The new Boulder Mountain Edition next to a BRaptor

Unicorn

Portals have been pretty rare in the past. Mercedes used them on their Unimog and the Pinzgauer had them. Then the H1 military Hummer used them. Guys have been playing with them for 10 to 15 years in the off road world trying to get a strong set that would work. Well Quin at 74 Weld is an off road enthusiast (to underplay his interest) His company does NASA and DOD work. A number of years back someone asked him to help rebuild a set of Unimog portals.... He did and redesigned and redesigned and over the years came up with some pretty solid designs that worked very well on some one off - off road race trucks and rock buggies.... Fast forward to 2020... Ford wants to get into the 4400 racing series with the soon to be released Bronco... Their go to race guy/off road guru, Brad Lovel, knows Quinn, knows portals, and he tells Ford if you want to win in the 4400 racing series You need Portals. Ford has Quinn design a portal for their racing Broncos. The Bronco is now the most decorated race car of all time. the Ford Bronco has dominated the 4400 series like no other car in any series in the world.... So then last year... Quinn says to himself, I wonder if there would be a market if I offered these to the public, they are already designed and race proven.... I have one of the first ten sets made for public consumption for the Bronco. He started offering them for Jeeps about a year earlier. (he is a jeep guy) although I think his latest obsession appears to be the ranger raptor... He has one and already has it on portals.

How do they work?

Okay an axle goes to the center of the wheel. right? You want clearance off road so you want to raise the axle up away from the ground. Only way to do that is to go to bigger tires. For every 2 inches of bigger tire you raise the axle 1 inch higher. The only way to get a bigger tire on the vehicle is to raise the rest of the body away from the axle. That is a suspension lift. There are a lot of draw backs to a large suspension lift. It is a compromise. Give up certain parameters to get larger tires on to achieve greater clearance.

A portal bolts on the the end of the axle housing. the axle shaft, rather than turning in the center of the tire now turns a gear. That gear now turns two more gears below it which in turn turn a fourth gear and that gear is used to turn a new shaft that sits in the center of the wheel. There are two gear designs and three gear designs but this specific one that Quinn at 74 Weld has designed uses 4 gears. So portals raise the axles 4 inches without even changing the tires. You could call them an "axle lift".... They also regear. This set of portals has a 1.22 gear reduction. So by going to a 40 inch tire my gearing (calculated all the way through the size of tire) is actually just a little bit lower than stock gearing on 35 inch tires. If you wanted to achieve the same clearance only using a suspension lift and larger tires you would have to have tires that are 8 inches taller than mine. Kind of hard to fit a 48 inch tire under a Bronco.

I hope that helps.

LD29

Okay, I don't mean to brag, but I do some pretty hardcore stuff...

Unicorn

damn you have that puppy climbing trees! 😁

Eninty

Portals:

Unicorn

and a solid front axle with hydraulic steering.... Is there any kind of inference that the might relocate to the front of a Bronco?

Eninty

I think the Bronco's IFS might have slightly more articulation. 😉

Unicorn

I was wondering about that suspension.... Thought maybe it was a depth perception issue.

I have issues with depth... I only have one eye....

Eninty

Single-pin-central-pivot.

Unicorn

Very heavy equipment tractoresk.

Eninty

It's my New Holland tractor. Pic is from a radiator/cooling hose replacement in 2022. All started because a rat gnawled on the little water pump-to-head hose. The radiator was probably still good but battery acid kinda ate into the lower ribs (long story), so I decided to replace it preemptively. All brass, real old school stuff. 🤣🤣🤣

Thought I just post something amusing, portals on a tractor.

Eninty

Portals:

Unicorn

I absolutely love the post. I think there is something to learn from just about everything. I did not realize they were running portals on those but it makes a lot of sense.... Now isn't New Holland owned by Ford? and what year tractor is that?

Kenneth

LOL - Yeah, nice pic!! Almost 60 years ago, Ford tractor was the 1st vehicle I was allowed to drive. Probably spent more time behind a mule, but the Ford & a hand crank Farmall tractor were great fun.

Think years ago, Ford sold their farming equipment. Maybe branded Case now.

Thanks for posting!

Cheers

Kenneth

LOL - Yeah, nice pic!! Almost 60 years ago, Ford tractor was the 1st vehicle I was allowed to drive. Probably spent more time behind a mule, but the Ford & a hand crank Farmall tractor were great fun.

Think years ago, Ford sold their farming equipment. Maybe branded Case now.

Thanks for posting!

Cheers

Unicorn

IYKYK...😉 and it is reflective!