UTV Driver
UTV Driver
  • last year
We’re back in Southern Utah! This time we take a closer look at TukTuk’s damage after its rollover, modify the Dirty Defender for some more wheeling, and poke around the Barracks Trail before finally meeting our match!

Check out the story at https://www.utvdriver.com/utv-news/utah-adventure-with-can-am-defenders-part-2/

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Sports
Transcript
00:00 (engine revving)
00:02 (man screaming)
00:10 We made it, it's the next day.
00:13 (laughing)
00:15 Yeah, it's the next day.
00:16 I think the plan for this morning is we're gonna try
00:18 and get the old tuk-tuk off the trailer.
00:20 It's running okay, it ran great yesterday.
00:22 We ran about 15 miles out after the incident.
00:28 So I think we're gonna try and get the busted bits off.
00:31 Maybe see about deleting the sway bar
00:33 to give us a little bit more flex.
00:34 I think Hoyer's got a little bit of work
00:35 he wants to do, right?
00:36 Yeah, Mark's got some stuff to do to the dirty Defender.
00:38 We're gonna put some spacers on it.
00:40 Hopefully today we're going to probably delete his sway bar
00:43 too for the time being.
00:44 And you know, the tuk-tuk just needs a general check over
00:46 in addition to fixing.
00:48 You know, we gotta pull the thumper fab off,
00:49 hit a behoovis to check the rollover protection for cracks
00:53 and things we haven't seen.
00:54 Get under the engine bay real good
00:55 and make sure that nothing's bent or tweaked.
00:57 'Cause it took a hard whack.
00:58 - Took three hard whacks.
00:59 - Yeah, well, you know, three hard whacks
01:02 come in combined into one gigantic whack.
01:05 - Yeah, and we want to check fluids
01:06 and make sure that everything's good to go.
01:08 You know, it didn't seem to leak anything yesterday,
01:10 which was good.
01:11 Now there's a little bit of diff fluid on the ceiling,
01:13 which is where you want your diff fluid to be.
01:14 - Yeah, yeah, just came out the breathers.
01:16 - Just came out the breathers, you know?
01:18 - Yeah, make sure that there's not a ton of gas in the oil.
01:21 Make sure it's got all the coolant.
01:23 Again, no visual leaks, but we never know.
01:26 - Yep, so, all right, let's get at it.
01:28 - Grab that one right there,
01:34 and then we'll probably have to lift the bed.
01:36 - Ocean's not near, okay?
01:48 (laughing)
01:49 - Can confirm.
01:50 (laughing)
01:52 - Ran into the socket.
02:04 - All right, you want me to put a shoulder to it,
02:06 just in case it starts to--
02:07 - Yep, I would do that.
02:08 - I'm not worried about any of this.
02:11 - All right, close it.
02:12 - That's a little tighter than the cabinet was, ain't it?
02:17 - Look, I just, you know.
02:19 (laughing)
02:20 - Yeah, you have a reference.
02:21 - You better quit seeing every question
02:23 as an aspergillus, bro.
02:24 (laughing)
02:26 - Down.
02:32 - Now, so, we obviously came down on this side,
02:40 and I'm not sure whether that was
02:42 when we were recovering it or not.
02:44 That bed liner, though, huh?
02:46 - Yeah.
02:49 - Tailgate still shuts.
02:50 Stress crack, or not a crack,
02:55 just movement on the cage up here.
02:58 - That was a pretty good one over here, too.
03:00 - Bet the cage, so if this is the front of the rig,
03:03 that the cage did this as it came down the hills.
03:05 That's why it's contacting the bed as the bed comes down.
03:09 Now we had--
03:12 - Oh, there she is.
03:13 - That's oil, not fuel.
03:18 - Yeah, you can see from this side,
03:20 it's wet on the inside.
03:21 - Yeah, so we're probably just looking at oil
03:26 that came up the intake from the cylinder head.
03:29 I don't think that's the end of the world.
