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MaverickMan

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The parking lot, where it’ll stay, just like the video.



You can’t be serious?
Its the first one I have seen with actual offroad tires. All the light pods in the world cant help you if you dont have any grip. A badlands with a spacer lift is basically a big squatch. The trimmed bumper look great. Like something you would see on a rig that has been wheeled for years. I personaly would build some tube fenders for it that went straight out for tire coverage only. I would bet that just about every place we have seen a video of a Bronco stuck on something this would do it. Im sure in time he will upgrade the steering and joints as they become available after he breaks them, but thats what real offroading is. Wheel it, break it, beef it, wheel it more, break it, find weak points and beef, then wheel it again more glorious than ever.
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Panaran

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You should see the size of the brakes I stop my 6klbs Bronco with. I have a 121lb tire wrapped around a 60lb wheel pushed by a manual 70's booster that I stop with a smaller rotor and caliper than the stock Bronco... I can lock up all 4 tires @ 80+ MPH, brakes are a non-issue.
Oh yeah, I wasn't worried about the stopping power, more so just the life of the brakes. I'd imagine they wear out quick, but I've never had a setup like that before. Just in my brain, the rotors are on fire at every stop lol.
 

Dusty

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Tons of challenges to make this happen. I commend you for going for it. People like you make the world a more interesting place!

This is not meant to sound negative in any way, just commenting: I really wanted to go for 40s on my Bronco but the IFS pretty much stopped me in my tracks. It's just not beefy enough up front, would require a solid axle (probably a ton) and the rear would need to be bulked up as well. Penciling it all out it just didn't make sense to go for it.

It made me realize the Bronco is never quite going to contend with the Jeep on the "extreme" end of the crawling spectrum. This platform isn't customizable to the extreme that a Jeep has become. It's not designed to grow to the sizes Jeeps can. It's not able to quite do what Jeeps can do... again, on the extreme end of the spectrum, which few of us will ever visit. Myself included.

You can get a Jeep up on 40s. It will take some real doing, it's not an easy road either, but it's a documented, predictable path with predictably solid results. And 40s on a 4-door JK or JL is not at all uncommon, and a very solid crawling build... quite a few of those serious rigs out there. They're always going to eat the Bronco's lunch.

It is for all of these reasons the Jeep isn't going to be unseated as the reigning wheeling champion of the world anytime soon, least of all by the Bronco, but can the Bronco compete hard right up to the 90% mark... absolutely.

Would love to see where you go with this. Thanks again for being willing to push ahead. You are forging a trail here, and I think it's awesome. Best of luck to you.

-JC
Some solid observations there but I'll point out that most of those JK's and JL's running around on 40's have Dynatrac or Rock-Jock 60's under them--they're not running the factory running gear either. While it's a little harder to sort out in the Bronco so far, there has been at least one that I've seen that has done an aftermarket solid 60 in the front, and I expect to see quite a few more over the coming years, including complete installation kits from the aftermarket. So I'm not sure whether your prediction that the Bronco will never contend with the Jeep on the extreme crawling spectrum will hold up over time. From what I can see so far, sorting out the steering is the only real advantage the Jeep has over the Bronco, when converting to solid axle. You can keep mechanical steering on the Jeep and use stock or beefed up aftermarket components, where on the Bronco you pretty much have to run full hydro at this point, which makes it questionable as a dual-purpose on-road/off-road vehicle. But perhaps the aftermarket will sort out some sort of a mechanical steering gear for the Bronco as well. It won't be cheap of course, but those Jeeps running 40's, and doing it right, also have $20K in upgrades. In the long run it does make more sense to just build a Bomber chassis or some other tube buggy from scratch rather than cutting up either of these factory vehicles, if running 40" plus tires and playing out in Johnson Valley every weekend is your goal.

All of that said, I'm amused that this guy slapped the 40's on and pretty much only did clearance work, not really any beefing up of components. I do applaud the initiative, and he'll learn what he'll learn if/when he wheels it, not from a bunch of Internet keyboard warriors. But I'll be interested in following along, seeing what happens and seeing what he does to overcome the other challenges that are coming his way.
 

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MaverickMan

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Tons of challenges to make this happen. I commend you for going for it. People like you make the world a more interesting place!

This is not meant to sound negative in any way, just commenting: I really wanted to go for 40s on my Bronco but the IFS pretty much stopped me in my tracks. It's just not beefy enough up front, would require a solid axle (probably a ton) and the rear would need to be bulked up as well. Penciling it all out it just didn't make sense to go for it.

It made me realize the Bronco is never quite going to contend with the Jeep on the "extreme" end of the crawling spectrum. This platform isn't customizable to the extreme that a Jeep has become. It's not designed to grow to the sizes Jeeps can. It's not able to quite do what Jeeps can do... again, on the extreme end of the spectrum, which few of us will ever visit. Myself included.

