DirtyComanche

Made it through today, but tomorrow :???:

Okay, I think I already have a backup lined up. I hope.

Yup.

All the cool kids run after-market ones. If one has a rust issue, they could always buy one of the chrome one from Mr Gasket or whatever...

Specifically, Rust-Oleum paint. Which, if properly applied to a dirty, rusty old steel differential cover will make it look all nice and shiny-like. Ya know? I'd probably paint a diff cover with a brush... But maybe that's just me.

You can buy DOM tubing from a steel supplier, and weld in threaded bungs from places like polyperformance, ruffstuff, diy4x, etc. This is not a cheap route to go down. Somebody sells a kit, I forget who, it was cheaper than I could buy all the TREs for... Somebody will chime in.

Good bang for the buck... You will never break these, and they are cheaper than most of the options out there. http://www.ruffstuffspecialties.com/cat ... p-151.html http://www.ruffstuffspecialties.com/cat ... p-150.html Or buy the unwelded ones, and weld them yourself to save some coin (if you can).

The transfer case is not an NP 231. It is an NP 207. I hope this info helps. Yup, but it still takes ATF. :waving:

Yeah, this place is really top heavy, and certainly has some incompetence in the mix. It's not like this is any surprise to me, it was only a matter of time before something had to give. Of course, nothing is official yet, just all the signs point towards bad things being about to happen. Not sure what I'm going to do if I go out the door. :???: I might see if any of the arctic operators need anyone, might as well go there during the worst time of the year.

I'm giving myself about a 50% chance of having a job on Monday... They cleaned out our other big hangar on Friday, and apparently the upper management will be here for Monday... They've called people up from time off or in the field to have a 'Performance review'. Nothing has been said to me, but I'm scheduled to work Monday... So they know I'll be there. If they don't lay me off, they've done a damn fine job of ruining my weekend :ack:

I would love to get one that good for $1500.

I don't have DMV, but our equivalent actually operates amazingly well (for being part of the .gov). The post offices here work pretty well too. Airport security ticks me off. I took a driveshaft for a helicopter on a trip once. Basically, I had a day bag and a small pelican case (the driveshaft is only about a foot long). I checked both. But noooooooo, they can't just X-ray the pelican case. They demanded I open it (no big deal) then attempted to tear the foam packaging out of it (think $#!& you'd see in a movie, open the case and there's a big block of foam in it with a cutout for one small object). Conversation went something like this: Security "What is this?" Me "It's a driveshaft for a helicopter." S "Sure. What are you trying to sneak by me?" Me "Huh? Do you want to see my aircraft maintenance engineer license?" S "No. Don't give me attitude." Me "Sorry..?" S is trying to pull foam out of case now... Me "I think the foam is glued in." S "I don't think so." Me "Uh, no, I'm pretty sure it's glued in with 2-ton epoxy" S is yarding on the foam in the case... Me "Can you like, just X-ray this thing instead?" S "I need to see if there is anything under this." Me " :???: :shake: " After watching her yard at the stupid case for another two minutes... S "I'll have to X-ray this. I will need you to accompany me during the process. Stand over there to get a security badge" (Points in a random spot about 5' away) Me "Okay... :hmm: " As I wander over to where she pointed... S "NO! Not there! There!" Pointing to about 6" from where I'm standing... Me " :???: " After she finally gives me a security badge and everything else... S "You must stay ahead of me at all time. Keep you hands out of your pockets. Walk quickly, but do not run" As we start walking down the hallway... Which ends in a T-intersection... Me "Which way?" S "That way!" Pointing somewhere that I can't see since she is behind me... Me "Excuse me?" As I turn around... S takes lead and at least we don't have to keep THAT stupid game up. It went downhill from there. They were pretty upset that I didn't have a bomb. I think I ruined their day.

I drink my beer tepid. Where does that fit in there?

