Preparing Your Truck For Rugged Terrain

The off-road driving experience is often filled with adrenaline and a great deal of excitement. However, this can be a not-so-exciting experience if your 4WD truck is not ready for the rugged terrain.

You'll need to modify certain aspects of a stock 4WD truck before you can consider it fit for off-road use. This article discusses three things you should do before you hit the road with your new truck or SUV.

Install A Limited-Slip Differential

The differential varies the amount of torque delivered to each tyre so that the tyres can rotate at different speeds. This makes it possible for you to safely make a corner because some of truck's wheels have to cover a longer distance than the others when making a corner. The differential delivers greater torque to the tyres that needs to cover longer distances.

4WD trucks often lose drive when one (or more) of their wheels begins to slip, as is common with off-road driving. This might happen. A limited-slip differential works to ensure that the slipping wheel in a truck doesn't receive greater torque than the other wheels as this could have a negative impact on your traction. Some 4WD stock trucks come with the standard-type differential, which may not offer much in terms of anti-slip protection.

Install A Lift Kit

Contrary to what you may have heard from fellow truck owners and off-roaders, 4WD lift kits are not designed to make your truck more powerful. However, this doesn't make them any less important.

A lift-kit will increase the ground clearance on your new truck so that you have an easier time driving over a rock-filled terrain. By increasing the ground clearance, you will have reduced the chances that the truck's undercarriage components (e.g. the differential) will get into contact with the road surface and get damaged.

Perhaps more importantly, investing in a lift kit is a pre-requisite if you intend to replace the truck's stock tyres with bigger tyres so as to achieve the "monster truck" look and for a more stable off-road driving experience.

Align Your Tyres

Proper tyre alignment is perhaps more of an issue for off-road trucks than for trucks used primarily on smooth terrain. You'll need to have your tyre alignment adjusted once you've installed a lift kit and once you've installed bigger tyres on the truck.

Increasing the ground clearance on the truck without upgrading the truck's stock suspension system is bound to interfere with the alignment of tyres. This is because the stock suspension is designed to work with tyres that are similar to the stock tyres in terms of size. A wheel alignment is necessary before you can hit the rough road.

For more information about getting your truck ready for off-roading, contact a company like Wilkinson Suspension Centre.