Tornado Chasers on the Discovery channel?

[MG2000XJ]

Im watching Tornado Chasers on the Discovery Channel right now and they are building from scratch a tornado chase vehicle. They showed some of the fab work they went through and touched on the custom 6 wheel drive system they made. The suspension is AWESOME and they are running 10 MTRs if I counted correctly. In another episode the 16,000lbs that the thing weighs snapped an axle tube as they were chasing a tornado. I want one of these... They call it a TIV, torndao intercept vehicle. Anyone seen it?

 

[Jester99]

Yes, I just finished watching it. It's a heavily modified Ford F-450 truck frame. You should've seen the old one. Doesn't even come close to the new one they built. That thing is almost a tank. I think the armor is 1.5in's all the way around. Can't imagine how much it costs or how frequently the thing has to fill up.

This is the old ghetto one:

 

[bigalpha]

Yeah, I just watched the episode twice in a row.

I want to be a storm chaser. I wouldn't wanna give up my XJ though.

 

[DrMoab]

Yes, I just finished watching it. It's a heavily modified Ford F-450 truck frame.

Bzzzzz wrong answer,

Its a Dodge chasis

 

[bigalpha]

The Ford chases is TIV I, the Dodge chassis is TIV II

 

[SC Rednek]

Didn't see the show, but I did see this one rolling down the interstate in Kansas a few years back, sounded like a semi.

 

[bigalpha]

Cool.

 

[BIGSLVRXJ]

I caught the tail end of it last night too. It looked like a pretty cool monster they were building. The team in the Tahoe were dumb too, they were trying to make it too much of a reality show with waiting 'til the last minute to get back in and then cussing when they almost got blown away.

 

[bigalpha]

One thing I didn't understand was the custom rear suspension. What made it so fancy?

 

[MG2000XJ]

It was so fancy b/c I had never seen something like it before haha. Maybe its not as fancy as I thought but 6wd, with 2 solid axles in the rear, had suspensions that could cycle independent of each other. And it was all custom fabbed...

 

[ChiXJeff]

Apparently, some of the mechanicals on TIV2 were done by USA6x6. No surprise some of it grenaded, then.

 

[dave92cherokee]

Is it just me or when they showed the rear axle where it split apart I didn't see a shaft inside the housing, and it looked like it was a 14 bolt axle judging by the diff cover. Why the hell would they use a 14 bolt when the final weight was over 16,000 lbs.

 

[DrMoab]

Is it just me or when they showed the rear axle where it split apart I didn't see a shaft inside the housing, and it looked like it was a 14 bolt axle judging by the diff cover. Why the hell would they use a 14 bolt when the final weight was over 16,000 lbs.

There were two of them. Two 14 bolts should be plenty for that kind of weight.

 

[MG2000XJ]

yea, I didnt catch an axle in the tube either? maybe its those new invisi-axles I have heard about... If ya cant see um, you wont know they are broken haha

 

[Weasel]

Apparently, some of the mechanicals on TIV2 were done by USA6x6. No surprise some of it grenaded, then.

Sounds like the whole thing was a USA6x6 special, special pile of crap that is. Only a matter of time it blew up. There is a guy on pirate that is now in charge of building it and redoing everything.

 

[MG2000XJ]

Edit: found it I think,

http://pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=721314&highlight=tiv2

http://pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=716276&highlight=tiv2

 

[bjoehandley]

Wow, that new one is one bad ass looking rig!

 

[bigalpha]

i like that he went on pirate 4x4 and asked for ideas/suggestions and the topic fizzled out.

You'd think something like that would already be at 100 pages. That's like coming on here and someone asking how to build the best trail rig with $150k. It would be a never-ending discussion.

 

[MG2000XJ]

new episode on now, looks interesting

 

[bjoehandley]

Thanks!