Cheap Jeep IV - Extreme Rock Racing!

Today on Xtreme 4x4, it was Ian and Jesse's build on a budget this time, the cheap Jeep is back for stiffer suspension

and some trick bolt ons plus the most extreme off roading you'll ever see. Hang on for no rules. No fear. Rock racing.

Hey, everybody, welcome to Xtreme 4x4 where today we're going to dive back into one of our most popular projects probably because we didn't drop a whole lot of cash into it. That project is obviously the good old cheap Jeep. Now, this 82 CJ seven started out mostly stock.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with this Jeep, which was mostly stock until we got arms

on it.

But this show is called

so stock or even near stock just won't

for more ground clearance. We did a spring over a

on both front and rear. We also use tele

revolver shackles to get more articulation.

And then we put on an extreme Jeep high clearance steering kit to keep everything above those leave springs.

And of course, we use and Edelbrock extreme travel shocks for improved dampening when we take it over the rocks.

Some rock stomper, bead locks welded on to pro comp steel wheels and then wrapped them in 35 inch interco boggs and we loaded the whole jeep up and hit the trail and that's where a couple of issues started to show up.

The first was obviously the clutch.

The linkage broke

the engine kept stalling and all in all it was just a pain to drive.

So we pulled the standard out of the truck and rebuilt a used torque command 999 with the TCI rebuild kit and a new torque converter.

Plus, we stripped down the Dana 300

rebuilt it using a pile of parts from JB conversions including their signature low

max 4 to 1 gear set.

So today we're gonna get her done.

I said get her done.

I

can't say

that.

So today we're going to finish up.

Now, most cheap lovers know the name hand and enterprises when it comes to bumpers and rockers and carriers. So we went with their new narrow Rubicon series with the pre runner bar on it.

This bad

boy is made of 316 Hot World steel,

got its own patent and design

and it's formatted to fit most popular when styles at a lower height than most bumpers out there for better air flow to the radiator

on the rear. We're also installing a Hanson bumper with similar construction to the front with 3/16 plate. It bolts into the stock location with these stiffening pads for extra support and it has these heavy duty crevices in the back for helping with their towing

the carrier and rack system simply mount to the spindle.

Yeah,

this carrier also has the ability to hold any size of spare tire that you want.

So we went out and got another 35 inch

Boer and the steel will once we, we

on the be locks that's going right on the carrier, plus

it can hold a bunch of cool tools like this max. A

not only do you get an ax but you get all the other fun to like pick and shovels and hoes.

And

now the carrier itself truly is a carry. All it's got provisions to hold the ax in the back. It's got a spot for a high left jack and these little platforms could hold jerry cans or gear bags or whatever you need

to match. The rest of our Jeep will use. Do it yourself, be locks by welding a ring to the outside of the steel wheel.

Well, Jessi tries to put the tire on,

I'll press the studs into the flange

then mounted to the raft.

Yeah,

that's all you get

doesn't help.

Yeah,

please.

You can get upset just like that.

Work your way around.

If he gets it.

There you go.

Put the ring on

and the best part about this rack is that it comes complete

with a bottle of dinner root beer.

We'll be right back.

Yeah,

up next, it's a mix of Baha and boulders where all cones are tossed out along with the rules.

Full throttle. Extreme rock racing after the break.

Welcome back to Xtreme 4x4. It's time for us to take you off road where we all tend to break what we build and have a blast doing it. And this week's event is possibly the most extreme yet where the element of danger comes only second to the adrenaline rush

gathering in the shadow of Colorado's largest auto graveyard. These pioneers are competing in off roads. Newest sport, extreme rock racing.

It's pretty extreme.

It's like nothing you've ever seen.

Rock racing is trail running. It is not cone dodging. It is actually wheeling again.

You pick your own lines, but you're doing it at speed.

It's the skill of rock crawling

with the action of Baha.

It's not 10 minutes to get around one cone. You know, it's go, go, go. You either make it break it or roll set up with the ever growing rule book and competition. Rock crawling. The founder of the XRR A had a solution. There are no rules in rock racing

and that's just fine with these rock crawling anarchists. I hate rules.

We don't like guns and we like speed. That's what we like around here. It's a brutal, brutal sport,

no cones, no penalty for backup, no penalty for stops.

