FourWheeler's Overland Adventure from the M715

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joe.schigel

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Hello all,
for those that haven't seen my build thread, I'm the guy that put a Ram 8.0L V10 into a '67 Jeep M715 and overlands it. Well, I recently returned from the opportunity of a lifetime! I was one of the 20 participants chosen to attend FourWheeler's Overland Adventure 2020 in Phoenix, AZ! This was the best off-roading trip that I've ever been on and I will never forget it. In the following posts, I'll attempt to document the experience for you all (and myself). Hopefully we'll have a video put together and I'm sure FourWheeler will have one as well. In the meantime, enjoy the read!

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joe.schigel

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The Start

So, the big hurdle that we faced with the Overland Adventure is that, well, we live in Detroit and the event is held in Phoenix, AZ. The original plan was to drive the 715 out to Phoenix. The problem with this plan is two fold. 1) It's exhausting to drive the truck longer than 6hours at a time therefore increasing travel time. This isn't typically a problem in Michigan. 2) it doesn't have cruise control. Which if you're going to drive 30+ hours, you'd probably want. Fortunately, we were fortunate enough to be loaned a truck and trailer to take the 715 out to Phoenix.

My friend brought over his F350 dually and we loaded up the 715 and we headed out Thursday after work.
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On Thursday evening, we were able to drive to Chicago, IL and spend the evening at a friend's house. The next morning, we headed out towards Tulsa, OK. On the way there, we stopped for BBQ in St. Louis.
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From there we travelled through Missouri. I've driven through Missouri once before but a few things stand out to me about this state. The first is that there are a lot of derelict cars on the sides of the road. The second is that Missouri is apparently cavernous! You can't count the numbers of ads for various caverns on the sides of the road. Speaking of caverns, the third and most comical point, I think Missouri has one of the funniest roadside attractions.
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The rest of the drive to Tulsa was relatively uneventful.
 

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Hello all,
for those that haven't seen my build thread, I'm the guy that put a Ram 8.0L V10 into a '67 Jeep M715 and overlands it. Well, I recently returned from the opportunity of a lifetime! I was one of the 20 participants chosen to attend FourWheeler's Overland Adventure 2020 in Phoenix, AZ! This was the best off-roading trip that I've ever been on and I will never forget it. In the following posts, I'll attempt to document the experience for you all (and myself). Hopefully we'll have a video put together and I'm sure FourWheeler will have one as well. In the meantime, enjoy the read!

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I will be fallowing with great interest. The blue Commando looks very familiar (I think it was built several years ago on Pirate for a trip through Canada and Alaska iirc).
 
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joe.schigel

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The next leg of our journey was through Oklahoma to New Mexico. This part of the trip was pretty difficult for two reasons. The first was that there's not a lot to look at in the plains states. it's flat, and all the crops have been harvested. The bigger issue was we were lucky enough to encounter a sustained 35mph headwind with gusts up to 50mph. Our tow rig started to struggle fighting the wind and we had ~8mpg from that. I was really concerned for the 715's hood and soft top. the truck's body isn't really built for speeds over 55mph. Let alone a combined wind of 90mph! The top held together and the hood stayed fastened.
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When we got to New Mexico, we stayed the evening in Albuquerque and visited with friends of mine. The next morning, we made sure to make the correct turn at Albuquerque and headed onward to Phoenix. On the way through the vast expanses of the plains, we encountered what is probably the average driver's worst fear: a flat. We were probably 20 or so miles from Winslow, AZ and cruising at ~65mph and beard a bang. We checked the mirrors and discovered one of the trailer tires had blown out and there was now a cloud of smoke and flapping rubber where a function tire had just been. Luckily, we had a 2 axle trailer so it was very controlled and we pulled off onto the shoulder. Aside from the fantastic blowout and the fact that we were on the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere, the tire change went normally. The best part was the spare tire... has 2 plugs in it... hahahahaha. It held air and got us where we were going, but this was icing on the cake.
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joe.schigel

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Once the tire was repaired, we continued onward and the desolate plains shifted to the tall pines and extinct volcanoes of Flagstaff, AZ. (I didn't realize there were so many old volcanoes there until relatively recently). The mountains were beautiful and the tow rig handled the mountains easily. And I have to say, large displacement engine braking is awesome! very little mechanical brakes being used.
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After passing through the mountains, we arrived in Phoenix and spent the night (Sunday evening). The next morning, we dropped off the trailer for safe keeping and unloaded the M715. It was crazy to drive that truck in a totally different environment than Michigan. We went to the local grocery store and loaded up on supplies for the next week of camping/overlanding.

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We then met with cousins of mine for lunch in Wickenburg and waited for event registration to open.