03:31 You know, the rig was running fine yesterday.
03:34 All right, let's check the oil,
03:35 see what that looks like.
03:37 Got plenty.
03:40 We had extra, all right.
03:43 - What about the roof still works?
03:45 - I mean, like--
03:46 - You landed on it.
03:46 - You mean like the lights and the radio?
03:47 - Lights, radio, all that jazz.
03:49 You landed, and I can't stress this enough, on it.
03:52 - On it.
03:53 - Main light bar, front.
03:54 Our party lights work, boys.
03:59 Party lights work.
04:01 We did lose our volume knob in the impact.
04:04 Let's see, radio.
04:06 Radio comes on.
04:07 - Bluetooth mode.
04:08 - That is excellent.
04:13 - Well, we finished up with the tuk-tuk.
04:17 - Poirier got started on the dirty defender.
04:20 - Normally, it's a little straighter than that,
04:22 just a touch.
04:23 So we can fix that.
04:24 We can bend that straight again,
04:25 if we wanna run the bar.
04:27 But we're gonna do science and try it without,
04:29 since we had a full day of trying it with the bar.
04:31 And if we need this back on,
04:32 we'll have our spacers in, we'll use this, no problem.
04:34 Now that makes it super easy to get into the shock,
04:43 and I can pull the shock out, compress the spring,
04:45 and we'll get back in business.
04:47 So this is our two-inch lift at the rear.
04:50 We just slide 'em on the shock, put the spring back over,
04:53 and it gives us the space we need to succeed.
04:55 - With both rigs back together,
04:58 we headed back out to explore,
04:59 this time checking out Lower Barracks Trail,
05:01 just outside of Mount Carmel Junction.
05:04 It's a beautiful two-track that runs along
05:06 an absolutely amazing canyon
05:08 with all sorts of water crossings.
05:10 Perfect for a hot summer day.
05:12 - Zach.
05:12 - Yeah, bud.
05:14 - Tuk Tuk's looking a little different.
05:16 - Yeah, man, Tuk Tuk's super leggero, lightweight.
05:18 We stripped some weight off.
05:19 We drug her back to the house last night,
05:21 pulled everything off, and everything seems fine.
05:26 She's running great.
05:27 We thought maybe tone things down a little bit today.
05:30 - Yeah, yeah, we're out here on Barracks Trail,
05:33 which has so far been--
05:35 - Oh, dude, just absolutely beautiful.
05:38 You know, it's not technical wheeling by any means,
05:40 but it's sort of what the Defenders,
05:42 as we built them, were really made to do,
05:44 which is get out, have a good time, haul a bunch of gear,
05:48 have all the necessities and niceties
05:50 that you want for a good day, and just enjoy the scenery.
05:53 And so far, it's been great.
05:54 - It's been awesome.
05:55 And how are we feeling without our sway bars on?
05:58 - Feels great.
05:59 Yeah, we've had a couple big wheel lifts,
06:01 but it's not as dramatic as it has been in the past,
06:03 which is great.
06:04 The trail sort of splashes in and out
06:05 of the Virgin River here,
06:06 and a couple of times you're climbing a big bank
06:09 and you get a big wheel lift,
06:11 but before, it would feel binary.
06:13 It would feel like you're riding a picnic table.
06:15 And now you can actually feel the suspension working,
06:17 which is nice.
06:18 - Settles into itself a little bit before it tilts you up.
06:20 - Yeah, exactly.
06:21 It's good.
06:22 The higher speed stuff,
06:23 you can definitely feel a little bit more wallow,
06:25 but this isn't a pro-R.
06:27 - I was gonna say, Defenders aren't really meant for that.
06:29 Man, look at this canyon.
06:30 - Yeah, it's absolutely beautiful.
06:32 Absolutely beautiful.
06:32 - It's about 10 o'clock in the morning,
06:34 so we're about to get a little bit more sun on us,
06:37 and we've got a long way to go.
