reson46

What do you think of the Creepy Crawlers? Willy

A couple of weeks ago we took a trip to CA to do the Rubicon Trail and Fordyce Creek. We had a great time...in spite of the fact that the state is populated by morons. I can't see how most of them manage not to perish from self neglect. Idiocracy is not the future, it is now, in CA. We had issues with campground employees, forest rangers, wait staff, etc. At least we had beautiful weather and we were able to dodge the wildfires. On to the fun stuff.... Our plan was to start the Rubicon Monday morning from Wentworth Springs Road instead of Loon Lake. We stopped by both the ranger station in South Lake Tahoe and Crystal Basin to get a camp stove permit and discuss any retarded laws that are present in CA that normal, logical people would not be aware of. It turns out we actually knew more about their own laws and restrictions than they did. :doh: We even laid out the maps with the rangers and discussed the route we planned to take. Apparently absolutely none of them are aware of the fact that Wentworth Springs Road is closed due to bridge construction. Stupid idiots. Apparently it is a small bridge that is easy to miss. :wall: After a detour we back tracked to Loon Lake and finally made it to the Rubicon mid-afternoon. Our plan was to camp at Buck Island Lake. Thanks to the time wasted with misinformation we knew that wasn't going to happen. Ellis Creek made a nice place to camp for the night with restrooms. When I get a chance more stories of mice, bears, and the rest of the Rubicon trail to come. :thumbsup: Willy

Thanks! Willy

Been working my arse off. 12+ hrs today and tomorrow. Leaving thursday morning for rubicon and fordyce..... Will update during trip with pictures :) What days will you be on the trail? We are doing the Rubicon Monday and Tuesday and Fordyce Creek Thursday and Friday. Willy

Finishing up a few things before our trip to CA next week. After the third attempt I was finally sent the correct u-bolts. :roll: I finally got around to some changes I've wanted to make for quite a while. Replaced the fuel injectors. Old New Late model valve cover that's been sitting on the shelf for years. :D Hopefully this will help with the blow by. "Corrected" the oil filter. Found the correct lock cylinders. For those with a '90 or earlier XJ/MJ you are going to want to purchase Omix-Ada part #11813.02. O'Reilly, Napa, Autozone, Rock Auto all list the wrong lock cylinder. Also picked up another passenger side mirror. Willy

Same here. The past couple of months I've been thinking about how nice it would be to have tube doors. But, I also debate if they are worth taking the time to build since they would really only be usable around here for two or maybe three months a year. What brand are they? Do they provide a comfortable armrest? How easy is the latch to use? Do you have any pics of the latch and hinges? Thanks, Willy

Built or bought? Thanks, Willy

Sorry, we bought it this color. It has been painted at some point but I don't know what color they used. It was originally maroon. Willy

I did take my chainsaw. There were more downed trees than we had time to handle. Plus many of them were under a lot of tension that would have required somebody with more chainsaw skills than I. Willy

Last weekend was spent exploring the beautiful scenery and mines in the Fortune Creek area. The changes to the rear springs worked great. It handled really well on the road and didn't seem anywhere near as stiff on the trail. Gallagher Head Lake Mount Rainier Hawkins Mountain Checking out one of the mines. We made it to within site of this mine on the way up to Van Epps Pass that we had to pass up last year. We had a Jeep start leaking gas out of the top of the tank. We dropped the tank, repaired some vent lines, and then the fuel pump started having issues. I'll have to wait for a return trip to explore it. A few of us stuck around Sunday to hit 4W305. It is a narrow shelf road with some beautiful views. Unfortunately several downed trees blocked the path to the top. Backing down to the next switchback to turn around. More pics here. Willy

Interesting..........how did you re-attach the c-clip that holds the rod to the back of the lock cylinder? I don't have huge hands, but I think I need to find a hobbit to install it. Thanks, Willy

I had one other casualty from this past weekend. At Trail Jamboree my lock cylinders finally stopped working. Unfortunately the replacements I ordered from Rock Auto are for '91 and up. Also, if anybody has any tips for attaching the c-clip that holds the lock cylinder to the rod please share. I can't even figure out how to get my hand positioned in there with the clip around the window track, etc. I removed a leaf from each side and cut what was left of the spring eye off the additional main leaves. This dropped the rear down a couple of inches to where I want it. I had some left over Rancho RS5000s that are about the perfect length for the new suspension height. Hopefully mounting them further out will help prevent high speed failures. Willy

