SubUrban Gorilla Part X - Tow/Trail/Recovery Payoff - Aussie W.E.ROCK

Today,

two years of busted knuckles pays off when our suburban gorilla hits the turnpike and the trails.

Plus we rock goes international when we head to Vegas for the World Championships. It's a camp and crawling rescue adventure right now on Xtreme 4x4

44. And as I'm sure

we're not in the shop and we're not on the trail, we're behind the wheel of our ultimate toll race. The suburban gorilla.

Now you've seen Jessi and I work on this thing for the past two seasons and today is the day that you find out if it's all worth it. We're gonna test this thing in all the areas that we built it for towing on the highway riding on the trail, recovering deck vehicles from the trail and even just out of its own as a daily driver. But before we start that, let's get a look at where it all started.

Our ultimate to beast began as an 87 suburban that spent its days as a field unit for the Georgia Department of Agriculture.

You going up,

we traded 600 bucks for basically a frame and a VIN number.

And now

it's a, one of a kind tow rig with the looks to turn heads everywhere it goes. I mean, when was the last time you saw an, each one with a goose neck behind it

and with our killer Banks twin turbo D

max under the hood,

it has the power to tow whatever we need.

Plus this rig is equipped to head into the trail.

Now, Gail Banks is known as the no black smoke guy,

but the issue we have here is space really limits the size of our inner coolers. So we don't have that ideal fuel to air ratio,

but at the same time,

it's kind of cool to have all that black smoke coming out the back, isn't it?

Keep the tail gators off

and now that we have our 26 ft goose neck hooked up to the back with one of our buggies strapped down,

it's time to test this truck's primary duty

towing.

Now, driving with a goose neck does take some getting used to because your rear wheels don't track the same as the truck

and it does help you get in and out of tight back roads a little bit easier with your loads.

The big,

you

know, when you're pulling a trailer, this thing is merging with traffic,

but really with all the power underneath the hood of this thing,

you just got to turn it on and hold on.

Oh yeah, 76 miles an hour before the end of the on ramp.

Now, that is not only a good performing truck,

it's a little bit safer because we're have to merge with traffic going slower.

Acceleration is only half of what towing is all about.

We're going to throw up the anchor at some half decent speed and see how our six piston Wilwood brakes, 16 inch rotors and Vanco Hydro boost brake set up can handle this huge package.

My goodness.

Yeah, it works.

It works. Indeed.

Pretty much. The only thing we have to work on right now is the shifting and the transmission, it's a little too firm. Now, that's better than a sloppy shift where the clutches are actually burning up. But at the same time, you don't want it shifting so hard. You think you're gonna break the drive shaft in half? Now? Really? The only way to do that is we're gonna have to slowly calibrate this transmission computer.

Just get used to this motor and this drive train, all it takes is time

while we're here getting gas. We thought,

why not? Go ahead and weigh this thing? See how much it actually weighs in the total package.

My guess

I need to get just under 10,000 pounds

for

me.

My truck isn't big enough. Hold on

first way or

way,

first way.

Hello. Come on in. Thank you, sir.

Now we get to go see how much we weigh.

I was way out.

What were you?

Well, I was guessing well, over 10. So I guess I could still say that. I'm pretty darn close.

Uh, how do you wanna do it?

We'll just go gross weight, whole package outdoor.

All right. Well, uh, hop down here, Tommy, boy,

um,

we got a little wager going. Ok.

What, what, what number are you at?

Uh, 12,

3.

What number are you at?

13? Two, dude, you guys are wrong. We are a total weight of 18,700 pounds.

No wonder it's working pretty hard on the highway. You keep, you get to keep your 10 bucks

coming up. Our monster tow rig boldly goes where no nine ton package has gone before. Will it pass the trail test? Find out.

Welcome back to extreme and our payoff day for the suburban gorilla Toby

so far so good as we're making a 50 mile highway trip to one of our favorite off road parks.