06:39 - Yeah, yeah, so this is,
06:40 I think it's about a 25 mile loop, something like that.
06:42 We're gonna go out and back,
06:44 maybe see if we can poke our nose
06:46 into the Coral Pink sand dunes,
06:47 get these things good and buried,
06:48 and see how that goes.
06:50 - Yeah, we got shovels, we got winches.
06:52 We're not afraid of a recovery.
06:53 (laughing)
06:54 - Let's get going.
06:56 It didn't take long for us to find our first actual obstacle,
06:59 a sort of off-camber light scramble that went okay.
07:04 Hoyer almost wound up on his side, though.
07:08 - Oh, brother.
07:09 - Mark, you just had an exciting morning.
07:11 Wanna tell us about it?
07:12 - Yeah, I was just going up this thing,
07:13 and then I thought I was gonna go down this thing
07:15 in a way that I hadn't planned.
07:16 - Well, what goes up must come down,
07:18 so why don't you, what do you mean you hadn't planned it?
07:20 - Well, we were going up this pretty nice rock face,
07:22 you know, and I thought, okay, we got the tires,
07:25 we're low, you know, everything was good.
07:26 Going up, and I had to make a hard left,
07:28 and I was making that hard left,
07:29 but you know, the steering lock,
07:31 and I was on the lock, and then I hit a bump,
07:33 and as soon as I hit the bump, it kinda went,
07:34 and I was at that desperate fulcrum point
07:37 where I was like, what is gonna happen now?
07:40 - Yeah, yeah, from the bottom,
07:41 I knew exactly what was going to happen.
07:43 - Yeah, it was really one of them heartbeat moments
07:46 where it really, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, oh my.
07:49 - So we had a guy, luckily there was a guy on the trail
07:52 who was able to jump on the sidestep and save you,
07:54 but let's talk a little bit about how we got to this point.
07:56 You made some modifications yesterday, what'd you do?
07:59 - So at the rear, we used the two-inch offset A-arms
08:02 from Super ATV to fit these big tires.
08:05 In the kit came these aluminum spacers,
08:07 big two-inch aluminum spacers,
08:08 and what you gotta do is you take the shock out
08:10 and you remove the spring,
08:12 and then you slide this spacer on,
08:13 these guys right here,
08:14 and then you put the spring back on.
08:16 And that's how you're getting
08:17 your extra two inches of lift, they're calling it.
08:19 It is preloading the spring.
08:21 I thought it might be too stiff
08:22 'cause when you preload the spring that much,
08:24 it gets pretty stiff, but in fact, it's quite supple.
08:26 It's taking this really well.
08:28 These A-arms, without the spacers,
08:29 were actually going uphill a little bit.
08:32 You know, they were sloping upward,
08:33 and now with this, it's put the lift kinda where you want it,
08:36 puts the A-arms where you want it.
08:37 Plus, we took off the rear anti-roll bar to get articulation.
08:41 We're not going fast.
08:42 We're trying to wheel stuff.
08:43 We're trying to crawl up interesting obstacles
08:46 and conquer things,
08:47 and that articulation has been really beneficial.
08:50 - This morning's little moment
08:51 may have not gone the way it did
08:53 if you'd had your sway bar in.
08:55 I think a little bit more stiffness
08:56 might've put you on your little quicker.
08:58 - It would've, yeah, definitely would.
09:00 It's just giving you that extra little bit of flex
09:04 that's keeping you closer to the ground.
09:05 You're settling into the suspension
09:06 before it turns rather than not.
09:08 All right, well, we're about to get out of this little wash,
09:10 out of the little rocky section,
09:12 and hit Coral Pink Sand Dunes,
09:13 so we'll see how our decisions end up in the dunes.
09:17 - The Barracks Trail provided all sorts
09:19 of fun little obstacles on the way out to the sand,
09:22 lots of little rock climbs
09:23 that are made for machines like the Defender.
09:25 It's a great place if you're new to riding.
