So I stumbled across the forum while looking for information on back road navigation, and I'm kind of digging what I see. So I figured it would be worthwhile to join up as I feel that forums are still the best medium for sharing more detailed information as opposed to other social outlets.
So a little about us, over the years we kept finding ourselves out in the woods whenever we could find the time. Often times we would seek out the more remote trail-heads in order to escape the crowds. This led us to getting involved in the 4x4 world.
The first real dive was in an ’87 XJ that got hacked to heck, with a stroker motor. And yes, it was very hacked, but fun educational experience!:
After having my fill of the unibody world, I wanted the next build to start with a frame. Enter The Lone Ranger a ’94 super cab:
After kid #1 showed up, the Ranger no longer worked for us a family wheeler. So I parted out the ranger and found a Cookie Cutter TJ. While it worked well for us at the time, with Kid #2 cooking, we quickly out grew it. While I get why these things are popular, they’re a bit too constraining for where we are in life at this point. If I had a tow rig/trailer setup, I might have kept it longer:
After the TJ went down the road, I started eyeing the wife’s old DD. This thing spent most of its life in Texas (until 2013) prior to coming into our possession. When we picked it up as a Craigslist Special, it was in pretty good shape. Currently everything is stock (ish) with a 5.0/4R70W/AWD combo running 31” tires. Since it’s a Mercury, all the options are present and working! At the time of this writing, the RBV (Ranger Based Vehicles) are laughably cheap. While the price has gone up with the cheaper fuel we currently have, you can still find good deals on them.
When it came home, bonus, I’m the 2nd owner:
As craigslist specials go, this thing needed some work (but not too much):
It rode on some 31” Falkens during its stent as the wife’s DD:
Served as a family adventure mobile:
And occasional tow pig:
So pretty plain vanilla at this point. With the sale of the Cookie Cutter TJ behind us I started gathering the odds and end I needed to make this a wheeler. A few months later, it came together:
This rig was built as a compromise rig, it was intended to run out west:
... as well as run the local trails:
So it is way overbuilt for our long distance trips, but its what we're working with right now. Going forward, we seem to be doing less of the harder off-road trips and focusing more on the long distance/back road travel. I plan on starting to shift the build direction that way a bit more.
While we haven't really done any true 'overlanding' (I.E. get really remote to camp) we do enjoy faking it with hotel camping at night, and hiking/driving as much as we can during the day. Some of our past adventures can be found on my site www.MidwestNomads.com. I'd be happy to post up those old trip reports here if there is interest.
So that's the 10 second overview. I look forward to learning what I can from you folks and contributing where I can as well!
So a little about us, over the years we kept finding ourselves out in the woods whenever we could find the time. Often times we would seek out the more remote trail-heads in order to escape the crowds. This led us to getting involved in the 4x4 world.
The first real dive was in an ’87 XJ that got hacked to heck, with a stroker motor. And yes, it was very hacked, but fun educational experience!:
After having my fill of the unibody world, I wanted the next build to start with a frame. Enter The Lone Ranger a ’94 super cab:
After kid #1 showed up, the Ranger no longer worked for us a family wheeler. So I parted out the ranger and found a Cookie Cutter TJ. While it worked well for us at the time, with Kid #2 cooking, we quickly out grew it. While I get why these things are popular, they’re a bit too constraining for where we are in life at this point. If I had a tow rig/trailer setup, I might have kept it longer:
After the TJ went down the road, I started eyeing the wife’s old DD. This thing spent most of its life in Texas (until 2013) prior to coming into our possession. When we picked it up as a Craigslist Special, it was in pretty good shape. Currently everything is stock (ish) with a 5.0/4R70W/AWD combo running 31” tires. Since it’s a Mercury, all the options are present and working! At the time of this writing, the RBV (Ranger Based Vehicles) are laughably cheap. While the price has gone up with the cheaper fuel we currently have, you can still find good deals on them.
When it came home, bonus, I’m the 2nd owner:
As craigslist specials go, this thing needed some work (but not too much):
It rode on some 31” Falkens during its stent as the wife’s DD:
Served as a family adventure mobile:
And occasional tow pig:
So pretty plain vanilla at this point. With the sale of the Cookie Cutter TJ behind us I started gathering the odds and end I needed to make this a wheeler. A few months later, it came together:
This rig was built as a compromise rig, it was intended to run out west:
... as well as run the local trails:
So it is way overbuilt for our long distance trips, but its what we're working with right now. Going forward, we seem to be doing less of the harder off-road trips and focusing more on the long distance/back road travel. I plan on starting to shift the build direction that way a bit more.
While we haven't really done any true 'overlanding' (I.E. get really remote to camp) we do enjoy faking it with hotel camping at night, and hiking/driving as much as we can during the day. Some of our past adventures can be found on my site www.MidwestNomads.com. I'd be happy to post up those old trip reports here if there is interest.
So that's the 10 second overview. I look forward to learning what I can from you folks and contributing where I can as well!
