If you want to drive the tough tracks successfully and not spend half your day on the end of a winch rope, then we have put together a list of three essential mods that will transform your 4WD into a low range machine!
Suspension
Upgrading the suspension on your 4WD is almost an essential upgrade these days. Many of the vehicle manufacturers make their suspension to be great on the road, and not so good when you get off the black top. If your plan is to make your 4WD great for light touring duties, towing or tackling the tougher tracks, then it’s hard to go past an aftermarket suspension kit. A small lift of around 50mm will make a massive difference to your vehicle’s performance off the road, while still retaining its on-road manners. A small suspension lift will also help you to clear bigger tyres, give you more underbody clearance also helping with suspension articulation. Getting your vehicle to ‘flex’ a bit more will mean you will have more tyre on the ground when you go over obstacles like ruts and this will provide more traction and get you further. When choosing shocks, go for the biggest bore you can find. The more oil in your shocks will help you on those corrugated outback roads and prevent them from getting too hot and fading, meaning you’ll have a more comfortable and safer ride.
Tyres
The rubber you run is your only contact with the ground, so it makes sense that the tyres you choose to run is very important. The highway tyres that come stock with your 4WD are great on the road but terrible as soon as the going gets tough. They are simply not strong enough to handle our dirt roads. Technology has come a long way in tyres in the last decade and now most all-terrain and mud-terrain tyres will perform as good on the road as off and are a lot quieter than the old knobby tyres once were. Aggressive all-terrain tyres are a great compromise between on and off-road performance and work wonders in the mud and other tough terrains.
Look for a tyre that has at least 3 ply’s and is of light truck construction. Remember to lower your tyre pressures when you head off road to protect your tyre and give you the best performance. It will be different for all vehicles, but I suggest 18 PSI for sand, 18 PSI for mud, 24 PSI for rocks and 28 PSI for outback dirt roads.
Lockers
You may have heard about diff locks and thought to yourself are they really that necessary and will they make much of a difference off road. The simple answer is yes and I believe they are one of the single best mods to get your 4WD further off the beaten track. Have you ever been in a situation where you have got to a difficult part off road and one of your tyres starts spinning and you’re going nowhere in a hurry? What happens in this situation, even though you’re in 4WD, is that your diff is designed to allow the tyre with the least resistance to spin. This is essential in cornering on the road, but off road it certainly holds you back. A locked diff will supply equal amounts of drive to both your tyres, even when one loses traction all together and the wheel with traction is still given drive, even if the other one is in the air and has no traction whatsoever.
Lockers aren’t cheap and many of us only opt to lock one diff and not both, which is still extremely effective. To get the biggest bang for your buck, it’s essential to understand your 4WD and decide which diff will get the most benefit. On most LandCruisers a diff lock in the rear is the best way to go, while in a Nissan Patrol locking the front offers more value as the rear diff comes with a very effective Limited Slip Diff (LSD) from factory.