1978 Ranch Jeep Adventure: From Texas to Pie Town! - Dirt Every Day Ep. 25 - video Dailymotion

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On this episode of Dirt Every Day

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00:00 Hey, you remember this Jeep that we put the new wiring harness in in a prior episode?

00:07 Well, on this week's Dirt Every Day, we're going to take this Jeep from Texas to New

00:11 Mexico on an off-road adventure.

00:27 So we're out here in the middle of Texas.

00:29 We started this morning in Dallas.

00:31 Now, this morning it was kind of cold leaving in this Jeep.

00:34 We've been driving all day trying to get to New Mexico.

00:37 We're going to go to New Mexico.

00:38 We're going to go see some old friends, do some four-wheeling, and there's a small town

00:42 in New Mexico that I've always wanted to visit.

00:44 So we're going to try and get there on this trip.

00:47 But before we get back on the road, we've been having a little issue in the front end.

00:50 It sounds like the brakes are rubbing against the wheel, and the tire is also rubbing against

00:55 the leaf springs.

00:56 We knew this was a problem coming into the trip, so we ordered up a set of Spydertrax

01:00 wheel spacers.

01:01 It's going to push the wheels out just a little bit, hopefully get a little bit more clearance

01:05 on everything, and we'll be back on the road in no time.

01:07 We're going to try and get into New Mexico before it gets dark.

01:35 Okay we made it to Roswell, New Mexico.

01:38 This is the dairy capital of the Southwest.

01:42 It's also where the aliens invaded back in the 1950s.

01:46 You probably heard that story.

01:47 It goes something like the aliens invaded and destroyed the entire town and killed everyone.

01:53 Our government sent in the army and the navy, and they were also killed by the aliens.

01:59 But luckily our future selves sent the Terminator back in time to destroy the aliens and save

02:05 our navy and army.

02:07 That's all I know about Roswell, so we're going to go somewhere else.

02:12 All right, we made it.

02:24 Six hundred miles from Dallas to Las Cruces, New Mexico.

02:28 It's been a long day.

02:29 That's usually like a ten hour drive, and I think it took us about thirteen.

02:33 But we're here, the jeep's still in one piece, all the electrical's working awesome.

02:38 It's got a little exhaust leak.

02:39 It's making me a little bit loopy.

02:41 I think I got here on coffee and fumes.

02:44 But I'm done for the day.

02:46 Tomorrow we'll go look at some old jeeps and go play in the dirt.

02:52 Merry Christmas.

03:06 This morning we are at Huff's High Tech in 4x4.

03:08 Jim Huff and his new guy Bob are here to show us around.

03:12 We've come here before on some trips, and this place is really cool.

03:15 They've got lots of neat jeeps.

03:16 Hey Jim, what's new?

03:18 Jim Huff has been into jeeps ever since he was a little boy.

03:21 When he would help his dad who raced post-war military jeeps.

03:25 He eventually opened his own shop in Las Cruces, and now works on all makes of 4x4s, and some

03:30 non-4x4s as we found out.

03:32 Well, have you ever seen a Ford 8N with a flathead V8?

03:38 That's a hot rod, that's awesome.

03:41 Mr. Bob here has spent 22 years working for Ford Tractor Division, so this is where we

03:47 end up with things like this.

03:50 What's the story on this Bob?

03:51 It's a 1952 Funk V8 conversion kit.

03:54 There was only 150 of those made out of the several hundred thousands of the 8, 9N Fords

04:00 made.

04:01 Was this like a barn find type deal?

04:03 We found it in Dallas, in Cleburne, Texas, just south of Dallas.

04:06 The kids had hot rodded it, and it's taken three other 8Ns to put it back together.

04:12 It's been an awful lot of fun.

04:15 After showing me that hot rodded Ford Tractor, Jim and Bob gave me a tour of the many other

04:19 vehicles in the yard, most of which were Jeeps.

04:22 There's this stretched wheelbase red Jeep with an elaborate hydraulic system for running

04:25 an industrial winch that's mounted up front.

04:28 There's also this totally groovy purple CJ5 with a nostalgic white soft top from Bestop.

04:35 Jim also has a Jeep Cherokee XJ.

04:38 It's not as extreme built, but he uses it for milder wheeling and backcountry exploring

04:43 in New Mexico.

04:45 And then there was a TJ Unlimited Rubicon, a Jeep that had me drooling as I've always

04:49 wanted one since they were only made for a few years.

04:52 But my favorite Jeep is his old race Jeep, a CJ6 buried under boxes and spare parts just

04:58 waiting to be revived and put back on the race course one more time.

05:02 So leaf springs, triple shocks at each wheel.

05:06 Man.

05:07 This is old technology.

05:09 Power steering or?

05:10 Power steering.

05:11 Power steering.

05:12 Off-road racing, if you learn how to push somebody just so hard, you learn what your

05:17 Jeep will do, and then you run right on the ragged edge and you push them a little bit

05:22 harder and cause them to break.

05:25 And that's the neat thing about off-road racing, is to run that ragged edge.

05:30 Trying to keep it together.

05:32 It's like they say, when the green flag drops, the bulls**t stops.

05:38 Jim Hough and his late wife Nancy are long-lasting parts of the Las Cruces off-road scene.