We added all the serious off road stuff to this truck like air lockers, low gearing 38 inch tall tires to get it into the trail and recover vehicles if needed. But as an added bonus, we can pretty much haul our goose neck anywhere we want.

All right, we picked our spot on the top of the hill. Now it's time to set this thing up.

Don't just be looking at it. Come on, set my trailer up.

Come on. What, Tommy?

I'll be right here.

Someone get me a Red Bull

another day at work.

That should be good right about there.

Tom asked me how many man hours were in the truck and I added them up that night and it made me sad.

There's about 750 man hours in the truck and the trailer

22 months to build the start to finish, including the trailer and the truck.

Uh And uh not to mention that

there was 10 other vehicles built in between. So it was a lot of work,

a

lot of work,

but it was worth it.

And with our extreme t-shirt flag flying and everything set up on top of the hill, let's check out our Scorpion camper.

Now this truly is luxury when you're at the trail. I mean, come on, look at this. We've got a fridge to keep our food and our drinks cold. We got a full kitchen with a sink, a stove and an oven in case the campfires rained out and we even have a toilet and a shower just to wash off a day's worth of grind.

And we're still trying to find a spot to mind our 50 inch plasma screen TV. But for now, a smaller window into the off road world will have to do. And speaking of a smaller world, the guys at We Rock made it a bit smaller with the invasion of some

Aussies

battling for rock crawling supremacy. 16 of the world's best came to Henderson Nevada for the We Rock World finals.

This event is a really big event. We got people from all over the world. They came from Canada, Mexico and South Africa.

Re

re

is basically put your foot in it

for the American drivers. They were keeping an eye out on the trio of Australians. The guys from Australia. I think they'll do real well. It seems like down under, they seem to do everything a little bit more crazy rat

on

making the 8000 mile journey

was peppering Pete Anton.

Hey, dude, jamming Jamie Wade

and slamming Sammy Overton.

They had the Mingo down and were pumped to be competing on the Yanks home turf.

We've been in Australia looking up to all these guys and to be out here competing with them,

it's just fantastic. So I jumped at the chance. It's monstrous. It's, it's the biggest thing I've ever been to one look at the course and they knew they were far from Oz.

Literally insane. It's pretty crazy.

It's different to the courses that we've been setting back in Australia. The courses are tighter, more full on. Like there's no sort of easy courses. Basically, there's no warm

ups, you know, straight into it back home. Peter Anton

is the defending points champion. I like to do things big

at the world finals. He debuted a rig that was built to go. Big

Pete's ri is just, it's just unbelievable.

There's a, a few unique things about this, uh

Rock Crawler we've eliminated the use of a CV and the small half shafts by putting a, uh, stock Dana 60 U joint into the steering, set up the actual spine size inside the CV. Of what this was originally out of the, the Hummer portal axle, they're very small and it's a, it's a constant reoccurring problem if you keep that, you will break har.

So we just eliminated that

and went straight to, straight to the big star. We haven't had 11 internal failure. So we hope that uh

the success of these axles will continue.

It also features a hydraulic suspension that gives him 14 inches of travel and a propane powered 472 big block Chevy engine.

This machine proves to the world that Australians aren't in this for a few vegemite sandwiches.

It's good to have a few innovative ideas and push the extreme and, and then help, help the sport grow and develop and do bigger things,

the expectations of a nation weighing on their countryman's performance.

Peter Anton

was ready. Got a guy for lower guy needing to finish in the top six to qualify for the shootout.

Anton

struggled through the court.

I'm just having a, a bad drive like it. It's just nothing, nothing swinging my way. I'm not, I'm not making it come my way. He would not advance to the shooter.

Jamie Wade punched his ticket to the world finals after winning the Australian shootout to actually take out the Australian finals in first place. That, that was unreal.

He was ready to show up the Americans.

I can crawl just about anything.

His first competition in the States was not only humbling but on this role, a little embarrassing.