09:27 I say that because there's a little bit of everything, right?
09:30 You get just enough off-camber stuff
09:32 to feel like you're doing something fun.
09:34 You get a bunch of deep water crossings that are exciting.
09:37 It's perfect for somebody who's just getting into riding,
09:40 just cutting their teeth for the first time, like Hoyer.
09:44 And it wasn't long before we banged out
09:45 the last couple of water crossings
09:46 and made our way to the first real obstacle.
09:48 - Zach, that's not gonna translate onto camera, is it?
09:51 - No, man.
09:52 - No, we're just gonna look like sissies.
09:54 - Yeah, well, that's okay.
09:55 This is called Horsepower Hill.
09:56 This is the only really big obstacle on the Barracks Trail.
09:59 It's just a big sandy climb,
10:02 and they call it Horsepower Hill
10:03 because what do you need to get up sand?
10:04 - Horsepower.
10:05 - What do we not have?
10:07 - Any of that.
10:07 - Any of that.
10:09 I love the tuk-tuk.
10:10 I love the Dirty Defender.
10:11 Tuk-tuk probably came out, what do you think?
10:14 - 50 horsepower from the factory is what it's rated at.
10:16 - That was 16,000 miles ago.
10:17 I'm gonna say a couple of those ponies
10:19 have probably left the corral.
10:21 - Yeah, especially at the wheels in four-wheel drive.
10:23 - At 6,000 feet.
10:24 - Yeah, same with the Dirty Defender.
10:26 That would have only had 72 horsepower from the factory.
10:29 So we're looking at 122 horsepower total.
10:32 - Mind.
10:33 - Yeah, which might not be enough.
10:34 - Yeah, so what are our options here?
10:36 - We can give it the old college try.
10:38 - Maybe let some air out of the tires.
10:38 - Yeah, I think the big thing first
10:40 is to let the air out of the tires.
10:41 We've got factory pressures in both rigs,
10:43 which is a bit much for deep sand.
10:45 I mean, that is a foot of sugar sand on top.
10:47 So we'll try that,
10:48 but sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.
10:53 - Do you think this is what whips the Defenders?
10:56 After all this, after flipping down a hill,
10:58 after mud, after water, after rocks, after all that?
11:00 - Could be, man.
11:01 There's no replacement for displacement.
11:03 - Yeah, I don't like getting whipped, bud.
11:04 - No, I don't either, but you know,
11:06 that turbo kit we don't have
11:07 could have really come in handy today.
11:09 - Truer words have never been said.
11:11 I took the first stab at the hill
11:13 and the old tuk-tuk just did not have the tail
11:15 to get up there.
11:16 Hoyer gave it the next go,
11:19 and even with a massive, massive run up,
11:22 still could not get the hill done.
11:25 (cheering)
11:27 That sand is just way too soft
11:40 with it being hot in the middle of the day,
11:42 and we just don't have the power to make it up this hill.
11:45 But if you don't have power,
11:46 what you can do is make your vehicle lighter.
11:49 So we decided to take everything out of the Dirty Defender
11:52 for one last stab.
11:53 All right, Mark, well,
11:55 what we thought would happen happened.
11:56 You didn't make it,
11:57 so what do we do to take another crack at it?
12:00 - I thought I had a really good run.
12:01 I thought it was, I don't know,
12:02 as close as close could get.
12:04 It is the softest stuff I've ever,
12:06 I mean, it is just soft.
12:07 It feels really good, and then, hoish!
12:09 So we dropped her down even more.
12:12 I think I'm sort of in the eight PSI range,
12:14 and then we have extracted every piece of extra gear
12:17 to take it out, a little weight reduction.
12:19 - Yeah, this is the stage one and two weight reduction kit.
12:22 So, I mean, that legitimately 100 pounds of stuff, so.
12:26 - I'd like to review a few setups before we start.
12:28 - Yeah, yeah, a couple of pushups?
12:29 - Yeah.
