Bronco Mothership

[85_Ranger4x4]

I recently drove a 4-door Big Bend with the 2.3L and 33" BFG KO2s and IMO it had noticeably less acceleration from both a stop and at speed than my 4-door Bad Lands with 2.7L and 35s. The 2.3L was by no means a dog, just not nearly as responsive as the 2.7L.

Cheers

3.73 vs 4:46 gear may make a difference in acceleration with oversize tires too... (provided both are automatics, if manual 4.46 vs 4.70)

Ours seems to move pretty good, I have no regrets on the 2.3.

I played with the mpg thing over the weekend, about 30 miles in rolling hills set to 60.



I forgot to put it in eco mode... ?

No idea how big of a difference it would make though.

More pics with my baby:





Also got it dirty for the first time (aside from winter road spray)

 

[Explorerinil]

Looks good, very unique color!

 

[Mako1114]

3.73 vs 4:46 gear may make a difference in acceleration with oversize tires too... (provided both are automatics, if manual 4.46 vs 4.70)

Ours seems to move pretty good, I have no regrets on the 2.3.

I played with the mpg thing over the weekend, about 30 miles in rolling hills set to 60.



I forgot to put it in eco mode... ?

No idea how big of a difference it would make though.

More pics with my baby:





Also got it dirty for the first time (aside from winter road spray)

I suspect you are correct with the gearing. I really like your MIC hard top which is my only regret that we had to forego in order to take delivery. I recently saw an upcoming aftermarket alternative which seemed well built but at $6K is a non-starter for me.

Cheers

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

I suspect you are correct with the gearing. I really like your MIC hard top which is my only regret that we had to forego in order to take delivery. I recently saw an upcoming aftermarket alternative which seemed well built but at $6K is a non-starter for me.

Cheers

That is why we drew a line in the sand on the hardtop. I figured anything after the fact would be ridiculously priced.

I did see a Land Rover inspired one that was neat a couple weeks ago online though.

For a DD in the upper midwest (especially hers) I just really didn't want to deal with a softop. Somewhere more temperate they would be a lot of fun though.

Truth be told if they had a fixed steel hardtop like a 4Runner or whatever I would have been all over that instead.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Found mini me today:

 

[mortonm]

Great pic

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Dang, forgot I even had this thread until @01tundra liked something in it today.

Nothing real huge but we have been rocking Rocko for over a year and 20k miles now.

Modified Ford front splashguards to fit fit with the rock rails.



I did end up getting JCR light brackets. The lights fit a lot better and it is a mounting point for the GMRS antenna.





No great place to mount a regular radio, best compromise I found for our free radio.



Couple camping trips.





Hit car show #1.



Car show #2



She cashed in her rewards points for a bimini top.



Our club car show (#3)



Off to Badlands Off Road Park in Attica Indiana for the annual TRS trailride. I had to work the morning we were to leave (boss's daughter got homecoming queen and he got roped into that) so it was a cannonball run to get out there, landed around 11pm which is kinda late to set up camp but I had plenty of help.

She is new to offroading so I left my Ranger in the campground and I rode with her to kinda try to help and to be on hand if she wanted out. She did great, only made me drive once. Went back to camp after lunch and then I broke my rig out. Kept it to easy stuff and she followed me around and seemed to have a good time.


My grandfather is a huge Native American enthusiast, actually just retired from making tipis in his retirement. He and a few of his friends had their tipis set up in his pasture and they invited us and my cousins to go camp out one weekend. Knowing we had a trip coming up and we couldn't bring the Ranger (painful yet easy way to cut the fuel bill in half) so it was a good dry run on living out of one rig. Having the Ranger's cavernous 7' long cargo bay is addictive... The Ranger did tag along on this outing for stuff we wouldn't need for the next rip like my Weber grill and fishing gear.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

And then we were off to Kansas Rocks Recreation Park for their Creepy Crawl. It was our 5th anniversary weekend so I pulled out all the stops and spent the extra $20 to get a hotel with a fake fireplace on the way down. Started off on our own and eventually fell in with a Jeep club out of Omaha. I had started off driving until we got a feel for the park, the Jeep guys were pushing my boundaries pretty hard. I had never done a lot of that let alone in my wife's brand new car I still wasn't super familiar with with a toddler in the back seat crying and repeating "don't hurt the car daddy!" They were trying to take it easy with us, IIRC just about all of them had lifted Rubicons and here is us a bone stock Black Diamond Bronco... After lunch we went back out on our own and I had her drive, she had a lot of fun on some of the easier trails.


