Duneraider

Thanks, I'm on my way,,,

,,, as you guys stear me straight. Any specific brand to get? I tried the Harbor Freight they all suck. Any place to buy or good brand? Like Kragan, or does Home Depot have a good one? I'm always taking the wheels off something,, time to get with the program,,, Thanks.

Yeah, all our cameras work fine on mac, though slow. The FLIP is different though. Fussy and difficult.

I though DDR peeps were mostly computer savvy. Hacking Red China Industrial computers on weekdays, hitting the dunes on weekends. Maybe not. We have the really cool Flip movie camera, and are having a fit getting it to upload to Mac. Any takes? Thanks.

Curious of the ride quality and suspention travel. The print on the website is too small to read. Have they finally released it? Price? Does KTM still stand for Kill The Mechanic, or is their quality good? Or,, is it a Polaris in Home Depot Orange.?

I work'd there for a short time when I got out of the Marines as a diesel plant operator/mechanic. Got the job through my dads company. If you accidently kill somone as what could'a happened there, the restitution to the family is based of the victims nationality. That's all: A local is about $30.000. An Egyptian about $1.000 A Palestinian is about $300. That's accidentally. If on purpose, ya pay with your life. The best middle east place to go duning is Jordan. Wife works with lots of cool Jordanians. People are friendly towards Americans, zero crime, no rules or regs at all except don't hurt anyone, don't steal anything, or walk out on a tab, or drugs. Thieves are considered rats with rabies. They have no feelings for them and are usually executed. It's a Kingdom, with usually an American Queen (by marriage) & Princess' but they don't interfere with customs. Thieves are whacked within days of the crime. The locals appear in the dunes outta no where and feed your group out of centuries old custom. You pay them what you can. You can leave your quads and stuff & wallet full of cash for years in the same spot. No one will touch it. If you rent duning equipment, they'll bring it out, and ya simply drive back to the hotel at nite. Leave all the stuff at the dunes. It goes unmolested. Then, when your trip is over, ya stop by the rental shop pay up, and they eventually go out and get it all. Ya don't even have to tell them specifically (Just roughly) where ya left it. The locals all know. Dunes sizes beyond your wildest dreams. I'd love to organize a DDR Jordan trip. It would be epic. Ya gotta like to eat dates and a mid eastern type tortilla with blue cheese though. And drink a fermented Honey Gatoraid kinda stuff that gives you a deluxe buzz, and makes ya "regular".

We got a cool FLIP camera. It hates MAC Book, but works ok on Windows. Any movie galleries hosting sites out there you can recomend? It's not-ready-for-you-tube family play stuff.

We're in. Should I bring the big screen?

Thanks for the takes. Americas Tire called today and asked us to come in when we get back from the river for a new set. When they were ballancing them. I noticed the crew circling huge spots on the tred where their may be problems.. like perhaps out-of-round. We'll see. Love everything about the tires except the vibration.

The GMPP is the only good warranty out there we've ever found. And the price is negotiable. We shop for warrantys where the mechanics get paid full shop rates. Seem to cover the customer too.

Wife mentioned the XMX TV shows should be sponsored by Kaiser Peranente, Charter, Blue Cross. Yeah, they do get a few owies.

I was buying routine maint parts for our various brand quads getting them ready for the upcoming dune season. It's taken me from Yami, to Honda, to Kawasaki, to Zuki shops. All their parts counters had various topical pain killers for sale, with free samples. Some spray, some drops, some lotions or creams. I've been trying them all and most work good. They'll numb the pain for sure. Ya try any?

I had Goodyear Wranglers on my new 94 Grand Cherokee, and again on our new '96 Suburban. I could never get them ballanced correctly. My neighbor Doug, is a heavy line mechanic at a Jag and Aston Martin dealer. A real off roader too. He casually mentioned once he could never get his GoodYears ballanced, and is a Goodrich fan. My other neighbor owned a Ford dealer (may it RIP) and mentioned during the Firestone fiasco, they didn't want to use Goodyears because of the vibration compaints. My wife has a new set of them on her Pre-Runner, and she mentioned they vibrate at 60 MPH and above. I took them back, and others were there with their wranglers with ballance problems too. Goodyear has it's big sale going on now, so plenty of new customers. They still vibrate, and the dealer is cool, they want to replace them. Did you ever have Wranglers, and did you have ballance issues? I love the tire. Quiet running, looks excellent, wife doesn't have to air down at the dunes whe she arrives at odd ball hours,,,, My Goodrich's never give me problems. But dammmm,, those GoodYears Wranglers. Death wobble at 60 MPH+. Any similar experiences? How did you handle it?

Fun trip. We did it too and loved it.

They were asking $3900 +T/L/R at our local dealer.

The Turbocool arrived in the box today. Excellent construction. Nice unit. Clever design. The BFD will be how difficult to install, and of course how well it cools the RV. Heading to the river in 24 hrs and will start the job then.

You're doing a good job Pete. Nice site, always fun to visit, always something fresh to read.