12:30 - This is a recipe for success.
12:32 Let's do it.
12:33 - Boyer takes another heroic run at it,
12:37 even with all that weight out of it,
12:39 even with the tires down to eight PSI,
12:41 the Dirty Defender just doesn't have it.
12:44 The frustrating part was, run after run,
12:50 Mark kept getting closer and closer,
12:51 and we thought, one more time, let's see, can he do it?
12:55 (groans)
13:04 Mark, I gotta say, that was a damn good run.
13:07 - I thought I had it.
13:09 Aaron was right, we were trying two different runs,
13:11 and there was a run where you kind of come around a loop,
13:13 and you rally it, and you try and get your momentum going,
13:15 or there was like a straight run,
13:16 and I backed all the way through the bushes
13:18 to the cliff into the river, preloaded it, squared it up,
13:21 and I just matted it off the line,
13:22 and man, it felt so good, and I was like,
13:24 I think I got this, I think I, and then, nope.
13:27 - You were so close.
13:28 - Oh, man.
13:29 - If there were points for closest to the pin,
13:31 you know, you'd be the winner, but.
13:33 - Yeah, it turns out sand's a different beast, right?
13:36 - Yeah, no, the hill's the winner today, for sure.
13:37 - Yeah, these rigs did everything we asked them to,
13:40 above and beyond in some cases, right?
13:42 Throw it on its roof, drag it out of the woods,
13:44 no big deal, knock the dust off the next morning,
13:47 she's good to go, rocks, mud, whatever, good to go.
13:49 Sand, you need extra power.
13:51 - You absolutely need horsepower,
13:52 it's one of the few places in off-roading
13:54 where more horsepower is better,
13:56 and yeah, we discovered that today, writ large.
13:59 I have a KWI clutch in this that's tunable.
14:02 We're at altitude, it was tuned right at sea level,
14:04 so I was getting 6,700 RPM or so,
14:07 which is what you wanna get,
14:08 and up here, I'm getting like 65, 64,
14:11 maybe we bring the tools to tune the clutch next time,
14:14 but it hits so hard, coming out really smooth,
14:16 and then, I don't know.
14:18 - Well, your control has been amazing compared to this thing.
14:22 This thing feels like a couple of rubber bands
14:23 strung between Tinker Toys by comparison, so.
14:27 - It's potentially a 16,000 mile standard,
14:29 obsolete, now small Defender.
14:31 - That's exactly right, and we have put it through
14:34 the absolute paces, left, right, and center.
14:36 - It's a testament to OE engineering,
14:38 and this clutch in there is a Maverick X3 clutch,
14:42 it's OE pieces that are modified.
14:44 They do all this engineering on 'em,
14:45 and the castings, and all this,
14:47 and they do basically a blueprint job
14:49 where they skim the sheaves so they're perfect,
14:52 instead of any variation.
14:54 They've got their own weights, tunable.
14:56 - Yeah, I mean, that's race stuff.
14:57 That's stuff that they're using to win the Mint 400.
14:59 - It's just like a three to 380 horsepower clutch,
15:02 so maybe there's a turbo in the future.
15:04 - I was about to say, we're coming back with more power.
15:05 That's happening.
15:06 We wanted to come out to a place
15:07 that was gonna challenge us.
15:08 We wanted to come out to a place
15:09 where we could absolutely use these rigs to their utmost.
15:12 Southern Utah has provided that.
15:14 You know, we got to experience and see a bunch of things
15:16 that we never get to see and experience
15:19 in the East or in LA.
15:21 Utah has been great, and this just goes to show,
15:24 you do not need a $50,000 rig to get out here
15:26 and have a good time.
15:28 Bring what you brought.
15:29 Have a great one.
15:30 - You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
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15:38 Come on, we got more of this coming.
15:39 (upbeat music)
15:41 Yep, 11/10.
15:44 - All the time.
15:45 (laughing)
15:47 - How many limits do you need to test?
15:48 We found them all.