New Wheel & Tires installed!

[rocmoc]

WOW, what a difference! First let me say I will have pics up soon, maybe tonight.

Wheels are the 15" Visionwheel.

Tire is Dunlop Radial Mud Rover, 31X10.50R15LT.

They fit, I do need to make a small adjustment to the rear of the Front suspension to get full lock to lock turning. At present I have 3/4+ but there is plenty of adjustment in the supension to get full lock to lock. Everything else clears easily.

Ground Clearance is now a full 13 1/2".

Gearing, First gear is now more like a 50's pickup granny gear instead of the factory tractor first gear. First gear is usable! Plenty of low range remaining, but all gears are much more usable. I now cruise thu the neigborhood in 4th instead of 5th. I will have my better 3/4 follow me with the car to check speedo and top-end. My guess top-end is easily 70mph.

Flotation on sand. I went down the wash behind the house where I would normally flip into 4Wd. Never came close to needing 4WD, stayed in 2WD the entire time. I was running the full 30psi put in the tires at the tire shop. I have since aired down to 20 in the front and 24 in the rear so performance should even be better.

Standing Start performance appears to be as good as before or better. You can now use 1st or 2nd to take off from a complete stop.

Needless to say, I could not be more pleased. The setup has met every one of my wishes & expectations.

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

[Kinarfi]

Cool, looking forward to your photos. Glad to be back home or sorry your not still vacationing?

PM or post that site you mentioned earlier, with your pic.

Jeff

[rocmoc]

We are sooooo glad to be home!

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

[flatbed]

You do not reliaze how hard the stock tires are untill you put something else on, just getting a tire that gives alittle to the ground makes a big difference. glad your gear fits. Sorry about haveing to come home on 3 legs, glad to hear you are home.

[Guest Lenny]

It's good to finally get a report on gearing with 30"+ tires. I would be susprised If you couldn't cut tire pressure even lower without any problems. I plan on going to larger tires when, well when the stock market starts to come back. It may be a while.

good report

Lenny

[rocmoc]

I will be going down on the air pressure in steps until I find that optimum sweet spot.

It is great that we are all working in different areas improving the Trooper. It is becoming a real BEAST! The tires make is look like a real machine and not a toy. It sort of got huge! It is taking more and more room in the garage.

Watching what you are all doing also.

Yeah Flatbed, taking the Toyhauler in tomorrow. Have to have that thing fixed for the March trip to El Golfo.

I haven't forgot about the spare tire inquiries. Well respond this weekend.

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

[rocmoc]

I couldn't get the pics to come up under this topic but they are in my gallery/album under my profile on this site.

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

[rocmoc]

I painted the top of the helm joints today to mark their present location and to make it easier to count the number of turns as I move the suspension. Tomorrow I will make the adjustment. Wheel width is now 68", I measured my wife's car and it is 64". IMHO, this ain't a UTV anymore.

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

[rocmoc]

I completed the adjustment today. I now have full lock to lock steering. What should have been an easy job turned into a pain in the ***. The front suspension is built rigid with very little adjustment, just looks like there is lots of adjustment. The front helm joints have 12 1/2 turns to full install. My helms were full in. I was able to back the right side out 4 turn and the left side out 3 turns. I followed up with some fine tuning with a large adjustment tool, hammer, to assure sufficient clearance. I would have liked to backed out 6 turns but there was too much binding. There is not hardly any caster adjustment. Tow-in was fine and did not have to be changed.

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

[rocmoc]

An Observation!

Before with the smaller rims/tires, the front took a local speed bump / tope smoother with the back wheels banging the harder. Now with the bigger rims/tires, the back is smoother over the speed bump / tope and the fronts hit noticeably harder. What ya think? I checked and both front and rear still have lots of free up/down movement when sitting still and myself jumping on the nose or tail.

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

[Guest Lenny]

The increase in percentage of the fronts sprung weight to the unsprong weight is greater then the rear percentage change. You use up forward energy to force the unsprung weight up and over an object. If the unsprung weight was 0, you wouldn't feel anything period. No energy would be used up to move something weightless. The heavier the unsprung weight, the more of a jolt you will feel when hitting the bump. The back having a lesser percentage change doesn't telegraph the bump as much. This is why you always here that its improtant to keep unsprung weight down as much as possible. I also suspect that your dampening was a little stiff for the smaller tires on the rear. The bigger tires take longer to go over the hump, thus dampening felt softer. I'm not sure I really know what I'm talking about but I do know my physics quite well, besides, I'm sure flatbed will straighten things out. I like taking a shot at something, but it's always a good idea not to follow my lead.

