BoldAdventures 2015 Power Wagon Build

[frq flyr]

Great update Mike! Truck looks great and I appreciate your willingness to share for the benefit of others!

 

[mikekey]

Is that King stabilizer the Thuren one? Just curious because on the Thuren website and Instagram pics I've only seen blue-logo King stabilizers, but those may also be older Thuren pics.

What stabilizer(s) did you have before, and can you qualify/quantify the improvement?

I have a Synergy-sourced Fox stabilizer that I'm looking to upgrade, as I don't think it has any special tuning, certainly nothing like what is available from Thuren.

Great progress, gorgeous truck and the forethought into that rack and everything else is exceptional!

-joe

Yes, it's Thuren's King Stablizer, I just had the factory unit before hand. I had to remove the King Stablizer, it pushes too hard to the right, and the Toyo's already pull to the right. The King stablizer made it 100x worse.

Love the Wagon. You move away from the Airstream and into the tent?

Nope, just so we can go camping away from the Airstream, more remotely. Do some more overlanding.

I love your truck and that you both go out frequently and share the photos with us. Thank you.

Kick *** rig man, awesome job!

Started following you on Instagram, love the build, I'd love to go PW on my next vehicle.

THANKS FELLOWS

The improvements and upgrades are looking sweet! Great thought into the additions to the truck, can't wait to start adding to mine..hows the bumper now that you cut the 2" off and redid the welds? It looks great painted up and will be easy touch up. Also I'm curious on the steering stabilizer improvement as well...mine has a slight pull to the right on the highway and has no issues with incorrect wear, only have 17k on stock, rotated tires that are wearing evenly, I'm thinking this would help. Congrats on the Moab trail conquering as well!

Looking awesome!
Alex

Stablizer will make right hand pull worse. Remove factory or keep it. Thanks. The bumper is even better now. Less scrapping on the bottom.

So the bigger ones are 37's? What size are the smaller ones? They look too small to be 35's.

Any rubbing with the bigger tires?

Also is your friend going to make more of those transmission skid plates?

Skids plates are for sale here: https://dethloffmfg.com/shop/oil-transmission-skid-plate/

I had 35's and I moved to 37's, the only rub is on the sway bar at full lock. Otherwise, no problems.

Great update Mike! Truck looks great and I appreciate your willingness to share for the benefit of others!

Thanks!

 

[mikekey]

So I decided to start a BLOG to document our travels and our build. First one is out.

 

[highlandercj-7]

Luv the Wagon. What front bumper is that it looks awesome! Has all the features I need in a front bumper too.

 

[mikekey]

It was made by Kinzer Off-Road, I left a review of my experince in the build thread here. I had to have it fixed and modified. But in the end, I'm happy.

 

[leelikesbikes]

Love that area, I've done alot of dual sporting down there. Silver City is not too far and worth checking out too if you haven't already. It will be snowing there soon. We rode across the bridge at the hot springs and made a loop out the other side.

 

[mlmeans]

37....

Other than the Thuren raising the front 1.5 inches did you do anything to make 37 fit with no rub? I have leveling kit on mine now and 35 with no issues and I’m looking betting 37 would fit.

Tire Upgrade





After installing the Thuren 1.5 inch Hemi coil up front, I went ahead and installed Toyo Open Country M/T's in 37x12.50R17

I love these tires. They fit the truck so well. And I'm going to be honest here, when wheeling in Moab, I feel like the 37's are a bigger difference compared to the 35's. I did not notice a huge gain with the 35's when wheeling compared to the stock 33's. But the 37's are very noticeable in terms of gains compared to the 35's.

 

[Cyph86]

Love your build. All the pics and videos make it entertaining to watch and educational to read. I really dig your philosiphy of only upgrade what you need to not just because. I have a 04 silverado duramax ecsb. It does pain me to see you so easily squeeze in some 35s then 37s. i had to do a leveling kit and trimming just to squeeze (and i mean squeeze) m 33 bfgs. Not to mention the weak points in chevys steering system known in my truck so i have to take it pretty easy. I do however pay very close attention to builds like yours that give an emphasis practicality. Builds especially yours have given me a great insight onto what is actually needed to go wheeling and make jeep owners mouths hang open. (i have done once or twice). Keep up the fantastic job with the story and indepth look at your choices and reasoning for them it really helps us full size guys to make better decisions and keep us motivated to get out there with all the snobs who think we cant hang.

 

[mikekey]

Did a little wheeling in the snow to test out the Toyo 37 MT's also did a recovery while I was out there.

Also, don't have a photo, but recently installed 1 inch rear spacers to get some rake back.

 

[marshal]

did you notice any fuel economy benefit from the AEV snorkel? im up in the air if the additional drag would be offset by being able to scoop fresh cool air from 8 feet off the ground.

 

[mikekey]

did you notice any fuel economy benefit from the AEV snorkel? im up in the air if the additional drag would be offset by being able to scoop fresh cool air from 8 feet off the ground.

Dude, if you are thinking about the drag coefficient of a snorkel, you are seriously over thinking things.

 

[leelikesbikes]

Dude, if you are thinking about the drag coefficient of a snorkel, you are seriously over thinking things.

If your thinking about fuel economy on a full size gas rig tour overthinking it! (I've got a hemi ram with 37's, gears, lockers)

 

[marshal]

Dude, if you are thinking about the drag coefficient of a snorkel, you are seriously over thinking things.

haha i just don't want to put one on because of "what if" if 95% of the time its going to cost me more money. i dont need one for water, but for dust it would be nice

 

[mikekey]

haha i just don't want to put one on because of "what if" if 95% of the time its going to cost me more money. i dont need one for water, but for dust it would be nice

With the AEV Ram Air intake, I saw nothing. I have noticed maybe a bit more OMPH when you stomp on it, kind of like how you get with a CAI. But, I saw no gains and no losses. My biggest suprise was ZERO noise. It's almost like I put a sticker on the truck.

---

In other news, we've been pulling people out of the snow and the mud here lately. After the Jeep recovery in my video above, we came across this fellow who got stuck the next day.

After that, I decided to pick up soem soft shackles and a Factor55 Hitchlink 2.5. I had planned on building a rear bumper, but that didn't happen, and it's going to probably be awhile, so this should cover me for a good amount of time on the rear recovery point.

And then today I saw a guy stuck on the SW Idaho 4x4 Recovery FB Group, so we drove out to give him a hand and used the new gear.

 

[Austo]

Awesome truck, pictures, and videos. ************ to see your truck tackle all the Moab lines.