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Dirt Squirrel 3.0 - The 2nd Mortgage

is the tire rubbing the tube?

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That tire should be well outboard of the chassis on his car, without articulation.
Ding ding ding we got a winner

Chassis was made for 40s so 43s rub at full flex indeed. I really don’t care.

the_white_shadow : sorry for the highjack. Tuning (dyno or not) by someone who knows what they’re doing is worth its weight in gold
 
Rugged Mountain Ranch Trip No. 2 report.

We made the 7hr rive back to RMR over the weekend for 3 days of wheeling. It was nice having someone show us around. If anyone wants to wheel in southern oklahoma, this place is a lot of fun. Huge rocks in the mountains.

The tune worked great. No more running hot or dying at part throttle. Buggy had no real issues. Only thing i need to do is work on the air shocks. Still not enough pressure (at least for that place) and now one of them is leaking at the lower seal. I wont change them until after i get back from Rocktoberfest at K2.

Some pics from the weekend.
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Draggin by sack all over these rocks

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Pizza got delivered
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Paul's new to him buggy did great for his first time in the seat.
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Got the buggy washed off and left it on the trailer. Leaving Thursday for mason, TX and beautiful Katemcy Rocks.
 
That place looks badass. Did you ever weigh this buggy compared to your last one?
 
That place looks badass. Did you ever weigh this buggy compared to your last one?
This one weighs 3970 lbs without the water in the front tires. A little more than i had hoped, but all the weight is down low so im not too mad about it. Previous rig was in the 5200lb range. So i dropped a good amount and gained all the visibility. I do miss the truck look though. Maybe the fenders u front will help fix that one day.
 
This one weighs 3970 lbs without the water in the front tires. A little more than i had hoped, but all the weight is down low so im not too mad about it. Previous rig was in the 5200lb range. So i dropped a good amount and gained all the visibility. I do miss the truck look though. Maybe the fenders u front will help fix that one day.
Is suspension geometry comparable? If so, and most everything else is apples to apples. I am curious how much you can feel the difference dropping over 1k lbs.
 
Is suspension geometry comparable? If so, and most everything else is apples to apples. I am curious how much you can feel the difference dropping over 1k lbs.
Suspension geometry is similar but not the same. I went with a lower antisquat on this one and so far it seems really stable.
 
Did some wheeling last weekend at the beautiful Katemcy Rocks in Mason, Texas. Had a blast until the pump in the transmission left the chat.

My buggy next to my bud's new whip. The top on his is getting a 3" chop here pretty soon.
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Thomas' S10
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Tow rope of shame
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As i mentioned in the last post, my transmission took a shit on me while i was staring at the sky attempting a hard line on a trail luckily that was close to camp. It made no noise, but suddenly quit pulling in any gear. I had 6 neutrals and park. Turns out the pump broke in about 4 places. I guess the cast stock pump didnt like the constant pressure valve body. I wish i knew their was a billet option for the pump when i had it rebuilt and i would have spent the extra ~$300 on one. Lesson Learned.

Anyway i pulled the trans out the bottom on the buggy, which actually went pretty well.
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The pump broke in 4-5 places it looks like.
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I dropped the trans off on Saturday at the rebuilder and he already got it back together. Im picking it up today at lunch and have the next 2 days to get it back together for the Top Gun Shootout for $10k thats going on this weekend at K2 in Mason. If youre in the area, its always a good show. The best of the best crawlers from all over the country come to Mason, Texas to compete on a virgin piece of pink granite.
 
