neohic

More pictures from the weekend...

Hi there, folks! This is one of those special MJOTM months where we... uh... well... things didn't work out so well for this month. Last minute panic move here, so instead of your usually monthly scheduled thread is hereby postponed until next month in order to not detract from the big picture of June as "National (or International, in some cases)... Accordion Awareness Adopt A Shelter Cat Aphasia Awareness Audiobook Bathroom Reading Candy Cancer From The Sun Caribbean-American Heritage Celibacy Awareness Child Vision Awareness Children's Awareness Dairy Dairy Alternative Effective Communications Entrepreneurs Do It Yourself Marketing Fireworks Safety Flag Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Great Outdoors GLBT Pride Hunger Awareness Iced Tea Childhood Cancer Campaign Men's Lane Courtesy Papaya Month (also, again in September to be fair) Rivers Rose Safety Seafood Smile (from May 18 to June 17) Soul Food Steakhouse Perennial Gardening Pharmacists Declare War on Alcoholism Potty Training Awareness Professional Wellness Rebuild Your Life Sports America Kids Student Safety Turkey Lover's Vision Research World Infertility ... Month". Or, to make things easier, at least enjoy this coming Saturday, June 6th, as National Trails Day. It's a day to get out there! Many groups and clubs out there organize get togethers and volunteer days to clean up trails, enjoy the outdoors, and to thank those who keep public land available for all to use properly. Need to find out if there's something happening near you? HERE'S A WAY TO FIND OUT! Otherwise, if you'd like to get a little more closer to home for so many of us here, have a look around your local 4x4 forums to see if your local wheelin' spot already has something in the works. No? Contact the county seat of your local wheelin' spot! Let them know what National Trails Day is all about and that you'd like to help out. The moral of the story here is to get out there and help keep this land beautiful and available for others in the future. This is typically the part where we usually make comments on how awesome whoever was chosen to be MJOTM really is. This month, lets instead post up how you plan on being a part of National Trails Day. Post up a picture or two after the fact! We love pictures! Anyhow, sorry for the lack of the usual monthly thread. On the other hand, we've got all sorts of other good options to celebrate!

Yeah... it shakes a little more now. :laughin:

Nope... no 'Nest this time. We decided to pack as light as possible but it really didn't work out at all. The camper sleeps warm which really would've worked out in our favor. It was cold... like, 35* overnight kind of cold. Tenting it was not so fun at all. All part of the journey though! Speaking of which... This weekend was all sorts of amazing and long, LONG overdue for me. It's been about eight years since I've been up to Gilbert and even then it wasn't with my own vehicle. This time, I had plans of going up with a couple friends for the last month or so. One of which bailed a couple weeks ago and the other bailed last minute. After the first guy bailed, I asked another friend if he'd be interested and then that turned into both him and his dad taking their Jeeps up. Very capable rigs! I think we were all about on par with each other which made trails all that much better that nobody was left behind. Got up there Friday afternoon with plenty of time to spare to set up camp and get out into the park for a few hours. It was cold and windy though. Very chilly sleeping weather in the tent. Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day once the wind died down and the sun came out. Had an amazing time and can't wait for next time! This coming weekend is National Trails Day so the wife and I are hoping to get down to Appleton for the day. August 15th is the Iron Rock Offroad event up in Gilbert that we're thinking about going up for also. Dresser would be nice to sneak in sometime this summer too yet. Busy, busy! Unfortunately before anything else, things need to get upgraded. Late in the afternoon on Saturday, you could tell that we were all getting a little tired... and my decision making process was lacking some good judgement. Starting Friday though, the steering stabilizer was clearly a little long. After only a couple three or four point turns, it had to go... It went back on before the drive home, but will be addressed further. As for other damage, I was the only one in the group that had anything significant! Fell off a rock pretty good and landed on what I thought was the front diff. I was wrong... ... and now I might as well pull both lower control arms and beef up both mounts. Then there was the left leaf spring that I have no idea when it happened... Not terrible, but actually both of them have that curve in the wrong direction. Honestly, this might have already been there. Then there was this gem... That one hurt a little bit! All day I was listening to the rock sliders do their job. This was a bit louder than the sliders, but it obviously tickled right up the middle! The exhaust got much louder, the trans got pushed up, and everything just rattles a little louder. I was thinking about making up some kind of transfer case skid before we took off but it just didn't make my list in time. Really glad I didn't land even a few inches back! Definitely would've made the drive home difficult. As for body damage... ... tagged a tree just above the new fender skin. Not a big deal, but it's there. That, and both license plates got very much "personalized" over each day. Didn't need to use the winch or high lift, and the tow strap only came out once. Everybody kept up with each other just fine. Friday was only a few hours, and Saturday was all day. On both days we just about had the whole park to ourselves. Very quiet other than a group of buggies we found trying to make their way up a trail called Dumb and Dumber. Got a video of one guy that I really wish we would've been there a half hour earlier... pretty much went up, over, couple back flips down, and then a flat tire. The guy seemed more annoyed with the flat than anything else! He plugged it and gave it another shot. Otherwise, the Ape performed flawlessly and I couldn't be happier with it! For as much a I've done with it, the bones are exactly the same setup that I got it with. Just like Austin told me when he dropped it in my lap, "this thing is just a camera... point and shoot". Couldn't agree more. I'm hoping to get a bunch more pictures that were taken by others, as I only got a few of my own. Friday was doors on and Saturday was doors off. The other two rigs for the weekend was a TJ and another XJ. The TJ could've slipped so far under the radar when it comes to what one might expect out of it! 4.0, AX-15, 3.73s, and 32s. Nice little setup and it performed awesome. The XJ was a little rougher around the edges but was pretty much the definition of "LOOK AT ME!!!" with the paint, but the drivetrain was 4.0, AW4, 3.55s, and 32s. It was trailered up, so he was a bit more gallivantish than the rest of us. Nice group of guys. Hands down, I'd wheel with them again in the future. Turned into a fun game of "station wagons against the Barbie Jeep"! Oh... don't mind the plastic ramp if you spot it in a picture or two... nobody was supposed to know about that... Beautiful country up there.