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joe.schigel

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The first day / evening was kind of unofficial. The day consisted of registration, meeting everyone, and getting dinner. After having lunch with my cousins, we wandered over to the Flying "E" Ranch where we were instructed to report.
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We pulled in, and at least half of the vehicles were already there! It was a cool sight to see having never been part of such an event!
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We found our way to registration and completed the necessary paperwork, covid screen, basic tech inspection, and then photography.
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It was at this point that I got to do the part I had been looking forward to for a while (however silly), We applied the official decal! I put it on the hood for two reasons. The first is that our windshield is kind of small so space is a premium. The other reason is that M715's would've had identification markings on their hoods originally, so I put some back!
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Once we finished and had poked around to our satisfaction, we decided to go set up camp. We chose a section a little farther than the main group so we could have a bit of quiet while still being able to mingle. After camp was set, we went and looked at all the vehicles everyone brought.

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Nearest to us was the blue gen1 Ranger that we had been going back and forth with on the way out (he had trailer issues much worse than ours). I think this was my favorite truck aside from my own. I've had a soft spot for these since I could drive.
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We also saw a J20 with every goody in the catalogue, the heaviest 4runner I've ever seen (8300lbs est!!!), the power wagon swapped onto a 2500 ram chassis, a couple JT's and JL's, a CLEAN blue Hilux, a diesel swapped Commando, a gen1 Bronco, and some others that I don't remember off the top of my head.
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That night, Flying E provided us with a delicious dinner at their event hall and bar.

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Once we had had enough socializing, we retired to camp under the stars for the night. This didn't last too long because a pack of coyotes surrounded camp and woke up everyone! I've never heard so many, so close, and such strange sounds from a dog! This was the big reminder that we weren't camping in the midwest anymore!
 

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Awesome rig. Jeeps are the best, but I too, have a soft spot for that ranger. Make mine an extended cab and I would a happy camper. My friend from school here had a bronco II that he cut the arse off and grafted a mini ranger pan onto it was cool as hell!
 
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joe.schigel

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The second day was the first adventure day of the trip. We started the morning with breakfast of eggs and bacon (our favorite camping breakfast) and packed up the truck. It was surprising cool for that morning and I believe the night before was the coldest night of the trip (luckily).

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We then made our way to the morning briefing where they covered what to expect and how we should be driving and contacting each other. Everyone was given a RuggedRadio and instructed to line up at the entrance of the Flying E Ranch.

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After lining up, we all aired down to whatever we determined would be appropriate for off road use while still having some short stints of highway driving. I opted for ~20psi. For us, this gives us some give but not so much that the steering becomes mushy on road and the tires won't vibrate much worse than they already do.

From here, we had a short drive to the first off road section. We dropped into a valley and riverbed that was beautiful! There wasn't a whole lot of water (it is the desert after all) and there were lots of cottonwood trees I believe.

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When we started to do our first water crossings, we became the first damage truck. One of the pools of water was deep enough that when nosing in, water came up into out grille opening. This normally wouldn't be a problem except that we're running a pusher electric fan that happened to be on at full blast. The blades hit the water and instantly shattered! We didn't notice until a few minutes later. I checked the temp gauge and notice it hitting 230F! It was at that point we realized that we didn't hear the cooling fan roaring! We radioed the group that we had trouble and pulled off out of the way. Once I got to the front of the truck, I could plainly see the problem. We had broken 5/10 of our fan blades! Then then got wedged between the shroud and remaining blades and melted the fan's fuse. After the initial panic subsided of not having a spare fan, we got to work. We removed the grille and extracted the fan from the radiator. Once out, the 5th remaining blade was broken off in order to balance the fan as best we could (so no 4/10 blades!). The melted fuse was replaced and everything was reassembled. From this point on, we avoided deep water and did what we could to keep the V10 "cool-ish".

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We got back into line and proceeded to the lunch point at the top of a ridge. While up there, we could watch the rest of the rigs tackle the "hard line". (We opted out of the hard line for a couple reasons. A: it was the first day and we wanted to wheel for the week, not the day. B: there was deep water in excess of 3' and our tcase/trans breathers aren't that high. figured we'd try to keep from drowning them. C: we had already broken the fan and didn't want to hurt anything else yet and give the truck a chance to cool.) Watching the truck try to tackle the steep ridge was plenty entertaining.

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Especially when Rouge Overland's Xterra almost rolled! The only think=g that stopped it was one of the event staff grabbing hold of the bumper! They then backed down and a crisis was averted! After that, the Cummins Power Wagon made it look foolish and crawled up the ridge without even trying. I don't think he went over 1400rpm!


Image credit: FourWheeler Mag

After everyone made it up the ridge and had lunch, we ventured through the back country to our camp site. This involved a 5mi hill climb up a mountain at a decent grade (5% or greater. I can't remember).

