[DudeCS]

Hi @Moab Junky, would you start a new thread for suggested off-road routes that easily suits the Passport in Moab? Can any of these routes be done alone or best to have a wingman? We periodically pass through the area and love the geology of the area. Thanks.

 

[Moab Junky]

Sure thing DudeCS .
I know of 6 or 7 roads and named trails that our Passports could possibly do.
If you get over here give me a shout and I'll show you about.
MJ

 

[Moab Junky]

I finally got around to building my spare carrier.

I started with an old piece of 3/16" steel.

I cut it out with my grinder. I put a cut off disc on it. Anyone can do this.

Hoisted the wheel up to make marking the holes easier.

I had some 1/2" bolts on hand.

Bolts welded in place.

 

[Moab Junky]

I left the donut in the back. We will only slide this baby into the hitch when we go out of town.
Its super easy sliding the whole thing out.
The 2x2" steel is only 1/8" thick, so it's not all that heavy, but plenty strong.

 

[Moab Junky]

So today, we went for a Sunday drive out to the desert to visit our dear old Yellow Labs grave site.
I decided to test the Passport out on some really steep, loose hills.
HOLY COW!!!
The electronic traction control features in this AWD are amazing.
The pictures do not do the size or steepness of these hills justice, but I'm here to tell you, this thing was very impressive.
I didn't speed up any of these hills, just crawled them in first gear.
I am loving these Hankook Dynapro tires. We did not air down.

I did get the tires to break loose climbing up the face of the hill in the above photo.

Crawling up the backbone on the harder trail was effortless. No spinning, and again, much steeper than it looks.

Approach angle isn't bad, departure is a bit better. Breakover is ok, but is the lesser of the three.
Here our muffler is touching the hill.

Overall, I was quite impressed. We never did touch the front or rear bumpers on the ground.

 

[Moab Junky]

This is a little oval track that we would race the dirt bikes around. This thing was fun to push through the corners and rhythm sections.

 

[Moab Junky]

I'm not sure why, but I really dislike Chrome.
I used black Plasti Dip to black out my rear badges.

For those of you who haven't used this stuff, it is mostly rubber, dries firm, but not hard,, non tacky, and with a little effort, can be removed years later.
You can paint it for added toughness and color.

It actually protects the paint or badges that you apply it to from road salt, mag chloride and UV rays.

This Ford emblem was sprayed several years ago. It used to be blue. The Plasti Dip gets into the finest cracks. Pretty cool.

You don't have to mask off the whole car. This stuff is real heavy and doesn't travel through the air as easily as paint does. If you wax your car before hand, it peels off much easier. Just clean the badges really well prior to spraying them with the dip.
A clean soft rag will remove overspray.

I masked it off like this. Pull the tape off carefully, down and away from the letters.

And then gently peel away from the letters like ths.

A wooden toothpick is needed to remove the dip from the center of the letters. It won't scratch your paint.. Pulling down and away from the letters.. (You can leave those centers black if you wish) I picked mine out.

 

[Moab Junky]

 

[Cilles]

I left the donut in the back. We will only slide this baby into the hitch when we go out of town.
Its super easy sliding the whole thing out.
The 2x2" steel is only 1/8" thick, so it's not all that heavy, but plenty strong.

Do you mind sharing the dimensions of your construction so we may decide to build our own? I like the simplicity of it.

 

[Moab Junky]

Do you mind sharing the dimensions of your construction so we may decide to build our own? I like the simplicity of it.

Not at all. I'll draw it up when I get home.

 

[Moab Junky]

Do you mind sharing the dimensions of your construction so we may decide to build our own? I like the simplicity of it.

Here you go.
The design and materials are super strong.
Often times, when I build something, either out of wood or steel, I find myself beefing it up way beyond what is necessary.

Engineers on the other hand, have attended years of specialized schooling, and have access to lots of programs, data and testing results, which helps them design things that are just strong enough to meet the demands they will face. This knowledge saves them money by not
over-engineering things and keeps them from wasting time and materials.

The tubing is all 1/8" thick.
The plate is 3/16" thick.
It's not too heavy. If I built this again, I wouldn't change a thing.
Obviously not drawn to scale.

Now, I left the 17 1/4" piece long for a reason.
Almost everything you slide into your hitch will rock back and forth. I may use the that part for added stability. It protrudes well beyond the hitch sleeve.

I have made and used steel shims to help eliminate wobble in the past with fairly good results.

I know there are special hitch pins that can be used as well.

Let me know if you if you need anything else.

 

[Cilles]

Here you go.

Let me know if you if you need anything else.

Thanks! Looks pretty simple indeed. But I do have a few questions.

What about the face plate itself. Those bolts need to be kind of precisely placed in order to fit onto wheel. I guess just measure them for my specific wheel, correct? Though all passports should have same lug spacing unless you did something really weird.

And any reason you made the plate stop sign shaped? Just to round off the corners without going fully round? I'm thinking triangle, or if I got lucky and found round steel plate right size, would do as well and maybe be easier to cut out. Maybe not.

Oh I see some construction pics above that I missed first time. That helps.

 

[Moab Junky]

I don't have a plasma cutter. So octagon was easy to cut, and more stable than a triangle.

I just traced 3 lug holes right onto the octagon, then drilled them out. Fit was perfect.