Hmmm - well if you take the class, you will
be doing it Harold's way and that way is:

NO clutch or brakes. You start and stop
in gear with the ignition switch. Very
hard habit to break.

No gas. Only the very faintest touch of the
pedal on a steep ledge climb. Harold will
say 'too much' however light you are on the
pedal.

You spend 99 percent of your time at an
idle in 4x4 low, which at a 80:1 crawl
ratio means a pace like a VERY slow walk.
We covered about 15 miles in 3 1/2 days of
driving.

If this sounds radical to you, it will
become clear on the afternoon of the
third day and the morning of the fourth
day when touching the clutch/brake/gas
would mean the possibility of a roll-over
or injury. There are some INTENSE boulder/
ledge climbs near the end of the course.

Toy Man

You will be a LOT less likely to damage parts.

You won't be. The name of the class is
4x4 101 and that is a pretty good description.

You are driving all the time. The theory
gets pointed out as you drive or when you
make mistakes. He does offer a class that
goes into more theory.

The fun is learning how do drive over/around
really tough stuff without damaging you
or the vehicle. It is very instructive to
watch 'experienced' drivers slam their way
over the same rocks you have just idled over
with no problems. At the same time you will
also see a few drivers that just sort of
ooze up/thru the rocks with no problems.
These drivers tend to be older and surprise!
are not using the clutch or gas.

His rigs are OLD, without a lot of fancy
4x4 gear, are on the trail with mainly
novice drivers (like me) 4 days a week
June thru Sept/Oct., have had a lot of
driving in Baja and S. California and
'lived' a tough life in general. He says
he has never broken a Birfield on the Toyota's,
and has never broken a drive shaft, axle or
differential on any of his rigs.

Because the rigs are so old, they do break
various mounts (severe flexing), etc. He
had a frame cross-member break and I broke
a shackle bolt. No problem, welded the
frame cross-member and replaced the shackle
bolt while on the trail.

Toy Man

I agree with D-Rat here...Crawl ratio is everything in the rocks. And Nissan's by default don't have a crawl ratio of anything....

Anybody who has ever seen me drive knows that I go slow. 4low and barely touching teh gas. When climbing a rock ledge, I don't stop at the base, I idle up to it, then just blip the throttle to keep moveing and walk on up. This is with a manual tranny. No clutch until I need to stop or lose traction.

I guess what we're saying is that on a perfectly equipped vehicle, starting and stopping without ever touching the clutch is great, but with our Nisssan's it's not always possible.

I also agree that a lot of offroad drivers need some education on the proper techniques. I'm glad you had fun and enjoyed your class.

Cliff

Sounds like Harold hasn't driven a stock truck in a long time. We have trails steep enough that almost any 4X4 would require brakes to get down them.

Starting and stopping in gear looks cool, and saves wear on the clutch, but serves no purpose unless the vehicle is on an incline. For modern vehicles, it's not even something you can do without a clutch interlock bypass.

Depending on gearing, every vehicle will require a different amount of throttle and RPM to traverse a given obstacle.

It sounds a lot like Harold is teaching people how to drive his trucks, not their own real world vehicles, which have many limitations compared to a rock crawling rig.

I would recommend Bill Burke for your next lesson, you'll learn skills more suited to real world situations.

http://www.bb4wa.com/

I hope too - perhaps next fall.

Toy Man

so... what is the answer to this riddle posed on harold's website:

"why it's sometimes better to use only the front lockers".....can anyone help me out here and give me an idea of when that might be true??
i dont doubt it.. i simply cant think of one.

peace.

I don't recall Harold talking specifically about
this but he did show us how to make a very tight turn around a large rock by activating the front locker just after the front wheels made the turn.
The locked front wheels then 'pulled' the rear around. Having the rear wheels locked would have
resulted in a larger turning radius.

Toy Man

ok.. cool. that makes sense. thanks for thinking about it and putting in your .02!

Sounds good, but according to their site: http://www.torsen.com/oem.htm they don't have one for the X.

It's been six months... how is your rear locker working?