My Longest trip so far...

stiggs · 11-06-2007, 01:25 AM

OK not a real iron butt. Until now all of my trips in my recently acquired SMB have been to the beach or up the coast. Well my band had a couple of shows back to back one being in Las Vegas, and I volunteered taking the van up. I rented a Uhaul to put our gear - about 1200 pounds in a 5x8. The van pulled great on all but the steep grades. The wind on the way out was terrible, but did not seem to effect the van too much except when having a head wind - really sucked up the go juice. The SMB performed great, with exception to braking felt that the brakes got hot really quick - coming back down the 15 the front was shimming bad at one point. Going to look into some heavy duty pads.

time to clean the van

Jeffrey · 11-06-2007, 11:10 AM

My van comes in at at just under 10K#. I have the stock brakes. I use lower gear engine braking on steep descents and downshift just to 3rd for gentle ones. I'm saving my brakes. Think like a trucker.

oldemettle · 11-06-2007, 11:32 AM

We have a 2000 7.3 PSD and upgraded to "Super Brakes" from The Brake Man for the company's proprietary thermal processing. While this was not the full bore Storm System with the huge calipers that Sportsmobile options on their new models, it was an excellent upgrade for us.

Talk to Bob Rooney or Warren Gilliland (805-987-7867) as they have adapted racing technology for trucks and fleets. Their facility is about an hour north of Los Angeles. We have the Quigley 4X4 system so the front rotors had to be sourced from Quigley, but if you have the standard Ford ones, they probably have them in stock. The Ventura County's Paramedic E-350's use the "Super Brake" upgrade on their rigs. The paramedic unit's original pads and rotors were wearing brake pads and rotors out quickly. Rears were wearing out every 18,000 miles and the fronts every 14,000 miles. I also recall that The Brake Man has a dealer at an off-road shop in Burbank or somewhere else in the valley.
HTH, Jim

stiggs · 11-07-2007, 12:26 AM

Jeffrey

When you say low do you mean (2)? What speed is it safe to drop down to to low?

jage · 11-07-2007, 08:43 AM

Personally I'll put it in whatever gear is necessary to give me the right amount of slow- if I'm pumping the brakes in 3, I'll slow and go to 2. If that isn't holding me back I'd drive in 1. As long as the engine isn't screaming I think it's O.K. (take my opinion at your own risk)

I've also tooled around mountain roads in 2wd low-range, which those without the SMB 4x4 can't do. I realized after most of a few hours that I was racking up the odometer at about 4x the rate. D'oh!

Jeffrey · 11-07-2007, 01:55 PM

Stiggs,

Jage is right. Just downshift as you need to. On steeoer descents, you may need to go to 2nd or 1st. I don't look at my speed, just a sense of too fast.