Some say it's time in the seat that makes off-roading an unbelievable good time. But for me, as much fun as it is trying to break our trail rigs, building 4x4's is where the fun really happens! And aside from time spent with my family, there is no place I'd rather be than in my shop planning and building the sick creations we come up with...
There are a lot of people out there who spend a lot of time "giving back" to their communities in many
different ways. Some choose jobs that have them rushing into burning buildings, or keeping our streets safe, or tending to the sick. Some spend their free time helping their neighbors or volunteering
in the community, and if you are reading this a...
Last fall, Ian Johnson took delivery of a retired 5-ton M530C military fire truck to serve as the core for our bobbed deuce build on Xtreme 4x4. And as a guy schooled in the art of television, my first thought was, ?Hey can we crush a car with that thing?? Sure it had absolutely zilch to do with the build, but as my hero Elvis Presley once said, ?I...
The idea of building a tow rig on Xtreme 4x4 is always looked at with trepidation. On one hand the majority of four wheelers have one. And supplying the four wheeling community with good how-to and information is one of the key goals of Xtreme 4x4. But seriously! How can you make a tow rig an "Xtreme 4x4"? Our answer would come in the form of a "ki...
I was just an 18 year old punk kid back in the early 90's, high school grad, cruising the streets of Smiths Falls, Ontario when I first got the wild haired idea to do something different with a Jeep build put a CJ-7 hard top on a CJ-8 Scrambler! Back then, the CJ-7 was not only popular, but also plentiful. I drove one to work everyday, year-round...
For as long as I have been a mechanic, I have been a fan of rebuilding, not replacing engines. You see not too long ago if you worked on a car, you rebuilt parts that stopped working and that included everything from engines to wheel cylinders. Now a days it is often cheaper to simply replace parts and the art of rebuilding is being lost....
As automotive enthusiasts we are often easy targets for environmentalist and individuals or groups who see what we do as wasteful and harmful to the planet. I personally see it differently. We are the first recyclers. When everyone else is trading in their cars for new ones, we are not only scouring wrecking yards to pull parts off those cars fo...
I had blue hair once, yes it was the 1980s and I was a rambunctious teenager trying to stand out from the crowd like all the other teenagers with colored hair, or long hair ,or no hair. Standing out in a crowd and being different is something that I often think is engrained into us, you either want attention or you dont. And trust me if your...
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that's the case, we were about to put that concept to the test in the Xtreme shop by building a Toxic Truggy that we dubbed Green Envy in homage to an S10 cab truck I first saw wheeling a tour local off road park. For the novice off road enthusiast, a Truggy is another word for a cab truck....
Threelink? Fourlink? Panhard Bar or not? The question of which off road suspension is right for your application is a tough one for many. But the key is determining just what purpose your suspension needs to fulfill (rock crawling, high speed racing, off road trail riding, etc.) and set about designing just the right system....
When it comes time to swap some junk yard axles under our off road rigs the one job that is always on the to do list is a ring and pinion swap. Mainly because manufacturers never really considered off road crawling as the end use of there axles, and although aftermarket companies offer low ratio gear sets for all popular axles, they never really s...
