Joined
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3,450 Posts
Howdy,
Here's something you can all snicker at behind my back.
First off, you have to know that I have really never been offroading. I rode out into the woods once with some friends in a Jeep about 17 years ago to go camping and I drove a 1961 English Ford Anglia about 1/2 a mile through the woods about 15 years ago, looking for a way out of a local park. That covers my offroad experience in a nutshell.
I got my Samurai, an 88.5 hardtop, mostly to do battle against the elements (read: snow) on the fairly steep unpaved road on which I live. Since I got it, I have spent the vast majority of time on dressing up the interior (full diamondplate, seat track extenders, seat covers, stereo, floor mat for the cargo area, tach, etc.) not because it's more important to me, but just because it was easy and convenient and something I was capable of doing. The rest of the Zuk is dead stock. It has some 205/75-15 Bridgestone all season tires with plenty of tread, but not exactly AT tires. Not planning to do much offroading, I figured to wait until these tires are worn to get a set of decent AT tires. I did buy a tow strap, though.
)
The place I live is very hilly and very rocky. If you drive past the end of my unpaved driveway, there is a pretty sharp (to me anyway) grassy dropoff to a level area where there used to be a big, round swimming pool. This drops off again, on a grassy, rocky slope, way down to to the stream in my backyard. Lots of rocks about the size of small pumpkins embedded in the ground.
Since I started reading this board and met some of the great NE Zuk guys and have been looking around on the net, I have started to become curious about offroading. I decided a great place to start would be my own backyard. That way if I got stuck, it wouldn't be a very long walk home. I agonized over this for a month, knowing I could probably get down there without getting killed, but didn't know if I could get back up.
Yesterday I just decided to go for it. With my 3 year old daughter strapped in the passenger seat, I slapped it into 4wd low and crept down the first part, a short, steep grassy slope. The first eye-opener was seeing nothing but the ground out my windshield as I descended the slope. I know thats par for the course in offroading, but feeling my vehicle at that angle and seeing that was both exciting and unnerving. I amde the first part Ok and took a deep breath to reconnoiter and reposition my Zuk for the descent down the second, longer, rocky slope. I had walked it many a time looking for diff-busters, so I knew where I was going.
Crawling and bouncing down this one was more dramatic, probably because there was a stream in front of my windshield. Getting over the rocks on the way down was also kind of nerve racking. Finally, I was on the flat part of the back yard by the stream! Woohoo! I got out and walked up the slope a little to take a picture, which is included here. You can see my daughter in the passenger side window.
Now to get back up. I scoped out the slope, deciding where to head up. I turned around down on the flat part (nice SHORT vehicle), took a deep breath and crawled towards the incline. I got about a foot up it and the rear wheels started to spin in the grass, on damp ground. Not good. I tried again and again with not much better results. I got about one car length up the slope, max. I kept getting out to see where my tires were going, moving rocks, etc. After about 45 minutes of this, I grudgingly admitted defeat and walked back to the house to decide who to call to yank me out.
I'm sitting in the house, feeling hot and stupid, and thikning about how to get out of there. I'm going over in my mind about how quickly the back tires caked up with mud and became useless. I'm mulling over what limited knowledge I have of locking differentials and if that would help me, and I began to wonder why even the front wheels weren't trying to turn when one back wheel spun...
In a flash of supreme "DOH!!!" it suddenly occurrred to me that I had put it in 4 low, but neglected to lock the front hubs. Without much fanfare, I slunk back out to the Zuk way down in the backyard, locked the hubs, and took another whack at it. About 5 lurching, twisting, bouncing tries later, I was up on the midway flat area. I reoriented, and cruised up the grassy slope without a hint of tirespin. My wife and my daughter were up on the deck, cheering and clapping.
DUH.
~daxe
Here's something you can all snicker at behind my back.
First off, you have to know that I have really never been offroading. I rode out into the woods once with some friends in a Jeep about 17 years ago to go camping and I drove a 1961 English Ford Anglia about 1/2 a mile through the woods about 15 years ago, looking for a way out of a local park. That covers my offroad experience in a nutshell.
I got my Samurai, an 88.5 hardtop, mostly to do battle against the elements (read: snow) on the fairly steep unpaved road on which I live. Since I got it, I have spent the vast majority of time on dressing up the interior (full diamondplate, seat track extenders, seat covers, stereo, floor mat for the cargo area, tach, etc.) not because it's more important to me, but just because it was easy and convenient and something I was capable of doing. The rest of the Zuk is dead stock. It has some 205/75-15 Bridgestone all season tires with plenty of tread, but not exactly AT tires. Not planning to do much offroading, I figured to wait until these tires are worn to get a set of decent AT tires. I did buy a tow strap, though.
)The place I live is very hilly and very rocky. If you drive past the end of my unpaved driveway, there is a pretty sharp (to me anyway) grassy dropoff to a level area where there used to be a big, round swimming pool. This drops off again, on a grassy, rocky slope, way down to to the stream in my backyard. Lots of rocks about the size of small pumpkins embedded in the ground.
Since I started reading this board and met some of the great NE Zuk guys and have been looking around on the net, I have started to become curious about offroading. I decided a great place to start would be my own backyard. That way if I got stuck, it wouldn't be a very long walk home. I agonized over this for a month, knowing I could probably get down there without getting killed, but didn't know if I could get back up.
Yesterday I just decided to go for it. With my 3 year old daughter strapped in the passenger seat, I slapped it into 4wd low and crept down the first part, a short, steep grassy slope. The first eye-opener was seeing nothing but the ground out my windshield as I descended the slope. I know thats par for the course in offroading, but feeling my vehicle at that angle and seeing that was both exciting and unnerving. I amde the first part Ok and took a deep breath to reconnoiter and reposition my Zuk for the descent down the second, longer, rocky slope. I had walked it many a time looking for diff-busters, so I knew where I was going.
Crawling and bouncing down this one was more dramatic, probably because there was a stream in front of my windshield. Getting over the rocks on the way down was also kind of nerve racking. Finally, I was on the flat part of the back yard by the stream! Woohoo! I got out and walked up the slope a little to take a picture, which is included here. You can see my daughter in the passenger side window.
Now to get back up. I scoped out the slope, deciding where to head up. I turned around down on the flat part (nice SHORT vehicle), took a deep breath and crawled towards the incline. I got about a foot up it and the rear wheels started to spin in the grass, on damp ground. Not good. I tried again and again with not much better results. I got about one car length up the slope, max. I kept getting out to see where my tires were going, moving rocks, etc. After about 45 minutes of this, I grudgingly admitted defeat and walked back to the house to decide who to call to yank me out.
I'm sitting in the house, feeling hot and stupid, and thikning about how to get out of there. I'm going over in my mind about how quickly the back tires caked up with mud and became useless. I'm mulling over what limited knowledge I have of locking differentials and if that would help me, and I began to wonder why even the front wheels weren't trying to turn when one back wheel spun...
In a flash of supreme "DOH!!!" it suddenly occurrred to me that I had put it in 4 low, but neglected to lock the front hubs. Without much fanfare, I slunk back out to the Zuk way down in the backyard, locked the hubs, and took another whack at it. About 5 lurching, twisting, bouncing tries later, I was up on the midway flat area. I reoriented, and cruised up the grassy slope without a hint of tirespin. My wife and my daughter were up on the deck, cheering and clapping.
DUH.
~daxe
