Xtreme 4x4 on the Trail

Today on Xtreme 4x4. A look back at our past builds worthy of the name extreme. Like our diesel powered tow monster propane powered tube, buggy, and veggie oil drink and fun ray.

We'll show you why we call this J

our ultimate TJ. It's 30 minutes packed with payoffs that have some of us dancing like fools

if you can call that dancing.

Yeah.

Welcome to a very special episode of Xtreme 4x4. As a matter of fact, this is our 90th episode and it wraps up our fourth full season. Now a lot has changed since we first started back in 2005. I mean gas. It cost almost twice as much. There's land use issues cropping up from coast to coast that we're fighting and we're winning

and none of those things have stopped us from building some of the most hardcore off road trucks and taking you to some of the most amazing places to go four wheeling.

Now today we're going to look back at some of our most memorable projects. Plus we're gonna look ahead and see what we got coming down the pipe

first. The word extreme provides a broad spectrum of what we can do in the shop. Some of you guys like us to reach for the skies.

And although off road guys typically call these trucks mall cruisers, they're cool. Nonetheless.

From our project hemisphere Dodge

to the air ride suspension on a brand new Ford F 250

to our way over the top suburban gorilla

keep going up.

We traded 600 bucks for basically a frame and a VIN number

and now

it's a one of a kind tow rig with the looks to turn heads everywhere it goes.

I mean, when was the last time you saw an, each one with a goose neck behind it

and with our killer banks twin turbo D max under the hood, it has the power to tow whatever we need.

Plus this rig is equipped to head into the trail.

Now, Gail Banks is known as the no black smoke guy,

but the issue we have here is space really limits the size of our inner coolers. So we don't have that ideal fuel to air ratio,

but at the same time,

it's kind of cool to have all that black smoke coming out the back, isn't it?

Keep the tailgators off?

Now that we have our 26 ft goose neck hooked up to the back with one of our buggies strapped down.

It's time to test this truck primary duty

towing

driving with a goose neck does take some getting used to because your rear wheels don't track the same as the truck

and it does help you get in and out of tight back roads a little bit easier with your load.

The big,

you

know, when you're pulling a trailer, this thing is merging with traffic,

but really with all the power underneath the hood of this thing,

you just got to turn it on and hold on.

Oh, yeah, 76 miles an hour before the end of the on

ramp. Now, that is not only a good performing truck,

it's a little bit safer because we're have to merge with traffic going slower.

Acceleration is only half of what towing is all about.

We're going to throw up the anchor at some half decent speed and see how our six piston Wilwood brakes, 16 inch rotors and Vanco Hydro boost brake set up can handle this huge package.

My goodness.

Yeah, it works.

It works indeed.

Pretty much. The only thing we have to work on right now is the shifting and the transmission, it's a little too firm. Now, that's better than a sloppy shift where the clutches are actually burning up. But at the same time, you don't want it shifting so hard. You think you're gonna break the drive shaft in half? Now, really, the only way to do that is we're gonna have to slowly calibrate this transmission computer

just get used to this motor and this drive train, all it takes is time.

We've proven this rig has the power to pull and our twin turbo

Duramax had no trouble getting our 18,000 pound package to the top of this hill, but that's only half the story

go with the Save the Spider.

The dual 203205 transfer case combo was the ideal ticket for this truck.

With gearing options of medium low 2 to 1 and ultra low 4 to 1. You can put that 1300 pound feet of torque to work on the trails. All that twisting motion and power on the chassis

does make for some interesting sounds.

Each part of this drive train was planned to eliminate weak links,

38 inch tall tires for added ground clearance,

full gear cast iron transfer cases for increased strength,

35 spine chrome

molly, superior axle shafts and aux joints to prevent axle breakage,

plus the power from the twin turbo

Duramax.

All in an effort to build a tow rig that can handle

any trail you can throw at it

as long as it's wide enough to fit the width of the truck 8 ft six inches.

Now this is why we put two inches on this truck, one in the back and one on the front because I can't turn around. Now, this thing can ha 12,000 pounds. And since our total rig as we weighed it today was 18,000,

we know that we're dealing with some serious weight. Now, the spider itself, it's only about four grand. So you have no problem putting that sucker back on its wheels.

We'll winch it up.

Get the high left out,

hold the pressure on it with the high left. Take the winch off and then we should be able to

back it out or lower it down or something.

I was gonna say, throw it over, hook on the fire side and I'll be able to lift the whole thing up.

Hey, Tommy, yo,

how about you? Drop it in gear and I'll winch it and see if we can get the rest of the way up. Yep. All right. Getting in my truck. Here we go. We

off

recovered.

Test number three at,

man. That was awesome package. How many hours y'all have tied up in that grill? If you count the truck and the trailer, we had just over 700 hours in the whole thing

and it took us 22 months to build, which is pretty cool. At the same time. We built 10 other trucks on the show. So we got a pile of work done, short amount of time

coming up.

We take stock trucks and make them beefier

more of our memorable payoffs.

When Xtreme 4x4 continues,

we're back on Xtreme 4x4. Take a look back at some of the most memorable projects just like you guys with kids out there. It's not fair to pick a favorite. I'm sure you have one, but you don't let the other kids know which one it is now for you Toyota guys out there. Our FJ cruiser was one of your most favorite builds

and we didn't hold back when it came to our trail test.

Jeep enthusiast appreciated our double take on the new JK Wrangler from stock

to Wild

to Wild.

We put this wide body Jeep through its paces straighten the wheel out.

But one of my true favorites started with nothing more than a sketch pad, big ideas and a real world budget

right away. You notice that the size of the buggy really pays off. It didn't even hit the shape,

small body and full

width axles.

You can squeeze it in and out of anywhere you wanna go.

