Black diamond adventure 2018

[donaldcon]

Each year my selfand a couple buddies do what we call an extreme overland trip.

Last year we did virgina and west virgina. Ive share the vids alot so im sure youve all seen some of them.

This year we are doing ky and tn. 800 to 1000 miles depending on where the trail takes us. We will be hitting blackhouse mountain in ky then dropping into tn to run throygh the twma lands (royal blue, sanquist, tackett creek) and thrn back into ky to run harlan.

This is an extreme overlanding trip if you will. No tow rigs, just our trail rigs full of gear. 2 lane or less roads between all destinations. We will all types of trails from dirt road to extreme rock. We do these trips with very little scheduling and route planning as we like to see where the adventure takes us. Our plans will simply consist of a few planned points of interest and a couple must run trails.


The 3 rigs going are a
samurai with 16valve tracker engine, dual cases, linked rear locked axles 31s

Tracker yota axles tcase gears, lockers, 33s.

And my bii. 4.0 8.8 d44, lockers 35s.

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[85_Ranger4x4]

http://www.therangerstation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172731&page=2

It looks like a lot of fun the BII has a nice "been there done that" look to it.

Overlanding sounds fun but it would be a vacation in itself for me just to get somewhere to do it.

 

[donaldcon]

I i see your i iowa. I complain about ohio not having any large offroad areas, i can only imagine how it is thete.

The ole bronco has seen its fair share of trail use for sure. I got it from a memeber here who ive known for 15 plus years (bob myers). He purchased it in 91 and did the axle swap and engine swap prob late 90s. Ive had it to years now and did some suspension mods (planning to link it sometime in the future) added the cage and did some other make it my own stuff to update it a little. He put alot.of street and trail miles on it and i will continue to as long as i can.

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[donaldcon]

Getting the rigs ready, new coil buckets

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[donaldcon]

Last piece of the puzzle for the only ford on the trip, fresh alignment. Heres a poser shot before pulling it into the shop to test the suspension

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[donaldcon]

10 days...

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[bobbywalter]

where are you at?


how is the truck running? kim said you had some issues a bit back but i never got a call so i assume your good..


i am peelin out to go home and in sherrod today. if your close and have time call me....be back around the 11-15th of the month might bring my b2 with me if i get it roadable. its open diff at the moment cause the gears are mismatched. roadable...is uh... scary.

 

[donaldcon]

Currently still at home. We leave for this trip mothers day.

I had some issues but it was a quick diagnostic once i looked into it. Had a water leak that ran right into the ecm. Replaced ecm and all is well.



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[donaldcon]

Not much has changed appearance wise since last years change but we all have made some big changes. Suspensions, drivetrain, tires wheels, seats, bumpers, skids. We are ready... we think

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[bobbywalter]

i wanted to buy it when it went for sale, i can not tell ya how happy i am you ...or rather an rrorc/trs guy has it.


need some more nerf protection for the body though or its gonna be a buggy sooner then later.



on edit.....

those zuks are killer!! be tough to keep up with them if they perform as well as they look.

 

[donaldcon]

The body us getting really rough rust wise and ive patched the frame a couple places. Cage will hold it togather for awhile. Im not really a buggy type guy so once it gets that far gone ill reuse as much as i can on another ford build. Im keeping my eyes open for a clean 2wd bii from down south in hopes of a body donor.


The tracker works amazing. It has yota axles with tcase gears so he has alot more crawl control than me. Im searching for a doubler but so far no luck.

The sammi was the underdog last year but he went doubler this year so even though i have the biggest tires and most hp i think i may be the low man this year

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[bobbywalter]

i look here and there for a donor myself..so we may have to fight for it

i ended up hacking and patching my b2 together for now and went back to work in the middle of that. looking to rent a place in the scio/carrolton area for the summer right now so i can get stuff done to the ranger.



what engine is in that b2 now? the one i installed was a gen 1 with a pia c4 combination. not sure what happened after that. fawk...seems like it was 15 years ago now...


i like the 4.0/m5od combo myself, but you need a doubler to max the advantage, with 1 t case the c4 can really shine comparatively. i really wish grem would have made more sbf to cologne adapters to run a 435 or zf5 which combined with the 4.0 is definitely stellar even hooked to a 205 with shitty low range.. at least the normal 6 hole doubler possibilities would be there.

 

[donaldcon]

Its still gen 1 4.0. But he ditched the auto and doubler and put an m5od in. I need a doubler bad.

I have a 91 taurus sho im debating swapping in.

Also have considered swapping the bii parts into a ford escape. Dimensionally thry are very similar. And they can be had for a couple hundred bucks rust free. But itd be some work.

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[bobbywalter]

Its still gen 1 4.0. But he ditched the auto and doubler and put an m5od in. I need a doubler bad.

I have a 91 taurus sho im debating swapping in.

Also have considered swapping the bii parts into a ford escape. Dimensionally thry are very similar. And they can be had for a couple hundred bucks rust free. But itd be some work.

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i was close to doing that....

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Hard to beat the clean rugged look of a first gen though...