05:43 And as much fun as it was checking out all his 4x4 treasures, it was about time for me

05:47 to stop talking truck and finally go jeepin'.

05:51 On something other than highways.

05:52 I finally said goodbye and headed northbound looking for some dirt.

05:58 Finally!

06:01 Dirt!

06:04 Rocks!

06:05 Plenty of water crossings!

06:06 That's what I've been waiting for.

06:08 I can only go so long with asphalt and tarmac.

06:11 So when I got the invite to do some exploring in a really cool canyon in central New Mexico,

06:16 I jumped at it.

06:18 So we came out here, we're hooking up with my friend Silent Brian.

06:22 You probably remember him from some previous episodes where he was a stunt driver.

06:28 Well Brian came out on his Explorer and he's going to show us some back roads out here

06:34 in New Mexico.

06:36 His truck is really cool.

06:37 It's got these rock sliders, bumpers, off-road lights, it's got a lift, some knobby tires.

06:44 This is kind of a cool backcountry exploring, expedition, camping type rig.

06:49 It's not an extreme rock crawler, though he does have an extreme rock crawler.

06:53 He brought this truck out today because we're in that little jeep and we didn't really want

06:57 to go places where that thing wasn't going to go and this will be a perfect truck to

07:00 show us around.

07:01 Luckily, he's got doors, that's not fair, and windows and we'll be behind him so we'll

07:07 be in the dust.

07:09 But you can see here he's got like the trash-a-roo to put his gear in, gas can, high lift jack,

07:15 all your basic stuff for survival and off-road.

07:17 So we're going to hop in and go see what we can find and do a little bit of backcountry

07:20 exploring here in New Mexico.

07:22 You ready?

07:24 Okay.

07:25 Let's go.

07:34 Everyone knows there are tons of ways to upgrade your old jeep, but I've found that the CJ-7

07:39 is pretty fun in stock form.

07:41 The 304 V8 is torquey and even with 350 axle gears and a three-speed trans, we had no issues

07:47 turning the old BFGs.

07:50 The jeep definitely cracks and pops as the old suspension, cracked frame, and worn out

07:54 parts rattled through the canyon.

07:55 But for the most part, this is a perfect vehicle to take on an adventure like this.

08:15 The CJ-7 splashed right along and all of our work done with the painless crew meant I had

08:19 no worries of getting caught after dark should trouble occur.

08:22 But we were through that canyon in a couple hours, the sun hadn't even started to set.

08:26 I eventually split up with Silent Brian and headed off to see what else New Mexico had

08:30 to offer.

08:31 I think New Mexico is one of my new favorite states.

08:35 There's so much wild backcountry to explore, I could spend a month just cruising the backroads,

08:39 mountains and valleys.

08:46 After yesterday's trail ride with my buddy Brian, we headed up here to Daddle, New Mexico.

08:50 This is a really small little country town up in the mountains.

08:54 And we had a great steak dinner.

08:55 And this morning, we're going to head to the final destination of our trip.

08:59 Now this is a small town that we're going to that I've always wanted to visit.

09:03 But first, got to do some work on the CJ-7.

09:06 The jeep's been running good, but there's a little vibration coming out of the rear

09:10 driveshaft that I'd like to fix.

09:13 And I knew about this beforehand and I hadn't gotten to it yet, but I got a driveshaft from

09:17 Quadratec.

09:18 This is a Tom Woods driveshaft.

09:21 And I'm going to bolt this in and we're going to head on down the road.

09:34 All right, we are out here in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico at the VLA.

09:52 That stands for Very Large Array.

09:54 And what it is, is a bunch of giant radar dishes out here in this big canyon, kind of

09:59 valley area, where they are beaming messages into outer space.

10:03 Now I don't really know exactly what they're telling outer space, but I have an idea.

10:08 Remember a few days ago when we were in Roswell and I told you about the aliens that invaded

10:11 Roswell and we had to call the Terminator from the future to come back in time and stop

10:15 the aliens?

10:17 I think these radar dishes are now sending messages to the aliens that tells them if

10:22 they come back to Earth, we will call the Terminator again.

10:25 And the Terminator is Arnold Schwarzenegger.

10:28 Now Arnold Schwarzenegger actually battled the Predator in the movie Predator.

10:32 And the Predator destroyed the aliens in the movie Predator vs. Aliens.

10:36 So it only makes sense that they would not want to come back here if we call him again.

10:52 Woo hoo!

11:16 We made it!

11:37 We drove like 800 miles to get here from Dallas.

11:40 We're in Pi Town, New Mexico at the Pioneer.

11:43 And I'm a big fan of Pi.

11:45 I've never been to this place, I've always wanted to visit, and what better way to get

11:49 here than driving this old Jeep from Dallas.

11:52 That's it for Dirt Every Day.

11:53 We'll see you in two weeks.

11:54 I'm going to go eat some pie.

11:55 We need more coffee.

12:21 Not yet.

12:25 Okay.

12:26 Thank you.

12:27 It's freezing out here.

12:28 I know.

12:28 [BLANK_AUDIO]

1978 Ranch Jeep Adventure: From Texas to Pie Town! - Dirt Every Day Ep. 25

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