gogmorgo

I would change out the oil just before leaving on your road trip, then again when you get back, as a precaution. Otherwise I wouldn’t think too much about it. I broke in my new gears in my zj by putting maybe 20 miles on it around town, draining and refilling the oil to make sure there was no serious glitter, driving 250 miles down the highway to the city in one shot, turned around and came back the following day, and changed the oil again when I got home. Probably more precautious than necessary. New trucks in my work fleet go straight to work after delivery (usually a 50 mile drive) and no one worries about them. Out of 200 vehicles we’ve only lost one set of ring and pinion gears, and that truck had over 250,000 miles on it. Break-in is less about heat cycling and more about wearing in the contact pattern in a non-violent way. Basically you’re grinding off any microscopic high point that could become a hot spot, and that happens pretty quickly. You just don’t want to overheat those microscopic points or you risk screwing with the heat treat on the surface of the gear teeth, hence being relatively gentle for the first little bit. My thoughts on changing out the oil are to reduce the amount of steel dust floating around in the diff that is totally normal to have during break-in, and any possible contaminants that weren’t cleaned out properly during the install… there were actual rocks inside the axle I rebuilt for my zj. I cleaned it out as best as I possibly could, but again, there were rocks in it when I tore it down.

Saw this in another group. It would be a convenient gluten-free option in a pinch, provided the hot dogs are also GF. Better than a lettuce wrap by far, although competitive with a corn tortilla if you planned that far in advance.

Nah. It’s Bluetooth.

I feel you. Of my two MJs one is definitely louder than the other, and the louder one is the one with the flowmaster and aggressive tires. Other things it has that contribute to quietness are a 4.0 and 3.55 gears instead of the 2.5 and 4.10, so 70mph is about 2200rpm instead of 3500, plus it also has floors and carpet and jute instead of failing vinyl over gaping holes with the jute long since rotten away. The one with floors is also warmer in the winter… floors are very much underrated. Around town the 2.5 is okay, but it didn’t really occur to me just how loud it was on the highway until I had a passenger the one time, and we had to shout to talk to each other. Up until that point I always kinda laughed to myself at people wasting money on adding sound deadening, but I definitely get it now. But even my loud MJ beats the crap out of my Lada that’s spinning 5000rpm to do 65 mph and shouting down a burnt out 2” glass pack. I drove that 2000 miles back from Alabama in a couple days, and was so done by the end of the trip, even with earplugs, that I shoved it into the snow in my yard and didn’t even unpack it for a couple months.

That sucks. I haven’t found a new phone that I like. I don’t really want to leave apple because… reasons (largely the same reasons I come back to the same automakers all the time) but all the newer phones are MASSIVE. Barely fit in your pocket massive. No reason for it. And because no one wants a dumb phone any more the few out there are trash, no querty keyboards, limited browsing and photo capability… the old brick I had circa 2010 could do almost everything the iPhone 4 I replaced it with could do, plus the battery lasted the better part of a week.

Something that came up when I was replacing my phone recently with another of the same model, is that 4GLTE ≠ 4GLTE. Different carriers use different frequency bands for phones. Basically like a radio station, your phone needs to be tuned into the right frequency to pick up the radio signal being broadcast, but your phone doesn’t necessarily have the capacity to receive and transmit on every band out there. If AT&T is dropping a couple lesser-used “obsolete” LTE bands along with their 3G capacity most customers wouldn’t notice (and I suspect they might not be keen on advertising anything about dropping 4G service with all the 5G conspiracy theories) but it’s possible your older phone might not be able to connect to the LTE bands they’re hanging onto. I won’t pretend I have any idea at all what AT&T is doing, it’s just a possible explanation for how it could affect your specific device. Due to a boatercycling incident I wanted to replace my first-gen iPhone SE with another one, but considering they’ve been out of production since 2017 I can’t get one in good shape just anywhere. While shopping I noticed that there were a couple models, the A1662 and A1723, a “US” and “international” model, respectively. Because we have different local carriers we don’t use all the same LTE bands up here, and the US model doesn’t support the dominant high-speed band up here. So it’s a good thing I checked before I pulled the trigger, but also unfortunate because the US model is much more available and cheaper as a result. This also explains why it seems like the data speeds suck when I’m roaming in the US, because my international model doesn’t support very many of your bigger selection of high-speed bands.

