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Felix808

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After 746 days, a MY22 4-door Badlands Bronco :-)
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Also of interest to some is the 7-speed manual transmission, and how it handles working through rock gardens like these. I'll admit I prefer an auto. I find them much easier to control, especially on slippery rocks like these where, without much traction and lack of lockers, you're often using momentum more than crawling. So it gets a bit herky-jerky at times. I suppose to some it probably looks like a continuous wreck as I crash it through those rocks. It does look that way but most of that was intentional, and for the most part it usually went where I was trying to get it to go.
Have to say that was a bit painful to watch, but you did a great job considering the challenges.

The 2.3L engine has been both praised and panned in these pages. But I continue to be impressed with it, and I have other 4X4's with fire-breathing V8's. It has plenty of power, even to turn those 35's. It can pull the weight of the Bronco up any grade it can get enough traction on. But the power doesn't come right off-idle. It's a bit higher in the RPM band. Sometimes you'll see in the video as I wind it up a bit before dropping the hammer. Which also contributes a bit to the jerky-ness of working through rocks like these. But the power is there, and I'm getting better at learning how to use it. By the way, the Crawl gear of the 7-speed works well in concert with the 2.3L, as it lets you get up into that power band at lower speeds.
Yeah that is where the 2.3 will suffer when you need the power down low (almost all situations but sand & mud). Add the manual and like you said you have to wind up the motor & feather in the clutch which always increase the chances of breakage, especially with a lot of wheel spin.

While I can appreciate the challenge you took on and pretty much made it out of there unscathed is pretty impressive, I think a lot of people don't understand that by having a more capable rig (lockers tires etc..) It helps preserve the both the equipment and the trail.

Great write up Dusty.
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Wow, great video. It really shows the issues with doing this kind of trailing with a manual.
It looked like a lot of work.
 

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So my wife almost has me conviced that a Maverick is more practical for us. But that is when I was planning on buying a 45k Bronco. Now I am thinking about going base but with a rear locker if I can. I am also more than capable of swapping a locked 210 in down the road. I dont rock crawl and dont see much fun in it(i have done it). You guys actually made it look fun bouncing around. Slow and predictable just arent in my vocabulary(sounds like a train ride at an amusement park lol), but hopping around on the clutch, rolling back and forth then jumping up and over. Thats something. The wheeling we have here on Maui, is really fairly tame. Just some muddy hills(really one single mountain that has a mix of flat or slopey bits), various short rutted mud pits, small water crossings, beaches, and super grippy lava rock. I think we could do alot with a stock 4 door lifted and decent tires.

This video helped confirm what I know from my years of wheeling basic unlocked(a couple lincoln locked) junkers that I fabbed and lifted to glory. Buy what you can wheel it and make it better as needed, but always bring a winch or a freind. Good part about the island is that you can always hitch a ride home for a recovery vehicle after a short hike.
 
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Dusty

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While I can appreciate the challenge you took on and pretty much made it out of there unscathed is pretty impressive, I think a lot of people don't understand that by having a more capable rig (lockers tires etc..) It helps preserve the both the equipment and the trail.
Regarding the idea of preserving the trail, just in case anyone seeing this thinks I was being destructive. That trail is intended to be one of the most challenging in the area, and the Forest Service and the club that maintains it through the Adopt-A-Trail program are always working to keep it as challenging as possible. To the extent that they will bring in a small dozer to push the rocks back in place, move fallen trees to block easy bypasses (you can see some of these in the video, and un-stack rocks where needed. Anything my rig does to "tear up" that trail is considered a good thing, on that specific trail. It's not an access road to get anywhere, it's purely there for recreational four wheeling.

That said, your point is a good one. The better equipped the rig is, the easier it will be on both the terrain and the rig, not to mention the driver :). And on roads that are actually intended more as a way to get from point A to point B, safely for as many people as possible regardless of what they are driving, of course you want to try your best not to tear up the road.
 
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Dusty

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So my wife almost has me conviced that a Maverick is more practical for us. But that is when I was planning on buying a 45k Bronco. Now I am thinking about going base but with a rear locker if I can. I am also more than capable of swapping a locked 210 in down the road. I dont rock crawl and dont see much fun in it(i have done it). You guys actually made it look fun bouncing around. Slow and predictable just arent in my vocabulary(sounds like a train ride at an amusement park lol), but hopping around on the clutch, rolling back and forth then jumping up and over. Thats something. The wheeling we have here on Maui, is really fairly tame. Just some muddy hills(really one single mountain that has a mix of flat or slopey bits), various short rutted mud pits, small water crossings, beaches, and super grippy lava rock. I think we could do alot with a stock 4 door lifted and decent tires.

