Offroading safety tips!

Offroading is a great way to spend your time, you get a chance to get away from work and just have some fun. But before you go there are a few things you really should remember so you can avoid bad situations.

Number one, DON’T WHEEL ALONE!!!

Even if it’s just a quick trip somewhere, you never know when thing are going to go bad, and if they do a second rig can help get you going again or if necessary get you home so you’re not spending the night out there. Or what if you get injured? I am pretty sure you will be happy you invited your buddy to go with you (even if he drives a Ford) while he is driving you to the hospital.

Number two, make sure everything is secured in the vehicle.

This is something most people don’t think about, but its a big deal. If there is some sort of accident or rollover, anything not strapped down or secured has the potential to become a missile. I have personally witnessed this once with a 2 gallon beverage bottle flying at my head, and another time when an unsecured subwoofer box made a speedy exit through a side window just missing my friends noggin. If it looks like it would hurt to get hit with, tie it down or put it in a lock box bolted to the floor.

Number three make sure your rig is in proper working order.

I skipped this one and it cost me a truck. The night before you go out to play give the vehicle a good look. Check for leaks, loose nuts and bolts, check your steering and suspension systems (tie rods, balljoints, wheel bearings, shocks etc), drivelines, and fluid levels. This quick inspection could save you from a major headache out there on the trail.

Number four, leave a game plan.

Let someone know where you are going. This could come in handy if there is a catastrophic failure on the trail and you can’t drive out. Just make sure it is someone who likes you so if you don’t turn up, they tell the right people and friends or family can come find you.

Number five WATER!!!

Keeping hydrated is incredibly important. But it also serves lots of other purposes such as washing cuts out or if you need to get something clean. It’s important and pretty self explanatory people.

This is just a quick list to get you headed in the right direction. Wheeling is all about having fun, but it take proper preparation.

We hope you have fun and we will see you on the trail!

How to properly measure lift height on your truck

Everyday we get at least one call from a customer that is trying to figure out how to measure their vehicle to decide how much lift is best for them or how much lift they need to level their truck. It’s really not difficult but it’s just not exactly common knowledge, so we will walk you through it, and all you will need is your vehicle, a level surface to park on, a tape measure, pen and paper.

 

The first step in the process is to make sure all four tires have an even amount of air pressure in them and they are inflated to the proper amount for your vehicle. the reason for this is it will give an accurate measurement on all four corners. The next step is to park the vehicle on a nice level surface, like a parking lot. Next get out of the vehicle, and get your tape measure, pen and paper. Starting with the passenger front, measure from the ground to the bottom of the fender straight through the center of the tire. Write down your measurement and move to the passenger rear and repeat the measurement and write it down. Follow the same steps on the driver’s side.

 

 

After you have all four measurements, you can take the smaller measurement on the driver side (almost always the front) and subtract it from the larger measurement on the same side. Repeat these steps for the passenger side and you  will see how far off from level your truck is.

Now a common result is that one side of the vehicle sits a little taller than the other. This is pretty common, most vehicles will lean a little bit towards the side of the truck that the fuel tank is on,  so unless it’s a difference of a few inches between the driver and passenger side then its really nothing to worry about. But if you do have a question about it feel free to call us at 801-395-2134

The Holiday Season!

Well it has been quite a while since i have posted on this blog, and its entirely my fault! We have been really busy lately here at the shop. We were recently approached about participating in the Ogden Parade of Lights, and in true Fat Bob’s fashion we figured we could base our float off of Bill’s old Willys Jeep. We had about 6 weeks to prepare the float for the parade, and naturally we put it off until the day before the parade! Kevin, Ted, Josh and I came up with the idea that we would throw the Jeep on a trailer, wrap it with some green lights and call it a day. Well we did just that, and it looked like crap! Luckily for us we have four extremely talented women in our accounting department and they took a day off from working the numbers here at the shop and made it so our Jeep was parade acceptable. by the time the float was done, everywhere the Jeep had green paint, there were green lights, all the windows had white lights, there was tinsel and snowflakes everywhere and a set of deer to round it all off, it looked great! he next problem was powering the lights but after a few quick runs to a hardware store we have a power inverter hooked up and the lights were in business!!

The following morning we finished last minute preperations and headed out to the parade. by about 4:30 all the floats were in line and everyone was lit up. There were harleys doing burnouts, marching bands, a trailer hauling people square dancing, just about everything you could think of.