Weighing in on the nearly year-old thread, I’ve got one of each. My long bed floats down the road in comparison to the shorty, but it’s a 4.0/aw4/242 vs 2.5/ax5/2wd so it’s considerably heavier, plus it’s got over double the mileage and the rear springs are toast. So I can’t really rely on that data to confirm that. I haven’t noticed a significant difference in turning radius, which isn’t surprising considering the wheelbase is only 6” longer and all the steering components are the same. On a similar note, the break over angle isn’t all that different, because again it’s only a 5% difference. The thing I notice the most is departure angle. The extra six inches are much more noticeable there. In my case it’s exaggerated somewhat because the shorty is a bumper delete truck but the long bed has both a bumper and hitch, so any time I’m out on trails with the long bed the hitch is getting packed full of dirt. Doesn’t help either I guess that the springs are shot so it’s sitting a couple inches lower, but still. I can go through stuff with my ZJ that I feel would have my long bed’s wheels dangling in the air. As to the length of the bed, there’s only a handful of things I’ve had in the long bed that wouldn’t fit in the short bed. One of them is me. But since building the canoe rack for the short bed long things like lumber, plywood, ladders, have all gone onto the shorty without issues. Although it might be nice not to have my 17’ canoe hanging quite so far off the back of the truck. My long bed has a canopy on it and no rack so it hasn’t even been attempted. And in all honesty I can get more weight into the short bed due to the worn out spring situation. But I will say that I wouldn’t want a bed shorter than 6’. The comments above about having a tool box with space behind it still… imagine not having a tool box but that’s still all the space you’ve got? The 5’ bed on the JT seems almost pointless, you need the tailgate down to get anything in there. The 4.5’ on the new Maverick and the thing is still longer than a long bed MJ? If you want a minivan just get a minivan… pretty sure some of those old American land yachts have deeper trunks than that.

I haven’t ever bothered to figure out a factory nav system. Maybe if there was one in a car I actually owned it might be worth the effort, but in the odd rental I’ve ended up in, it just didn’t seem worth the time. Usually I just use google maps on my phone. But I also will look through the route it chooses to see what it wants me to do first, and figure out at what point I actually want to turn on the nav if at all, if it’s simple enough I’ll just memorize the turns. Often I’ll just use the map as a map. On long trips between states I don’t really see much point in using nav, unless you need to follow some twisty route that jumps from highway to highway. I just don’t see a ton of point in using navigation just to follow the one road you’re already on. The times I’ve found nav to be most helpful are when I’m following a highway through a city where there isn’t really a bypass, which can help to avoid some predictable traffic snarls, stay away from downtown, etc., (Calgary and Saskatoon come to mind), but at the same time I’ve been navigated around in an endless loop a couple times going through some cities where I’ve had to give up and just drive in a straight line in one direction until it figures out a completely new route instead of sending me in the same large circle back around for a redo. I’ve also learned that when certain routes don’t make sense I should double check I don’t have nav set for a bicycle. You’d think it would figure out you’re not on a bike as you’re doing 70mph down the highway, but then again…

I believe the article was referring to slide-in campers. Here’s a slightly more recent sum-up. I couldn’t find the original I was referrencing in a two-minute search. https://www.rvia.org/system/files/media/file/Riding in Towed RVs.pdf Indiana (and a few others I called “free for alls”) in this one is listed as “no specific previsions” I guess meaning they couldn’t find anything that specifically address riding in the camper, but that wouldn’t mean it might not be covered under something else. It’s interesting how the two sources addressed the scenario though. As far as passenger restraints, this one could’ve been updated more recently. It was only about five years ago that my home province updated the seatbelt rules to stop allowing unsecured passengers in cargo areas so long as all seatbelts were occupied. I graduated from high school twelve years ago, but still went on some fully legal field trips in the back of my teacher’s truck. There were definitely regulations against riding in trailers.

Something I learned lately, rules against riding in a pickup camper are… lax. Most US states allow passengers to ride in a pickup camper. Only Arkansas, Maine, Mississippi, and New Hampshire prohibit it completely. In Hawaii, pickup camper passengers must be over 13. In Nevada, your pickup camper passengers can have open liquor. Georgia requires pickup camper passengers have direct access to the driver compartment. Montana, New Jersey, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Wisconsin allow passengers in a pickup camper or fifth-wheel trailer. California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota allow passengers in a pickup camper or fifth wheel with an audio or visual connection to the driver compartment. Arizona, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and North Carolina are free for alls. Any camper, any trailer, anywhere. No restrictions. Kansas will also let you ride anywhere, so long as you’re over 14. Surprisingly this doesn’t really change in Canada, either. Only BC, Alberta, and Newfoundland prohibit pickup camper passengers. Saskatchewan officially recommends against it but still allows it. Quebec and Nova Scotia are the only jurisdictions in Canada or the USA requiring pickup camper passenger to have seatbelts. PEI is the only free-for-all province. This info came from an article (c. 2013) I stumbled onto while trying to find flat towing regs. Not all of the claims were cited, and some may be out of date eight years later, so obviously confirm your local regs before attempting. Not that I think you should attempt to ride without a seatbelt or in a trailer at all. I’ve seen what that junk looks like after a crash and it ain’t pretty… campers are clearly not designed with passenger collision protection in mind.

Yeah, I happen to be downwind of some places like that. My lungs hurt after three weeks of this.

Having never built one myself, but having messed around maintaining a bunch of variously questionable homebuilt trailers, I would guess that a custom frame would be more suited to the task. It would make it much easier to use “normal” off-the-shelf parts that you can find anywhere. It would make it easier to set up brakes with a normal trailer axle, and could easily be lighter than the original frame. That said it could also have been built to use just whatever was laying around, which, well… let’s just say I’ve spent far more time than I should have needed to trying to track down grease seals for spindles and hubs that haven’t been used since felt seals were all the rage. It’s also possible something else was going onto the truck the bed came off, making it impractical to remove portions of the truck’s frame.

