Do you have any $100 or less off road modifications? Share your cheep tricks?

 

Weld all spider gears front and rear on open diffs. Cost: 1 Buddy who knows how to weld +24 pack of beer + Gaskets and sealant= about $50 bucks.

Best off road improvment to a stock vehicle you can make..... till you blow up an axle or brake a hub

 

Better yet, get a minispool for $30. Same effect as welding, but it's reversible.

What year truck are we talking about?

If you have any lift blocks in the rear, you can flip the shackles and lose the blocks. The only expense there is the bolts to bolt them back on.

If you have a welder and some scrap metal, you can do TONS of free mods. I made a roll cage, floor shifter, tilting front clip, front bumper, hood scoop, horse-shoe door handles and more all for just the cost of the welding wire. Looking at my truck it's VERY obvious I have more time than money.

K.

 

removing un-necessary crap like sway bars and extra shocks (you dont need more than one), you'd be surprised what this can accomplish

and spray paint, spray some go-faster stripes down the hood and you'll gain 20 ponies or so!

straight pipe and free flow intake helps the motor breathe

on leaf packs remove the small straps that hold all the leafs together. this will let the pack fan out and give better flex

for the cost of new bolts you can do a shackle flip in the rear which can allow you to pull those stock blocks for less axle wrap (but less towing capacity)

i agree with KJ... if you can weld you can do all kinds of stuff for less than $100! limitations are endless if you can fab up yourself

-cutts-

 

I saw this truck in Houston the other week that had a homemade two tone paint. The upper part of the truck was stock paint black. The lower part was the second tone.....white....painted with a BRUSH! I have seen better paint jobs on a fence! I wish I had a camera. It gave him 200 HP (as I passed him in my company car...Corolla 1.6L)!!

 

I second the shackle flip. If you've got the NP205 I'd say twin sticking is a good cheap mod that can help you out in tight spots. Adding good recovery points can be done cheap and easy too.

 

I buy a hi-lift jack and floor jack for the truck. Then I carry some chain and 2x12 PT boards. You can usually get out of most stucks with those four items. Especially with a smaller 4x4 such as a Bronco II or Ranger.

I replace all the rubber bushings with poly on the springs, clean all the rust off the bolts, and lube them up well along with the leaves so they do not bind and can flex. It may not seem like much, but, if the wheel can at least droop/graze the surface when it falls into a rut you can at least get some traction if you hammer a board under it.

 

Heck weight reduction is a great mod and best part it's basically free, or maybe the cost of some gas for the torch, just start removing everything that isn't neccesary, you know like heaters, dash, passengers seat (unless your mall crawling looking to pic up teenage girls oh wait they can sit in your lap if you don't havea passengers seat), and best of all windows. who needs all that stuff and think of the weight savings.
seal up the engine bay more with rubber or tin to take the inner fenderwells to the frame.
electric fans is you run in deep water (only expensive if you buy new one) just pickone up from the junk yard mine cost like $10 and some wiring.
if dedicated offroad vehicle, and I mean it never sees any pavement cut your tires for better traction.
seatbelts, you can buy 5 point safety harnesses pretty reasonable under $100 expecially off of ebay just look for used nascar ones that are out of certification they will still be good enough for offroading and really help keep you in the seat when doing stupid stuff.
To help seal up your dist, you can find a rubber dist boot off of mustang, and linclon town cars with 5.0s that cover the dist cap (just check a junk yard and look at those until you find one pretty good idea)
Someone mentioned paint but no one has mentioned the HUGE hp increases of stickers, and you can get them for free from a lot of places.
If you run an automatic try changing your fluid to synthetic, on mine I found it drops my operating temp by 10-15degs although it is going to push the $100 limit.
change your axle vents to barbed fittings then run hoses upto your frame, and into the cab this will help keep water out of the axles if you run in deep water or mud. (you can also do it with the tcase, and transmission too)
If you run an open element air filter buy a nylon prefilter that fits it cost about $36 will keep most of the mud, and water out of your filter, and when it gets covered with mud let it dry a little bit take it off shake well, and reinstall ready to go again.
And of coarse I am suprised fishy didn't mention it, instead of buying and installing an expensive lift to get tire clearence a sawzall to the fenders works wonders.

 

yes, my favortie cheap mod is cutting stuff off too...

the only downside to cutting your fenders in the rear is your bed kind of flaps going down the road when your tires are flat spotted and cold.

im surprised noone has mentioned this..... a highlift jack and or tow strap should put you right around 100 bucks....and this is a mod every off road rig should have!

 

Pantyhose. Buy a couple pair. Place your airfilter element within one (a little oil on it helps out alot) and put one over the main air intake to act as a big chunk filter, keeps leaves and water (for the most part) out of the filter housing and your motor.

Also buy a spare starter solenoid and keep it in your glovebox, they're notorious for failing right when you need it.

Silicon spray. Spray your entire ingition system down, keeps moisture out (BUT BE SURE that it's dry before you try to start the truck back up, it burns easily).

Power steering cooler, adds capacity plus keeps the fluid from toasting like it did the first time i ever took my truck out with the 35's.

Justin

 

A bunch of my buddys run jam wood shims into the front coil springs to spread out the coils to lift the front of the truck. i have aluminum shims that were on the truck when i bought it but ive seen them at autozone for 10$ i believe

 

My gas tank rusted out so i made a fuel cell out of a five gallon osha saftey gas can and mounted it in the bed and ran fuel hose form the tank to the fuel pump. I have also seen people use kegs and they look pretty kool. I Put a new body on my truck so now i have an actual tank know.

 

Instead of buying a body lift you can just use hockey pucks and grade 8 bolts

 

I have a I6 in my truck which the old I6's have the distributor mounted on the side of the block and it is really low instead of being high on top like the v8's, so before i mud it i take off the cap and spry the rotor and the inside of the cap with wd-40 and after i put it back on i would wrap the cap and distributor with duct tape. I learned this because the first time i mudded her i kept getting her wet and have to dry her out in the middle of the hole.

 

Brilliant! Especially if you're suicidal.