What do I need for my first time off roading?

After talking to a bunch of guys from my local club (to get info based on my terrain), surf message boards, reading various articles, and taking lots of notes, I put together my own list of gear that I take with me. I'm sure it's more than others would bring, less than some, and probably downright silly to even more.

However, I'm confident that when I go out I'll have the basics (key word) of what I need.

I'm also like the above fellow sinner. I actually prefer to be out on my own exploring, but I don't do much more than glorified fire roads. I've been rock crawling and I've been on very difficult trail rides in the northeast, and to be perfectly blunt, I get bored. It's ten minutes of an obstacle and wait an hour while the guys behind you go.

I'm happy to post my list if anyone wants to see it.
 
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Serbonze said:
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I'm happy to post my list if anyone wants to see it.
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I'd be happy to hear what everyone carries. I'll repost a more complete list of what's in the Jeep as well. Mention what conditions you are going out in, what the terrain and weather is like, mostly, and what kind of roads you are going out on. Those things are helpful as well. We can all learn something!
 
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I travel mostly wooded, mud, hill, mountain areas. I usually carry basic tools, screwdrivers, wrenches, vise grip, duct tape, pliers. A saw for occasional tree down, shovel, good jack.

I go by myself ALOT. and when I say myself I mean just me. I'd rather go with others, but usually just me. Just today my 4x4 link came loose :mad:. Popped it back in and off I went.
 
Bring your common sense, don't be this guy and go so far out(from town) that you get caught at high tide.
Sunken truck.jpg
 
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Serbonze said:
I actually prefer to be out on my own exploring, but I don't do much more than glorified fire roads. I've been rock crawling and I've been on very difficult trail rides in the northeast, and to be perfectly blunt, I get bored. It's ten minutes of an obstacle and wait an hour while the guys behind you go.
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I agree with this as well. Often times it gets really boring waiting behind some guy for 10 minutes while he tries to clear an obstacle, just so you can get to another one and wait again.

A lot of the stuff I like to do isn't obstacles like that, it's more or less 'exploring'.
 
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Chris said:
A lot of the stuff I like to do isn't obstacles like that, it's more or less 'exploring'.
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Exactly.

That of course is where my father and I disagree. He's happy to out on the trail for ten hours and only do about an actual hours worth of driving. For a seventy year old guy, he still gets after it. His '99.
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I drive around obstacle like that. And exploring is just what I do. The only time I go to Brown's Camp is to shoot at the rock quarry and watch the guys burn through ammo with their automatics. I especially like it when they leave their brass laying around.
 
StG58 said:
The only time I go to Brown's Camp is to shoot at the rock quarry and watch the guys burn through ammo with their automatics. I especially like it when they leave their brass laying around.
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I'm the same way!
 
Chris said:
I'm the same way!
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Well, now I know where all of the brass is going to! ;) Pacific City is a hoot! I've been known to drive down there with a six pack of my favorite beverage and a lawn chair, just to watch the show. Have a couple of beers, catch some sun and watch people get stuck in the sand. Watch the Dories launch and land. I do loan my shovel out on occasion. The monster trucks with the smoky diesels that get buried to the frame are especially entertaining.
 
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StG58 said:
Pacific City is a hoot! I've been known to drive down there with a six pack of my favorite beverage and a lawn chair, just to watch the show. Have a couple of beers, catch some sun and watch people get stuck in the sand.
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We do that all the time in the Summer, it's so funny to watch people with VW Jettas (or similar) drive down into the sand thinking they can do it. So many people get stuck, and there's this local tow guy who comes down there with tow truck and charges people $50 a pop to tow them out.

I spoke with him personally last time and he told me that he makes a killing during nice Summer days. I told him I wasn't surprised at all!
 
Have you noticed how his rig is set up? And the rigs that the Dory guys use to tow their boats on the beach? It's interesting. There was a Unimog down there last summer. Really nice rig. Restored and very pretty. He was trying to tow his dory and got bogged down in the soft sand on the north side of the ramp. Buried a Unimog! One of the other dory guys with a Blazer had to hook on and get him going again.
 
Serbonze said:
As previously stated, the trails that I take here in Florids are usually no more than fire roads. Anything more difficult than is at a dedicated offroad park with the local club.

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I need to be as organized as this. I probably have everything in that list in my storage areas in my Jeep but I certainly don't have a check list. I'm lucky I don't have to unload between trips, I just leave everything as is and if I used something, I replace it before putting the cover back over the Jeep.

What I didn't see in that list but I carry are spare tire stem valves and the stem insertion/removal tool, and spare rubber tire stems. You never know when something is going to tear a tire stem off. I also carry a 12" square of gasket material I can cut gaskets out of like for the thermostat housing. My thermostat stuck shut way up in the mountains so I had to remove it. The old gasket was shredded so I ended up cutting a new gasket out of a military MRE's cardboard box. Don't laugh, it was leak free for 6 weeks before I was able to get around to replacing it and the thermostat. :)
 
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Jerry Bransford said:
I need to be as organized as this.
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Sometimes it's a curse.

What I didn't see in that list but I carry are spare tire stem valves and the stem insertion/removal tool, and spare rubber tire stems.
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Thank you for the reminder. I had meant to add that to a future purchase list and completely forgot. It's not a high priority for me at the moment though, since I don't have an onboard air system there is no way to refill a tire anyway. The plug set was something that I had in the garage so I just put it in the kit.

I'm always open to suggestions, so if anyone else sees something please let me know!
 
Ha yeah really. I got lucky and found this aluminum box at Harbor Freight Tools about five years ago, it's perfect for carrying the stuff mentioned above. The bad news is that HFT no longer carries it. Other similar size aluminum boxes are way expensive.

CIMG3849.JPG
 
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Jerry Bransford said:
Ha yeah really. I got lucky and found this aluminum box at Harbor Freight Tools about five years ago, it's perfect for carrying the stuff mentioned above. The bad news is that HFT no longer carries it. Other similar size aluminum boxes are way expensive.

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It's amazing the deals you can find at Harbor Freight every so often. That looks like one of them.
 
I ordered this RTV this morning based on Blaine's post elsewhere.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BV4DKN8/?tag=wranglerorg-20

mrblaine;33242514 said:
Mopar Oily surface RTV for diffs and oil pans over the hole and held in place with some electrical or duct tape will get you home and then some.

I've fixed several oil leaks on the trail with it including two 4.0 oil pans, a trans pan, and a Dana 44 that got a hole knocked in the oil galley connecting the pinion and main casting.
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