:D Completely guilty of this one. I think just about every PM I've ever sent out has started off to the tune of "What's happenin', dude?!"

Gilbert bound tomorrow. Took the day off work to get all the little odds and ends taken care of. Pretty much made up silly little mounts and found places to put things that they wouldn't be rattling around the whole way up and back. Started with the tube doors... ... then the CO2 tank (which took a mild amount of hackery to the wheel well to get the bottle to sit how I wanted)... ... then I lined the drawers of the tool box to also keep things quiet... ... then played tool box Tetris... ... and then a bunch more stuff that just needed to find a home... Finally did something about the passenger side mirror too. Lick-n-stick for the win! To finish up the day, I got super ambitious and decided to figure out why the rear left window didn't work. First time since I've had it that all four windows have been down. Got a whole pile of camping stuff to go through yet but I think the ol' Ape is just about as ready as it'll be.

Overused or said without meaning? How about when my students tell me that "they're doing their best". :shake:

Eek... 3/8" for a bumper? :eek: For how tight the radius on the corners of the tube are, I'd say that it's 1/4". Regardless, I usually go with 3/16" or 1/4" when building m bumpers and then also 1/4" for brackets. Those numbers do change frequently though based off of whatever I might have sitting in my pile. :D

So... I go to the local Fleet Farm after work today only to go back out to parking lot and find a couple gallons of coolant sitting under this thing. Found that the dumb springy hose clamp slipped off the lower radiator fitting. Ugh... I hate those things. :fs2:

I miss the Ravines and stripes... Image Not Found

Spent the weekend doing some forceful relaxation and got absolutely nothing done. So, by the time we got home I was more than ready to make up for it. The mower deck got some new bearings and blades, and the Ape got new motor mounts, a place to store the high lift, the CB got looked at, and it finally got a rear view mirror. I've always had good luck with this 5' fiberglass whip, so I threw that on there for good measure. I've never tested the CB in this before, but I'm down to a few days before we take off and I hate surprises... even simple electrical stuff. Maybe weld up the exhaust to do away with a few dozen exhaust clamps... No chance this will happen before the weekend Make a mount for the tube doors... Might still happen Make up high lift mounts Clean up wiring to CB Find a rear view mirror

Restated for my application. :fs2: Tried having a serious conversation about it with her and she won't even listen. As much as I hate to throw in the towel so soon, I say @#$% it... not worth the domestic. Trying to find someone who can take it in though. If there's anybody serious enough to pick it up, PM me and I'll send you some contact information.

Proof...

Most because the wife is tired of the revolving door of Jeeps. Didn't really talk price, but that seems to always be a problem for me lately. I'd need to go on a selling spree again like I recently did to put new shoes under the Ape.

People might hate me, but I kind of like the idea of swapping over parts from my '98 XJ and just having fun with it. :peek:

Went out looking for a rear view mirror for the Ape this morning. Found one, but what else I found was even better. Sitting next to the salvage yard office was a '86 diesel XJ. It's sitting on its own weight on tires with 214k on the clock, it has keys, it shifts smoothly, the body is so-so, but it's missing a battery. So I go inside and ask what the deal is with it. "That? Oh... we just picked that up a couple months ago. Neighbor of ours was moving and needed it gone right away. It ran so good that we couldn't part it out so we've just been using it as a yard vehicle. Nice little thing too. We even have the title." Here's my dilemma... I really have no use for it but I hate the thought of it just wasting away and bouncing around as a salvage yard parts mule. Can someone talk me into it? Chances are, they didn't pay much (or anything) for it either but they do know that they're kind of rare. I dropped the fact on them that parts are going to be a real bear to find and that they're really only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. So again... talk me into it? :dunno:

:popcorn:

Looks nice Don, but the big ol' sticker is kind of a turn off for me. :no:

:hmm: You sure about that, Bo? Looks to me like the fiberglass box sides are throwing off some lines, but it all looks short box to me. :dunno:

I figured as much. I guess I was hoping someone who's done a '97+ swap on their MJ would chime in with something along the lines of, "Oh yeah! Check on the connector under the left muffler flap that's labeled 'HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE HORN' because it actually has everything to do with the horn." :D A guy can hope for something as simple as that anyhow, eh?

