Dangerous modifications. What’s your mind set?

As with anything else when making any modifications to your vehicle common sense Must prevail.
If the modification is going to affect the handling or safty of the truck you have to think of ways to do the mod so that these are minimised as much as possible and do you Really NEED the mod in the first place.
I see lots of 4WD's with insane lifts, huge tyres and dodgy looking bar work getting around the tracks and i think to myself that maybe choosing a different vehicle more suited for the job would be a better/safer and cheaper option.
As far as frontal protection goes I would think that unless you are competent enough to engineer and build your own bullbar so that it wont affect the cars safty and handling leave it to the experts.
As far as driving around on bald tyres goes, Don't do it.
You are not only putting you and your passengers lives at risk, You are also putting other road users lives at risk as well.

Meanwhile, in 'Murica
YouTube

Quote:

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Originally Posted by scarry

Or a bit of moisture on the road....[bigsad]

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Remembering, of course, what gives you grip is the surface area of rubber in contact with the road. Adding grooves (tread) to a tyre will reduce the area of rubber in contact with the road, therefore, less grip. When you add a bit of moisture, this acts as a lubricant, so it is important to have as much rubber as possible in contact with the road. When a significant amount of water is on the road, this will cause the tyre to aquaplane, thus reducing the area of rubber in contact with the road. Then, you add groves to the tyre to pump the water out (allow an escape route for the water) to allow the maximum possible area of rubber to be in contact with the road.
In normal dry driving conditions, there is no need for tread. It's just that when it does rain, we all can't dive in to the pits to swap the slicks for the wets.

So, a bit of moisture, the slicks are still just fine.

Oh, unless you were making an understatement, then ignore my post.

I quite like this thing in the US:

Updated picts on 42's/portals - Pirate4x4.Com : 4x4 and Off-Road Forum

Engineered? Dunno

Dangerous? Dunno

Has plates though. [biggrin]

DL

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 350RRC

I quite like this thing in the US:

Updated picts on 42's/portals - Pirate4x4.Com : 4x4 and Off-Road Forum

Engineered? Dunno

Dangerous? Dunno

Has plates though. [biggrin]

DL

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Things were different 11 years ago....

Still. Who wouldn't run portals if given the chance.

Hmmm... such an interesting little thread!

I've been reading Adrian Newey's book 'How to build a car'. He makes a good point that in his initial days as a car designer, he was constantly caught between making the car faster and compromising safety to the driver. He goes on to note that the FIA have done a great thing and removed the safety related burden from the designer and placed it at the feet of the regulations.

It was a simple way of looking at it, but I agree - the laws, rules & regulations in place are there to protect everyone. That's the best place to have safety managed.

That said, if there isn't something written, the onus does come down to the 'designer' to see what options are available and seek to implement the safest solution - easiest way to achieve this is to canvas other's experience and opinion - herein lies the great value in forums like AULRO!

My 2c.