The propane injection pays off when the vehicle is off camera.

There's no spittering or sputtering like a carburetor

and no fuel sloshing out of the cell.

Yeah,

our 46 inch Mickey Thompson Baha

claws were intentionally mounted in reverse to improve off road traction.

Having a four length front and rear

allows articulation of our buggy independently.

The rear steer lets you do tight turns and when you're leaned over, helps you get right in with ease.

Rear steer is cool.

You wanna know why else? This show is called extreme Check out our camera guy.

So you're dying to know what we spent.

If it was 3789 bucks, we'd be in jail for theft

8973 is closer,

not even 9837

the grand total for our custom two propane injecting rear steer rig just under eight grand.

And for that, we've got a great looking ultra performing all purpose trail rig

until we decided to tear it apart and build something else.

So as you can see, you can start from nothing and end up with a great rake or you can do like we did with this Toyota, buy a truck with a fried engine, build it into a pretty capable wheeler. We had a couple of kinks with it when we first did it. So we brought it back this year, ironed them all out.

Now, we built plenty of hardcore trail rigs, but this one was a challenge from the start.

A steep drive shaft angle up front, created a weak link at the yoke

after some broken parts, a trail fix and more broken parts, something had to be done.

So we move the transfer case back with the addition of a secondary reduction box. This lessens the angle of the shaft while at the same time turning our three speed stack into a six speed stack,

giving us more gearing options,

low ratio for creeping

and midrange for hill climb.

But as most of you guys know, a truck's weak link never truly goes away.

It just gets moved around a bit.

Hey, what's next on this Miia

truck, man? Well, we're gonna bring it back in the shop because the axles are right on the edge, especially with the 3/5 end of the hood. So I'll throw some one tons underneath it, some bigger tires,

maybe some cage.

We call it liquid gold. The vegetable oil you use to make. French fries is the same fuel that powers our samurai.

We'll go vegetarian after the break.

We're back on extreme and our 87 Suzuki samurai has undergone a huge transformation from a worn out daily commuter,

a

hard core trail truck with all the typical goodies

Toyota Junkyard axles, long travel suspension, hydraulic assist for

rock and rear suspension seats. Full ex. Ok. But most importantly, we gave it an oil change.

Goodbye. Fossil fuel. Hello,

that

oil.

Yep. The green samurai makes a huge statement as it crawls through the woods.

It's our first hybrid, so to speak. Thanks to a used 1.6 L turbo diesel from a VW Jetta combined with a grease car waste vegetable oil conversion.

He

you can cook with

mm

Arzu rolls on fuel that costs nothing.

Well, almost

ours is a two tank system that starts on diesel fuel and as the engine gets to operating temperature,

the veggie oil is heated to a lower viscosity.

Hit the veggie button on the grease car computer and off you go.

This thing works awesome

with diesel at over three and a quarter a gallon. The immediate impact is on your wallet with long term effects at the tailpipe,

50% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, 26% less carbon monoxide, nearly zero nitrous oxide emissions and 50% less sulfur dioxide. The stuff that causes smog and acid rain.

So we can give back a little to the environment while saving some cash.

Now, as you guys can tell, we shot that a long time ago because diesel is nowhere near $3.10

a gallon even though we wish it was.

But for those of you guys really feeling at the pump, don't worry. We got a couple of things lined up for you next year and one of them

is hydrogen.

But up next, remember the phrase, hey, I could have had a V8. Well, you can in a 50 state legal hemi

TJ will relive its throaty payoff when Xtreme 4x4 continues.

Now today on extreme, we're taking a look back at some of our most memorable projects. Certainly wouldn't be complete

without having a look at our 50 state legal Jeep

hemi

TJ.

That was a pile of work building this truck, but well worth it when we ended up with a great daily driver and weekend wheeler.

And right away, we noticed that the T J's 14 inch coil over custom suspension front rear

made this Jeep

way more flexy than any off the shelf kit could

go.

Yeah, it was a lot of extra work.

But once in some serious rocks,

all that hard core fab

hair more. Makes this Jeep really shine

with a Hammy

under the hood. You really have to concentrate on your throttle control.

The magna flow exhaust sounds awesome.

And that combination of sound and power, they're quite addicting.

Now, we knew right off the start that we're kind of pushing the limit with this truck running 40 inch tires on 40 fours.

The nice thing is, is we got killer ground clearance underneath this thing. We're not really rubbing a diff or getting hung up at all today.

And we are right at the edge of possibly breaking some parts. But with having the CTMU joints up front, 35 splines in the rear and knowing when to turn off the locker to make a good turn without putting the suspension in a bind is key to keeping that thing all together with a big tire, a small ax

with daylight becoming scarce. We motored down to a remote part of the property

where 10 years ago

this sand quarry was jammed with earth movers and dump trucks.

Tell me about this rock. This is stupid rock. It's just loose rock. It's like dumped here.

It's like we're in Iraq.

See

the only way that is to just freaking launch it.

Night wheeling is a blast.

It adds a whole other dimension to trail riding.

The sun is done. Heat of the day is gone and you really have to rely on your lights to see everything.

Same dude,

I love.

Now, a lot of you guys send us emails asking us how much time we have in each one of our projects. What do you say, Chris? How much have we got wrapped up in the TJ? Uh I say probably about 100 and 20 hours. That's a fair estimate.

Now, starting off next year, we're gonna kick it off one of the most popular projects ever. The S 10

Reggie is back from paint powder coat and chrome. Then we're going to fire up the new engine in the mud truck. And on top of that, we got a pile of stuff planned for you from old projects to new. It is all going to blow your mind. So make sure you're here every week. See some serious off road fabrication.

Chris is already getting newer.

Can't waste time.