worse (in my opinion) than the ProComps for noise on my Bronco on the highway. They are probably a little quieter, but they have a two-tone noise that's really annoying (it's a tritone, "the devil's chord," for those of you who know music, or the pitches that a French police siren in a movie has). I made a video trying to capture the relative noise of the four tires I currently have for comparison. I only have one of one of them, so the test was to put three of the likely quietest tires on, and put one test tire on the left front. . The first tire in the test was the BFG KM3. Second was the ProComp Xtreme MTs I've been using for 'wheeling the last 4 years. Third was the Kenda Klever RT that I've had as a full size spare to go with my 33" tires. Last was that I put the fourth highway tire on. Those are Hankook Kinergy PT. I think the video confirms my thought that the ProComp tire is the loudest, but the BFG is only slightly quieter, and with a dissonance that makes it more objectionable. Those two tires are mud tires, so it's not surprising that they would be the two loudest in the test. It's not at all surprising that the Hankook, as a highway tire, is the quietest. So it's also expected that the Kenda, as a all-terrain / mud tire hybrid is between the mud and highway tires. But it was surprising to me that the Kenda was much quieter than the mud tires, almost as quiet as the highway tire. I decided that I can't live with the BFG KM3s. I would have liked to switch to Kenda Klever RTs now, but that tire has been discontinued. I thought about going with a Kenda mud tire, hoping that they were only a little louder than the RTs. But I wasn't sure I wanted to take that risk, and BFG only wanted to give me (most of) my money back if I went with another set of BFGs. So today I got a set of BFG All-Terrain KO2s. I might have preferred the KO3, but that's not available in a 15" tire. I did have one set of KO2s before, on my pickup. I didn't love them there as they were loud for a highway tire and they "tracked" too much on pavement (pulling back and forth). But I think they'll be a good compromise for the off-road tires on my Bronco, and I think they'll be much easier to live with than the KM3s. So far I haven't put the KO2s on Pluto yet, so I don't know anything more. We're heading out on vacation, so I won't get to try them (or be on this board much) for a while. But in early October we're taking Pluto down to Missouri again, so they'll get tested out pretty soon.

I was ducked! I know, it's a Jeep thing (you wouldn't understand). But when I came out from church today these two guys were sitting on Pluto's door handle. Lesley stole them from me since Pluto isn't a Jeep (she drives a Jeep Renegade and was ducked at church earlier this summer). But it's kind of cool being accepted by the Jeepers!

From a manufacturing perspective fasteners that require turning are really expensive to install. I don't know how adhesives compare if they need to be held in place while they cure, but anything that can be pushed straight on/in is much quicker. At my company we really use no threaded fasteners.

Lol, Bradley! I'll give a try... when wife will be away, or she's gonna think I'm completely "nuts". Maybe she already does! I saw a personalized license plate that I wish I had thought of: LASTBIL. It was on a newer Chevy truck. For the few of you that don't speak Swedish that's Swedish for "truck". It fits my ideal criteria for a personalized plate, something that not everyone will get, but something that those who do will enjoy getting!

I don't have a strong feeling, but I lean toward this approach. Personally I don't care if someone joins just to ask on question. It doesn't hurt me at all, and if we can help someone just that little amount, why not? My only concern would be if a lot of "people" got on who were really just phishing. One board I was on a long time ago had to ban several new members each week who were just advertising for male enhancement products. And of course quite a few others that were there for other less obnoxious but no less valid reasons.

Yeah, I doubt seriously I will ever wear out a freshly rebuilt kingpin. It also adds value to the truck over the balljoint....maybe? Maybe. But I'd guess the difference in the truck value would be negligible, unless it was being bought to part out. I could imagine the value difference bordering on significant if you were selling just an axle, because everyone has been told that kingpin axles are best so that's what they should be looking for. Still, overall I think the differences are small enough that if it were me I'd pick whichever axle was easier to use, which is entirely a factor of what condition each is in.

I THINK the trim was low on the body up through '84, but was raised closer to the door handles briefly in '85 and then back low mid-year in '85 (I'm pretty sure about the '85 and later, but less sure about where it was in '84 and earlier). The trim is high in that picture so I'm thinking it's an early '85. I had an early '85, and when I had some bodywork done on it in about '92 those trim pieces already weren't available. The joys of a 1/2 model year part!

Early '85 from the trim line being up high like that, isn't it?

Everybody wants the kingpin Dana 60 because everybody says that's the best. If you're planning on really beating on it like a rock bouncer then I'm sure you want every bit of strength you can get. But people do say that the brakes are a significant advantage to the ball-joint Dana 60. So for most use I think that would be (slightly) the better choice. But bottom line is I don't think either are a bad choice. I'd go with whichever seemed easier. And if I was thinking about selling the one I wasn't using, I might lean toward selling the "holy grail" kingpin axle and using the one with ball joints.

I had 255/85-16s on my '85 F-250 for one set of tires. Couldn't get that size when those wore out so I went to a more common 235/85-16. The 255s are 33" tall and 10" wide compared to 31.7" tall and 9.25" wide for the 235s. Is that difference significant? I decided not, and I.ve run 235/85-16 ever since. I've got the Transforce HT (not sure about the "2") on my Dodge. I really don't care for those tires. I can't speak to tread wear as I don't know how many miles they had on them when I bought the truck. They are quiet and I have no complaints about the ride or handling. But the traction seems to be pretty bad on poor traction surfaces. I don't do any off-roading with this truck, but wet leaves, or wet dirt, or on snow I seem to need 4WD a lot sooner than I would've in my Ford with the Michelins. To be fair, the Dodge has a lot more torque and worse weight distribution with the Cummins diesel up front. But I won't be getting these tires again.

