After having my truck up and running for a little while I've probably had it out in the desert at least a dozen times. In those runs there are steep hills, ruts, loose sand, mud, and anything else I could find to test it.


I have to say for the most part I am disappointed in what I've seen it can handle. I've gotten stuck in places my bone stock Land Cruiser powered right through. The Toyota's CDL is infinitely easier to use and engage. I had both front and rear sway bars connected the entire time I drove the truck. That truck had 4.11 gears stock. Would this make a huge difference? I really feel the crawl speed was much slower. The suspension was very similar to the Land Rover except beefier. It was a stock truck that outperformed my current truck greatly.


Which leads me to believe that I have set up my truck wrong. I have the HD lift and I'm wondering if its limiting suspension flexibility thus loosing traction. the plan is to have a winch/bumper on the front but for now its just my bull bar. Naturally I disconnected the sway bars. Which helped but still isn't as good as the Toyota. I thought the TF shocks/springs would provide enough travel to allow me to flex, retain traction and provide a nice ride, as well or better than a stock truck would. Am I wrong here? Is it really possible the added weight will help that much? Am I placing too much blame on these components?


Now which direction do I go? Start all over? Replace the springs with Med. duty? Different manufacturer? Do I not have enough lift? Tall enough tires? Start going down that slippery slope of gears...lockers....HD axles...custom shocks and mounts...all to make this truck perform as good as a stock truck did? That seems insane. I have to be doing something wrong. Or I've missed something completely obvious. I want to set this thing up as well as I can but I don't feel dropping 5k in suspension mods is worth it. Ive watched countless videos of Land Rovers and RRC's going through serious terrain. I know these trucks are capable. But are they with out spending a ton of cash or doing extensive modifications?

 

Ok this is the only moving footage I have of the truck. Normally I am solo (hard to drive and film at the same time) please ignore my excited wife. I had tried several times to get up this hill with this truck. Its a lot steeper than it looks. Its all loose sand/ small rocks with a large rut right in the middle. For added fun it tilts about 20 degrees to the passenger side. No bull**** my Toyota never got stuck on this. Not once. Even when it had cheap quality worn out 31x10.5 tires. This video is my 6th attempt at this hill in my Land Rover. I've tried 4 more times to get up using lots of different techniques but no luck. I've never made it up again. In this video you can see I just got annoyed and just floored it.


You can also see it seems I have a good amount of flex when going over the ruts. So I'm confused as to why I am getting stuck and loosing traction so often where as before I was simply driving right up.

 

Sounds like a case of tiny tire syndrome.
From what I can tell the stock FJ80 LC came with 275/70/16 tires, which are still bigger than the tires on your truck now. No reason not to go with 235/85/16 tires with your lift. In fact the only real reason for a lift is to allow clearance for larger tires. So you're basically selling yourself short with tiny tires on your lifted truck.
A HD lift is designed to work best when it's under a .....wait for it......heavy load.
And yes, the LC has the advantage with the gearing.
Not sure how you arrive at the determination that the LC CDL is "infinitely easier to use"? Doesn't get much easier than a lever with only to positions, Locked and Unlocked.
At this point your greatest gain would be from larger tires, 235/85 or 265/75.

 

I was under the impression that the 235/85 was pretty close in total diameter to what I have now. The relationship to sidewall and profile height being the major difference. hope I'm wrong. Mine is about 30 inches. 235/85 is what around 31ish? My Land Cruiser had 33x10.5x15. BFG All terrains. I went with a lift thinking I'd need the room to flex. And the added clearance for tires yea. Would this really make that much of an improvement?

The cdl on the Toyota had two positions. Not four. When shifted into low the cdl automatically locked. You could also hit the button to lock it in 4 hi. Really simple. Neutral, move tc lever into low, back into 1st or 2nd done in less than 5 seconds. My truck it takes a bit of maneuvering to get the stick to engage 4 low locked.

So let's say I got my bumper and winch adding a couple hundred to the front end...would this be a game changer? I already carry a full supply of tools, jack, fluids, spare parts, ropes, and straps.Not to mention all the water cooler grill food etc I usually have with me going into the desert.

 

what air pressure do you have in the tires? looks like you are at street pressure, which will change the whole game. my truck is 100% stock on 245s and surprised the hell out of me at rausch. every time i ran into another group on the trail, they would laugh at me until i made it through the whole thing barely spinning a tire. i've never driven a cruiser but the low in this truck made my XJ with 5.13s feel like it didnt have enough gear.

 

I am running street pressure. It's at 32. What do you recommend? I hate to beat a dead horse here..but in most of my trucks I've run street pressure in all but the actual dunes north of town. Only then did I let it go to 15.

I also want to say the Land Rover and Cruiser are the two best trucks I've taken out. I've also had a Scout 2 and a Scout 80. A 89 Suburban w a 6 inch lift on 35's. A stock 68 F100, 87 K5 on 33's 97 S10 Blazer, 92 full size Bronco , and another Discovery.

All those trucks ran well. The F100 had a 4spd w a Granny and in 4 lo it was unreal what that truck would climb in stock form. Problem is it was too long. Rode stiff. Same w most of the others. Way to stiff. Not enough articulation. That's were I feel our trucks excel. I just think I have set mine up wrong or something.

 

YEA! YOU DID IT! LOL!!!!

You really wanna know how the LC made it and your truck didn't........LIMITED SLIP. Your not gonna be a billy goat with open diffs....sorry. The Rover has almost 1k of extra weight tossed on. Good articulation though with the HD springs but zero weight up top to make it plant those coils down as there was too much wheel spin.....way too much. Doesn't matter if your going ***** out or just chugging, when you loose the four corners it's game over, might as well off road with a semi tractor.

 

i'd drop to at least 20. for regular ole trails i'd probably run 15-20, in the sand i go to 8-10. i ran 8 at rausch. these trucks weight like 4300lbs stock, you need to make a big contact patch or you'll just spin. especially since you are running the 10 ply (load range E right?).. i run load range E coopers.

 

On a stock rim?

 

I didn't have limited slip. That's came in late 92-93. The availability of factory lockers too. I didn't have those either.

The curb weight of my LC and LR are within a few hundred pounds of each other. Not too much different.