Rock Crawling
Crawling Rock is an extreme form of off road driving vehicles that use anywhere from stock to be highly modified to overcome obstacles. In rock crawling, hard drivers are highly modified four-wheel-drive vehicles such as trucks, Jeeps, and “trains” on very rough terrain. Driving locations include boulders, foot mountains, stone piles, mountain roads etc.
Rock crawls about slow, careful and precise driving speed, and high torque produced through large gear reduction in the vehicle’s drivetrain. Rock crawlers often drive up, down and across obstacles that will appear to be bypassed. The vehicle for rock climbing is mainly 4×4.
Rock range crawls competition from local events to national series. A rock crawling competition consists of a program of obstacles which is around 100-200 meters long. Each obstacle is arranged with a gate, similar to a ski course.
The basics of crawling shapes
Vehicle:
Jeep Rubicon Rock Crawling
Commonly used vehicles include Jeeps (Chrysler and Mitsubishi Varieties), Lada Niva, Nissan Patrol, Toyota pickup trucks, Land Rovers and Suzuki Samurai and International Harvester Scout. [citation needed] This vehicle is equipped with special components. Power is usually not a problem, because rock crawlers usually lower their gear ratio in order to drive slower than obstacles without stalling the engine.
Custom parts can include:
- locking the difference
- higher off-road tires
- suspension upgrades
- four steering wheels
- Roll cage for driver protection
- engine modifications to improve performance, mostly torque
- reduce gearing on one or all transmissions, transfer cases (including often using a second transfer case to reduce gearing even more), or crane shaft differences
- body armor (rocker panels, fenders, etc.)
- beadlocks (lock the tire to the rim for low tire pressure)
- Long travel shock absorbers, shackles dropping, semi-over conversion (to increase wheel travel), coil-over spring / shock combination, and control group upgrades
During sized, low pressure, prominent, mud-field tires are used. Most vehicles have a low-case geared transfer to make the most torque in low speed used to crawl rocks. Suspension-wise, rock vehicles sometimes have to crawl after market lift kits are installed, chassis boosts and suspension increases flexibly, although rock crawlers running hard lanes are often made suspension systems, or cheap home-assembled leaf packages reach the destination, making it easier to drive greater for obstacles with the risk of damage to the vehicle. Most suspensions are made to be very flexible, allowing for the maximum amount of tire area to contact the ground, while keeping the vehicle as low as possible. Because of the conflicting nature of the dynamics and the need for rock crawling and highway driving vehicles, it is not unusual to modify vehicles solely for off-road recreational use.
After a vehicle is considered “off-road only” ie it is not driven on a road and is trailered to an OHV (Off-Highway Vehicle) road or park, the possibilities for modification are endless.
Those with financial resources can build their own rock crawlers. The biggest benefit of this approach is that the owner has full control over what their vehicle is capable of, because every part of the vehicle can be designed. Getting a sponsor can help cover some of the costs.