#TRAILMATER A In Depth Look at Ol Blue the Blown Big-Block Off-Road Wrecker PT.2 | JailBreak Overlander

I’m Jackie Bringhurst. I’m Brianna Edwards. We’re at Hell’s revenge. Welcome to jailbreak. Nice, nice. Thank you ladies. Holy shit. Is that not fun? Growing up is overage. I have to grow old. I don’t have to grow up. Exactly right. So for the last nine days I have been embedded. We’ll call it like a wartime reporter with Rory Irish and trail mater and old blue and Sean and Mike. And in this time we have done some really cool recoveries. One on Cane creek of a miraculous repair and drive out that Rory did one way, way out at hardscrabble campground where a BMW X seven got trapped somehow.

And then of course we had a flip over a steering box and all sorts of wacky shenanigans on Hell’s Revenge. And all those videos are coming. But this right here is part two to the full detailed walk around of old blue trail maters stable mate. So let’s get back to it. Here we go. But before we jump back into it, I just want to remind you to hit that like share and subscribe. Hit the little notification bell next to it so you’re notified of all new videos because the next video after this is going to be a serious giveaway sponsored by Bone Valley knives out of the appalachian mountains.

You ain’t going to want to miss it. So we put these sliders on because we were kind of like if we’re gonna have nice body, let’s keep it nice. So we put these on, these tie to the frame I think in seven places with all the bars going different directions, right. So they are super stout. I’ve dropped the truck on them a couple times. They work but then they flare out to where this pushes it out so the tire matches plus to save the fender. And then we put this expanded metal on there so it’s a step.

How come everybody doesn’t do that? Dude, the expanded metal, that’s sick. So then that’s just a step right up to there so you can jump in the truck, whatever you need to do. But we figured we’re building it, might as well happen. And I mean those rails we. I don’t know if you tested them before I got here, but we tested them on Cane Creek. Yeah, we were tested them a few times. They’re, they’re spot on like I said. Then I got it back and then I was talking. Then I talked to my buddy down at the tire store.

Jeff and I have a set of rims, they’re seventeen s and they were on trail mater. I have the full set of them. And I was like, man, I like to put these on, but I want to polish them. But I want to polish them. Black and chrome. There’s black and silver. I would have bet money you guys made those. Well, the other one. Well, the other ones. But then I couldn’t get them polished. I couldn’t get them the way I wanted them. And then he’s like, I have a set of 16 inch rims ready to go on your truck.

But they’re. He goes, they’re aluminum, but they’re black. He goes, they’re full black. And I’m like, so I stared at him for a while and then it was like, wait, the rock sliders are black? Yeah, the bumper’s black. The tail piece is black. Like everything below the body is black. So that wouldn’t look too bad. We threw them on and I was like, man, I really kind of like it. And it gives you more rubber, too. Smaller rim, more rubber. Correct. Well, I mean, they’re the same. They’re the same size rim as what was on here when they were white.

Oh, I got you. And when I went, they’re just aluminum instead of steel. But when I went and picked it up from Hector, he actually painted the rims white and it looked really good and real old school. It was, like, perfect. And I was like, man. So then I was really fighting with the black. But I really like the way it turned out. I really like the look. They are phenomenal. Of course, we’ve knocked a few of the lug nut covers off because, well, we’ve used them as traction climbing obstacles. So, yes, they’re vertical Max tracks.

Yeah. Or horizontal. I don’t know. I didn’t go to that class that day. Well, but like I said, we’ve got the max tracks up top in green. X tracks was nice enough. Send me those. So we got it all together and like I said, it’s pretty dialed. There’s not too much more I want to do to it. We finally got, like I said, we got the crossover steering on it. We got bump stops in the front. It’s riding phenomenal. And you’re not babying this thing. No, I mean, she went out and did work. You took this truck, you took this 8000 pound truck down a trail that most trucks would actually end up upside down at the bottom.

Going into Cane Creek is seriously no joke for you. It’s nothing. But that’s why you’re down there so often, because everybody else has a hard time with it. But like I said, I just like the look of it. Like, I installed this. I installed this. Not because I need it, just because it’s cool. I like the lookup. You know what, dude? You’ve done your time. Trail mater did the job. This is how it works. You’re progressing. Yeah, but you didn’t replace trail mater. No, and I would never. You need it. There’s too many people that are like, oh, you’re, you know, you got to do this, you got to do that.