 

Needless to say we had a great time and cant wait to do it next year!

 

Kevin’s 4-scouter

About a year and a half ago our sales manager Kevin was looking for some sort of a project. He wanted something that could be turned into a reliable rig that will accommodate his camping and offroading needs while still being able to be driven on the street when he feels like it. His wife wanted an early box style Ford Bronco, but as Kevin recalls, he was too cheap and didn’t want to spend that much on a Bronco. After searching the internet for something that would catch his attention I suggested that Kevin should look at the earlier model International Scouts, and it didn’t take long for him to find what made him happy, and kind of looked like a Bronco which would hopefully make his wife happy. There it was in all its glory, a 1967 International Scout 800 with the rare half cab option. It didn’t take long for Kevin to contact the seller and set up a time to come take a look at the little scout later that afternoon. The afternoon seemed to drag on and on but finally the clock struck six and Kevin, Alysse, and I were headed up towards Willard to “just take a quick look at it.” It had some rust and the motor didn’t run but after about thirty minutes of Kevin looking over the Scout, talking to the owner and getting Alysse’s opinion a deal was struck and Kevin was picking it up that Saturday.

As soon as it was at his house the planning began, and I have to say that I am a HORRIBLE influence on people when they are building rigs.  Kevin’s plan was to fire up the original four cylinder engine, fix the brakes, add a small lift and enjoy while he stock piled parts. I thought that was all a horrible idea personally so after yelling at him for a few weeks he finally gave in to peer pressure and decided to run all Toyota running gear. For a donor vehicle he picked up a 1990 Toyota 4runner with the 22RE motor, and 5 speed manual transmission. He then rebuilt the cylinder head in his garage with the help of his dad, made sure the truck was running then tore it apart to harvest the engine, wiring harness, computer, transmission, transfer case, and rear axle (4runner+Scout=4scouter).

With the motor rebuilt, he moved on to the axles, the front axle is a 1984 Toyota Pickup axle, rebuilt the knuckles with all new bearings and sliders, packed the birfield joints full of grease, then threw in a set of 5.29:1 gears and a Lock-Rite Locker. The rear axle is from the 4runner and received a full rebuild along with the 5.29:1 gears and another Lock-Rite Locker.

After everything with the drive train and axles had been decided upon, the front and rear suspension came next in the line of decision making. The ideas started pretty simple with converting to Jeep YJ leaf springs and a spring over conversion then we talked about possibly putting some sort of link suspension on the front and leaf springs on the rear. This is when Kevin decided if he was going to do it, he only wanted to do it once and bought the Trail-Gear 3 link front kit with Sway-A-Way coil overs and double triangulated 4 link kit with coil springs designed for the rear of a Toyota pick-up. This style of suspension is going to provide incredible suspension flex improving the off-road capability of the 4scouter, add enough height to clear the tires he wants to run and it should have a reasonably smooth ride quality.

That pretty much brings us up to date on his build, he still needs to determine what tires and wheel he will run and put it all together, but he is working hard and along with the help of our mechanics Aaron and Fred he is hoping to have it ready by next spring.

If you have any questions about Kevin’s Scout, just ask and we will be happy to answer them for you. Like we always say, this isn’t just out job it’s our hobby and passion. Hope to see you on the trails!

Too Much Stuff

Too Much Stuff

As I rolled into work this morning, I finally realized how many “projects” we really have around the shop. It’s kind of ridiculous. I counted ten project vehicles here at the shop and they are all owned by only 3 people. Thankfully at this point in time none of them are my projects (but give it a few weeks and I’m sure I’ll have another glorious pile of rusting scrap metal that I dream of building). My family calls it the “I’m gonna” syndrome, because every time I come home with a project they ask me what I plan to do with the car or truck my explanation begins with “I’m Gonna……..”

Kevin has a 1967 International Scout 800 that is getting a complete transformation. He picked it up for $900, came home and started planning. The innocent looking little scout is getting a dual purpose build. Kevin wants something he can cruise through town with the top off during the week and on the weekends Kevin and his wife Alysse (who has supported this build from the beginning) can take it out camping in the forest or down to Moab for some fun. The poor little Scout is getting a 3 link front, 4 link rear, Toyota drive train and axles, and a set of 35 inch tires. (More details to come in the next blog)

Ted has a Jeep Cherokee XJ that is going through a pretty mean transformation. The stock motor and transmission will be replaced with a GM 5.3L V8, 4L60E transmission, and the Jeep NP231 transfer case. For axles he will go with the tried and trued Ford 9 inch rear axle, Dana 44 front axle combination. A BDS 8.5 inch long arm lift kit will top it all off. His other project was his daily driver Nissan 350Z that the motor decided to give up the ghost in. It’s not really a happy subject so we will just leave it at that.

