When I was a kid, my dad would sing us old cowboy songs while playing his guitar. It was the usual stuff, “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” “Big Iron,” “The Ride Of Paul Revere,” and so on. There was one, though, that I’ve never heard anywhere else that was about Idaho, or more specifically, potatoes. The common refrain of the song went, “Mud, mud, dirt, dirt, that’s what potatoes live in.” Silly, I know, but that line has always rattled around my head, even if for the life of me I can’t remember the rest of the song.
What does that have to do with anything? We’re an Idaho-based company, and Project Dirt Toy is on our minds right now. As we mentioned last time, this truck is getting put together to play in the mud, mud, dirt, dirt. In hindsight, though, maybe we should have called it Project Potato?
When last we checked in on the project, we had taken it to Arizona to get the Bullet Proof Diesel treatment. Those upgrades are still going strong and we couldn’t be happier. For part two, we’re going bigger.
Rocky Mountain High
The first step to going bigger is with a lift. Now, we could have gone crazy, but the truck needs to be useful when we’re done, so we went with a modest 2-inch BDS lift. Included in the kit were new leaf springs for the front, 2-inch blocks for the rear, a set of Fox shocks for the front and rear, a new stock steering stabilizer, and a new adjustable track bar from Zone Offroad to help combat against the ever-present specter of death wobble. We also added a set of BDS Recoil traction bars to combat axle wrap. We’re going to go off-road enough in the truck that we wanted the extra stability the Recoil bars provide.
Once we had the ride height increased, it was time for some new wheels and tires. You know how sometimes when you’re doing a build that you’ll get a certain part way earlier in the process than you can use it? And then it just sits there for a while staring at you, taunting you, almost screaming at you to get it installed? That was us. We had had our new setup for a while, but without the extra height allowance of the lift, there was no way 35-inch tires were going to fit. For this build, we went with Interco’s TrXuS M/T – Radial tires in 35x12.5x20. This is a great mud terrain tire, and Interco touts it as one of their best tires for climbing over rocks. Sounds like a perfect fit!