All of it. If I'm driving into Vancouver, 99% of the time I'm either going to the airport (Richmond) or the ferry terminal (Tsawwassen, if I spelled that correctly) and I'll be coming in via the #1. Once I pass Hope, I consider it all to be "Beyond Hope". I have no idea why anyone would want to live there, but apparently people must want to based on how many are there. I'll confess I've actually never taken the route through Stave... But I have been up to Stave to wheel (not actually at the lake, I'm not into mud).

Ever played the '3 items' game at wal-mart, superstore, or etc...? Basically, you walk in, dressed however suits your taste, and buy 3 items that are normal by themselves but incredibly awkward when together... Example: Baseball bat, ribbed condoms, black trash bags Best done at 2-3am in the 24hr stores. Pick a cashier that looks most likely to have a brain. See if you can actually get a conversation going with her/him.

I forgot about Barkerville. It's great if you have kids. And if you want to go through Whistler (Hwy 99), I don't advise driving that road at night. It's fairly curvy, has steep drop offs, a couple single lane bridges (might all be gone, they were upgrading a lot of them in the summer of 2009), and very few guard rails. Throw in that the natives don't keep their cattle, horses and dogs off the road... However, if you do go that way, you can get a ferry from Horseshoe bay to Nanaimo, then drive south to Victoria, and then to Port Angeles by ferry. This skirts the massive disaster that is Vancouver (which I also refer to as being "Beyond Hope"). On the side of Hwy 99 there is a couple BC Hydro rec sites (dams) which are nice to stop at and walk around. Whistler should have a gondola or two running, and there is always a places to eat/stay in the town.

Agreed. Stewart and Hyder are a must. It's about 80Km from the Meziadin junction to Stewart, the road winds a bit but isn't bad (driven it lots). You'll see the Bear Glacier on the way down, watch for a white/green/yellow helicopter slinging loads up the glacier, there's 2 rock drills on the cliffs up a little farther. The whole drive into Stewart is very pretty if the weather cooperates. Hyder is a bit of a time warp, hit up the Sealaska for some pizza and beer, and the other one and get Hyderized (I forget the name of the other pub, damn alcohol, but it's cool with money all over the walls). Go walk out on the pier, or drive on it if you've got the balls. If you go up the dirt road on the other side of the town, there is a place that you can view bears eating fish, it's pretty and kinda neat if you're into tourist stuff. The road continues and you can see the Salmon Glacier, and some mine stuff, and eventually you can get to a small airstrip with a big pile of junk on it. The airstrip is active, be cautious. Again, watch for helicopters slinging loads up the glacier, there's about 8 drills up near the top of the Salmon, but I don't know if they've shut down for the winter yet (the weather gets harry there). The King Edward hotel in Stewart is decent and not terribly pricey, and you can get kitchenette units. Also, Bob Quinn airstrip, which is 200km~ north of the Meziadin junction (or 150km south of Dease Lake, if I remember my distances right) might have a young guy from Lakelse Air sitting there with a helicopter. He's changing $100 for about 10 minutes of flying (sounds expensive, but it isn't, split it over 4 people and it isn't much at all). I think his name is Jarret. Anyways, there's some really neat glaciers out there that you can get a better view of. What else? Prince Rupert has a nice waterfront. The casino serves decent food, and there's another good one down in the bay there that I forget the name of (been a while since I was in Rupert last). There's an old cannery in Port Edward (just out of Rupert) that you can tour, never done it but apparently it's interesting. Can't comment on hotels, never stayed in one there. Smithers is a decent place to stop and spend the night if it works out. The Sandman is decent, and there's a couple more expensive places that are nice. I don't know what there is to do there, I normally just drive through it. The next big bump on the road is basically Prince George. It's a mess, but another place to stop if you want a hotel. I live there, I guess I can admit that. I could ramble on... Anything specific?

