You can bring anything. Plenty of people are bringing nicer rigs for recovery efforts.
You can bring anything. Plenty of people are bringing nicer rigs for recovery efforts.
I'm just tuning in to say that I love this thing. Small full frame 4x4s really call to me for some reason, even though I've never owned one. So basically, hit us with updates and videos!!
I'm debating a move in the next year to Arizona, and I think I could pick up a non-rusted example (I'm in ohio now, so that's impossible!) and use it for wheeling in the desert1
pimpm3 said:When and where is this Florida gambler 500 you speak of. How much is it?
Yup. Absolutely no entry fee. Just have to have insirance and be able to convince them you paid $500 for car before mods. And to keep the spirit of the event in check they do not reveal winners until END of event. And the first place trophy is awarded to the 7th place finishing team. The team that actually finishes first has a bowling ball thrown thru their back window.
Just to keep people from being uber competitive. LOL
Back for a other update. So after some poking around I found a spot of rust which was hiding under the factory undercoating. Other side looks perfect.
Used some steel strapping and sheet metal from a Volvo trunk lid to rebuild the area. Mostly done with crappy flux core but hit the structural parts with a friend's big Miller. Need to finish the sheet metal seam seal and paint/undercoat.
Ovid_and_Flem said:pimpm3 said:When and where is this Florida gambler 500 you speak of. How much is it?
Yup. Absolutely no entry fee. Just have to have insirance and be able to convince them you paid $500 for car before mods. And to keep the spirit of the event in check they do not reveal winners until END of event. And the first place trophy is awarded to the 7th place finishing team. The team that actually finishes first has a bowling ball thrown thru their back window.
Just to keep people from being uber competitive. LOL
I also think the $500 purchase price is more of a suggestion than a rule, they just want people to come out and have a good time, in no way is it a serious competition
This is pretty much the end result. I'll shoot it with some undercoating / paint and it should be good enough.
So this is a little more of the fun parts.
I ended up clearancing the inner fenders with a 5lb sledge. No pics but it probably knocked it back about 2-3 inches. I can turn cleanly now but who knows when under articulation.
Next to a stock TJ for reference.
Installed some used Warn hubs I found on car-part out of a junkyard in PA. 4wd works!
Ordered a Cherokee snorkel for $50 off Amazon because snorkels for water but mainly because they are cool looking. Haven't finalized but it's mounted. Need to get out the heat gun to bend it a bit 
Also scored a full size spare off a bronco at the junkyard. Only problem is the center hole is 3.5" vs 4" so I'm hoping a friend will be able to machine that for me. 
Four people will be riding in this for the event so space will be at a premium. I fabbed up a mount for the tire iron to sit on the spare.
It's made out of an old lawn mower spindle and scrap steel. It sits in the beauty mount on the spare. 
Next up is the front bumper which is still in progress.
Picked up a later style grill and seat belt from the junkyard. The wife is also going make a bikini top for it.
Four people in a Sportage! Nice. I love the lug wrench mount. Makes the truck look tough.
You're inspiring me to consider a Gambler run with Humpie before I tear it down.
The event is next weekend so pretty much spent the last two days trying to finish up the loose ends.
Modified a Jeep TJ bumper to bolt on the stock mounts which included a ton of drilling welding and grinding. Flux core still sucks...
Covered the TJ bumper with the cut stock bumper.
The wife also made shift boot covers and a bimni top for it as well as painted the grill and stickered the front bumper.
I need to put the fenders back on and trim them some more. Wire the headlights and modify the snorkel. Possibly going to add a skid plate then run the event!
The worst part about this was that i went straight to Craigslist to see if there were any of these around here. There are not
Come on down to FL.
There's one with working AC and heat in nicer shape than mine for $1200. I'm tempted to get it and swap the goodies over.
I’m bummed that the date for this conflicts with the Daytona Champcar race. I’ve been wanting to do a Gambler since I first heard of it. Have fun and please post lots of pics!
Yeah, it was down to those two events. This won out since I've run Daytona a couple times. Good luck at the race!
The organizer is actually a chump alum as well.
This rig is going to be too NICE for a Gambler rig!
Keep up the great work!
Thanks you. Its nicer in photos than real life but it's really not bad.
We were going to paint a design on it but scrapped that plan because of time and that same thought. It's a bit too nice to spray bomb/roll paint on at this point.
In the final week up to the event I had a few things to mark off the list.
First was to enlarge the center bore of the spare. A friend of mine has access to some pretty cool machinery. A HASS CNC machine took pretty quick care of that. 
I made a quick mount for the "heavy" duty shovel.
Another friend works at Land Rover and had access to some used skid plates. Apparently they are considered part of the crash structure and are replaced frequently in front end collisions. There was no visible damage. With the help of a couple people, 2x4's and a heavy workbench we were able to bend it to reasonably resemble the factory flimsy unit. I still needed to make angled spacers to bolt it up. That was a pain but I was happy with the end result.
Lastly I fitted the fenders, and had to slightly trim/roll them and do the final fitting of the snorkel with use of a heat gun.
Picked up my brothers from the airport and decided on a theme by wandering around Walmart and finding some teal shirts with flamingos on them.
They painted on the flamingo with some kids water color paint that is supposed to be washable. It held up all weekend so we shall see...
We headed out at 6am to meet up with the other local people going. Which included my Chumpcar friends (the guys who helped earlier) in thier Lincoln.
It was a parts car for the old lead sled Lincoln race car which you may recognize from the magazine. In happier days and after it's wreck at Daytona
The starting location was about an hour and a half from home. About 15 minutes away she started to get hot. I pulled over but didn't notice anything odd. I thought the strap might have flipped up and blocked the grill as I had no further issues on the way there.
Myself (on the right), my wife and brothers Right before heading out.
Started to hit the trail as the lead vehicle with the Lincoln and half a dozen cars behind me.
About half an hour in the temps started to rise. I pulled over and found the fan clutch had apparently failed. I removed the grill and fog lights and used the fog light wiring to run the AC condenser fan. This kept the temps down as long as we were moving at a decent clip but would start to creep up.
Surprisingly AutoZone had a fan clutch. Changed that while at a check point to eat woopie pies. After that the temps stayed rock solid.
From there we decided to try a bonus check point called yuck mud. After encountring several people turning around whatching a ranger get stuck, a Nissan on 35s make it through and a supercharged lifted 4wd civic wagon on side by side tires almost make it through we decided to make a run for it.
One large dip and some tire spin later it was stuck. More speed or some lockers probably would have helped.
The door seals surprisingly kept the water out and an F350 recovery vehicle winched us out and we continued on.
At some point the clutch started engaging right off the floor and you couldn't shift into gear from a stop. There was fluid present and pumping it up didn't help so I put in a nut to act spacer between the slave and the fork. Worked perfect for the rest of the weekend. Ended the day still intact. 
Nice....Looks like a lot of fun out there.
Second day was pretty much the same as the first. Hit some trails then found some mud holes. This time the Kia got through them no problem.
I've got a pop from the right hub in 4wd and the drivers side window goes down but not up. All in all she made it through pretty well.
Pic dump
Before
After
And some of the other guys with us.
This Chevy hadn't run in 5-10 years according to the prior owner. Rob and John got it running the night before the event and it performed flawlessly.
The Lincoln had almost no issues. A welded rear will get you places.
300k+ Subaru
All in all a ton of fun. Would definitely recommend.
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