You can get a Jeep up on 40s. It will take some real doing, it's not an easy road either, but it's a documented, predictable path with predictably solid results. And 40s on a 4-door JK or JL is not at all uncommon, and a very solid crawling build... quite a few of those serious rigs out there. They're always going to eat the Bronco's lunch.

It is for all of these reasons the Jeep isn't going to be unseated as the reigning wheeling champion of the world anytime soon, least of all by the Bronco, but can the Bronco compete hard right up to the 90% mark... absolutely.

Would love to see where you go with this. Thanks again for being willing to push ahead. You are forging a trail here, and I think it's awesome. Best of luck to you.

-JC
It has a steel frame and welders are cheap at harbor freight. I think people will be able to the the "extreme" on broncos just fine. Wait till we see raptor IFS swaps and dynatrack builds. All we need is for people to wreck em just a little and end up in the hands of rednecks. Lets get 300,000 of em on the street and see what happens.
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KyleQ

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All of that said, I'm amused that this guy slapped the 40's on and pretty much only did clearance work, not really any beefing up of components. I do applaud the initiative, and he'll learn what he'll learn if/when he wheels it, not from a bunch of Internet keyboard warriors. But I'll be interested in following along, seeing what happens and seeing what he does to overcome the other challenges that are coming his way.
It all depends on wheeling style too, I'm sure if you're soft footed and wheel Moab that it will survive just fine. I'm fairly certain I could destroy that in a day here in the Midwest and on the flip side I could probably make it survive as well, it just takes a specific mindset - I'm great at blowing up my locked D44 in my 96' Bronco with my anemic 185hp on 32's but after a learning curve I made it two years without breaking a shaft. I let a friend drive it and he broke one in under 3 minutes :D

Either way, to make that survive a 400ft/tq beatdown it's going to need at least 05+ SuperDuty axles with 19+ 1550 shafts and some sort of steering setup, which in all reality should be a DE full hydro setup - the full hydro not exactly being ideal for daily driver status. I need to take a look at the frame on my Bronco to see where someone could mount a box and if there is even room.

Broken D44 Shafts.jpg
 

PDiddy

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I don't know. I am glad he went for it but.... If its a daily driver and not going off road, it is kind of pointless. and if it is going to be off roaded, it's going to snap things like twigs. I really hope we get to see follow up post of it hitting some trails.
 

texashoya

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It all depends on wheeling style too, I'm sure if you're soft footed and wheel Moab that it will survive just fine. I'm fairly certain I could destroy that in a day here in the Midwest and on the flip side I could probably make it survive as well, it just takes a specific mindset - I'm great at blowing up my locked D44 in my 96' Bronco with my anemic 185hp on 32's but after a learning curve I made it two years without breaking a shaft. I let a friend drive it and he broke one in under 3 minutes :D

Either way, to make that survive a 400ft/tq beatdown it's going to need at least 05+ SuperDuty axles with 19+ 1550 shafts and some sort of steering setup, which in all reality should be a DE full hydro setup - the full hydro not exactly being ideal for daily driver status. I need to take a look at the frame on my Bronco to see where someone could mount a box and if there is even room.

Broken D44 Shafts.jpg
I’m sorry…did you say 185hp?? What a sad era for American automakers that was.
 

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KyleQ

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I’m sorry…did you say 185hp?? What a sad era for American automakers that was.
It's a 5.0 with 227k miles that has seen 280*F+ hundreds of times trying to exhale through FOUR 90's catalytic converters. I might even be exaggerating that statement a bit too - the Mustang only made 215HP and would do 1/4 in about 15 seconds. Technology has come a LONG ways since then in rapid succession.
 

texashoya

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It's a 5.0 with 227k miles that has seen 280*F+ hundreds of times trying to exhale through FOUR 90's catalytic converters. I might even be exaggerating that statement a bit too - the Mustang only made 215HP and would do 1/4 in about 15 seconds. Technology has come a LONG ways since then in rapid succession.
Yeah maybe “sad” isn’t the right word for it. But it’s crazy to think that since 1996 we’ve gone from a 5.0L V8 doing 200hp to a 2.3L I4 doing 300hp. Really puts the 2.3L in perspective when the 2.7L people start ripping on it.
 

KyleQ

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Yeah maybe “sad” isn’t the right word for it. But it’s crazy to think that since 1996 we’ve gone from a 5.0L V8 doing 200hp to a 2.3L I4 doing 300hp. Really puts the 2.3L in perspective when the 2.7L people start ripping on it.
Yeah, dual overhead cams with variable valve timing, direct injection, aluminum construction with turbocharging sure makes a difference!
 
 


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