Pretty much all of them. My 76 GMC takes the cake though... The highlights of the issues with it were: -O-rings for fuel sender/pickup installed wrong = water in fuel. -Cab welded back together with 'reclaimed' sheet metal. There appears to be part of a toyota welded under the door sills. -Most of the bed mount bolts had fallen out. -Upper rad hose was too short, plus the radiator has the wrong diameter inlet for the hose anyways. -A cut brake line (drove it before finding that). -Taiwanese doors are bent. I'm missing half the pieces to install locks in them, but made it work anyways. -Mad max trailer hitch. It looked like they started with a hitch that didn't fit, welded some metal to it, decided that wasn't gonna be strong enough, then welded some really thick metal to it (poorly).

I frequent many forums... This isn't bad. But please, keep the signatures to a reasonable size. Sure, I can turn them off if it annoys me. But then I can't see the funny ones that don't annoy me. One of the local forums has stupid spinning trucks for all of the unread threads. They're distracting, to the point of annoyance. I had to turn off ALL of the images for the site because of the way the forum software worked. It was that or I would have to stop reading/posting there.

I bet I could fix it, providing he doesn't do any more work to it. And by 'fix' I mean make it into a convertible that was safe, and MIGHT not leak as bad as a YJ. No promises on that. Of course, this is assuming that I had the time to complete such a project.

IIRC, it's hydraulic motors mid mounted in the chassis, with chains in the 'control arms' to the final drives. Hence the 'Chainlink' name. Suspension is obviously active. Very cool. I can't believe people are talking crap about it. It doesn't work very well. Over complicated (both in control and mechanics), heavy, low top speed (or wheel speed), reliability isn't great from what I understand (I think it broke an arm clean OFF at the only comp it went to). From a standpoint of "Wow, he built something cool" it's a 10, but from the standpoint of "That thing will clean up at a comp" it's a 0. I like cool things, but I also like them to actually work. That's not saying that you can't make a hydrostatic rig work. Or active suspension. Or whatever. But there's a lot of R&D to get something 'outside the box' to actually function as well as something more mainstream. It's simple really, everyone builds solid axle rigs with gasoline engines, so all of the major R&D is already done... This? Not so much. The closest related application is a skid steer. Try wheeling one of those and let me know how things go.

:rotf: yeah, you had to have heard this clown talk though, he deserved all that plus more... one of those "i know everything about these cars, you know nothing, and how about a $500 discount cause the left front tires a little low and theres some rust on the control arm bolts" kind of jerks... and then when he bought the car i went to bank of america with him so he could pay me with a business check, and because i don't have an account there the teller asked me for 2 forms of id so i could cash it, then a 3rd one cause they couldnt accept my work id, and he lit into the teller, screaming and swearing at her.... I had one of those try to buy my old blue XJ. I say try, because I wasn't interested. I think I only asked $1200 for the thing (they don't go for under $2000 unless they're really crappy, 'round here), and he proceeded to attempt to nitpick and pulled out the card about how it 'wouldn't pass an inspection, and thus couldn't be worth anything'. I told him it was what it was, seeing as it was a 20 year old vehicle that I admitted I wheeled and had modified, and he could call me back when he wanted to pay me what I wanted.

Groovers aren't that expensive. I have a couple friends with them. You can cup lugs, cut extra lugs, sipe, etc. You can even take a bogger, and after lots of time and effort, make it into a tire that almost works in something other than mud. You can add tread, or deepen the voids with them... But if you see belts, you've gone way too far. Those tires are thick, you should be able to add some tread. It might not produce a tire that is round, balanced, or even safe, just as my little disclaimer.

IIRC, it's hydraulic motors mid mounted in the chassis, with chains in the 'control arms' to the final drives. Hence the 'Chainlink' name. Suspension is obviously active.

It won't sag like that. Or allow me to rephrase that, it shouldn't sag like that. The roof is a hell of a lot less structural than people think. Roll-over, accident protection, etc, yeah, it's very important. Additional rigidity, sure. But it's not primary structure.