"Ya can't reason with drunks or dog owners" I was told by a LEO once. That's so true. We camped with one group at Buttercup, and one of the rigs had 3 dogs running loose around the campsite. One of their dogs poop'd like a horse as it walked. It poop'd all day and nite long all over the campsite, along with the other two dogs. They pooped in front of everyones RV, all around the group campfire, all around everyones camp chairs, pee'd on the tires of everyones quads and buggies and RV's, everywhere. And they had that thick brown custard like infection pee that stunk even in the cold of the desert. Stuck to everything like pancake syrup with bloody scabs floating in it. Everyones kids stepping in the poop and tracking it in, riding their quads over poop,, can't sit next to the campfire because it's covered in poop. Everyone was walking around like the camp had landmines. The Dog owner or his family made no effort to stop it or clean it up. They also had another dog attacking others dogs who were tied up and kept under control and cleaned up after. Everyone just put up with it so's to not create any friction on their holiday at the dunes. Or they were his dog owning friends and would defend him no matter what, too drunk to realize they've been slimed by his dogs too. Finally on the last day (5 days later), the dogs owner walked around with a shovel waving it around so everyone could see., not to really clean up the poop, by to make it look like he was. Like an anorexic chick walks around the party with a heaping plate of food, but never takes a bite. We got some e mails asking why we don't camp with that group anymore, and we just say we prefer to camp alone. Why create a feud? Ya can't reason with dog owners. We have no enemies at the dunes (or river), and we simply move to keep it that way. I watch neighbors that live blocks from me walk their dog down our street, They never clean it up. We askd one lady about it and she returned with her husband to show us she had muscle back home. At the river, rarely someone will clean up after their dog either. So bad are the dog owners at the Colorado river campsites, the awesome Fox's Pierpoint campground (owned by Off road racing champ Spencer Lowe) banned dogs altogether. There was dog crap around the nice grassy eating area at his restaurant, on the pathway to the dock, all over the beach and campsites,, so that was it, no more dogs. Do you clean up after your pet? Not just make it look like you do, but get right out and clean right up after them?

Expensive. I'll post the whole thing when I get the project going. Gotta do something, the trailer is a sweat box.

Don't know if you know the difference between Air Conditioning and swamp coolers. But A/C uses freon and a compressor, and the swamp cooler uses the evaporation of water to cool. As wet and dry bulb temps (humidity) meet, swamp coolers don't work so good. But in most desert areas, they work pretty good most the time. Also, several RV swamp coolers have been on the market since the 1960's. Most of them worked really crummy or not at all. Poor design. Gave a very bad reputation to RV swamp coolers. But an old guy that lived in Las Vegas, had a brainstorm and built an RV swamp cooler that worked very well. It wasn't the old drip down the excellsior pad method, but a unique misting into a element system that was spectacular. Damn it work'd and cooled great. But: He passed away,, his company folded and that was that. So: All the other RV swamp coolers on the marker were crap. They just don't work. We were in Page Arizona at Lake Powell last month. I saw a old jasper with a camper and a TURBOCOOL demo RV swamp cooler on the roof. I check'd it out and it was cooling fantastic. I mean supurb. Opened the back door of his camper and was hit with a blast of cool air. He had eventually bought the rights and molds to the old good working swamp cooler after the original guy passed away, and it's finally back in production. Brother did it ever cool, and it worked quietly, and off the vehicles battery or optional solar panel. Why we need it: We camp all the time at Parker Arizona. It's only 30 AMPs so we can only run one air conditioner in usually 105 to 112 deg F heat The RV parks Voltage drops to brown out conditions, the A/C in everyones RV's barely cool. It's not enough. So, we're going to install the TURBOCOOL to supplement the RV's A/C. It hardly draws any power, and the 12V DC system, doesnt effect the main park power. It draws just a few 12 VDC amps and may perhaps be a welcome improvement. But the sticky days we'll have to stick it out we understand. I've been an A/C contractor for 37 years, and have always been fascinated with the simplicity of them, but never used one myself. So I'll snap some pix, and give a DDR report of the results. Routing the water supply line up to the unit and 12 V electricity service will be the only hassles I figure. They ain't cheap, they work intermittantly, but their application is unique to our problem.

Thanks, Got 'um ordered. Timbren rubber hollow springs: And a set of HD Bilsteins. The Toyota pre runner can easily tow 6500 lbs, but the hitchweight is another, way different issue with them.

Thanks

I thought I bought my Bilsteins (or YFZ Bobsteins) from offroadparts.com I try that web address and all I get is a fake computer generated flip site. Anyone have the best online place to get shocks and the Timbren overloads? Thanks,,

Have you ever noticed they never put up kids two wheel motorcycle stats? I wonder if that is mixed into the numbers too.

I have a friend that works for Allison. He said often independant tranny shops will sell a customer a whole new Allison and tell them they're tranny is bad when in fact, it's just a simple to fix solinoid, or an other easy fix, or running hot because the customer added too much fluid ect. They rip the customer off and bad mouth Allisons because their is big money in it for them. " I gotta a pile of 'em" was the last Allison comment from an independant shop I heard on the boards. We love ours, our neighbors all love theirs, and our next Truck will have one too. What's your take over all on the Allison World 1000 tranny? You being the chevy doc and all.