I went to turn to get out of it. My steering wheel fell off. So I had, I had my steering wheel but wasn't doing anything

to get to the shoot out. Now, we're gonna have to pull off a few more risky maneuvers and take some more wild lines and hopefully keep it on all floors. Broken parts forced Jamie Wade out of the competition.

As for Sam Overton,

he borrowed a rig from American builder and

competitor, Tracy Jordan.

That's some pressure. Now. Well, I told Sam when he came over from Australia, you better bring a checkbook because I didn't know how good of a driver he was gonna be qualifying for the shootout and finishing fourth overall. Slamming Sam with the long bright spot for team Australia.

Things came along really good.

I'm pumped

on.

Well,

Aussie pride was wounded at the world finals. It is hard to say it. But, um,

hey, when you beat, you beat Jamie Wee's spotter for one wasn't ready to give the Americans. They do get it back together.

Organize something for next year.

When the A come out, we show

has done

his lesson too.

Coming up. Let's go.

The boys tangled the poison spider in a web. It can't get out of which means Gorilla to the rescue. Stay tuned.

We're back on extreme with the final installment of our suburban Gorilla project.

We've proven this rig has the power to pull and our twin turbo

Duramax had no trouble getting our 18,000 pound package to the top of this hill. But that's only half the story.

This rig's got it where it counts when we're talking about off road, large tires, big brakes, lifted suspension, chrome Molly axle shaft. This Gorilla is built for off road recovery as well.

All right.

Will he make it?

It's the name of one of our favorite trails where we're going to try and intentionally flog our poison spiders

rolling the spider on its side is easier said than done

for Brandon and Suzuki.

It happens every left turn.

Ok.

No.

Well,

I, I don't,

I don't think I can drive out of this one. Tom.

Go jump on me.

Well, now we have a situation where normally if you're a wheel with your buddies, one of them would probably have a winch, be able to flip you back over. But what if you weren't?

That's what we built the gorilla for. That's what we're gonna test next.

We're back on extreme and the conclusion of what has been our most ambitious truck build ever winch

in

the last phase of our suburban gorilla payoff, we'll test its ability to recover a rig on the trail,

namely our poison spider, which we intentionally rolled earlier

go with the save the Spider.

The dual 203205 transfer case combo was the ideal ticket for this truck

with gearing options of medium low 2 to 1 and ultra low 4 to 1.

You can put that 1300 pound feet of torque to work on the trails. All that twisting motion and power on the chassis does make for some interesting sounds.

Each part of this drive train was planned to eliminate weak links,

38 inch tall tires for added ground clearance,

full gear cast iron transfer cases for increased strength.

35 spine chrome

Molly, superior axle shafts and aux joints to prevent axle breakage,

plus the power from the twin turbo

Duramax. All in an effort to build a tow rig that can handle

any trail. You can throw out as long as it's wide enough to fit the width of the truck 8 ft six inches.

Now this is why we put two inches on this truck, one in the back and one on the front because I can't turn around. Now, this thing can ha

12,000 pounds. And since our total rig as we weighed it today was 18,000, we know that we're dealing with some serious weight. Now, the spider itself, it's only about four grand. So you have no problem putting that sucker back on its wheels.

We'll winch it up,

get the high left out,

hold the pressure on it with the high left, take the winch off and then we should be able to

back it out or lower it down or something.

I was gonna say, throw it over hook on the far side and I'll be able to lift the whole thing up.

Hey, Tommy. Yo,

how about you? Drop it in gear and I'll winch it and see if we can get the rest of the way up. Yep. All right. Getting in my truck. Here we go. We

have right

off

recover.

Test number three. Pat.

Great recovery. Tommy. Thanks, bro.

Now, there you go. The suburban gorilla is showing that it can do everything. We built it for. Tow's great on the highway. Works great as a daily driver. It's a little bit of a beast, but not that you wouldn't want it to be. And it works as an awesome trail recovery vehicle and don't think this is the last you're gonna see this r because it's gonna be hauling our projects to the trail forever.

Oh, yeah.