4 Tips for Better Rock Crawling
Looking to improve how you rock and roll when it comes to the rock crawl? Check out these 4 tips that will help you clear any obstacle you come across.
Rock Crawling
You might be a good drive on the road, or even on a race track, but that doesn’t mean you're a great rock crawler. Rock crawling requires a completely different mindset than most conventional motorsports. You’re approaching , and climbing bolders as big as your tires, sometimes teetering on two wheels, and pushing your ride to its absolute maximum articulation. You have to be calm, deliberate, cool-headed, and slow. Successful rock crawling means knowing your ride top to bottom, and understanding the limitation of your current setup as well as your skill set. Here's four tips from seasoned crawlers to improve some of your techniques.
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1. Flat Pan
Keep you’re powertrain and other hard parts up high and there is less to snag on rocks. With some aftermarket support, you can relocate the steering box and fuel tank, and keep the chassis bottom nice and flat, knocking out two birds with one stone and getting the best balanced ride possible. The flatter the bottom of your chassis is the better the breakover angle, and thus the easier it is to get over obstacles without high centering. A lift kit and big tires are surefire ways to get a better breakover angle, and better ground clearance in general, but cleaning up the low hanging hard parts under the truck helps too.
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2. Tires, Tires, Tires!
Yes, big gnarly tires are important, but also how you prep your tires. Keeping the air pressure low when off-road is pretty much common knowledge, but how low is too low? That requires a bit of experimentation to get it exactly right, with a chance a bead slippage and loss of pressure. For a rule of thumb, most rigs keep their air pressure between 5 psi and 15 psi. Many competitive crawlers having been adding water weight into each of their tires, which is actually an old farm tractor trick that allowed them to trudge on through the landscape. However, water adds a whole lot of extra stress to the drivetrain, so be mindful that Dana 60 axles are the minimum recommended components.
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3. Why Don't You Lose Some Weight
It is a bit ironic to jump from weight gain to weight loss, but it all deals with proper weight distribution. A light chassis helps remove strain on the parts, and allows for better maneuverability. You want to keep the weight as close to the ground as possible, so it keeps your ride bottom heavy as that increases your traction and decreases a chance of a rollover.
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4. Winch Up and Suck Down
Winches are fantastic pieces of machinery, that are an absolute requirement in order for you to crawl safely. We all have used it to help friends out of muddy puddles or ditches, but, that’s not the only thing its useful with. Sometimes the only way out of a particularly difficult trail is to combine your winch with your motor, and pull yourself out as you crawl. Another use is hooking a winch up to your front axle to help suck down the front-end and decreases the chance of unloading the suspension or rolling over. If used correctly that winch can remove you out of some pretty hard spots.
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For help with servicing your vehicle, see the how to section of JK-forum.com