compromise between good off-road truck and highway cruiser ?

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osprey ram

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Hey guys, might be impossible to answer, but here goes, I have ram 1500 4x4, 4.7 lit. 3.55 gears 5-spd auto. Truck has 5100s at 2.1 n 1in spacer in rear. 285/70-17 bfg ko2 for tires. I live in fla. but want spend time in Tenn. Want to be able to wheel in some of the off-road parks. Of course don't want to tear up my ride. Two people parks have suggested I avoid it with current set-up. As always, appreciate all input.
 

kurek

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Personally I wouldn't take a fullsize truck through a 'wheeling park no matter how it was built, short of maybe caged, bobbed and boat-tailed.

If you head west another day or two there's thousands of miles on beautiful public land for the time being until it all gets sold off in the next couple years. Enjoy that while you still can, many of the trails are challenging enough to get your attention but since they don't all have to get squeezed into a couple hundred acres like a commercial park you can usually tune your adventure to your capability and have a good time in a nearly stock truck too.
 

RamDiver

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Personally I wouldn't take a fullsize truck through a 'wheeling park no matter how it was built, short of maybe caged, bobbed and boat-tailed.

That was my first thought too.

I spent a few years offroading, decades ago. My ride was a tiny '87 Toyota, extended cab with a standard trans, 22RE 4 banger, a 4" lift and tall, narrow BFG Mud Terrain tires.

I took it up creekbeds, snowmobile trails and goat paths easily. I also spent considerable time extracting stuck full-sized trucks and couldn't understand why anyone would choose those trails with a full-sized truck. :cool:

.
 

RJL1

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I have my Jeep JKUR for off roading fun.

My Ram is my redneck Cadillac. Drives and runs like a dream.

My suspension particulars are in my signature.

It sees some occasional dirt time dragging our quads into the woods but other than that it's a pavement princess.

I keep it clean, vacuumed and polished.
 

62Blazer

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The biggest question is what you consider to be off road driving? I've been to most of the off-road parks in Tennessee and Kentucky in both in a heavily built and off-road only fullsize truck (old fullsize Chevy Blazer, much shorter and lots of body armor) and in a SxS. The truck in the original post is basically stock. You could take it on the easy trails if that is what you want. Biggest issue is most trails are fairly tight with trees, so their is the risk of dents or at least "pinstriping". The other concerns are the breakover and departure angles of the truck. Doesn't take of a drop off before you start dragging rocker panels and the rear bumper.
Not trying to scare you away from going off-road, but don't know what your experience is or what you expect in off-roading. If you were in the area or other reasons that is one thing, but not sure I would travel that distance just to go off-road.
 

DILLIGAF

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Ram 1500 or grossery getters brother. I hate to break it to you if you want to off-road get a Jeep ot Yota ike a normal person.

Where do I start on the Rams, the CV axles in the front are junk the wheel bearings are junk the articulation sucks . Even with the sway bars deleteted.

I literally had to build a limiting strap set up to stop blowing CVS while off-roading, that made me lose an inch and a half of down travel up front on an already limited system.

There's only three or four of us on this forum that have every single aftermarket off-roading parts on our trucks and it didn't help whatsoever.

A stock Jeep JK on 33s will literally go further and Im on 37s with a 6" lift :dogpile:
 