I think you’d have a tough time finding a bed that nice and so portable if you were looking for one, and if you were wanting an MJ trailer I doubt you’d be able to build one for the money without already having everything you needed lying around. And around here it’s pretty well the sort of money you’re looking at for any trailer that’s not going to need a ton of work. I personally don’t have a usage case for a trailer like that, and think that it’s an awfully small space for a camper, so to me it’s not worth much more than the sum of its parts, which would be more useful to me. But I do think it would be a pretty cool trailer to have if it’s something useful to you, and not easily replicated if it’s something you want. I guess what I’m saying is what something is worth is very subjective. I would have a hard time justifying paying that much for something I don’t really want or need, but it seems like a not super unreasonable price if it’s something I might want.

Those are the lug nuts the parts stores keep trying to sell me for my Jeeps. Pretty sure they don’t fit any of the stock wheels. I’ve always kinda suspected they were for aftermarket wheels that aren’t hub-centric, but never really tried to confirm that. And yes. Lug nuts are important. Any time you torque them to spec, drive 30-60 miles, retorque. If you get a lot of movement out of the retorque, do another interval. Other than that I would leave them alone unless something weird happens. When you have the wheels off, make sure the nuts spin down by hand. If not, chase the threads, or at least wire brush them. Rotating your tires every other oil change is enough to keep the nuts from seizing so I personally wouldn’t use any sort of lube on them, just like manufacturers will tell you not to. One other point on if you switch over to aluminum wheels from steel, make sure you’ve got good thread engagement on the nuts. Steelers are thinner and often come with shorter studs.

Here’s a couple from last weekend’s backpack trip. Not much snow left up there after the heat wave. Pretty sure this is sitting on top of some disappearing glaciers. Something else disappearing from these mountains, some caribou tracks. These specifically actually might be moose, I’m no track expert. But the ones I saw on top of the pass definitely were the distinctive near-circular caribou tracks, and way up into the alpine, pretty far from typical moose habitat. Sadly I didn’t spot any caribou. I’m guessing it was simply too hot out for them to be running around in the sun. Also no photos to be had after the second day hiking, cracked phone displays don’t get along with sweaty pockets. Too bad because the pass was gorgeous.

It’s pretty surprising how many bridges and other major structures aren’t really anchored to anything, just kinda sitting there held down only by gravity. Hopefully all this bridge needs is to be shifted back over to its home. If not that’ll be one hell of an insurance claim.

Not the best photo from my iPhone, but it’s pretty rare to get away with getting this close to elk calves. Even with the fence between us the cows were not happy about me being where I was.

That’s an idea. Probably available pretty cheap too at the parts store so less concern about damaging the ratcheting mechanism, plus they might come in cheaper non-ratcheting versions? I don’t see too many side post batteries any more, but the insulated handle would be nice… I still have a few tools with little weld scars from pulling side posts batteries. I got a ratcheting wrench onto the bolts to spin them down so there might be clearance for it too, the clearance above the bolt head is more my concern here. Yeah when you need one you NEED one. I never thought to look to Gearwrench for a non-ratcheting wrench. Looks like they come in at slightly shorter than the standard length Snap-on set, but not a huge amount. I’ve been more than happy with the gearwrench quality as well, so I might have to do some price comparing. I also just remembered about Milwaukee’s “Four-flat” sockets, with the square bases, to put wrenches onto if you need. I could get the sockets into the space, I just couldn’t get tools onto them, so this might be a decent solution, get whatever wrench length I want onto the other end. I was scanning through the Harbor Freight catalogue as well, more for ideas cause I can’t buy their junk up here, and now I’m wondering if something like this wouldn’t be too tall to get in there: https://www.harborfreight.com/hand-tools/wrenches/combination-wrenches-wrench-sets/8-in-1-sae-socket-wrench-60830.html Also stumbled across this, which, well I don’t know exactly who it’s supposed to be for but seems like an excellent way to turn your bolt heads into circles… one shape to fit everything? I’ll pass. Mediocre for everything and very good for nothing from the looks of it. Not sure how it’s reviewing so high. https://www.harborfreight.com/hand-tools/wrenches/combination-wrenches-wrench-sets/universal-sae-combination-wrench-set-7-pc-69330.html

I’ve got a question as to what people are using on the front driveshaft bolts at the tcase yoke. There’s not a lot of clearance in there to get much more than a standard box-end of a wrench on the bolt heads, and they’re pretty small heads at 5/16” to be putting a 12-point wrench onto them. If they’re a little rusty which they always are up here, it’s super easy to round them off, and it would be nice to have a six-pointed tool to prevent that, preferably one I can get a reasonable amount of torque into without needing a snipe on it. Long-handled 6-point wrenches don’t really seem to be a thing. I don’t really need one immediately right now, but it would be nice to track something down before the next time I drop one, or I might end up having to do some hacking and sparkling to make my own when it comes time. Anyone used the Snap-on 12-point flank drive wrenches? The six-point flank drive sockets are nice to have for rounded bolts, but I have trouble imagining there’s enough interface on a 12-point wrench to accomplish the same thing.