This ain't no sissy rock crawling

making four runs through the quarter mile loop track. They're in a constant showdown against the clock. It's all on the stopwatch. Once your time starts and you don't finish until you're done. And

at

the end of the day you add all your times up. That's your time. I don't miss the rock crawling competitions. It's too slow for me.

This isn't a rock crawl. This is rock racing. This sport has broken the chains of oppression and set the driver's dream. It's pretty much wide open throttle.

We're really motoring,

hitting the rev limiter at 7500 RPM, going just as fast as we can go in some of the straightaways. We'll hit

3035 sometimes 40 miles an hour for 10 years. They told me, hey, you drive with too heavy a foot. You need to learn how to crawl. And so I

spent 10 years learning how to crawl and got that died in. Now, everybody wants to go race. You know,

sometimes you get done with a run. You can't even take your helmet off. Your hands are shaking so hard with adrenaline. After years on the pro rock crawling circuit, JT Taylor made the jump to rock racing and hasn't looked back. No, I don't miss the rock crawling.

People that get into the rock racing are

more into the adrenaline. They're more into

hitting the throttle hard and playing hard and that's why we do it. We love it

in order to be competitive. JTS first upgrade was under the hook

running a 2000 Corvette LS one. It's been pumped up. I got a 06 CMO three intake and injectors and a larger throttle body.

All the books tell me it's about 410 horsepower. You need a good high horsepower motor out here because you're, you're hitting it really hard

and getting the RPM s up and just really motor and rig only weighs about 2800 pounds.

So when you jump on the skinny pedals, you go,

this isn't Talladega. So he needs more than power gearing is a fine line. You have to

hit a happy medium to where you can still have the speed. But when you get to an obstacle, have enough gear

to get you up the way. I set this one up. I'm running 480 eights with Detroit's front and rear

and running a 3.8 Atlas transfer case

with a two speed Chevy power glide transmission

on JTS first run at Colorado. He proved that no matter how well a reg is thought out. Rock racing equals carnage

brutal.

It's really hard on equipment. But man, it's fun.

His third run went even worse. Broke the rear link

rear drive shaft came apart.

Time to drink beer.

JTS fans didn't seem to mind his 13th place finish.

Oh, it's great. Kids love these things. They like the noise, they like the flashiness, big tires slinging everything.

So it's pretty fun when they come up. Say that's cool, man. Look I like your rig.

It's pretty neat.

See, that's what I'm talking about going as fast as you can with zero rules. Well, even though they have no rules, there's obviously some guidelines. If you're gonna get into rock racing safety is the main concern.

And now you have to sign the big waiver, of course, and starting this year

window nets, he'll never get over the window nets. Ever love window nets.

I didn't know you were gonna say that.

Welcome back to Xtreme 4x4. As you can see, we're well underway with our project cheap Jeep fixing all the things that came up on our trail ride at a Tele

O HP. We've already rebuilt an automatic transmission and install it, put new gears in the transfer case and of course, great set of new bumpers.

Now, there's just a few more things we need to tackle before this thing is ready to go back out on the trail.

The very first day, we had it out the UB

strips, so we had to weld the nuts back on to keep the axle in place. But then the drive shaft broke and our day was over. Now,

a whole host of reasons why that drive shaft broke. It could have been the position of the tire trying to climb over the rock. It was on, it could have been the axle wrap from the whole vehicle bouncing up and down. But the main reason was the fact that we did the spring over. We left in the weak stock springs.

Now, that's not to say that you can't use your stock springs on an

A but remember, they may be softer than you want and they may become unpredictable. So we're going to be using these quadra

re springs, they give you an inch and a half lift and they're made specifically for spring over

on our CJ. The new springs are wider than our stock springs.

So we need to make new upper spring plates

by

bending the front and rear lip. It keeps the spring plate from distorting when bolting it up

to go with our springs. We also got an install kit with new U bolts, washers and nuts.

You know, the really great thing about building the Jeep is the multiple companies that are out there to help you feed your addiction like quadri and

we got a couple of things to finish this Jeep off today from quad,

a set of tube doors just to make a little more comfortable in the Jeep

and of course, a bikini top, keep the sun off while we wheel.

And the nice thing is they're pre

bent and fit in the stock

hinge locations.

But when you're building a custom roll cage, nothing is

bent.

This Jeep already has great protection for the driver and passenger, but none for the backseat passengers.

So we decided to bend up some tube to make this a true four seater again,

cheat ears down the tube, go closer to you. You need to push back further,

put you

where you want,

get in there and check for headroom first.

