New from Barnaul, Russia

[dmitry]

Hi,

Unfortunately stock TB was not enough for some local unpaved roads I was interested in so i started to look for how to increase its ground clearance and found this forum.

My suitcase on my way back home from a work trip to the US a couple of weeks ago:

(saved me a lot on international shipping)
Next step planned is bigger shocks and tires.

[RyansTBLS]

Welcome!

[djthumper]

Welcome. It looks like you added a bit of weight on the return trip.

[Moots1288]

Welcome

[darring70]

Welcome to the site

[mikekey]

Welcome

[Cable810]

Welcome!!

[boog2006]

Welcome!

[DirtyBacon04]

I beleive our first Russian member. Welcome!

[SmokeyMcBlazer]

welcome aboard. I love to watch the off road vids from Russia, you guys really know how to punish your machines! once you get it all together, please be sure to post some pics or vids of your TB passing over the outrageous roads that you guys have.

[navigator]

welcome

[v7guy]

love the pic, pretty amusing stuff. welcome aboard!

[ErikSS]

Welcome! Great pic! Lets see it on the truck now!

[Trail X]

Wow, and it's not even the part of Russia that I would have expected!

Looks like there are some interesting mountains to your south.

Can't wait to see some pictures of the trails my friend!

[SaltWaterDrinker]

Dobro pozhalovat, brat!

[Diacom]

Welcome to the Site.

You'll be smuggling more of those items in once folks find out you can get them.

[dmitry]

Thanks everyone!

welcome aboard. I love to watch the off road vids from Russia, you guys really know how to punish your machines! once you get it all together, please be sure to post some pics or vids of your TB passing over the outrageous roads that you guys have.

Sorry to disappoint you but this TB is my daily driver and i'm not going to use it for extreme offroading. So "Mall rated" only =) Also in the part of the country where i live American trucks are pretty rare so all parts are "order only". So if you break something, which happens often if you do serious offroading - you will have to wait 1-2 weeks.
Here, if you are not a rich guy and want to build an offroader https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAZ-469 is the way to go - parts are dirt cheap and available everywhere even in the most rural areas.

Welcome. It looks like you added a bit of weight on the return trip.

the suitcase was 24 kg and i had to move some stuff to my hand luggage to avoid paying for overweight.

Looks like there are some interesting mountains to your south.
Can't wait to see some pictures of the trails my friend!

Yes sir. Exactly. The Altai mountains, i love this place. That was what actually caused me to start thinking about offroad modifications to my trailblazer. I have tons of pictures, will post some of them soon.

Update:
Some pictures from the Altai Mountains: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmitry_bez ... 864759591/

[Trail X]

I'll have to take a look at those pictures later. My company blocks Flickr.

Also, please excuse my frankness, but your English seems quite good. Are you a native English speaker? Or did you just pick it up in school?

[NC_IslandRunner]

Welcome! Are parts really that hard to find? From what I've read the factory in Russia was making Trailblazers long after they quit making them over here.

[dmitry]

I'll have to take a look at those pictures later. My company blocks Flickr.

Also, please excuse my frankness, but your English seems quite good. Are you a native English speaker? Or did you just pick it up in school?

Thanks My native language is Russian. Just self-education and some language courses.

Welcome! Are parts really that hard to find? From what I've read the factory in Russia was making Trailblazers long after they quit making them over here.

Long story short: most of the parts are relatively easy to find in russian online part stores but you will have to wait. Tuning parts - ebay and US online stores only.
From what i have found: First generation Trailblazers were produced in Russia from 2004 to 2008. About 4000 cars were made. "Produced" here means they bought cars in North America, extracted engines and brought the engine and the rest of the car to Russia separately. Then just put it back together here. I guess they did it to "optimize" import taxes. So the production has never been localized i.e. no parts were made locally.
Unlike european part of Russia where american trucks have some popularity, here they are exotic pets for enthusiastic owners. All parts are order only with common parts coming from Moscow, less common from the US.