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Wheelbase, wheelbase, wheelbase (I'm looking at you Nolan)

I just like to ride,I'm not one to analize all the factors when I am. Truth is that wall scares me, I've rolled off the top backwards on my lid and it hurt. You land on solid rock from a 5-6 ft. drop right on the roof. I've made it up it several times(crawling, I've never been able to gas my way up), just not since rolling hard off of it. Sometimes big tires ,big wheel base helps, most of the places I ride that involve steep, sloppy, climbs the bigger stuff doesn't do so well. If you want a perfect wheelbase search "Tijuana taxi". It was a buggy I saw a few years ago with an adjustable wheelbase using rams mounted in the frame rails.

I'm pretty sure my Hi9 would have never made through thte last two weekends.
 
if you don't mind losing manueverability the longer wb will make hillclimbs easier if you can keep it light - Fact

So you build a rig to make the trails that you go to easy. Then the trails you go to are boring and you have to go further and further away to find a challenging trail or just something new to get your blood pumping again.

Too many people build for the place they wheel just so they can go to that one climb and say they walked it - that's retarded
 
I think Nolen hit it dead on early in this thread.... theres a trade off in any setup.


It really just depends on what your building to your rig to do, if you wanna hit verticals, longer is gonna be better.

I like 112-115 for trail rigs, Ive always had it in my mind to own a buggy at 109 though so thats how Im building this one. Ill report back one day when I get to wheel the thing laughing1
 
rockwild said:
Too many people build for the place they wheel just so they can go to that one climb and say they walked it - that's retarded
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Damn, that is funny and so true.

It is funny you say that about landing on your lid Greg. I have done that one time and I was pretty gun shy for a few months after that. Especially on the rock I did it on. Landing on your roof on a backwards roll sucks balls.
 
That obstacle scares me and I haven't flopped backwards. It's funny that Greg said he doesn't really do much analysis, he just drives. I'm the polar opposite. I even stayed up on Friday night looking at that obstacle on youtube in an effort to study the line. I watch and look and study everything. I'm always thinking about what it would take to do something I haven't made before. And heaven forbid I puss out on a line, I'll be obsessing over that for months. It's the main reason I hit just about everything I see now. It hangs over me until I get back to that park and give it another try.

As for building a rig that takes the fun out of trails, that seems hard to do. Everybody's rigs are getting so capable that even if you're awesome today you'll be ordinary tomorrow. Then again, I could be wrong.
 
I'm around 108-109" wheelbase. I've never made that face in this jeep. I made it up in the CJ buggy that I owned that Jim built on 2.5s, 44s and a 115" wb. I'm ok with not being able to make certain obstacles. My setup works pretty well though in most spots. I could afford to lose a few hundred pounds, but it isn't worth it to me to tear my whole drivetrain for the advantage it would give me. I think I have gotten it as light as I can for a rig on junkyard tons with a heavy ass jeep motor.

To me its not about making every obstacle, if so I would be sporting a full-on buggy by now, its strictly about riding, whereever and as often as possible.

With the new round of mods, I did make a few lines this weekend that I struggled with before...good enough for me.

Vanguard probably has some pics of me getting denied on the wall in question.
 
I am actually the opposite. I like stuff to be harder. I look for sick lines.

I want to get a set of 37" Treps to run on my next buggy for places like Hot Springs and Gray Rock where you really don't need big tires to span the gaps on rocks. I want to make the trails that are getting easy hard again BUT I will have enough axle and strength to run my 40's when I go to play in that BIG rocks.
 
I guess that came out wrong, I like tough obstacles, and look for the tough lines myself. My point being I'm not going to be upset or change my rig because of a few lines I can't take.

Underestimated at Harlan comes to mind, I don't foresee making the ledge at the end unless it gets really worn down. But it is more or less a straight up throttle ledge, not exactly my forte.

I was trying to stay higher on the left at the wall, I think that was my best shot at it, but the rear wanted to slide down hill.
 
Travis said:
I was trying to stay higher on the left at the wall, I think that was my best shot at it, but the rear wanted to slide down hill.
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I had the same issue. I think my closest shot was after my rear slid to the right I lined up the front toward the left to get away from the really vertical section. I bumped it pretty good and it seemed like it wanted to go if I stayed in the throttle longer. But then again I saw Greg hit the exact same line. His rig is about the same weight (maybe 100 lbs more) but it has more power and bigger tires and he didn't make it. Maybe I wasn't as close as I thought?

Either way, I had a good time yesterday. I've gone two trips in a row without any carnage and that's a very good thing.
 
Travis said:
I guess that came out wrong, I like tough obstacles, and look for the tough lines myself. My point being I'm not going to be upset or change my rig because of a few lines I can't take.

Underestimated at Harlan comes to mind, I don't foresee making the ledge at the end unless it gets really worn down. But it is more or less a straight up throttle ledge, not exactly my forte.

I was trying to stay higher on the left at the wall, I think that was my best shot at it, but the rear wanted to slide down hill.
Click to expand...

Yeah the crew I like to wheel with is very encouraging and not a lot of bravado. If I try something and give it a good shot, I have been doing this long enough to know if it is going to go or not. My crew does not hand out a ration of **** to someone that has to pull a cable or back down.

Make it or break it is fine as long as you are wheeling someplace like Gray Rock and you can just pull out and let the rest of the crew keep wheeling. I hate it when folks act like a fool and flog their **** because their ego won't let them back down. Then the rest of the crew has to spend their valuable wheeling time getting their broken ass back to camp.
 
I'd like to get where my fronts and rears are the same length. That wont be hard. But since I want to Move out to 106-108"wb, do I make it all in chassis? Or some chassis, some links. Granted a long ways away but just wondering how long are guys links for those wheelbases?
 
heath's are like 45" on a 112" chassis. packaging a 42" link is hard as fawk on the front, and I wouldnt let him/help him do it again. I don't see anything wrong with a 3' link on that chassis. the longer they are the less change in geometry through teh travel of the shock. as you push it out, you will lose some triangulation, but I don't see 3" changing the triangulation over a few degrees. I doubt you even notice the change in the joint misalignment not being centered at ride. I bet you will notice the shock mounts needing to be adjusted a bit, but that is a cut one side off, lean the other and weld back on type job.
 
I'm not an expert but I'll chime in with my thoughts on links.

I think between 3' and 4' is about right. Much less than that and the geometry tends to get kind of screwed up as they droop. One thing I see, on TJs for example, is that when a front tire droops and they approach a rock the rig will tend to drive over the tire and make it droop more instead of having the suspension compress and crawl up the hill. This happens because a short link will be pointed down as it droops compared to a longer link when tends to point more forward.

(I'm less sure about this issue, correct me if I'm wrong)
Another issue with short links is the rear steer. What can happen when a short link droops is that the control arm swings down and shortens up the wheelbase by moving the wheel forward in its arc. With a longer link the wheel droops down without moving forward along the arc of the control arm's travel.

Finally, with a longer link the suspension geometry changes less radically as it droops and compresses. The reasons not to go much over 4' are weight, packaging, and diminishing returns. IIRC, my front links are 38-39"" and the rear are 42".

Word of warning: I've read a ton and redesigned my own links but I'm not like some of the guys around here that have built rig after rig. Follow my advice at your own risk. ;D
 

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