Yes, wheel travel. When mounted vertically your travel is directly limited by the compressed and extended length of the shock. When one of your goals is to make sure that the lower shock mount does not hang below the axle, this can sometimes limit you to shorter shocks. By angling you can fit a longer shock. You also get more wheel travel from the same shock the shallower you mount it. One downside is as the angle becomes shallower the shock becomes less effective at controlling rebound and compression. Another is the inability to handle baja style driving without catastrophic failure. :yes: Willy

Thanks for the compliments. A spare transfer case and an adapter kit. More details can be found on page 1. Willy

I was invited to the Rainier Scramblers stag run in the Naches area this past weekend. We had such a good time that I didn't get home until 2 AM Monday morning. At Chinook Pass. U-joint replacement. It was making noise on the way up to the pass. There was one needle bearing left, and it was sticking out of the cap. Another rig destroyed some bearings on the drive over. The spindle was salvaged, but the hub assembly, bearings, and locking hub all needed to be replaced. It got so hot the grease turned to dust. An old Chrysler that had rolled down the mountain. Another blown bead. This attempt was not successful. This attempt was successful. Saturday night's camping spot. This guy decided to hang out for a while and watch us drive by. Apparently my shock set up works well for slow speed trail wheeling, but doesn't care so much for rock racing. :yes: More pics here. The new leaf spring set up worked great on the highway. I was able to corner like I couldn't have dreamed of before. But it was very stiff on the trail. It also made a lot of noise as it compressed. I am pretty sure it is because of the small section of the spring eye I left on the second main leaf. It is fighting with the main leaf and has to deflect over the spring eye in order to compress. I'll make a couple of changes this week and see how it does on my next wheeling trip this weekend. Willy

Time for some rear suspension tweaking. After switching to the softer Daystar bumpstops full bump was reached at a much softer rate. Unfortunately this also resulted in more uptravel which didn't make the tires very happy with the fenders. Lowering the bumpstops was needed. I was also looking at the main leaves of the rear springs. I had always contemplated how long the main leaves would last without any support from the second leaf for the last 6 or 8 inches. I guess I found out. They were now starting to sag and bend where that second leaf stops. Lucky for me I already had another set of MJ springs I picked up years ago on a junk yard trip. I decided to cut the main eyes off the old main leaves and add them to the replacement pack. Almost like a military wrap to offer extra support from eye to eye. Picked up some new u-bolts and plates. Unfortunately I was sent the wrong u-bolts and the correct ones won't arrive until next week. These plates along with the MORE spring pads allow me to lengthen the wheelbase an inch to keep the tires out of the front of the fenders. Unfortunately it raised the rear quite a bit more than I hoped. I'm thinking about removing the third leaf (the former second leaf) to see where it ends up. I'm wheeling this weekend so I'll see how these changes work out. Willy

LOL! Understood. :thumbsup: Thanks, Willy

Wes and I talked and thought about it a lot. Its just to dang ugly to add one. I felt that with the slider welded full length of cab, the tub gusseted full length under fender to the cab and the fact that the A pillar/firwalls all unibody and all part of "frame" that it is strong enough without it. I'm sure you noticed the excessive triangulation and support ons rear cab hoop, that is to make sure head are doesnt deform on a big roll.t I may add a tube from just under fender up to the coilover/crossbar area down the road if I see any flex from cage while rubbing trees or something of that sort. The cage will be plenty stout to protect in a rollover, worse case would be some cab damage. I hate exo's with a passion, but I love my lady and her two kids...so its to protect themand me so I gave in, but just can't give in to a ugly lower bar. I really need to get a cage on mine. I've had a lot of the same ideas. I'm also not a fan of exo-cages, but there just isn't enough room in the cab. It may almost be too dangerous with passengers constantly banging their heads on tubing. I've also considered tying the cage to the roof to help stiffen things up and add top support instead of just having everything attached towards the feet. Maybe add some tabs to bolt it to the rain gutter and have all the roof tubes come together in the middle that is then attached to a plate bolted to the roof. Is Wes available for mentoring? ;) I don't just want to pay somebody to build a cage for me. I want to build it myself and learn. It would be great to have somebody around who has already been through the mistakes that I will surely encounter. :yes: Willy

Did you have any thoughts of putting a bar across the base of the windshield? Willy

