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2009 Ultimate Adventure 2002 Ford F250 Super Duty - The Ultimate Ranch TruckPart 3: Building The '09 Ultimate Adventure Rig From the October, 2009 issue of 4Wheel & Off-Road By Kevin McNulty Photography by Kevin McNulty
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The deadline to complete the Ultimate Ranch Truck is coming up faster than an interstate mile marker at a 110 mph! Our goal is to have the truck built and trail-tested a few weeks before the Ultimate Adventure. James and Stephan Watson at Offroad Design in Carbondale, Colorado, have their crew of topnotch fabricators cutting, welding, grinding, and wrenching around the clock. We are looking forward to leisurely cruising the Ultimate Ranch Truck across America for the start of UA! If you are reading about the Ultimate Adventure and our ranch truck for the first time, then here's the skinny. We spend a week challenging our vehicles and ourselves on the toughest trails we can find around the country. Our procession of UA rigs travels from trail to trail by highway. All repairs must be made on the spot. There's no trailering or towing any UA rig. The Ultimate Adventure also requires many nights roughing it the wild, and that means plenty of meals cooked by oily and smoking engine blocks. This year we plan on completing nine trails in seven days and driving thousands of miles through three states-we've nicknamed it Rick Pw's Death March. 1. Our Ultimate Ranch Truck... 1. Our Ultimate Ranch Truck is big, and we're taking bets on just how much it will weigh when it's done. The truck's cumbersome weight and the power and torque output of the Powerstroke 7.3L turbo diesel forced us to go big! Dynatrac's Pro Series 80 was the perfect match for the truck. It will definitely stand up to the extreme trail conditions and the engine's 545 lb-ft of torque. Each year the staff builds the coolest and toughest vehicle we can for Ultimate Adventure. This year we are turning our once-abandoned '02 Ford Super Duty fitted with a 7.3L turbo diesel into a rockcrawling adventure rig that's able to fix anything from axles to barbed wire fences. The Super Duty has been around the block a time or two. It was well used and definitely needed rebuilding. To date, the truck has had its rocker panels boatsided, the doors have been cut down to match, the old suspension has been stripped off the frame, a new rollcage has been welded in place, and the cab has been unitized to the frame. The Ford Super 60 front axle has been replaced with a Dynatrac Pro-Series 80. We've overcome major hurdles and are at a turning point in the build. All the math and suspension geometry has been completed, and the major fabrication work is well on its way to being finished too. There's still a number of components to build, bolt on, and wire for power, but the worst is behind us. If we've blown our budget and lost sight of our aspirations of building an economical truck, then oh well. We'll just have to live with this soon-to-be amazing adventure rig.  2. The Pro Series 80 axle...  2. The Pro Series 80 axle is fitted with a very stout 5.38, 11.25-inch Yukon gearset and an ARB Air Locker. The selectable locker was chosen due to the truck's longish wheelbase, which now measures 135 inches (141 inches factory). A nonselectable locker can sometimes hinder steering, and we wanted to squeeze every inch of turning radius we could out of the truck.  3. Over the years the staff...  3. Over the years the staff has become accustomed to the skill and quality craftsmanship that go into Dynatrac axles. There's never any skimping with cheap parts, and we know the axles are put together right. We've run into a few wheelers with leaky Air Lockers resulting from poor installation or incorrect hose routing. Pressure-test your lockers upon installation and before you head out on the trail.  4. So we splurged: Our 80...  4. So we splurged: Our 80 was fitted with Dynatrac's 35-spline chromoly competition axleshafts and CTM U-joints. The alloy shafts and rebuildable U-joints will bring us peace of mind while wheeling our way across America's toughest trails. We also fitted the axle with larger brakes, ABS, and a Stub-Hub (locking hubs) conversion kit.  5. The Pro Series 80 is a...  5. The Pro Series 80 is a beast. At first we thought it would be tough to fit the axle under the Super Duty, but with a little factory crossmember trimming and a couple days mocking the axle under the truck, Beck Herring, the Watson's suspension engineer, got it to fit. It will articulate without interference. The tie rod, draglink, and Panhard bar shown here are mockups; the final components will be made of much stronger tubing material.  6. This is the articulation...  6. This is the articulation we plan on getting out of the Ultimate Ranch Truck, since it will be fitted with a radius arm design similar to old Willard here. James and Beck plan on getting more articulation out of our Super Duty due to a little tweaking in their suspension design.  7. Some components, such as...  7. Some components, such as the Bilstein coilovers, are a tight fit, but Beck will run them into the engine compartment. This isn't as simple as it sounds. To keep the truck in full working order we are going to have to move the batteries to the rear and relocate a few A/C components.  8. The truck's rollcage is...  8. The truck's rollcage is just about complete. Only one more crossbar needs to be installed just behind the front seats. We are losing the rear bench seat, but a custom storage basket is being made to hold our ARB fridge freezer and plenty of gear.  9. What's a ranch truck without...  9. What's a ranch truck without a headache bar? Casey Jackson has already completed some very clean fabrication work on the truck and is starting on the headache rack and custom flatbed. The bed will be fitted with a custom toolbox by Pro-Tech Tool Boxes. The box will house the Hobart welder/generator, plasma cutter, and Warn Air-Power VTC compressor. The top of the box will have removable trays for tools and spare parts. Pro-Tech is also building two under-the-fender battery storage boxes, which will fit just behind the cab.  10. Jed Matthews was the fabricator...  10. Jed Matthews was the fabricator unleashed on boatsiding the rocker panels and chopping the doors down. His work has exceeded our expectations. The doors shut and close as well as factory, the electric windows still work, and the doors have retained the factory seal. We'll be lining the entire cab and doors with Dynamat sound-deadening material so the truck will be comfortable and quiet at highway speeds. Matthews skinned the lower portion of the door with 14-gauge sheetmetal, making them much more stout. With the factory rocker panels boatsided, the truck gained 10 inches of side clearance.
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