Lenny

[flatbed]

Let me see if i can explain this, I think what you might have going on is the front tires are bigger so there is more cantact to the road surface, plus with more of a contact patch with the amount of air you have in the tire is making your spring rate in the front seem higher. The front of the trooper is lighter than the back so you would feel it more. If you look at the tire preasure on any tire it is telling you, say 45lbs at 2700lbs of weight on a tire. That is the amount of air they want you to run if you have that much weight on that corner of the car. My f350 they want me to run 75lbs in the tires, i run around town empty with 45 in the front and 35 in the back, i get very even tire wear and about 45000 on the tires. I aair them up when i haul the 5th well because the tires are running at there max. When you are listening to Nascar, you hear them talking about droping or rasing air preasure, what they are doing is changing the contact patch on the track or CHANGING THERE SPRING RATE. When the tire is softer it it obsorbs some of the energy. Like lenny says there is probably more of difference between the old and new fronts than there is the rears, so you are feeling the fronts more. One other thing that might help explain theis is when you look at the gvw sticker on your car it will tell you what air preasure to run in the stock tires, they are telling you to run a certain lb of air for the weight of that vehickle. I have probably confused you even more. P S I have to run alot of air in my bicykle tires.

[rocmoc]

Thanks guys, I am slowly airing down to find the sweet spot on air pressure so the bump will probably improve.

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

[ERV JR]

DO YOU HAVE ANY PICS OF THE TROOPER WITH THE 30 INCH TIRES

[rocmoc]

Erv Jr, They are 31" tires and yes the pics are in my album in my profile on this site.

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

[Mopartist]

I looked at the pics of your Trooper. Wow! Now THAT is VERY cool!

[rocmoc]

Thanks! The performance change is great! As we know these things will climb anything. A couple of places where I off-road, I use to have to use power. I can now crawl. Gearing is more friendly and I believe it is faster thu the gears. Clearance of the rear of the front tire and the firewall is good. I was out and hit a small wash that was deeper than I thought and the entire tire dropped in as I crossed. The tire never hit the firewall. Very, very happy with the upgrade. Got the tires off Craig's list from a guy who was upgrading to bigger tires for his Jeep. Saved a ton of money and I don't think I will ever wear them out, probably will cut a tire first. I believe but can't verify yet, the Trooper runs cooler at speed and under load in sand as the engine is turning fewer RPMs.

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

[ricksrb]

WOW, what a difference! First let me say I will have pics up soon, maybe tonight.

Wheels are the 15" Visionwheel.

Tire is Dunlop Radial Mud Rover, 31X10.50R15LT.

They fit, I do need to make a small adjustment to the rear of the Front suspension to get full lock to lock turning. At present I have 3/4+ but there is plenty of adjustment in the supension to get full lock to lock. Everything else clears easily.

Ground Clearance is now a full 13 1/2".

Gearing, First gear is now more like a 50's pickup granny gear instead of the factory tractor first gear. First gear is usable! Plenty of low range remaining, but all gears are much more usable. I now cruise thu the neigborhood in 4th instead of 5th. I will have my better 3/4 follow me with the car to check speedo and top-end. My guess top-end is easily 70mph.

Flotation on sand. I went down the wash behind the house where I would normally flip into 4Wd. Never came close to needing 4WD, stayed in 2WD the entire time. I was running the full 30psi put in the tires at the tire shop. I have since aired down to 20 in the front and 24 in the rear so performance should even be better.

Standing Start performance appears to be as good as before or better. You can now use 1st or 2nd to take off from a complete stop.

Needless to say, I could not be more pleased. The setup has met every one of my wishes & expectations.

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

Now that i have the 30" x 15's on mine just wondering what was the final pressure you found to work,I will be taking mine out this weekend for the first time with thes tires and wheels and would like to know a good starting point for the pressure.

Thanks,

[rocmoc]

Hello Rick,

I am not home to measure but I believe I am around 15 to 20 pounds with the 31's. Kinarfi is running 30's and would be better with that size. Remember you may have to air down in sand.

rocmoc n AZ/CA

[Kinarfi]

Hello Rick,

I am not home to measure but I believe I am around 15 to 20 pounds with the 31's. Kinarfi is running 30's and would be better with that size. Remember you may have to air down in sand.

rocmoc n AZ/CA

I run 8 pounds in the front and 10 in the back. My tires are General Grabber AT2 27x8.50 R14 95Q 6PR OWL http://ssl.delti.com.../GRABBERAT2.jpg

The side walls bulge just a little and I don't change them for sand or rocks, I think they're great! A lot softer than when I was running them at 30, hard as a rock, remember, we don't weigh very much. Check parts and pieces if you want to know what we weigh.

Kinarfi

[ricksrb]

I run 8 pounds in the front and 10 in the back. My tires are General Grabber AT2 27x8.50 R14 95Q 6PR OWL http://ssl.delti.com.../GRABBERAT2.jpg

The side walls bulge just a little and I don't change them for sand or rocks, I think they're great! A lot softer than when I was running them at 30, hard as a rock, remember, we don't weigh very much. Check parts and pieces if you want to know what we weigh.

Kinarfi

right now(in the garage) I have the front at about 12 and rear at 15.I dont plan on any sand at this point but if that happens will adjust.I am really looking forard to see what difference they make.Thanks guys,If I get stuck I will give you a call(LOL).

[rocmoc]

I run the higher psi because it is easier to turn and with the 31's I have plenty of flotation. Also beware the lower the pressure, the easier to pop a bead if you hit something with the sidewall. I popped the bead on one of the factory tires at the higher factory pressure. Bummer to change tires on the trail.

rocmoc n AZ/CA