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We trudged up the mountain at ~40mph and the truck stayed cool enough. Temp stayed around 220F. We passed a few other rigs that weren't enjoying the climb and had to pull off. Once we made it to the top, we all stopped and regrouped.

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I popped the hood and let the truck cool. While here, we could smell the strong, syrupy smell of coolant. we were concerned it was us but then we saw the Staff Hilux (Curtis) blow his radiator! Apparently it really didn't like the hill climb. Once it cooled enough, he refilled it with water and we pressed on.

Before getting to camp, they offered another trail for anyone that wanted to. We figured we'd go for it despite our cooling issues. This turned out to be a poor choice. We made it down the trail no problem but because of the slow pace, once we reached the turnaround we were overheating. We stopped and opened the hood and tried to let it cool. After maybe 10 minutes, the group started to head back. We tried to follow but because of the high heat, our brakes heat soaked and wouldn't let us move! So we still had some cooling down to do. (this wouldn't have happened had our fan been working but oh well). Luckily a couple of the guys stayed back with us and one of them had a portable shower system. We used that to spray down the radiator, engine, and brakes. This did the trick and we were on the move again! Coming back out of the trail was a breeze with only 3 of us and we made it to camp with no problems.

Once at camp, we set up the truck and had dinner (which was BBQ that was catered in!) while contending with the cows on the ranch.

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That night, we visited Curtis and discovered why his radiator blew. We weren't the only ons to break fan blades in the water. His Hilux had shattered a couple of his mechanical fan's blades! And even worse, one punctured the radiator! This is why his truck overheated and blew its top on the hill climb. We helped him drain his system and remove the radiator. Unfortunately for him, there was going to be no replacing it since it's a foreign to US vehicle and on top of that, was a custom job. Mike (Cummins Power Wagon) was also there and was leading the repair effort. He scrounged up some JB weld and patched the radiator for the Hilux as best he could. The cooling system would have to be refilled in the morning to give the epoxy time to cure.

After that, we went back to our campsite and were given a portable fire pit from the DeeZee guys. This was the favorite toy of the trip and kept us warm throughout. We spent the evening around that fire swapping stories from the day and past trips. A great way to end the long day.

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joe.schigel

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Day 3 of the trip started with another breakfast of bacon, eggs, and cowboy coffee. We had the driver's meeting and then we spoke with the trip leader, Nina Barlow. Since we were down a cooling fan, she advised that we break off from the group early so we could run into town and find a replacement. She instructed us on which route to take to avoid a steep mountain pass and where to meet everyone else a little later. We were grateful for this opportunity but this meant that we missed out on the box canyon. So shortly after leaving camp, everyone turned down a dirt trail except us. We headed on up the mountains to head towards Prescott.

The trip was very scenic and the mountain road was gorgeous! Super smooth, curvy, and fast with light traffic. Had we had a sports car, we would've had a lot more fun! An hour later, we entered the city of Prescott and found an Oreilly's with an electric cooling fan that would have to work. From there, we drove to the gas station that would be the refueling point to meet up with the rest of the group. We found an out of the way parking spot and got to work on swapping the electric fans.

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The new fan was still a Flex-a-lite like the original but was clearly the "entry level" fan. The blade to shroud gap was huge and it didn't spin at nearly the speed of the original.

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My suspicions were confirmed once the new fan was installed and turned on. not a whole lot of air was actually getting pushed through the radiator. Most of it was spraying out around the shroud. Oh well, it would have to work. So although we had a new fan, we would still have to watch our temps.

After finishing the fan swap, we still had about an hour before the rest of the group would catch up. We decided it would be a good idea to meal prep our dinner for the showcase that was going to happen that night. The idea was to do a bit of engine cooking with a "hobo dinner". Chopped steak, onion, peppers, potatoes, garlic, butter, and seasoning tightly wrapped in multiple layers of foil. The idea is to put the dinners on the engine to cook while we drove. We prepped the dinners on the tailgate and placed them back into the cooler. We would put them on the engine later so we wouldn't over cook them.

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At this point, the rest of the group showed up to refuel and meet up with us. We fell back into formation and continued onto the lunch stop. This area was in a river valley among the trees. As we ate lunch, the rest of the group came up to us and was excited to hear that we had our fan fixed as well as we could. We could continue on the trip with less fear of overheating.

When lunch was finished, Nina instructed us to line back up and ordered any vehicles without windows / tops to the front of the line since there was going to be an abundance of dust. This meant us and the "trophy truck" looking blazer since neither of us were traveling with closed windows or tops (waaaay too hot for that). We lined up behind Nina and headed up a dusty pass cut into the side of the mountains headed towards our campsite for the evening. These roads were loose gravel / dirt and were exceptionally dusty! I had images of the Baja 1000 in my head as we struggled to see and keep the sand out of our mouths. It was dusty enough that every time we had to turn into a shaded part of road, I couldn't see into the shade! I had to trust that the road would be there!

