neohic

Partial clean up day. I brought it to the car wash, took a cleanup cut and respooled the winch cable, put the rear driveshaft back in, and I fixed the bikini top. A couple of the hook and loop straps pulled through the canvas from hanging in there from highway speeds. It was only the middle two but I reinforced all four rear straps with marine vinyl. I need to make a plan for making a new rain cover soon.

Heck yeah!

Had an awesome trip! I’d describe it as the most terrible yet greatest road-trip in the CJ. White Comanche is xjrev10. Austin hasn’t been on here in a while. He even asked me, “Is Comanche Club even a thing anymore?”

All of the concept Jeeps are very much functioning show cars. Very cool to see them!… but I’d say that the bodywork hides a lot of things. These things photograph well, however as they age they start to show cracks in body filler. Also, the rigs that are all out custom compared to something like this XJ seem to get more attention during the build as far as quality. It definitely is functional, but I wouldn’t call it an all-out build what with the off the shelf suspension and wheels along with the choice to keep the Dana 30 and 35. The coolest part of the Cherokee is easily the fender flares, but they’re also held on with sheet metal screws over a pop riveted quarter panel. They look like they’re 3D printed and they’re very solid! I think the rocker protection looked pretty slick but I’m not sure I would land them on a rock. No idea what the deal is with the Bluetooth rear driveshaft. It was very cool that the Jeep rep I spoke with at the booth brought me around in the back after I told her that I was little bummed that it wasn’t on display. After talking with her for a bit, we got into the SCCA trucks and she knew the Archer Brothers through their Eagle Talon days! Neat to have that common ground. She was also apologetic over the upside down grill.

After the long… VERY… long day getting there, Monday started with tracking down a couple turkey pans. Originally I had the idea to take two and clamshell around the muffler to contain more heat. The biggest pans they had were big enough so only one was used to shield the fuel pump. The temperature sensor for the gauge got resealed as well. It did pretty good but the CJ burbled a couple times throughout the day. After running trails all day I added a fresh air in and outlet. That might be the ticket. I had zero running issues on the trail Tuesday and this poor little CJ definitely got a workout. More on that in a bit. While roaming around town Monday morning, I had the absolute pleasure of meeting a for-real personal hero by chance. This is Tim. Tim was 19 when he volunteered to sign up for the Expedción de las Américas in 1978 with Mark Smith. If you’re not familiar, this is an easy topic to rabbit hole down, but the gist is a group of dudes ran their Jeeps from the southern most point of South America all the way up through Alaska. Watch here: Meeting Tim was awesome and really took the edge off Monday morning after a sketchy drive the day before. He’s an amazing guy filled with stories and he’s not afraid to jump in his CJ7 and just pick a direction and go. Tim easily made this trip worth it and made me proud that I decided to drive it all the way. Let’s talk about EJS. I was fully expecting the whole town and trails to be a zoo, but it really wasn’t! This is an event that you make as busy as you want it to be. Planned trail rides can be scheduled ahead of time but we just ventured around on our own barely seeing anyone else on the trails. Knowing where the scheduled trail days is important if you want to have a quiet day on the trail. As for being in the downtown area, this seems to be consistently busy. Not overly crowded but busy. I would recommend spending at least one day in town during the week to roam around to sit and just watch the constant show of custom and recognizable rigs going up and down the main drag. Tip of the cap to the local PD for keeping a cap on anyone being an idiot on the road. DO NOT SPEED!… they have zero tolerance for the anything and it makes total sense for the amount of people in the area. If you have any interest in going to EJS, do not be discouraged by anyone who says that it’s too busy or that every trail is overcrowded. Go! Be prepared for a somewhat pricey hotel if you choose to go that route, but definitely go. Monday: Onion Creek and Kokopelli Loop. We did great! I met up with an old friend from Minnesota and we ventured out. Beautiful day. Onion Creek is a scenic trail that is very easy. We didn’t get to the trailhead until late morning due to running around town. The trail winds around the creek and there’s constant crossings. You’re at a daily low elevation for the area but Kokopelli winds up and up and up into the snow. Eventually you make your way back to pavement and back to town. Tuesday: Kane Creek and Fins N Things. This turned into a hard day at times. Kane Creek is another fairly easy and beautiful trail and also winds around the bottom of a valley with lots of water crossings. Things were moving a lot more than Onion Creek and the water was over a foot deep in spots. Made it fun to go splashing through! Prior to heading towards Moab, I was talking with the rest of the group and the term “CJ friendly” was brought up multiple times. If you know Kane Creek, then you know about Hamburger Hill. I’d call this CJ friendly but only if you’re confident in your rig, it’s got at least 33s (although I’d recommend at least 35s), and at least one locker. Mine?… I’ve got barely the minimum of the list with my 33s and limited slip rear axle. There was a group of Suzukis in front of us that let me know that I was in trouble. I was obviously the little guy amongst 35-40” tires and much longer wheelbases. There’s no shame in using your winch either! What’s the use in dragging it around if it doesn’t get used from time to time?! I spent Hamburger Hill on the hook and I’m extremely grateful for my larger trail mates acting as anchor points. The second half of the trail went back to being easy as the remainder of the obstacles were tight for the bigger rigs but easy for my short wheelbase. Fins N Things was just as expected as it always is. I like this trail at the end of the day because the obstacles are as challenging as you want them to be due to the bypasses and there’s multiple exit points if you want to duck out early. We showed up just after the Jeep concept vehicle presentation was getting done so we saw them all leaving the entrance as we went in. Very cool! By Wednesday my clutch knee was just about shot. It was a drizzly day off and on so I took the opportunity to just wander around town. In the morning, it just about felt like I had the whole town to myself! The afternoon was spent doing some parking lot things getting the CJ in trailer mode. Yup… I chickened out on the return leg back home. This allowed me to go back through Vail pass to the twisty mountain roads and enjoy the scenery without having my foot to the floor the entire time. The drive home felt like it was done in record time compared to getting there! After dropping off the U-Haul I took a quick damage report. I honestly don’t remember banging around on the transmission crossmember enough to twist it around as much as I did, but I recall exactly when I could’ve sworn I took out my rear driveshaft. Close call there! There’s a few good scratches on the rock sliders and I couldn’t seen to keep the rear leaf spring shackles off the rocks. I’ve got a list of things needing attention. Overall, what an amazing solo trip. I’m glad I experienced Easter Jeep but I’m not sure if I need to go in the future. My buddy kept pointing out YouTubers to me that I kept shrugging my shoulder at, but it was cool seeing the internet known vehicles all the same. Again, if you’ve got interest in this event then you should experience it at least once! It turned into a long four days and I’m glad to be home. Good job, little buddy.