I can’t believe you’re upgrading and it’s like, I’m not upgrading, I’m just enjoying what I built. The fruits of your labor. Yeah, but like this is. This is the nice version of trail made, right? This still works and everything. Like I got a call the other night when it was raining and storming that somebody was stuck out, stuck on some little rock. Wasn’t a big deal, but they were on a dirt road. A lot of the tow companies around here don’t want to go on dirt roads because they don’t want to tear up their equipment. I get it.

At all. Yeah. So that’s why I built my stuff. My stuff’s built to get tore up. So like I said, we went out and. But I got to drive this down the highway. Like down the highway 75. No problem. Here we go. She goes beautifully on the road. Yeah, going down the road. Went in there off the road. Get to him, winched him out. No problem. Come back. She’s a beauty. She’ll never replace trail mater, but she’s a perfect stable mate. Yeah, but she wasn’t meant to. She just whole blue, like I said, I love it.

Cause it’s like it’s the same kind or it’s the same side. It’s two sides of the same coin. There it is. That’s what I was trying to say. There it is. And I’m sure one of your subscribers is now gonna mint you a coin that has both of them. It’s off road recovery. This is just the nice pretty version. And then I have the workhorse that we’re not worried about because she does what she does. And sometimes on recovery you should bring them all. Yeah. Just in case. We just did that yesterday. You never know. That was the first time ever taking all three.

We took blue when it was still blue and. And factory. We actually went down in that same spot. Was that super narrow spot where you’re next to the river? Yes. A truck slid off in the rain and was hanging over the river. So we took this and trail mater and we backed this in and took trail mater past. Or maybe the other way. Anyway, we went in there and we used both trucks to pull that truck up the side of the hill and back onto the road. And so, like I said, we’ve used. We’ve used both trucks multiple times.

But that was the first time we used all three trucks yesterday. Yeah, and a trailer. You brought a trailer for the recovery vehicle to float them across the river. Yeah, but like you said, the thing of that was we wanted trail mater to go across first to kind of test the depth of the water and see. Yep. That was a smart move. Well, then we had this, which pulled the trailer from town. Pulled it from town up there, all the way down the mountain and everything. And in there. And then got to it. Pulled it across the river.

Pulled it up there, got the rig loaded, came back, got it across. I got stuck in the sand coming out of there. So we had to use big d to hook onto it and pull it up out of there. Oh, you did? Yeah. So that second. That second spot. The soup, that sand. Yeah, I was coming up that. I almost got it and spun around. So then that’s where all this came from. And that’s why the front of the BMW was also covered in mud, because I backed up and did a second shot and used a little bit more of the supercharger and it didn’t work.

So we stopped, we hooked big d up, and big d didn’t even. It didn’t even grunt. Just went forward. And as soon as his strap tightened. Cause big d outweighs this, the trailer and half the BMW. Yeah, she’s long, too, right? It’s a longer rig, but, I mean, 12,000 pounds, what she weighs. Yeah. You want to talk about anything under the engine bay real quick? Sure, we can. Because I know some of you guys are going to want to know. Let me let this cool down for a second. Yeah. Now, that might look like overkill, and it is.

Well, then, there you go. And it’s supposed to be, but it actually works. It still does work. And it’s controllable. It’s not insane power. It’s just the right amount. Yeah, well. And it’s as much as you want, is the nice thing. Okay. So it. Yes, you can get crazy with it, but it’s also like. That’s what’s nice about this, is it’s driven by the motor, so as the rpms increase, it’s increasing your boost, it’s increasing everything. Like, it just works with the motor from. Exactly off idle. Up. But. So then this has led to, okay, well, we started doing stuff, and we started upgrading.

Then it was like, well, you know, we should probably. Probably clean up our wiring. So then we did junction blocks and actually ran everything to it, cleaned it up. We started cleaning this up. We started cleaning that up. Like, this has caused so much chaos with my poor truck of just trying to make it look nicer. And I love it, and so don’t I. Well, so I went ahead and did a new radiator. So I did a new four core aluminum radiator. Dual fans, got all that work in, did a giant aftermarket transmission cooler. Got all that in there.

Just upgrades that needed to happen anyway, right. So it’s helping. But now, no matter what, if we take this off, because that’s the other thing. So, anytime you’re compressing air, you’re generating heat. Right. Which is not the best for moab when it’s 110. Right. But if we can keep this thing cool and keep it going, then when we take. If we take it off and go to just a standard motor and put the cowl induction hood back on, then the cooling system will be dialed, transmission will be fine. Everything will be great. Right? All is well.

