Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives The ultimate hunting and street legal off road vehicle?

Downwindtracker2,

I prefer the coils myself, although I'm stuck with a YJ for now <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />. I'll compromise a little off road capability for a little comfort on the highway. Let's say the TJ is better than the YJ and you'll not get any argument from me. Forums suffer from topic drift, which I'm guilty of myself, but in this case I was aimed right at Westman's question:

"Box stock, right off the showroom floor, which vehicle is going to handle a trail like Rubicon the best?"

Everyone has vehicle preferences and compromises, but the answer to the question is still "Jeep Wrangler" - hands down.

jog:

yeppie. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

The post heading was street legal "Hunting rig" not off raod rig. I have owned a massively modified 75CJ5 and I would certainly not consider any of the Jeep vehicles a hunting rig at least for what I need. Where do you put the gear and the meat on the way home? How do you manage a 1000 mile highway ride with out getting beat to death.

Off road worthy and fun you bet, ......... actually functional for much else, Not in my world

JJ, Sorry to hijack your thread.

Didn't mean to misderect it....

How did you manage to get that truck so muddy and keep the tires and wheels clean?? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

you owned 15 Toy trucks?? Are you 150 years old or do they break that often?? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

My version of the ultimate street legal hunting/offroad 4wd rig... along with a pup trailer I built to follow behind the Jeep (not shown in the picture) I wouldn't reccomend trying to follow my tracks in that fancy new rig if ya still want it to be nice to look at. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

i guess jeep also has a liberty diesel that with alot of poop. wont bring it here though as no market for it [they say!].
i think that would make a great trail/hunting rig. put some lockers on it and just puttttt........
woofer

Completely stock I would say that one of the Range Rovers would be up there with off/on road capabilities. From what I hear they are bad to the bone offroad. The price difference between a new Jeep Rubicon and one of the Range Rover types is pretty steep I imagine.

with apologies for straying from the original topic of this post:

part (but not all) of the H2's bad rep is due to the fact that the people who can actually afford it are slamming it in the initial delivery surveys because "it rides like a truck" and "it get's poor fuel economy" .... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />...customers trading in their imports/lincolns/cads are disappointed in the handling characteristics of their new vehicle, the soccer moms accustomed to the ride of their minivan are getting a rude surprise ; that's like putting together an unbraked superlight mega-magnum and complaining about the cost of the ammo and the severity of the recoil.

fomoco, chevy, and dodge are all going to have injector problems...we have junk fuel here, factory fuel filters are all done at approximately 6-7 microns (they have to be, any smaller and the frequency of replacement would result in a consumer complaints and poor csi...see hummer H2)...combine these factors with the injector/rail pressures required ( D-max approx 9000 psi at idle, 23000 psi at wfo)for proper atomization of the fuel to develop the horsepower per cubic inch these engines are making while still being compliant with the new reg's concerning exhaust particle parts per millioin and the sub-6 micron junk in the fuel works just like a sandblaster...your going to have injector failure.

fomoco had several problems with the launch of their new psd, injectors washing down the engines with fuel, seals failing, computer glitches, etc...they have addressed and corrected most of these issues...the problem, although you will be hard pressed to get them to admit it, is that the sales "suits" at the corporate level put this motor into production approx 12-18 months before all the engineers had cleared the project ...big blue has a history of this...contour,escape,focus all, if memory serves had "stop sell, do not test drive, do not deliver" (and if you did deliver get em back) bulletins sent to their dealers shortly after initial product launch. (before i get flamed, i'm not anti-ford...just calling a spade a spade)

people still put 'em together and you're going to have a given amount of product problems...the real trick is deciding what constitutes an acceptable failure rate....and how do you handle the failures,... they have to market to the masses, worry about product liability (it's not if you're going to get sued, it's simply a matter of when and how bad).... if someone really made a bad product they'd be out of biz...it really boils down to "do you like ford blue, chevy orange, or can you say hemi?"

bottom line is we live in America where we can drive what we want & if we all liked the same thing it'd be pretty boring.

again, sorry for the longevity & direction but i couldn't bite my keyboard any longer.

davey

Best off the shelf off roader/hunting rig?

In the "standard class" probably a toss up between a LandRover Defender, Toyota Landcruiser, or a Mer G Wagon....Possible you could add UMM in there too, but they are not very well known beyond Europe. If i were on a budget and did not want a pickup, and was only going to use it locally, an Suzuki SJ 314 or even a Lada Niva Cossack would work well. Before anybody laughs, these are truely excellent off road and come with 12" ground clearance off the shelf! Avoid anything over 3 years old and you will find you can get a really surprising vehicle for peanuts.

There is a Spanish company (Santana?) that is building a "copy" of the Defender which sounds very interesting. Its a low technology version meant as a workhorse rather than a yuppy mover.

The engine is something like a 2.8TD Iveco which is a standard light commercial desiel engine in Europe which finds its way into loads of different light trucks and agricultural vehicles. Its not very sexy, just a proven, reliable workhorse.

The axles are going to be Dana and I forget who is going to do the gearbox but it is another generic unit ie tried and tested and available off the shelf.

The suspension is going to be parabollic leaf spring which the company developed for a version of the Defender they built under lisence a few years back. Not quite the same wheel travel as a coil sprung Defender, but better than a S3 Landy and a far better drive on road too....

Intrior trim will be metal and rubber matting that is easy to maintain rather than cloth.

The biggest improvement over the Defender will be in the drivers position...anybody over 5' will find the drivers position in a Defender very cramped as LandRover insist on being able to seat 3 (midgets) abreast in the front when the vehicle is just not big enough. The new Spanish clone will have two "normal" seats instead!

Finally the price will be about 3/4 of the price of a Defender..

The company has a history of building 4x4 under license and built Series/90's/110's LandRovers and later Suzuki SJ..They also build stuff for the Spanish Army so the have a reasonable "pedigree"...I hope its a success as it would be refreshing to see something built for work rather than moving yuppies around,

Regards,

Pete