Absolutely. Coming from the east, 70 going through Denver and then climbing up and over Vail can be a bit rough. I just did it yesterday headed home. It’s a very scenic drive!… but maybe avoid the mountains if you’re concerned.

No idea what my plan is yet if this happens. Everybody keeps telling me how near perfect my truck would’ve been for Moab four months ago.

Cheers, fellas.

Truck looks great! I kinda like the orange though. Maybe try another bright color before drag green?

It has been a very long day. Apparently if you want to turn a seven hour drive into twelve, then you need to own a clackity, old Jeep. This morning was bliss. Cold… but bliss. Everything was just as it should be. My biggest worry was getting over Monarch pass and sure enough it over heated just shy of the summit. I found a very loose temperature sensor that I’m a bit worried about for how many times I would’ve checked every fastener over the past couple weeks. At the first available stop I picked up another jug of coolant and some teflon tape to readdress things in the morning. Then the air temperature started climbing and the CJ let me down. … and again… … and again… and then a total of nine times I was on the side of the road. Something was getting hot. I tried turning my air cleaner towards the cool(er) side of the engine bay… … I drifted my way to a parts store and tried swapping the ignition coil, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. At its worst I was stopping as little as a few miles. In the past it has vapor locked and I was hoping to be done with that with deleting the coolant passage in the intake manifold. Then I was still 92 miles from Moab that it finally hit me that I should investigate the fuel pump… and it was hot. That is my roadside custom heat shield fashioned from my front license plate and zip ties. It worked!… mostly. I was able to click off 40 miles before it started acting up again but that was just in time to stop for gas. The last 50 or so miles got a little stupid that I looked down a few times to find that I was doing over 70. Not smart in an 83” wheelbase rig that wasn’t engineered for anything over 55. I rolled into Moab right at 6:45. Plan for the morning is to hit up the dollar store for some turkey baking trays to make a new exhaust heat shield. Not sure what else for trails. Probably taking it easy.