Yeah. There’s no. Really. There’s no lose here. Yeah. And this does have applications. I mean, seriously, you don’t always need trail material. Oh, yeah. You don’t always need a regular tow truck either. Well, and the nice thing about this is, like you said, a lot of people. A lot of people have been hounding me that I need a sling. I need a sling that holds the vehicle a set distance away. I saw that in action, dude, and. And I’ve been saying forever, it looks good on paper. It doesn’t work. It works in certain applications. So, like, when we go out and get a rig off of, you know, white rim or arches or there’s a lot of different places we’ve gone that you go get a rig, and that’s perfect.

That’s super helpful. Like, to be able to snatch it up, keep it a set distance away, and haul it out. But you’re on little ledges, a dirt road, a couple things around like that. But to do it on a trail, like, we weren’t even deep into cane Creek, and it failed miserably, like, with my buggy. So that’s just the thing is, so many people are like, I’ve done off road recovery, and what you need is this. Okay, I don’t care where you’ve done off road recovery. If you haven’t done it here. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

Just like, I wouldn’t know what I was doing if I went back. Back east or anything like that. I just. I I wouldn’t know. I would be like, well, this is how we do it. And maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn’t. But I can tell you, out here, tow bars don’t work. There’s a lot of instances that, you know, people say, you know, this is how you have to do it. Cause this is the way we do it in on. Oh, my favorite is in the military. And it’s like, well, how far off road were you in the military? We were not.

Yeah, we. At first, if the military shows up, we’re taking your roads. Because, I mean, it’s just so funny when people are like, well, in the military, when we were hauling a tank, we’d use a hat. You need a hat. Yeah, no, I don’t, because a hat wouldn’t fit anywhere out here. Plus, you’re not towing anything that weighs 65,000 pounds. Right. But it’s like, it’s like, it’s the Internet, brother. Well, and that, that’s the other thing. And I. I respect anybody that has served the military, and I am super. I never did, but I respect anybody that has.

This is no shade on them. No, no, no. This is. This is shade on our government. But anytime someone says military grade, I go, oh, so it’s shit. Cheapest. The cheapest to produce built by the lowest bidder and maintained. The cheapest. That’s what they want. That’s absolutely. That’s what they want to give our troops to fight wars with is the cheapest stuff you can get. Absolutely. That’s a true story. So like you said, anytime someone says military grade, I’m like, I don’t want it. I don’t want associated with it. I don’t want. Because it’s crap. Because like I said, the tour griggs around here, hummers, and they’re amazing troop transports.

That’s what they do. Right. But they break constantly. That’s what. Cuz that’s what they do. Cheapest. Cheapest. Yeah. You know what I do like is the guys that make the aftermarket stuff based off the military grade and then fix the problems. Exactly. Make it out of the real material it’s supposed to be made out of the stuff that doesn’t snap. So. Yeah, no, I know what you’re saying. Exactly. Yeah, I’ve been there, done that. Yeah. So like you said, it’s just it’s application you’re using it in and I just don’t see like we’ve gone and got a lot of rigs out of here.

We’ve actually gotten a few rigs that were running two and a half ton Rockwell axles. I’ve carried one of those off Hells Ridge. Wow. With Mater. Yeah, that was that Mater and the buggy pulling because it was so heavy. Is that the video? No, I used, I used to use treble material. Okay. I don’t. You’ve done a lot of them over the years. It’s our driver. Like you said, it’s just, it’s just one of those things like everything breaks and you just have to accept that like sooner or later something will break. Yep. So trail mater, everybody’s like, oh, I love your truck.

It never breaks. It breaks all the time. It’s constant maintenance. But we have got it to now, it’s manageable. Broken parts, we know what’s going to break, we know what’s going to wear out. So we have spares, we have contingency plans, we have everything because we know this is going to break eventually. You are very good, I’ve known you for a while now. You are very good at covering your ass. You think of things ahead of time before you go out there and go, oh, can someone shoot back to the shop? You know? Yeah, you’re good at that.