Rock crawl mode is legit, throughout that trip I was playing around with the different GOAT modes and fell in love with that one. You have to manually shift the trans, only have 4low for an option and I wish I could turn the rear locker off at times for tight turns but it tightens up the torque converter and plays with the throttle which is HUGE. If you paid attention in the first part of the video with the Jeeps you can see how much better the throttle control is as it goes on. Really made it feel more linear like my carbed 5speed Ranger.

After all that I did finally get the fire extinguisher mounted in the back. I have one bolt into the rollbar and then the two clamps to secure it.





I got her grab handles for Christmas:



Blue to go with the Black Diamond blue interior accents.



Took part in a an impromptu Bronco meet back in January which was fun. The muddy one with cornstalks hanging out the bottom, yeah that one is ours.





Just had to go see how wifie's car will do in the snow, and then had to go drag it out of said snow.





Kind of a pain to get out. I am used to dragging a 4k lb Ranger out with a 5500lb F-150. Easy peesy. Now we both updated rides and they both weigh 5k so they are kind of on even footing when one is stuck without a tire on the ground. Next time I think I will forget the truck and just go with the tractor, it doesn't play fair.



Also went thru "Hastie Hallow" the next county over in the Loess Hills. Very neat, there are a couple more roads like that that we need to make time for.

Loess Hills - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And I think that is about current...

 

[Todd780]

Very cool vids. Glad to see she's enjoying her Bronco!

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

We went down to the Off-Roadeo in Texas two weeks ago.





I guess we had never really thought about it but if you drive your Bronco to an Offroadeo you get VIP parking up front. We had driven ours the farthest so we won the "Ironbutt award"... a sticker. (there was a guy that drove from Delaware but not in his Bronco)








The only manual Bronco left in their fleet is a gate guard.





I was left unattended and used the hunter green pin for reasons...

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Did intros, a brief talk about what we were going to do and then off to class we went.

Learned how to use park with the parking brakes correct among other things.



How bow waves work and about fording water (general rule of thumb for a Bronco is the top of the bumper BTW)







Bronco is designed to run leaning 30deg side to side and 45deg for/aft (as far as trans picking up fluid, engine oil picking up oil etc)





Uh oh... stuck.







Amanda was the only female driver in our class... which I thought was pretty cool. I picked us a red Sasquatch Wildtrak. Kinda similarish to our non Sas Black Diamond in that it doesn't have a sway bar disconnect. There was a non Sas Badlands which would have been closer to ours... but the odds of driving a Wildtrak again are slim.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

I got a break after the marathon to get down there and it was my turn to be passenger princess and eat snacks, play with my phone (and gopros) and critique.

















She's... been around.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

When you see the photographer guy you knew something neat was coming up. Camera with a motion sensor was a sign too after I caught on he didn't just forget his camera sitting around.













Near as I can tell cactus doesn't like happiness at all. There is dirt over there, nah the rock is just fine.



Amanda thought this was cute.





Back to basecamp for lunch. Ham sandwich, shrimp bisque, salad and a giant chocolate chip cookie.



Back in the saddle again...







Note they never wash the roof lol.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

This was all dry a couple weeks before, the dragonflies were making up for lost time.







Those are all little fish.









Going over our first challenging obstacle.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

A little bluerock shooting station we took a break at and went over recovery stuff. It was pretty basic, this a strap, this a kinetic rope, this is a clevis, this is a soft shackle etc.



Hmm, that looks interesting. (the other half of our class that we were following from a distance)











For the first time ever I did a quick inventory of possible events... and clutched the door handle for dear life to ensure if we did go over I didn't do something stupid like stick my arm out the window.





The first step is done, onto the second.





I am not sure what exactly happened, we are down by the stern and leaning to starboard about as far as I dared, then the right rear dropped more and I was pretty sure we were buying a second Bronco... but she kept it greasy side down like a camp.





Can make out trails better from here.



A 1700 mile tire BTW. Amusing with a full tank of gas the onboard range calculator thing said 77 miles to E... but they rarely exceed 5mph or low range. They cycle the cars out around 2k miles, they are reconditioned and sold by the local dealership. Kind of interesting. In retrospect I took for granted they would all have rock rails, to reduce damage if I had to to do over again I think I would shop for those above all else. We didn't damage our car at all though.



All done with the driving class.



BBQ for supper, supposed to be a campfire social thing but most people in our class were retired and just left... we hadn't seen little guy all day so we eventually did too.