Creepy Krawlers

[Greg]

Leigh, you stew unlikely to run a nt front end due to the availability of chromo axels.

Wider diff also means you can run less offset and have a smaller scrub radius. That means more tyre in a smaller wheel arch. Headlights and firewall are your limiting factors.

[greyghost]

no chance of running a wide tire on a NT.
i ran my sierra with the krawlers on a 3.75 backspace rim and WT with WT spring spacing (same as you running the same rim on NT spring space and NT diff)
i was ALL over the springs, i did one afternoon like this,. it was so bad that Steve and i converted the car to NT spring space in an afternoon so it was usable.

save your self the hassle and fine a WT diff, then all the issues are a lot less

[lbzook]

That's what I've been finding out too! The fact that the krawlers have a softer sidewall than others really seems to work well under Zooks, where a lot of heavier rigs will say that that's where the krawlers lose out to creepies, which have a super stiff and strong sidewall. I guess a lot of that can be attributed to bias ply vs radial.
As for what I said regarding NT, I wasn't overly clear in my first post. I am intending to run WT diffs with NT spacings and was wondering if it was possible to push the spring spacings inboard further than NT spacing.
I'm sorta visualizing the stock WT spring mount, replicated on the inside edge of the chassis rail, to try and sneak a bit more leaf clearance and down travel.
Not sure if that makes any sense, or if it would even work, I havnt looked at it properly yet, but I've got a feeling the drivers side of the pumpkin might pose a problem.

[mika]

drivers side of the pumpkin will be an issue but possible if you if raise(or lower) the spring pads. You'll still be restricted though unless you feel like narrowing the front of your chassis. I don't think in reality there is anything to gain in down travel by narrowing the springs more.

[lbzook]

Haha! Good point! I didn't really think about the fact that if the springs are further inboard of the chassis, then the wheel will foul on the chassis instead! I don't think narrowing the chassis will really be feasible for gains vs effort though!

[Greg]

Narrowing the chassis would be a bit of work, and complicated to cert if you were so inclined, but would be cool for stuffing big tyres under the car.

[sierrajim]

Or you could just run an MQ patrol front diff, Navara rear. 4.6 ratio, wide enough to run 36's and possibly 37's without chassis mashing.

This would also get you into the territory of running the 37" sticky treps. This would be a tyre, if grooved, that would be a great tyre on a zook.

[dank]

other than the "why not" factor of running a 35 on a zook I can't see how it will benefit a swb zook anymore than running a 33 inch tyre. It was well proven that the small tyre crew were driving stuff that the big tyred rigs were. I've struggled for a couple years now about going to bigger rubber than my 34s" (measure 33ish now). cost vs work vs increased risk of getting a canary and it doesn't seem like it's worth it.

Just go sticky 37" Krawlers and be done with it! Alot of 17x9s like steve said run a postive offset so you could get them tucked right up.

Go one better than Greg and go the sticky krawlers...DO IT!! . theres a set of 38" boggers down here on zook pattern rims . chuck them on!

[lbzook]

I think there's going to be a fair chunk of 'why not' with whatever I end up doing. As the smallest car for all of the tour (bar day 1) I'm not going to argue about how well us smaller guys drove the same tracks a the big boys.
But being on a smaller tyre and less underbody clearance I was a bit restricted on the lines I could choose, and lost out badly in the deeper mud sections on walkers.
I'm planning on building my car in a way that is going to be engineerable, bar tyres, and figure that if I'm going to go to all that effort, then what's a little bit more effort to fit a bit of crazy rubber!
In looking into everything more, I think there's a fair bit of merit in running bigger rims to gain some backspacing and it also opens up tyre choices quite a bit!
I think I'll probably look into compatable tyre and rim combinations a bit more, but I hate to say my decision might come down to a matter of working in with my budget!
Back to those boggers Dan, has anyone actually seen these in use on a zook? They would be pretty over the top awesome!

[Greg]

Randy Ellis on 37 krawlers on ultimate adventure 2012:

http://www.4wheeloffroad.com/ultimatead ... i_samurai/