There's enough '97+ swaps around to ask here, I think... The horn in my '98 XJ does not work. Right now there's no horn physically in it, but I don't get power out to the wires on either side where they should be. When I push the horn button, I hear a clicking over in the passenger side footwell (I assume there's a relay for it) but I doubt that it clicks loud enough for outside traffic to hear to be a suitable substitute. Anywhere else I can look for a fuse or...? If it matters at all, the turn signal doesn't shut off by itself when you complete a turn nor do the high beams work without holding the switch. Thanks dudes! Picture... because people like pictures.

Funny... For the once in a great while that I do try and sell something, I get less responses when I include my location. I don't blame them though... I don't care for MN either. :fs2:

True dat. Can't believe I drove this thing the way it was for as long as I did. Even took it out on the interstate! :eek: Wind was howling all day today though. Without sway bars it was just about on its side! :laughin: Steering was tight as a drum! :banana: As for the list... Maybe weld up the exhaust to do away with a few dozen exhaust clamps... that all leak Make a mount for the tube doors Make up high lift mounts Clean up wiring to CB Find a rear view mirror... newly added

Track bar axle bracket rebuild done today. Got everything back together, painted, and took it down the road. Thing steers like its on rails now. Feels pretty good to have the big items taken care of. Really hoping I don't run into anymore surprises though. Won't have much chance to work on it next weekend and then the weekend after is the main event that I've been waiting for. Took a look inside at where I might be able to make up a mount for the tube doors and I really don't see that happening. Unless I give up the back seat or loose a bunch of space in the rear, I think they'll have to go elsewhere. Maybe make partial use of the roof basket? It'd be easy enough to make up something to put them up there, and I guess it'd make sense to make some use of it. I really only put it up there to put the high lift up there and I guess there's plenty more space to be used... because it's huge. With that, a new list of things that might get done in time... might not... Maybe weld up the exhaust to do away with a few dozen exhaust clamps... that all leak Make a mount for the tube doors Make up high lift mounts Clean up wiring to CB

So... I was out and about today and I hit a pot hole. Damn near shook the steering wheel right out of my hands!!! :eek: Pulled it over to stop the hellacious bucking only for it to return again once I got over 40 mph. Fortunately, somewhere along the lines leather seats were swapped in... easy cleanup from the no doubt new skid marks on the driver's seat. It did this in the past when it was on the 33s that I got it with but those weren't balanced. Had a little shimmy form time to time since those went but never the dreaded death wobble! Took the back roads home to diagnose. Prior to this, I had the windshield replaced which was another ordeal. It's raining today... rain is bad for the tape that's trying to keep one's brand new windshield from popping out when they close their door. For whatever reason, the passenger side of the windshield kept popping up when the guy would try and seat it down. The tape kept piling up and it was looking like it was going to hold. The passenger side wiper arm wasn't put back on in hopes of trying to keep the tape where it belonged... it didn't help. Once things got a little wet not even a block down the road, everything came falling apart. I turned it around and the guy was trying to figure out what to do. Granted, I could only get one on and still drive so the other one went on once I got home, but ratchet straps for the win! It's still chilly this weekend so I'll just leave them there for now. The wife and are taking off for a wedding this weekend, so by the time we get back on Sunday it should be more than fine. Anyhow... the track bar... I was the only one home this afternoon so I got a little creative with the camera. Moved it from joint to joint on the steering looking for movement... nothing. Moved it to the track bar... bingo. About a quarter inch of play at the bracket. The bushing is fine, so it got slightly reamed out to fit a 1/2" bolt. Even with an over sized bolt, the axle bracket was in bad enough shape that simply drilling it too out just wasn't doing to do it. Obviously, the sway bar mount wasn't needed... nor does most of even exist anymore! :laughin: If plating over the driver's side frame rail wasn't good enough, this sealed the deal that this Jeep will never see a sway bar ever again. Meh... So, here's where I'm at now. Everything is all cleaned up and everything ugly is now gone. Should be able to get it wrapped up this weekend yet. Isn't all that big of a deal, really... just unexpected. Make up a steering box brace Swap in another drag link Change oil in the diffs Change motor mounts Start and finish the rear fender flares Fix drain plug in the oil pan Get windshield replaced Update OHV registration Maybe weld up the exhaust to do away with a few dozen exhaust clamps... that all leak Wire in the wireless winch control module Make a mount for the tube doors to keep them secured somewhere inside Change out the radiator Brakes Rebuild track bar axle bracket... newly added.