This video helped confirm what I know from my years of wheeling basic unlocked(a couple lincoln locked) junkers that I fabbed and lifted to glory. Buy what you can wheel it and make it better as needed, but always bring a winch or a freind. Good part about the island is that you can always hitch a ride home for a recovery vehicle after a short hike.
I kind of like the new Maverick, but for what it is, not for an alternative to the Bronco. For a small pickup it seems pretty cool. But for a 4X4? Even the all-wheel-drive version doesn't do much for me. I suppose it's better than a Subaru, but if you can get a real 4X4 for around $30K, which can be upgraded later if you want, I think that's a no-brainer. Also, I think the Bronco would be awesome as an island runabout with the top and doors off. Can't do that with the Maverick :)
 

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MaverickMan

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I kind of like the new Maverick, but for what it is, not for an alternative to the Bronco. For a small pickup it seems pretty cool. But for a 4X4? Even the all-wheel-drive version doesn't do much for me. I suppose it's better than a Subaru, but if you can get a real 4X4 for around $30K, which can be upgraded later if you want, I think that's a no-brainer. Also, I think the Bronco would be awesome as an island runabout with the top and doors off. Can't do that with the Maverick :)
For sure. The Mav isnt a real 4x4 or even a real unibody 4x4. Everything I have is a real 4x4. 96 FSB (armored and racked), 93 ZJ(stock), 91 Comanche (lifted and winch), 80 AMC Eagle waggy (no motor or interior yet but 28" TSLs). We need a nicer daily driver that must have 4x4 since our driveway is +30 degree dirt switchback. The only reason we have meen looking at the Maverick is because I keep hearing such good things about it. I love small trucks, and its cheap and available well equipped for the price of a stripped Bronco I will wait a year for. I've never owned a car from this millenuim and am not sure I will ever have more than 1. So I want to get it right. Also the Maverick has a keyed ignition. For my uses their interior and cargo are pretty much the same with the Mav having an extra foot of bed but requiring a topper for the dogs. One other thing about the Bronco is that you cant get the 7spd on a 4dr Base. However you are stuck with a slushbox (hell on earth)on the Mav anyway. Im also very anxious to get a new vehicle. The ZJ has taken over daily duties since our Bronco keeps on giving me fuel injection related horrors and I cant figure out a good standalone trans controller so I can dump the factory for a Demon carb.

The Bronco even a base is quite a beast and may be what I go with, I hope, but the Maverick is enticing. Like I told my wife, we gotta drive em both first. Drove a BS Badlands with the 2.0 so I kinda have an idea about the Mav. We shall see.
 

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Thanks for info - I will go at least rear locker and auto.
That is a game performance, not for me thanks.
 

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Great video...can't wait to work up to this level. Quick question: What brand is that front winch bumper on the ICON Bronco? Love it.

Ford Bronco Rock Crawling a 2-Door Base w/ No Lockers, Manual Transmission -- @ Holcomb Creek Trail in Southern California Screenshot 2021-12-19 082125
 

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interesting video. makes me wince just a bit since the sudden stops for the spinning wheels is what breaks axles and drive shafts.

would the lower 4.77 gearing used in the badlands made a significant difference? seemed like you were using a lot of momentum to overcome lack of gearing and lockers.
 
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Dusty

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Great video...can't wait to work up to this level. Quick question: What brand is that front winch bumper on the ICON Bronco? Love it.
It's a prototype built by ICON. The production version will be be a bit different.
 

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Dusty

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interesting video. makes me wince just a bit since the sudden stops for the spinning wheels is what breaks axles and drive shafts.

would the lower 4.77 gearing used in the badlands made a significant difference? seemed like you were using a lot of momentum to overcome lack of gearing and lockers.
The Bronco has 4.46 gears, I don't think the 4.7's would have made that much difference. The lack of lockers is indeed what dictated resorting to momentum in this situation. By the way you'll notice that even the other rigs with us, all of which had lockers front and rear and low gearing, still had to resort to "bumping" it up and over the slippery rocks at times. That's a tried and true method of getting through an obstacle when you don't have enough traction to crawl through it. You're right, of course it's not ideal to have to do that all day, and it's not exactly gentle on the equipment. But in case you didn't quite get the point of this and our other videos, this is all just a big experiment to test the extent of the vehicle's capabilities, from when it was bone stock, through each upgrade. I don't intend to use it like this regularly (in this configuration, on trails like this).
 

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thanks! i was thinking of the final ratio for the base auto of 3.73!
 

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This past Sunday my wife and I headed up to run Holcomb Creek Trail with a few of our buddies from So Cal Broncos and a couple of my co-workers from ICON. In addition to just having a fun day on the trails, my wife and I were continuing the benchmarking series on your YouTube channel, for testing the off-road performance limits of the Cheapest Bronco You Can Buy™ (2-door Base non-Squatch, 2.3L 7-speed manual, $28,500 MSRP).
...
I watched that video when it first came out and the one thing that was on my mind that you didn't share in the video was what gears you were using when you were going through the obstacle.

I also wondered about the tires you are running. Did you have those aired down and to what? They seemed a little bouncy which caused the bronco to slip off the line. Or was that related to the gear you were in?
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