ICON Shock / TJM 4" Spring Combination - First Off-Road Impression
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ICON Shock / TJM 4" Spring Combination - First Off-Road Impression
We where loaded with three guys and lots of camera/video gear as I was transporting myself and a couple of other videographers out on course for the 2012 King Of Hammers. So this made for a great opportunity to traverse the deserts terrain, ie: lots of whoops and all those never ending small six inch bumps. We have had numerous conversations about these whoops as Johnson Valley is riddled with whoops. I even have a nickname for Johnson Valley... WHOOP CITY!
So, on with the impression.
Pulling off the paved road and onto the dirt road that leads onto Means Dry Lake I instantly felt the plushness! I knew I was going to be stoked. But, I knew this was just a basic road and needed more diverse conditions for a full evaluation. Meeting up with my buddies, we loaded my rig and made way across the desert. With cargo of the precious and fragile nature such as our camera and video gear, we did not want to achieve any great speed over deep whoops. We did notice that we could get the rear of the vehicle to “buck” or bounce out the backside of the whoops meaning that the rear shocks are going to need some re-valving now that the longer stiffer springs are in place. We want a controlled rebound, so this will be something we will work on later and we want to do this with/at speed. The awesome thing was watching six inch size bumps not move the vehicle six inches while traversing at a 20-30 mph clip. With stiff springs, this is practically impossible, so this is where we where very impressed with the springs soaking up the small bumps. The front shocks are near perfect for both six inch bumps and the larger whoops, but we will be doing some more testing at higher speeds to fine tune the shocks and springs working together in concert. So for now, I'm very happy and I know its only going to get better. These TJM springs pass the test and make for a geat base to work from. The ICON's are simply sweet and smooth and TUNEABLE so these shocks will get us to our desired effect!
While at the 2012 King Of Hammers and all the good that we had,
there is the BAD!
Let me set the scene.
We were out previewing the section of course that we where asigned to film for King Of Hammers. We where assigned the section between race marker 20 and 21 on Martell Mountain. We got a good look of the section going from 20 to 21, up the hill, but according to the topo we saw the drop off over the top. We wanted to drive around to the other side and see if we would have something more to shoot, so we were traversing our way around the base of Martell in a clockwise direction and where about halfway around and could see another dry lake on our left where race market 24 was. Working our way around, we got into a section that dropped us down this ravine and had a step but small drop off at the bottom and we needed to go left in the drop as well. We see the rock in which we also need to maneuver around.
This is one of those moments when you wished you took the time to shoot a few more images aside from one. Luckily my buddy ScottG shot this image amist the mayhem.
I'm in the hat working the hand-winch. Will is the one digging out the underside of the rock [blue droors] and Scott just stepped back to access the situation and snapped this one image from our episode.
What you do not see is to the left of the rock in the front is my truck and we came down the hill and was turning left and around this rock. On the outside was a small rock that I needed bump up and over. For some reason the little rock made my front driveshaft release a loud SNAP:censor: and then a grrrrrrrrrr sound and no motion forward. We throw it in neutral as quick as possible. Try reverse and grrrrrrrrrrr with no action and quickly toss it into natural. ScottG is outside the rig already as he was guiding me through the tight section that buy my previous experiences was a very simple maneuver and should have NOT BEEN AN ISSUE.
ScottG being a Jeep guy saw this as the end. Its late in the day and the sun is going down. We saw our chances slipping away to be maneuverable the following day. I saw an expensive tow bill. But, he knows my truck well and asked me to push the Center Diff Lock switch and try it again.:idea: We spin the outside back wheel and it is close to being completely unweighted so it spins in the gravel. We know we can add two guys on the outside rail to get weight on the tire:hillbilly:, but we asses the situation and instead of trying to drive forward in 2WD or better yet, 1WD; we decide we should try to move the rock we are going around over a foot or two and we can go forward without bumping up the rock on the outside. We first start with the shovel and the rocky surface underneath calls for a pickaxe [note for future additions].
Luckily I carry a couple of tow straps and a come-along hand-winch. I do not have a front mount bumper winch and I grew up pulling the family wood cutting truck out of ditches with a come-along hand-winch, so I know this tool pretty well. It has came in handy a few times with the Land Cruiser.
So, we strap the rock we want to move up to a larger rock up the hill and hope this size does matter and the rock higher up the hill is truly heavier. While Scott and I are hooking up the rock our buddy Will is digging the area out in front of the rock we want to move.
We click the hand-winch and the rock comes-on-along in the direction that we hoped for - OUT OF OUR WAY!
Also note in the name of winching-safety-technique, I have my Carhartt jacket and rubber floor mat draped over the winch line.
So with that accomplished, they get on the outside rail and we back the rig up few feet to cut the corner around the rock we just moved. Now we can progress forward, once we get all the gear loaded back into the rig.
Then the next worry. How are we going to get this heavy rig back up and over the big sandy hill we came down at race mile 52?
Needless to say, we made it back to camp after a couple of failed attempts to driving around the moutain only to get either into steeper hills or the untracked desert that is so soft and the 80-series super-tanker does not do too well in the soft stuff. Yes, even aired down the inclide was too much and too much risking as we were attempting to go further away from camp, driving around the mountain ridge to get back to camp. Long way around was not to be.
As we made it back over the same original way we came down, we made the decission to go for it again the following day for the race. We had a job to do! All went as planned - drove home - currently driving to work each day.
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