Plus we'll tie our seats into the roll cage because, well, it's just a good thing.

So we

deal

and steel tubing on the roll cage for CJ. But there's a lot of different metal options out there. So stay tuned and we'll tell you all about them.

If you're watching this show, chances are you've spent some time with some steel and a welder, maybe building something for your truck, like tube fenders that we put on our cheap G pr or a full roll cage or possibly an entire tube chassis. And if you're gonna do something like that, sooner or later, you got to go shopping for some tubing

tubing is always a topic that seems to be confusing. But basically there's two common types that are used in.

You have carbon steel and you have

Molly. Now the weakest and the cheapest is welded, seem carbon steel. Now it's weak because it's rolled from a flat piece of steel and then welded together

is good for things like bed Rs and roof racks. But that's about it with its tensile strength of 45,000 P si

and cost about $2 a foot. Depend upon what kind of size,

which isn't a bad price. But if you want to stay with carbon steel and get a little bit stronger for a little bit more money. The choice is going to be Dom. This is steel that is turned into tubing when it's at its molten state. What a mill does is super heat the metal and basically draw it over a dye to shape it into a tube. That's where it gets its name drawn over mandrel. Now, this stuff is strong for carbon steel. 65,000 p si tensile strength and most importantly, just a little bit more than welded seam about three bucks a foot.

The

deal

is great for things like ro cages and rock sliders and bumpers on almost any trail or comp.

But if you're looking at getting into some competitive off roading

like racing or serious rock crawling, you're going to want to take a look

at

although it is more expensive. Chrome

Molly's strength

about 100,000 P si tensile and 100 and 80,000 P. Si after heat treating is what makes it some of the strongest tubing available. Now, it comes in two different variations. 41 30

43 40. Now, this is 4130 the most common and the condition is normalized. Now, it also is available in

a kneeled. Now, the anne

tubing

softer, it's easier to work with, but it doesn't achieve its full strength until it's actually heat treated in a furnace. So you can only make parts like maybe small spindles or control arms that can actually fit into the size of your furnace. A full chassis not going to happen. So you're going to be using normalized tubing. Now, it is five bucks a running foot. So it's a lot more than do

m but the way it was described to me was like this, if you build a carbon

chassis

and you wreck that chassis,

the whole thing is basically garbage, it's going to be so twisted and bent.

You might as well just throw the whole thing away. You build a Chromo

chassis, you wreck that chassis, you can go in and just cut out the bad sections. This tubing is strong enough to basically keep the shape of the car. You just have to replace the section that's wrecked. So if you're going to wreck your vehicle a lot like off road racing, this stuff, it's gonna save you money in the long run.

There's a couple of common misconceptions about

Molly. One of them is that it's lighter. It's not, it's just stronger with a thinner wall thickness. So in essence, the whole piece is lighter, but the material itself is not any lighter than

the

m

the other misconception is how to weld it now. Yes.

Take welding allows for a more controlled heat area,

but it's not any stronger than me.

You can make well,

Molly, but you're going to have to remember to get your steel up to temperature as quickly as possible and move as quickly as possible to keep that heat effect zone down. One more thing is that you're going to be one using your, er, 70 filler rod unless you're going to heat, treat your meal

one signature piece. When it comes to a Chrome

Maui chassis is flared holes. Now, these holes are made with a set of dimple dyes and we got this set from light racing. It all starts with a hole cut into chrome

Maui sheet. Now, we're using a hole saw to cut this hole which is fine. But if you have the ability, the better thing to do is to have it actually laser cut,

the flared ho dye is placed in the press and forced to get it.

Now, not only does this lighten the overall weight of the sheet,

it actually adds strength to the panel because of the shape of the flare

should go without saying that you will need to match your rod

and your un all receivers to the right kind of to be

mo

pieces to the Cro Molly to be

these items come from specialty products like racing. They're made of the highest quality Crome Molly and are available for all different sizes of to be

and rod.

That's about it for today. That's a lot of information on tubing. And the next time we have the CJ in here, I'm actually

gonna load up on the trailer and then hit the road for a road test. But we got to finish. Obviously another project because we don't like to share driving. No, I have to drive, but I have to drive as well, but I have to drive either way. Look at my flared hole. Hey,

it's flare.

That's pretty nice. That's the maximum amount of flare.