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We did this for what felt like an hour and then we came upon our camp for the evening: the Jerome, AZ ghost town! We had gotten there in time to set up camp and explore the town.

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The ghost town was an old gold mine that had closed decades ago. It was now littered with cars and trucks from the 1900's through the 60's. We explored and poked around all of the relics. The state of the pine buildings was impressive for their age. It was a bit like stepping back in time.

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After exploring the town, we returned to the truck to realize that we never put the hobo dinners on the engine! So we immediately placed them on the intake and exhaust manifolds and ran the engine for an hour and a half to attempt to cook them.

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This turned out to be less than fruitful and unfortunately didn't cook through enough. Oh well. Next time, I'll stick to cooking them in a fire pit.

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Luckily, the trip sponsors made plenty of food and were gracious enough to share with us. The best was Canyon Cooler's SPAM burnt ends! They were way more delicious than they had any right to be!

Once the night wound down, we stared at the stars and eventually turned in for the night.

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Any word on if they will be doing a miniseries like with Ultimate Adventure on Motortrend?
 
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joe.schigel

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The final adventure day started like the others; bacon, eggs, coffee and a driver's meeting. Following the meeting we lined up and headed out through the small town of Jerome.

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The town of Jerome was a quaint remnant of the mining boom town that was originally founded there. Now it seems like it is a nice place to take a weekend vacation. It was very cool to see all of these building precariously perched on the side of the mountain. I'm sure the residents were confused by the small army of off roaders rolling through their town.

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Once we got to the bottom of the mountain, we made a small trip to the trailhead. there was a short road section followed by a dirt road that quickly degraded to the point that it makes a Detroit road look well maintained! some large wash outs and significant ruts. High ground clearance is definitely a must have for that section of "road". From here, we split off into two groups.

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The first group was the mild group that would bypass the next section of trails. We opted for the fun group and went into the rocky hill climb trail. It started out easy enough but then became only one truck wide and lots of wash outs, ledges, ruts, and off camber turns cut into the side of a mountain. This was my favorite part of the trip since in the past, I've done mostly trail climbs like this. Don't get me wrong, nothing we did, a stock JK couldn't handle, but it was entertaining and a good test for our truck. We had yet to take the 715 on trails like this. Luckily for us, we had a lot of photographers with us and they took some great pics!
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Photo credit: FourWheeler mag (my personal favorite)

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Now, at the beginning of this trail, it was suggested that we use 4low, and for good reason. There were some steep climbs that required some finesse since we were all moving pretty slowly. The part that was funny for us was that we never used 4low! The truck has 5.88 gears in the axles from the factory and the NV4500 has a 5.61:1 1st gear so we just slammed it in first and let it trudge up the hill! It was amazing how easily it climbed the terrain! I think I only ever gave it 5% throttle!

After that section, we headed back down the mountain and met up with the rest of the group for lunch.

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Once lunch was finished, we followed a number of service and ranch roads the rest of the afternoon to our campsite. One of these spots required a short 2 lane highway stint. This turned out to be the scariest moment for us. We were going ~65mph and a huge semi with a tall wind deflector was in the oncoming lane. Ordinarily, this doesn't mean much for a normal car aside from the wind wash pushing you aside a bit. For us, the wind slammed into the truck like a hurricane and not only shoved our aerodynamic brick to the side, our hood raised at least 6" from its closed position! I thought it was going to tear clear off and slam into our windshield, effectively ending our trip! (the hood is held down only with the two hooks on the fenders but not emergency latch in the middle. hence the high degree of movement. it's on my list) Once our pants were swapped out and we collected ourselves, we turned off of the highway and back to the dirt.
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After driving through the back country for the rest of the day, we pulled into the Bumble Bee Ranch for the evening and set up camp. We were treated to another catered dinner and then had a small closing ceremony.

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I've got to say, it was an absolute blast to have gone on this trip. It was amazing being able to experience some level of normal during this crazy year too. I'm honored that we were chosen and I can't wait to go on the next trip. Although, I'll probably stick to the midwest. We got to meet all kind of great people, see some cool rigs, and do an adventure that I never would've thought I would ever have the chance to participate in! We have some things to fix on the truck over the winter (voltage regulator, coolant flush, rad fan...) but we'll be back at it in the spring!

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shortbus4x4

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Sweet, thanks for sharing. I'm over on the zone too and followed your build. Want to see some more close ups of your winch bumper. For hauling M715s on trailers try running a small ratchet strap across the front of the hood from frame rail to frame rail, it helps keep the hood very secure.
 

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WOW!! How great of a trip....Wish I was on it. Thank you for sharing!
 
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