M1078A1 Off Road at Hidden Falls Adventure Park with Ted @expditionteamwiborn

While refurbishing our 2003 M1078A1 to prepare for our off road habitat our friend, Ted Wiborn, came to visit us in the Texas hill country. Ted and I have had the opportunity to off road and hike a few times in Utah to some amazing places, so we decided to off road test the M1078 at Hidden Falls Adventure Park in Marble Falls, Texas.
The M1078 with EcoHubs installed (converting the 2:1 planetary reduction wheel hubs to 1:1 direct drive) did not disappoint. She had plenty of power: traction and weight in the rear was all we lacked to lift ourselves (without adding a rock) over the ledges. The greatest slope we measured had a 26° pitch; I wish we had checked the roll when we lifted the passenger rear tire (1'40"), the seat creased well; no exact measurements at the ledges though the fuel tank cleared them all by a bit; we did get some dirt on the front differential somewhere along the way.
Ted shot our video work plus a photo or two from me, and 'Mr. Business' who keeps Ted mostly out of trouble.
Too much fun on a beautiful January hill country day-

[@aernan]

Great video demonstrating actual offroad use.

[@Fryboth]

Woo buddy! I feel like lifting a wheel in one of those things is a lot more of a pucker factor than in my jeep!

[@hike-lmtv]

Certainly left a crease in the leather-

[@wankertoo]

Awesome truck with excellent 4x4 ability, cant wait to see it decked out

[@hike-lmtv]

Thank you. We are excited about where we are headed with this platform. Good stuff to come-

[@rronmar]

What gear were you in for the steep climb in the first minute of the video?

[@hike-lmtv]

I am pretty sure we were in first gear. I know we were in mode and I think we remembered to drop into first each time we started out. While she climbed everything we could hold traction on, I still wish the crawl ratios were better. Though the most difficult sections were the down slope/ledge ones and with the torque converter unlocked only the brakes resist gravity. Engine compression is essentially absent offering little resistance to gravity's pull at crawl speeds-

[@rronmar]

@@hike-lmtv and thats just it, you broke traction before you ran out of torque. It didn’t sound like you were working the engine that hard(mostly below peak torque) so you had all you needed… yea no hill descent mode is a issue if you do a lot of this… the trans can be programmed for a manual TC lockup(used in oil field and pump truck equipment) which would allow more use of the engine for slow speed braking. What might also help though would be a second brake actuator mounted to the floor with a long hand lever with 0-full pressure over the space of 18-24” . This would allow finer brake control than your foot… the A1 used a modified actuator with a shortened pedal lever, so you have less mechanical advantage and less travel/fine control which doesn’t help any when crawling down over things like those steps. A hand brake would be easy enough to setup, it would need supply air and you could connect it to the front blue(service) glad-hand to control the service brakes just like a towing vehicle does, then disconnect it when not needed… I know of one person so far who has reverted their A1 to the A0 actuator setup with the longer pedal lever, and he says it is a world of difference in better brake performance and control… Thanks for the video…