It was awesome. Great turnout of some amazing competitors and rigs. My qualifying got a little western and ended up DQ'ing. I hit too many boundary flags. Rig did great though and a local buddy ended up taking home the $10k first place prize.
👍
 
Texas Top Gun Shootout did not disappoint. I got to the park on Wednesday to get a prime camping spot before the crowd showed up. Rained most of the day Thursday. Wheeled Friday and checked out the courses. Saturday watched and ran the qualifying course and DQ'd right at the end. Sunday was the big show and watched some amazing driving on some tough courses. These rocks were virgin. No one has ever attempted any of the courses that were setup. No one made it all the through on Course 1. It was slick as shit and most timed out at the bottom. Everyone then moved to Course 2. 3 out of 11 rigs made it to the finish line with several breaking and getting stuck hard in a crack called Texas Liberal Tears. Out of the three who went to the final Course, only one made it all the way up in the 10-min time limit without rolling. Some pics. Lots of vids posted on my IG.

Friday Wheeling:
BJ and Thomas
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Qualifying Course: The drop at the beginning was a lot of fun. I hate going down shit, but it went well. It didnt go so well for some.
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A buddy rolled right before the exit
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The TTGS on Sunday
The eventual winner Maverick on Course 1. The is at the bottom where it was the wettest. The exit gate is up top between those two flag banners. No one made it up there out of the 11 competitors.
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Course 2 was a huge crack that everyone have to navigate up and over. Most ended up falling in which caused for some gnarly recoveries.
Marvin getting a little off the line and called it.
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a view of the drop
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The drivers were staring at nothing but the ground. Had to feel like shit.
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A recovery of Dana in his Sasquatch car. He was the final competitor on course three and had to complete the course in less than 7.5 minutes to beat Maverick. He sent it like he always does, but ended up on his lid. He put on a show.
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Overall it was a kickass event put on by some great folks. Cant wait to try these new trails when i get back to the park for their next open date. Next trip for me will be Hot Springs ORV for our annual thanks giving trip.
 
Did an oil change on the shocks before the next trip. I removed the shocks and changed out the 4.5wt oil with 10wt Honda Fork oil. These 16" Radflos call for 700ml of fluid and i added about 25 extra to help with bottoming out. Im glad i changed the oil as one of my rear upper shock bolts was bent already.

This is my first time taking apart an air shock. After watching some youtube videos on disassembling a king shock, i was expecting a snap wring to hold the shaft in, but these Radflos are only held in with the ~2" of threads holding the lower cap on. They came apart and went back together easily. 2/4 shocks had 700ml and one had 650, and the other 675. Now they are all 725.

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Hopefully the uptravel will remain at ~4.5" this time and not settle to 2" or so after a day of wheeling. A quick trip around the yard feels better by the seat of the pants, but time will tell on the trail.
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do share how you bent a shock bolt. bid a misalignment spacer not get seated or something? or is because of not bump stops?. you may them but i dont recal.
 
do share how you bent a shock bolt. bid a misalignment spacer not get seated or something? or is because of not bump stops?. you may them but i dont recal.
My guess is that the shock bottomed out hard and bent the upper bolt. It has spacers on each side of the misalignment making the bolt a little long though the upper mount. A shorter bolt shouldnt have a problem. i think if i welded in the spacers, it would fix the problem. No bump stops with the air shocks. Hopefully this change to thicker oil will keep it from completely bottoming out on hard hits.
 
My guess is that the shock bottomed out hard and bent the upper bolt. It has spacers on each side of the misalignment making the bolt a little long though the upper mount. A shorter bolt shouldnt have a problem. i think if i welded in the spacers, it would fix the problem. No bump stops with the air shocks. Hopefully this change to thicker oil will keep it from completely bottoming out on hard hits.
i always thought air shocks had an internal bump inside.

it makes since that a hard hit could bend the bolt with now bumps for sure. but thats still a 1/2inch bolt. not a small feat i would not think.
 
i always thought air shocks had an internal bump inside.

it makes since that a hard hit could bend the bolt with now bumps for sure. but thats still a 1/2inch bolt. not a small feat i would not think.

air shocks do not have an internal bump, ORIs do but at the end of the day you are still relying on a 1/2" bolt to keep things together.

bent shock bolts is not uncommon, especially on air shocked cars without another means of bump control.
 
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