For several years I've had a problem that I'm sure many XJ/MJ owners are all too familiar with - inadequate cooling. Idling, driving around under moderate throttle, and general trail wheeling everything is fine. Start climbing and putting the engine under load for an extended period of time and you can just watch the temperature climb over 210 degrees and further. That is not good when you are surrounded by mountains and pretty much everything is up hill. I've attempted multiple remedies over the years - converting to an open system, adding a three core CSF radiator, hood vents, moving the transmission cooler from in front of the radiator to the bed, flushing the system, adding more fans, and probably others I can't even remember. I was fairly positive I didn't have an airflow issue as this occurs cruising down the road at 60 MPH. At that speed I shouldn't even need fans to move enough air through the radiator. A couple of weeks ago I was discussing this with a couple of XJ friends having similar issues. We all had at least one thing in common - aftermarket three core radiators. The theory is that with three cores within the thin space constraints required to fit in a XJ/MJ radiator it doesn't leave enough surface area for proper cooling. Now time to test that theory. I can't say that I'm excited to replace my all brass radiator with the stock style plastic/aluminum unit, but we will see how long it lasts. If this works and the ends start working there way loose I may see if I can find an all aluminum or brass single core replacement. For now I just needed something quick as I hope to go wheeling this weekend and test it. One positive - the aluminum/plastic radiator has to weigh at least 1/3 or less than the brass CSF radiator. :roll: While the coolant was drained I decided to replace the water pump and thermostat. The thermostat is a fail safe unit that is supposed to fail open instead of closed. One thing to note is that because it is longer than a standard thermostat it does slightly contact the casting in the head. This can make it interesting trying to get it lined up without falling out of its slot when installing the thermostat housing. I'll probably pass on the fail safe thermostat next time. The new water pump looks a little out of place surrounded by the filth of the rest of the engine bay. I was happy to see that behind the thermostat and water pump things looked very clean. One concern that had crossed my mind was that some of the coolant passages may have become seriously clogged. After looking inside at least that doesn't appear to be the case. Hopefully I'll know soon enough if this provides any relief. Willy

Very nice! I want to do something very similar to mine. Willy

No, we just use them properly. :yes: Yes, that log was through the floor. :eek: Willy

Had a great time at Trail Jamboree. My dad joined me for the week and had a ton of fun. Even tagging along for a 2 AM rescue mission. The only thing that could have made it better would have been no mosquitoes. There had to literally be millions of them. They were everywhere. This was another year with a lot of broken vehicles and parts. Transmissions lines (before we even made it to the trail), brakes, hubs, vaporlock, power steering line, leaf spring center pin, tires, power steering box, ring gear, pitman arm, and probably others I can't even remember. Luckily we didn't have any major issues. The transmission switches actually worked really well once I got a little practice. First day of prerunning the trails. Ron, as always, getting a tire in the air. Plowing through the snow on 90+ degree days. Since I was driving I didn't get a lot of MJ shots. Ron again.... Image Not Found The fun way to fix a flat. What's that smell? :hmm: The brakes....... :wall: Did somebody misplace their firewood? This was our 2 AM rescue mission. They left the rig on the trail after it broke. The driver thought it was the steering box. They left around 7 PM with a steering box to repair it. Around 1 AM I heard they had not made it back to camp. At 2 AM, I and probably the only other sober two left went looking for them. We caught up to them just before getting to the trail around 2:45 AM. This is what we found. Turns out the steering box was fine...but the pitman arm wasn't. They were even offered a pitman arm to take with them but declined. They did take a tow bar just in case, and they used it. They flat towed it with no steering through several miles of rough trail, blowing three beads in the process. But, they finally made it back safely. More pics here. Willy

Back to TX? :( Willy

Well crap. That's why everything I saw agreed with my 91 AW4 wiring even though the doc was labeled as an 88 XJ AW4. Well, that's good to know and I hope the mistakenly titled doc I sent didn't hold you up too much. I had no idea. For sure the solenoids are all fine as they are all working with your manual shifter. Sure would like to know the cause of your low TPS input voltage though. As I'm sure you do too. :dunno: No worries. I appreciate the help. It didn't hold me up much. It gave me a couple of ideas. It is good to know why there were so many inconsistencies. After Trail Jamboree I'll probably look into it again when I get a chance. I left a switch position for TCU on. It would be nice to let the TCU do the thinking when running around town. The wife already complains that I've made the thing too complicated for her to drive with all the switches and gauges. Thanks, Willy