Agreed! Being mine is a ‘75, it had just a straight coupler between the water pump and the fan. Damn thing was just howling away line an airplane propeller! Maybe it’s on my head, but it feels mildly spunkier without the old fan too.

Wheels up by 7 tomorrow morning. My fan showed up!! Everything got installed within an hour so I could take it for a rip. The maiden voyage was to fill up at the gas station. Maybe I should’ve gone for a further drive? Realistically, it is what it is at this point. Probably fine… probably fine. The fan install went fine but I didn’t consider the overall depth of the fan. It had to get mounted off center to clear the water pump pulley and I’m a little bummed that my fancy fan shroud won’t work anymore. On the plus side, it works awesome. It’s a 16” fan that pulls 3000 cfm (advertised as such, anyhow) however the radiator core is only 15.25” between the caps. To get it to sit flush I had to do some trimming but it doesn’t affect fan movement. The wiring is very much “don’t get it right, just get it running” that I’d like to revisit in the future. For this trip I wanted everything exposed to I can easily do any potential troubleshooting. The switch activates the system while the relay obviously powers it. We’ll see how everything goes but the plan is to wire it on a switched ignition source later. Otherwise it’s functional and, more importantly, it works great. The fan comes on at 185° and shuts off at 175°. It cools well enough that the fan actually does cycle on and off. I’m still going to bring the mechanical fan as a backup. It passed the “hold the Harbor Freight receipt” test while it was running, so I’m calling it good. Adventure starts tomorrow.

Another day closer to Moab. I’ve got a 16” electric fan that the tracking says I might see it tomorrow. Fingers crossed tight enough to squeak on that one. I took the mechanical fan off along with my fancy fan shroud. If the electric fan comes, great. If it doesn’t, then the mechanical fan will go back on but I’ll skip the fan shroud being it’s over achieving in the cooling department already. It runs noticeably smoother without the fan hanging off the water pump! The wiring harness for the electric fan got run along with deleting the coolant passage through the intake manifold. I plugged all of the ports but left the front fitting open to vent out the rest of the coolant. I’ll get a somewhat loose fitting vacuum plug also. There was another fitting in the block that I could use being I still need three spots for temperature readings, and it was a real buggar to get out. I made a tool being it was smaller than a 3/8” socket extension but bigger than a 1/4”. The block and plug also needed some persuasion with a torch to twist free. After than, the coolant fittings got rearranged, wiring extended, and a heat sock went over the new wire closest to the exhaust exit. The front sensor has tons of room between it and the manifold. Then all of the lights got checked, gear got loaded, and I even planned ahead for wear my duffel bag will go. Under the driver’s seat, I managed to not even put anything there!… feels wrong to leave open space in a CJ5. In the meantime, the old mechanical fan is waiting on standby, but will also make the trip as a redundancy. One more day for packing and planning.

And it is!! Here’s a before and after my drive home today. Sweet! Unfortunately, it’s back to a very old habit. Also on my way home… almost home, actually… I think the fuel line got hot. It was loosing power and I got it off the highway. I let it sit for a bit, cycled the key to get some fuel moving, and it fired right up after a few minutes. Had all the power back after that! The intake manifold still has the goofy coolant passage plumbed through it because the carburetor needed heat(?). I think that needs to go.

Custom. Can’t get anymore vented than that.

I’ve got my “lose the shop” moment. After driving the CJ the last couple days, it’s really over cooling and I think it’s keeping the fuel injection in open loop and chugging gas. I ordered parts and I’m hoping to see them before Saturday. Also… it’s leaking fuel at the tank. When the thing is running it’s got a steady dribble coming from a vent line. I’m wondering if it’s building pressure somehow? Might take my fuel cap and see what options I’ve got for different vented caps that fit.

Like… front and rear?

Good thought here. Right now I’m in a stage two fire ban and the smoke in the air is very much there already. It’s only March…

You could take the wagon! Call it an AMC trail ride showcase presented by Comanche Club.

YES!! YES!! Rimrocker has been on my list for years! I had the change to do it a long while back but it just didn’t work out. I’m down for this, but unfortunately my truck would’ve been perfect for this before its latest reincarnation.