Bill has a Jeep FC170, a Willys army jeep, and a few other projects lying around that he will have brought back to life when he has the time.

                Every project begins with the best of intentions, sometimes they are fulfilled, other times there is just one too many road blocks in your way causing your dreams to crash and burn. Some perfect examples are Stephen’s YJ, he bought it from bill while it was bone stock, then we did a Rough Country 4 inch lift, 33 inch Pro Comp X-terrains, 9 inch off-road lights, an exhaust header, and a Mile Marker 9000 pound winch. When it was completed it looked decent and was pretty fun to have around the shop.  On the opposite side of the spectrum was his poor 1971 CJ5, we won’t go into details but the story ends with the Jeep being spray painted and sent to the scrap yard.  It’s very easy to get distracted and discouraged when working on a project, maybe you just get too busy to work on it, or maybe you’re having problems with certain parts you have acquired for the vehicle.

We see people come in to Fat Bob’s almost every day talking about the project they are working on and most of them sound amazing, but most of the time we don’t get to see a completed projects, which is no good! We want to see your Jeeps, or Toyota’s, or whatever you’re working on. If it’s not done, bring in pictures, if it’s done, drive it over here so we can check it out.

This isn’t just our job, it’s our hobby and passion and we love to meet other people that share the same hobby!

We hope to see you soon folks!

The New Showroom!

Fat Bob’s Garage gets a new show room!

Ever since we moved into the building we have had the same show room design. The counter was way too tall and falling apart, and placed horribly taking up way too much room, but we just worked around it trying to make the best of the situation, that is until Bill got a simple phone call and a crazy look in his eyes.

Early one morning bill got a phone call from a friend Josh (a friend of Bill’s) telling him he had picked up a wrecked Jeep TJ that wasn’t in too bad of shape and asked if we were interested in buying it from him for a good price. Bill was tossing the idea around but not too seriously since he already had a fleet of vehicles, then I made the joke “just buy it and we will put a Jeep in the show room!” The very next day bill showed up at work and informed all of us that we needed to tear out the counter and half of the tiles to make room up front so we could fit a Jeep and remodel all of our displays. 

The plan was simple, move the counter back about five or six feet, move around the displays and fit a Jeep inside, but simple plans never last. Bill decided if we were going to do it, we were going to do it right and make it very appealing to the eye and very customer friendly. He went to RC Willey, and purchased  six flat screen television screens, two would be used for the customer/guest computers up front and four would be hanging on the wall displaying slide shows of pictures and playing movies related to what we do here at the shop.

The destruction began and the counter was torn down, the base of the counter had to be something unique, and industry related, we decide some nice stainless steel tool boxes would work great as the base of the counters; they are just the right height and have plenty of storage space for supplies. Instead of putting the tiles back down on that side of the show room we decided to paint the floor like many people do in their garages.  For the front of the counter we tossed around a few ideas on what do to, should we paint it, diamond plate, or a flat sheet of steel? I made the suggestion to get some bed liner and coat the front of the counters for more of a rugged look, we agreed it was a good idea and it was done.

Next came the jeep, it showed up on Wednesday and we started tearing it down Thursday morning. We gutted the interior then removed body from the frame, pulled the motor, transmission, and transfer case. It was pretty much a bare rolling chassis now. We pressure washed the frame and axles, and then painted it all. Meanwhile Bill had been contacting vendors explaining what we were doing and some of them jumped all over the idea and donated parts for the build. Rough Country rose to the occasion sending out a long arm set up for our 4 inch lift, and OR Fab was hooking us up with plenty of body armor. Ron, a friend of the shop, dropped off a set of 36X13.50R20 Interco Irok Radials and 20 inch rims for consignment for the showroom and we figured what better way to show them off then to put them on our jeep!

That pretty much brings us up to date on the showroom. The body is in one of the bays getting fitted with the body armor, the frame a rolling chassis inside the showroom on the Irok’s. The TV screens are hung and playing videos and slide shows, the counter is done, and customer computers are set up! If you haven’t seen yet you need to get in here, it completely changed the looks of the shop for the better! Hope to see you soon

How to ruin your Tacoma in two days!