ram1500rsm

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Find out if the parks have easy to moderate trails, i'm sure they'll have a trail system for everybody to enjoy. Start with the easy ones, move on to the moderate ones as needed. You'll know right away where can you go with whatever you have. You should have no issues with easy trails, typically they have a green sticker on the trail map/entrance or numerical rating from 1 to 3, moderate trails are blue or rated 4 though 6. In your current config anything 1 through 4 should be doable. You'll start worrying with 5's and 6's, especially on the 6's you'll want 35's and 2.5" lift, steel bumpers/skids/rock sliders. Problem with 4th gen 1500's is the skids are a joke, the aftermarket never caught up there, rock sliders yes we have a few options and they're very good frame mounted ones, there are no lockers, only a rear LSD, no heavy duty cv axels or tierods, so max tire you'll want to run is 35's, Sure you can run 37's but chances of busting your cv axels/tie rod increases exponentially past 35's while doing offroad. Also you want to have the part time transfer case instead of the full time one. No clutches to **** while offroading, you also want steel bumpers with a winch, not sure how good are the winch mounts for stock bumper, but the stock bumpers will hinder you badly on rocky trails so it's not something you want to run. put steel bumpers with a winch with your 2" 5100 and more likely you'll go do 1" lift. The RAM 1500 is not really a good platform to build to run 6+ offroad trails. Too long and too wide, not enough aftermarket to build it for more aggresive offroading.

If you want to run 6+ trails and have fun., better get a Jeep or similar and mod that. Easier to drive, easier to mod.
You can also buy a SXS and and you can haul it with your truck you just need to buy a trailer, full on offroad experience :) Not cheap either but hey. Check for example Kawasaki KRX 1000, you can run 35's on that one literally stock. Not all SXS's can run 35's stock and that world is another one that has its own niche with crazy prices, so if you choose SXS do a reasearch on what trails you want to run. I have a Talon 1000R, and is not a rock crawler, more of trail rig for me. I started pricing down gearing for 35's, or control arms and skids for rocks and F...K those prices. i'll mod my Jeep Wrangler any day of the week over modding my SXS. Much more planted doing this type of things

54162904223_f14ceefd20_o.jpg20241124_154214 by RAM RSM, on Flickr

53794433360_4bbc21a0dd_o.jpg20240615_151940 by RAM RSM, on Flickr

The RAM doesn't have near as much front flex in the front, yes in the rear :), in my case it's not something i get from the RAM specific 1500 aftermarket. I use the Jeep aftermarket to my advantage in the rear, JT Clayton rear arms, JT Clayton rear coils, JT Clayton rear trackbar with King 2.5 specs that come from a 2500 in length but valved for the 1500 through Accutune offroad, King 2.5 coilovers front which are extended travel already (1" downtravel compared to stock), all built and tuned by Accutune offroad with custom internals with Icon Delta Joint UCA's. Only thing still stock after 140k miles and remain unmolested are the CV axels, tie rods and front lower control arms. She runs great and hard in the dirt so the truck is also more of trail runner rather than rock crawler for me.
50654076043_78a9dd7842_o.jpg2020-11-27_04-12-57 by RAM RSM, on Flickr

I had the truck in the dirt literally every weekend from about 40K miles to 120k miles or so doing a litltle bit of everything that didn't involve heavy rock crawling, 12k miles on 37's, rest hve been 35's. I was doing a lot of washboard driving in our desert, for example I had all my kids here so i didn't want to go too fast, but i've had it at 60-65 in that wash and others in Ocotillo Wells, I don't have a cage so i don't go playing stupid for sure lol


Plenty of ruts in our local mountains as well

and little rocks here and there for fun

50654911172_f89e39808b_o.jpg2020-11-27_04-16-07 by RAM RSM, on Flickr

Now days the truck is just hauling the family as always and or trailering the offroad toys, but when i drop the trailer i'll use it as well to chase my kids down in the desert through washes and the like.

53817253281_951892b570_o.jpg20240625_165603 by RAM RSM, on Flickr


Jeeps are esier to mod and will hold more offroad abuse :), not cheap either.
I'll be upgrading my Jeep front axel one of the days to run a front locker and put 37's on it. For now is rear locked with 35's all day. I have 3 toys to play with so i can't allocate funds into all of them as easy as it was when we didn't have teenagers hahaha.

 
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osprey ram

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To ram 1500rsm , thanks for all the input . Learned a lot from all who replied, I feel a little stupid. I live in fla. and don't off-road. Ill just try to keep of truck and not tear-up.
 
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