Well, that’s what we try to do is like just, just get it built to the point that you know it’s going to work, you know everything’s going to hold up. What’s the fail point? Okay, this is the fail point. Okay. We can deal with that. That’s something we can, can fix on the trail and manage. That’s what we want to have. Break jail. Mater’s like a really, really hot ex, but you beat the shit out of her. But you take care, you know what I mean? She doesn’t leave you. How about that? You know what I mean? She’s a really, really hot ex and well, you said she breaks down consciously.

Your words, your words. Oh, yeah, they were, they were my bad. Sorry, Chris. Sorry I was, I said that wrong. I say a lot of things wrong but I mean, trail Mater’s job is no joke. Well, yeah, and that’s the thing is the abuse that that truck sees to have. I break a leaf spring once a year to have, you know, the frame cracks occasionally and everybody’s like, well you need to reinforce that better. Yeah, I was. You build something that’ll do it right. I want to see you build something that’ll do it. And everybody says, well, I could build something that would do it better.

You just need to put more reinforcement and more tie in points and more. That adds weight. Yes, it does. As soon as you add more weight, it doesn’t work good off road because you have to think light, because as soon as you pick a rig up, there’s all your weight, and you’ve already made her heavier in the front and rear. So intentional lift intention. I mean, you’ve got AR 500 plates under there. Yeah, but it will lift. And that’s the funny part, is so many people will see it lift a tire or pick the front end up, and they’ll go, you need tractor weights up front because of that.

And it’s like, I am pulling a jeep right up a ledge. Yes, it’s gonna float the front end. But you know what? When you top out, it’ll touch again. Yep. Like, that’s just the way it is. Those roof mattresses don’t. Those things are heavy, man. Yes. They’ll weigh it down. Yes. But like I said, you’ve got. It’s gonna pick some tires occasionally. This thing picked tires, like you said, we’re running an electric water pump on it, which actually is pretty handy because you can actually circulate the fluid with the radiator or through the radiator with the fans on.

So if it does get hot and you want to cool it down while you’re working or doing something else, you can turn the key on, turn the fans on, and it’ll circulate the water through the block. Oh, that’s phenomenal. And through the radiator, instead of just cooling the radiator down with fans on, like, you can cool the entire engine down. Wow. As you sit there. That’s bad. Yeah. So I’m kind of enjoying that. But then, like you said, we went ahead and dressed it up. We threw these. These kind of aftermarket valve covers on with kind of that.

There’s no being shy. You hooked it up? Yeah, dude. Well, I think he’s like a diamond ring right here. Like you said. Come on. I had some old hooker headers laying around that are all rusted and whatever that we put on trail mater, these are $750 ceramic coated. This isn’t spare parts. Okay. We’ve come a long way. You’ve done your time, brother. Yeah, so, I mean. But we did. We did a true dual full stainless steel exhaust all the way up. It’s all stainless steel into stainless steel two and a half inch flowmaster FX mufflers that then exits in full stainless steel.

And yesterday, when we did that recovery and I met you guys at the top of the switchbacks, I’m starting to stress out, like, did I go the wrong way? And then all of a sudden, we were sitting at the bottom, letting it cool. No, no, no. That was before I could even see you. All of a sudden, I could hear it. It sounded like heaven opened and Jesus was returning. On many, many horses, about 500, to be exact. You could hear this bad girl coming a long way away. So she’s actually. It was funny because I built the exhaust with that motor.

So we had the ceramic headers on, we had the stainless steel exhaust. We had everything on. And it sounded really good. And I loved how it had a really mellow tone. But when you got into it, you could hear it. Right. I did not expect it to get as loud as it did with this supercharger. Holy cow. It’s moving a lot of air. It sounds really good at an idle and when you’re going along. But when you get into it. Yeah, it’s a little more than I was hoping for. Back home, you could play this off in traffic.

If a state trooper was sitting next to you, you’d have to put, like, a rag over this somehow. Like, to, you know, that kind of blows your cover, but you guys get away with it out here. But, yeah, she’s. She’s normal till you get on it. Once you’re. Once you’re on it and going, wow. Like, down the highway. Yeah. It talks to you and everyone within two states. Yeah, well, it’s, you know. Yeah. Nothing wrong with that. But like I said, I just. I love, you know, we cleaned up the wiring, fuel pressure gauge, everything. Like, it’s very.