This is a pretty simple story of how I usually do things.

My name is Stephen and I have worked at FBG for about 4 years now. It’s been a lot of fun and it has supported my automotive addiction, and paid the bills. During this time I have had two Jeeps, a couple of cars and 4 trucks, my current daily driver is a 2WD Chevy Silverado that is bagged and lays frame on 22′s. Needless to say with the Utah winter approaching I needed a 4 wheel drive vehicle I could drive in the snow. In the shop, Bill had a 1999 Toyota Tacoma TRD edition with the TRD supercharger that needed to be finished, so I immediately started bugging him every second of the day to sell it to me so I had a winter whip. After a little time Bill got sick of me asking and agreed to the transaction, money was exchanged and I quickly started putting my new money pit back together.  I ordered a Trail-Gear off-road front bumper, installed a 3 inch lift kit, and it was ready to go.

Finally one Thursday I ran to the DMV, registered the truck, called my insurance and put it on liability only (stupid, stupid, stupid!!!!!). I drove it home Friday night after work, spinning the tires every chance I got thanks to the supercharger and just really loving my new Toy.  Saturday morning arrived and the local off-road clubs had organized a run up at Powder Mountain and I figured that since I had a four-wheel drive truck again that I intended to use for offroading, I had better attend the event. Well nobody likes to ride alone including myself so I called up our trusty mechanic Aaron whom I usually include in all my horrible plans, and my cousin Briggette who was visiting from Montana, explained how much fun it would be and told them to meet me at the Village Inn on 12th street with the rest of the club.

It started out as a normal morning, met with the Clubs, flew up Ogden canyon, tortured my cousin with awful music, then reached our destination. After a quick clean up around the parking lot we were on our way and off the roads!!  We zigged and zagged across the mountain then came to the first steep hill. Halfway up the hill we notice we had a small problem, 4WD quit working and we were stuck on the hill blocking the way. Big Sarge came to the rescue in his wife’s Jeep Rubicon (sorry Sarge, Nancy made me put that) giving us a tow up the hill. Instead of stopping at the top of the hill and figuring out what was wrong I went against my better judgment and pushed on. After sliding down a few steep hills we came to a small water crossing that turned into a bit of an off camber situation while climbing out of the other side. Again, we were stuck and Sarge came to the rescue out of the kindness of his heart. Sarge backed up as close as he could and I jumped out of the truck to wade through the mud and hook up our tow strap, while Aaron climbed over to the driver’s seat to pilot the stuck truck out of the mud safely.  Due to the off camber situation and where we were stuck being right on a corner we had to pull while turning slightly left. Well we pulled, the Tacoma was coming up over the crest of the hill, and that’s when it went bad, the left rear tire sank into a hidden hole and I watched as the truck I just bought, my cousin in the back seat and my very good friend Aaron rolled over not once but twice before coming to a rather violent stop in some trees. Talk about terrifying, it all happened in slow motion yet incredibly quickly at the same time. As soon as it came to a stop Aaron bailed out of the truck (I’m pretty sure he just jumped out of the window) and looked back in to make sure Briggette was ok. She climbed out of the tiny back window and “I’m fine! I’m from Montana!!!”, but Aaron was bleeding and sore.

Before the rollover was even finished I could see members of Big Horn 4X4 Club and the Wasatch Outlaw Wheelers running down the trail to check on everybody. Once they discovered no one was seriously injured, they sprang into action! Sarge jumped out of the Jeep and was getting out his first aid kit to get Aaron cleaned up, Fred Westra (FBG mechanic, club member and personal friend) was pulling up in is built Explorer, strategically placing himself on the side of the mountain, Bru was pulling up  in front of me up the trail, and Joel German was helping organize the recovery. They ran a winch from the back of Bru’s wicked little Toyota pick up to my front bumper. Fred’s winch came across the trail down the mountain and Joel Hooked it around the frame to prevent any more rollover’s, and I was in the driver’s seat of the tacoma turning the wheel when they said to, because obviously these guys are pro’s and know exactly what they are doing. It wasn’t long before they had me back on the trail and got my sorry butt on the road. We reached the parking lot thanks to Fred, kicked out the shattered windshield and drove it home.

Sounds like a bad day right? Wrong. I learned a lot that day, and gained some friends. I’m the butt of a few deserved jokes but I wouldn’t hesitate to go wheeling with them again! Aaron might not want to go with me though.