No Sir, won't be in OK until Thanksgiving. I was considering the Discoverers, glad you mentioned they are noisy. I'll look at those Falkens. I've never bought that brand before. I've had lots of BFG ATs, with the last set being KO2s. And that will be the last set (at least for my truck). A lot of people really like them, and maybe you would too. But I never did. The tires "tracked" on the pavement from day 1 until I replaced them. Rather than just go where they were pointed they seemed to try to turn back and forth. And while they weren't loud, they weren't quiet either. There was a relatively low volume whine that just got sort of annoying. Not that you couldn't hear the radio over it, just that you could hear it. I replaced them with a set of Michelin Agilis Cross-Climate. Very definitely not an all-terrain tire, but it does fine on the dirt that I drive on and I'me very happy with them on the road. I don't know anything about the KO3s. Maybe they'd be a lot better. But I'm sticking with more of an all-season tire rather than an all-terrain on my trucks from now on I think.

Today was an interesting day! I took the afternoon off and Lesley and I went to the Minnesota State Fair. For those of you who don't know the Minnesota State Fair, Minnesota and Texas argue about which state has the largest state fair in the nation. Texas has more attendees total, but it also runs more days. Minnesota has more attendees per day than Texas. OK, even as a Minnesotan I guess I need to admit that the Texas State Fair is the biggest, but Minnesota's is #2 (and has more people per day!), and that's something for our fly-over state! The first two days of the Fair this year both broke state attendance records, but now on day 5 we weren't expecting big crowds, because the high temp was heading for 91° with a heat index of 105°. It was HOT today, by almost any standard, and REALLY hot for the second-most northern state in the country (Alaska unarguably takes first place there). When we have temps and heat indexes that high it means there's a lot of energy in the atmosphere, and that means thunderstorms are likely (and possibly tornadoes, but thankfully today wasn't THAT interesting!). As the skies started to darken at about 5:30 we bailed out. By about 7:00 it was pitch black outside (except for the frequent lightning), the wind picked up and we got about 2" of rain over 1/2 hour. Then at 7:30 it started to break up and we got the really odd sunset shown below. Now at 9:30 PM the wind has died down, it's barely sprinkling and the temp is down to 73°. As threatening weather goes I know this was nothing. Other's have had MUCH worse recently, and even by our standards this was really just a short heavy rain. But overall a very interesting day!

I do not have a winch mounted to any of my vehicles. I have the receiver-mount winch that can be used on either end of Pluto or on the front of Oswald. None of my other vehicles have a receiver and an Anderson plug at the same end. And the Dodge doesn't have a front receiver. There is no place to mount a winch to my trailer. It wouldn't be hard to weld a receiver on the front where I could stick my winch. Then I'd also need to get electrical power to it. But with all of this the come-along to the front of the trailer is what worked best, and that's what a winch on the trailer would make better, so it just isn't a priority.

We've often waited until mid-October to close the cabin. The problem this year is that September is too busy, so we won't be up there, and Lesley doesn't want to leave everything for later when it just means we're going to have to run up there the next time we possibly can (mid-October) just to close it. We will probably leave the water in since my sister still wants to use the cabin, and let her close that down. But I'm the only one in our family with a trailer hitch, so I have to put the boat away, so then I might as well take out the dock... And we have had warm Thanksgivings, but we will have a hard freeze before that, and our cabin is not at all equipped to deal with that. I'll definitely have to have a better plan by the time I get to putting a repainted bed back on. But that is at least a few years off, and this bed is destined for the scrap metal dealer, so I'm not too concerned yet. Well, Oswald's all settled down for a long winter's nap. But it was a process! First of all he was parked nose-in in my driveway, and to get reasonable tongue weight I need him pulled on the trailer frontward. But with no steering wheel, no way to run the power steering pump and a 460 sitting on the front tires I wasn't going to be able to do much maneuvering. So I put the trailer behind Oswald, loaded him on backward, pulled him out in the street, unloaded him, got the trailer in front of him and loaded him on frontward. That was all easier said than done (and it wasn't easy to say!). Part of the trouble was moving a non-drivable truck down hill and up onto a trailer. Sometimes I had to be controlling him to keep him from rolling back too fast, and other times I had to be pulling him backward. I did that by having one come-along from the front that I'd pay out and another from the rear to pull with. But that took a long time, so when I needed to pull him up hill to get him down off the trailer I thought of another approach. I hooked Pluto up to Oswald with the tow bar and pulled him off. That worked great! It worked so good that I decided to do the same thing to push Oswald on the trailer frontward. That did not work so well. As the front tires went up the ramps the hitch dropped so low that Pluto was pushing the hitch down instead of forward, and it tried to lift Pluto's front tires off the ground. I ended up tweaking the coupler on the tow bar. Not bad, but it doesn't work as smoothly as it used to. So I just used the come-along, which was fine because it was all uphill. Getting the loaded trailer to the cabin was finally uneventful! Now with a new transmission the Dodge didn't set any codes! Unloading was another uphill / downhill exercise, but without anything in the garage to pull from. So I welded a D-ring to a plate that I bolted down to the floor in the back of the garage. I hooked a snatch block to the D-ring and then I could pull him into the garage! After getting him in the garage I put his rollerskates on again and pushed him against the wall (to leave room for the pontoon boat). Kind of sad to say goodbye again, but nice to have that job done!