Chat

Tammy’s Engine Update

 

Find us at:

www.offroadinsiders.com

Instagram offroadinsiders

Email: offroadinsiders AT gmail.com

Main Topic

• Bantam trip report

  • What is Bantam?

    • http://www.bantamjeepfestival.com/

  • Trip out, and day 1 (Friday)

    • Got started a little later, but its roughly a 4:30 drive, so we weren’t in too much of a rush.

    • I am always super paranoid about tops when towing, because of maneuvering the trailer. I had bought a Garmin RV 795 GPS to try to see if it helps with these things.

      • Either it did in fact account for trailer parking during the trip, or we were just very lucky. Because we had no problems.

    • Friday night at the event is the Butler invasion.

      • We were on the fence on whether we wanted to attend because it was fun last year, but the traffic getting into butler was just horrendous.

      • They supposedly improved that, but we were still worried about it

      • We ended up getting to the event grounds late enough that we didn’t see a reason to head to the invasion

    • We went to the hotel

      • I met a guy from Skyjacker in the lobby

      • The hotel was giving away ducks, the kids each grabbed one.

      • The pool in the hotel was right across the hall from us, which the kids loved.

  • Day 2 (Saturday)

    • The pancake maker at the hotel was not working right, to my daughters disappointment.

    • We decided to the vendor thing in the morning

    • My wife and kids are all about the little shop-booths.

      • They picked up some rubber ducks.

      • They were super excited to leave a duck on every jeep they saw. I helped them understand that a lot of these jeeps sitting round the vendor area arent a person’s jeep, but owned by a company, and it wouldnt mean as much to leave a duck on them. So we went over to the jeep show, which are just average folks jeeps on display, and they had a blast looking at all the neat jeep builds

    • I didnt really stop and talk to vendors, except the ones who I had connections with. I saw folks like quake led, a number of tire vendors, affordable offroad, skyjacker. One made hard top hoists and storage solutions. And a flip-back freedom panel motification. They had a guy there that seemed like he just flipped open and closed the freedom panels all day long.

    • There was a JET ENGINE on display for some reason.

    • Terry from the JLPod was there, with Oracle Lights. We ended up buying some tail lights for the JKU from him.

    • We also came across a local fire company who was selling raffle tickets for a 2024 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, This thing was beautiful, and the proceeds of course benefit the fire co. So we bought one.

      • This jeep had a $78,000 sticker price!

    • After lunch we hit the on-site trails.

      • We hit all the trails thaty they’d let us (there are.. 6 iirc we did 5). Their green and blue trails are SUPER easy in my opinion. Comparing them to off-road park trails in the area, i’d call all of them green. The biggest challenge was tire placement for some rutted trails, a little mud, one or two slightly technical obstacles.

      • That being said, events like this sometimes have to lower the bar a little. Bantam attracts all skill level of jeep owners, some of them are pretty green when it comes to off-road. So generally the trails have to be strictly rated for vehicle capability, and cant really account for driver skills. Or thats how they feel.

      • We were cut off at blue because the LJ is on 33’s.

      • We did two trails on day 2, then came back and did the other three on day 3.

    • I think it was after the trails, we went over to the swap meet, and I picked up twp YJ grills. Why would I need two YJ grills? Well, i’ll tell you.

      • Bench project…

      • Everyones going to hate me for this, but i want to try swapping the LJ’s grill to a YJ grill. I will likely need a hood too, and ill probably ditch the factory fenders and replace them with something custom.

    • We also visited the Metalcloak CTI trailer

      • The LJ Scored a 580, which isnt amazing, but the suspension isnt all that custom, so i’ll take it.

      • Im glad I had this opportunity because I’d love to get it re-tested once Ive got those new axles under it (and new suspension).

  • Day 3 and return trip (Sunday)

    • Day 3 was basically finishing up the trails we didn’t do on day 2, and then hitting the playground. We did hit the vendors first, because my daughter saw a cute little dress at one of the vendors booths that she really wanted.

    • The playground was a ton of fun. They have 5 different lanes, for different skill sets, including a mud pit. I did everything but the mud pit.

    • The 35″+ lane…

    • The teeter-totter

  • Overall

    • The Caddy gave me a little bit of an uneasy feeling. I feel like the “Can i really tow with a 15 year old cadillac escalade” experiment is going to end soon. Its served its purpose, but the thing is nickel and diming us, and now i;m worried that its coming up on a transmission issue.

 

Show news and announcements

 

We use streamyard to produce these live streams, check out https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5858440682405888 if you’d like to give it a try for yourself, and help the Off-Road insiders podcast at the same time!

 

Next Show

Topic: 605 Jeeps Rock fest

Show close

If you want to watch us live, visit the Off-road insiders on Youtube

Don’t forget to like the video, and subscribe!

 

If you’d like to listen to us audio only, find is where you find podcasts

You can find us on instagram, https://www.instagram.com/offroadinsiders/

 

You can find Tammy at: www.JeepMomma.com

And you can find Nate at: www.swbcrawler.com

 

Listen to the latest episode of the Off-Road Insiders Podcast