• Steel Soldiers now has a few new forums, read more about it at: New Munitions Forums!

  • Microsoft MSN, Live, Hotmail, Outlook email users may not be receiving emails. We are working to resolve this issue. Please add support@steelsoldiers.com to your trusted contacts.

All the stuff I did to my deuce, right here

sewerzuk

Member
524
10
18
Location
Seaside, OR
Which windshield mount are you using for the gopro? I'm looking to get one and debating on several differant. Does your's have any issues when the truck gets bouncy?
I am using their suction cup mount. It worked fine; no movement at all during the rough stuff. I didn't place the camera close enough to the windshield, so there is some annoying reflection in the video, but it still came out pretty good. I'll have the entire video up here in a few days...the gopro footage will be in there.
 

sewerzuk

Member
524
10
18
Location
Seaside, OR
Finally had some time to finish up the video last night, and let the computer upload it to youtube all night!
I made up two videos; the first one is a shorter video with footage of the deuce only. The second one is longer, and contains the edited video from most of the event. I got some good video of the deuce pulling stuck rigs out, and pulling through some pretty good obstacles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4GXZwlEUSY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZU6VAvGKcA
 
14292627.jpg21930.jpg
Which windshield mount are you using for the gopro? I'm looking to get one and debating on several differant. Does your's have any issues when the truck gets bouncy?
I am a dedicated user of Ram-Mount products. This is the mount I use, for me the winters are way to cold to use a suction cup on the windshield. My other favorite is using the stock mount attached to a Harbor Freight Magnet. I've used the magnet mount setting right on the axles driving and never lost it.
 

sewerzuk

Member
524
10
18
Location
Seaside, OR
Time for some more updates!
Attached a few pics from this year's fourth of July parade. The same as past years, I took the guys from my local jiu-jitsu gym out. It was a lot of fun...this year I had my son drive his Traxxas T-maxx in the parade, and "deliver" candy to kids on the side of the road. It was a big hit!
 

Attachments

sewerzuk

Member
524
10
18
Location
Seaside, OR
And...a few months ago I ended up with a flat tire on the freeway in Portland. It was on the front tandem (thankfully!) but it happened in an instant. I heard the inner tube let go and felt the truck start shaking over just a few seconds. By the time I managed to get pulled over on the shoulder of the road, the sidewall was already damaged. I didn't have my spare with me, so I had to leave the deuce there and bribe a friend to drive my Dodge 150 miles round trip to help me change the tire. It was an experience I would prefer not to duplicate!
While I have heard of, spoken to, and seen quite a number of people successfully running the 395's on the stock split rims, I do suspect that it was a contributing factor to my inner tube failure. It has me wondering if the other tubes are in rough shape. The thought of this has kept me from driving the deuce more than a few miles from my house for the last few months. So, I spent some time doing some web mining for info on 6 lug 20" wheels. There are really a lot of options out there, but I believe that the best bang for the buck (currently) are the MRAP wheels with a custom set of adapter plates. No cutting, grinding, or welding is necessary (though I can do this kind of work, I prefer to avoid it on wheels). I have a set of 6 wheels coming from Oshkosh Equipment, a set of 6 adapter plates coming from peashooter, a box of grade 8 bolts and locknuts coming from Cascade Nut and Bolt, and some valve stem parts coming from ebay for my "air adjustment" rig. I hope to have the parts here by next weekend; I will shoot some pics of the new setup!
 

sewerzuk

Member
524
10
18
Location
Seaside, OR
Great build. Did you get your new wheels on?
I had a delay in getting the actual wheels here. Oshkosh Equipment Sales managed to cause some problems for me. But, everything is finally here, and I am working on them today; it is a slow tedious process, dismounting from the old split rims, mounting on the MRAP's, flipping the hubs, etc. Hope to be done by the end of the weekend though...
 

sewerzuk

Member
524
10
18
Location
Seaside, OR
Just as a data point, what size were the tubes and how many miles did they last?
They were 1100-20 tubes; I had around 9000 miles on them...they were all showing wear around the outermost area (the area that would contact the tire with the most force; the textured part of the tube was worn away) but still seemed to have some good thickness left. I did have one tube fail during an extended road trip, with a vehicle on the bed. Not sure exactly how it failed because there were just little bits of rubber left when I pulled the tire off of the wheel. It was an unpleasant experience that I hope not to duplicate with the new MRAP wheels.
I was finding a fair amount of mud/sand/debris that made its way into the wheels over the years. If you watch my prior videos it isn't hard to determine how it got there...but abrasives inside of a tube type tire are not a good thing. I am thinking that, if you intend to drive your deuce off road, 395's on the stock split rims are not the best choice. I am fairly sure that I would have had additional inner tube failures had I continued to run this tire/wheel combination.
 

sewerzuk

Member
524
10
18
Location
Seaside, OR
I did manage to mount up all of the tires/wheels on my deuce. They look great! Much better than the old ones did. I did the hub flip on the rear axles so that the track width is the same front and rear. I decided to paint the hub adapters in OD green and the wheels in flat black. I left the bolts with their zinc plating.

I also ran in a timed progressive mud bog event at my local fairgrounds. They entered me in the 4 and 6 cylinder class along with a bunch of toyotas and jeeps on 31's and 33's. It was pretty funny to run in that group...and really not too fair. Next year I'll ask to be moved up a class or two. My son enjoyed the ride, however. He cheered at the top of his lungs at the end of each pass...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeOp8lPRcHs

2013-08-19 17.05.48.jpg2013-08-19 17.06.11.jpg2013-08-19 17.52.46.jpg2013-10-12 23.22.19.jpgmrap.jpg
 
Top
AdBlock Detected

We get it, advertisements are annoying!

Sure, ad-blocking software does a great job at blocking ads, but it also blocks useful features of our website like our supporting vendors. Their ads help keep Steel Soldiers going. Please consider disabling your ad blockers for the site. Thanks!

I've Disabled AdBlock
No Thanks