It’s very tidy for as much that’s going on in here. Right. Right. With wire. Right. And you still. This is still a work truck. Yeah. This isn’t just completely showing no go. And I’ve got the video to back it up. Yeah. Fully functioning welder runs off this alternator here. Dual batteries. Yep. I’m probably gonna add a third because I’m going to put one in the boom underneath for the back because the main winch is pulling off of a. It’s a heavy. It’s a heavy gauge line that runs back to that into a splitter. But I think I’m going to put another battery back there that then ties into that junction box.

So then it’ll have three just for. If you’re running the back winches. Heavy. It’s not pulling that disc. Right. That makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. You learn a lot more about wiring than you want to as you’re learning and melting things. And when you’re doing stuff like this, you’re better off doing your own wiring because if something goes wrong, you know where it’s at. Yeah. You know what I mean? Well, I should have covered that up. Yeah. Slide on that. That shouldn’t have done that. Yep. You don’t hear a fire, you smell it. Yeah. And that’s the other thing.

Like I had to learn that like this belt should not be tight, which goes against everything. Yeah. Like it has to be loose because as it gets hot, it shrinks. And if you have it too tight, you can snap this snout off. You don’t want to snap your snout. No, not, you know what I mean? Not this spendy snout. No. Not at all. What I am going to do, which I’m thinking about doing here very quickly, just for the heck of it. This pulley is a different size than that pulley. Undersized pulleys is a thing. Yeah, but they, they built them to interchange.

So if you swap them around. So you can put this pulley down there and that pulley up here and this will spin faster. And if this spins faster, it makes more boost. Yep. Yeah, they’ve weird. They’ve. I’ve heard about them. I haven’t messed with them, but. Well, that’s the funny thing is like this is a stock motor. This is a bone stock motor out of a junkyard. So we’re running about four pounds of boost because that’s as fast as we can comfortably spin this motor. Like if you, if you had a built motor that would handle the rpms and could spin to seven, 7500 revolutions per minute, this would be building eight to ten pounds of boost.

Wow. But we can’t, we don’t have a motor to spin that fast. So we’re only dealing with 4500, maybe 5000 revolutions per minute. So if we swap these pulleys, we could bump the boost in those rpms up to eight or ten. Wow. And then we could run out of fuel. We need a new fuel tank, which was why you need more horsepower. Then we’d need a new fuel injection that supports more horsepower because more boost is more horsepower. You never know. You know, it might. Well, like I said, my buddy is running a big block. He’s only got a two main, two bolt main, big block in his factory heads, has a cam, has some other stuff and he’s running a 400 shot of nos on it.

That’s crazy. Who would do that? Yeah, who would do that? So I’m figuring we can at least do 150 shot on this. Are you sure you want that out there in the world? Well, we haven’t decided. We have to go down to Florida and race Cletus McFarland. Well, I don’t want him finding out that that was supposed to be a secret tonight. Okay, okay, okay. I’m hiding nothing. Okay. Cletus has an unlimited budget to blow me out of the water if he wants to. Well, so you’re pretty crafty, dude. So, like I said, as long. As long as he is.

If he races me with the power stroke, it’s gonna be a close race. If he races me with the rollback, he’s got a really good chance of blowing the driveline out of it. Cause he’s done it a couple times. Nice. Nice. But if he keeps the four speed in it, I’m pretty sure I’ve got it beat. Nice. Yeah, but you never know. Like I said, anybody could break. That’s right. And then it wouldn’t be. You guys are playing with big, big artillery. At any time, something can go boom. Yeah. So, like said, either way, it’s gonna be a blast.

I’m excited. I’m excited. And everybody watching this should be excited, because you know what? Doing something cool once in a while, that still technically works is awesome. And not many people get to do it. At any rate, I think that wraps it up. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Anything else that’s covered it all from bumper to bumper. You got. You got all the. I do. All the ins and outs shots of all the good stuff. I do. I might grab a few more tomorrow, but I do. We’re having problems with cameras overheating. It happens. This truck’s too hot.

It is too hot. Old blue, baby blue. Bayou old blue. All right, brother. Thank you for your time. Once again, Roy. Any time. Unbelievable. I’m smiling just looking at it, you know? I mean, how often can you say that, that something you use for work actually makes you smile? Okay, so there it is. That’s part two. And that concludes the walk around of old blue. But I still have three or four more videos on trail mater recoveries and one that ended really, really badly on hell’s revenge, as well as my own footage. So do me a solid.

Hit that, like, share and subscribe, leave a comment below, and I will return the favor. I am out.
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