KJ in the badlands

[Incommando]

Took the KJ to the Badlands in Attica, IN yesterday. Good times. The KJ, even with only 31" tires, made a good impression. Why people are constantly shocked that the KJ is as capable as any similarly-sized-tire rig with comparable equipment is beyond me.

 

Crappy pics from cell phone:

http://www.ifsjeepers.com/phpBB3/viewto ... f=15&t=156

 

Not a big picture guy, so none of the hairier stuff got photographed.

 

If anyone who can go has not been to the Badlands yet, I highly recommend it. Lots of varrying terrain and good times.

[btm24]

well that looks like it was a bunch of fun! lucky! so did your break any thing?

 

Brandon

[mvusse]

Been there three times in my MJ. First time was bone stock on 29" tires. Second time was 4.5" lift but still same tires. Third time was 6.5" on 33" tires. Great times.

 

Go to Jeepskool now. It's just over an hour from home, so I go just about every month. About the same type of terrain (minus the rock quarry). Great family atmosphere, on site camping without ATVs running all over the camp ground.

 

And if I break down, 75 miles is a lot closer to home than 400 miles, although I have never broke down to the point of needing towed while wheeling yet. Just on the way there when I had a spectacular failure of a unit bearing and axle shaft on the freeway 20 miles from home. At least now I know I can lose a front wheel at freeway speeds without much of a chance of a rollover. It was as stable on three wheels as it is on four.

 

Still would like to check out Rausch Creek some time, and there are a few other places with legal trails in the vicinity that I had planned to check out this year, but somehow never happened.

 

Edit;

Oh, and there are a few KJs that come to Jeepskool every month as well. One is now planning a SFA swap and big tires, the others are staying stock.

[Incommando]

well that looks like it was a bunch of fun! lucky! so did your break any thing?

 

Brandon

 

No breakage for me, luckily. The 6spd in the KJ has a 5:1 first and gives my KJ a 47:1 crawl ratio even though the axle gears are only 3.55's. I think that decent crawl ratio ( same as an auto Tj Rubi) makes for less drama on the trail. And I get an honest to goodness 23MPG highway if I keep it around 70. A '96 Xj lost a unit bearing about 15 miles out on the way home....got it off the road before it came apart, but it had tons of play and was visibly wobbly. Lucky it did not seperate.

 

The Aussie in the rear is a great bang-for-the-buck. I kinda wish my MJ had an open rear... :D

[Incommando]

EDIT

 

 

I am the silver KJ. The camo XJ is a 5spd and has 33's and a 6" long arm lift and is locked front/rear. It is very capabale. The dark green XJ is auto on 32's with 4.5" of lift. The KJ's are both on 31's and 2.5" of lift. I have a 6spd and the bedliined KJ is an auto. The last three have rear lockers.

 

We all went up the stair case, where the dark green XJ is shown coming up and from the side. I am a bit too low and scraped up my rear driveshaft pretty good going up the top part that his front axle had just come up.

 

The height and the angle of the gravel hills is hard to judge from the pics unless you look in the background. Very steep. That gravel made the lockers necessary. It sucked you down and bogged the engine.

[btm24]

I can't veiw the pics :( :dunno:

 

Brandon

[87Warrior]

I don't mind the KJ at all. It would get more love if they came with a SFA. We will start seeing more and more of them on the trails as they become cheap to buy, just like what happened to the XJ.

[Incommando]

IMHO, the XJ is the best bang for the buck in 4wheeling. They are reasonable to purchase and modify and can be very capable.

 

it takes a few years for a new model to show up on the trails in any numbers. Wranglers are the exception but too many Wrangler owners think there are no other 4x's but Wranglers.

[Incommando]

original link fixed

[btm24]

Thanks, That looks so very much fun. Yours looks really good :cheers:

 

Brandon

[Incommando]

Thanks. It is a fun jeep. And it it gets 23 mpg on the highway :cheers:

[boardmanMJ]

thoes pictures are awesome!!!!!! that looks like awesome fun!!! and thoes green XJs are immaculate!!!

 

i found some pictures of some libbys wheeling...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

thats me in the "challenges authority" shirt and thats my green ZJ. mvusse is the tall guy in the very last picture and off in the distance you can see his MJ. there were 3 libbys stuck in a line. the red one had the sunroof open and the silver one spun the tires and mud shot all into the red one. P.S. don't shop daveysjeep.com, they screwed me over big time on a comanche and this is an old picture so i still had the sticker in my jeep.

 

 

Josh

[Incommando]

I've never been a big fan of A/T's for just the reasons in those pics.

 

Are there some hills and stuff there, or is it mostly paths like in those pics?

[mvusse]

I saw Ed, Jason and Linda in the fifth picture and said "Jeepskool". Then I scrolled up to see who posted it. DUH! And only THEN did I scroll down to last one...

 

That is a muddy trail classified MM (Mildly Modified) they should never have been on. The Libbys were attempting to back out when one of them got hung up on a Y shaped log with one end of the Y getting extremely stuck on the passenger side lower A arm.

 

There's some nice hill climbs, a few rock crawls, wet trails with a rock bottom, sand dunes, tight twisty trails between the trees (but they get muddy after rain and can stay muddy for weeks afterwards), water pits with mud underneath, some hard core obstacles and an obstacle course the first half of which will challenge a stock rig, but the second half needs a somewhat built vehicle and a good spotter. So far it has swallowed a FS Bronco, a 4 door BIG Tracker (well, the body is a Tracker anyway, doubt the drivetrain is) and a built Samurai.

 

Also House34/Ed (guy in Orange hat) is in the planning stages of a SFA conversion with 35" tires and DonkeyKong/Mark (black T shirt standing behind me) has sold his Libby and bought a TJ (with a weak frame that broke on his first trip out).

[Incommando]

i can 100% assure that you will never find a KJ with a rusted frame... :D

 

Jeepskool is really not much closer to me than Badlands, and none of my buddies go there. That makes the trip up/back kind of a bummer. Haspin is closest and I am going there 11/20. I'd like to try Dirty Turtle in KY, too.

[mvusse]

Badlands is a blast. What I don't like is all the ATVs making noise in the camp ground, but have never gone the the one 7 miles away in case I break down. Planning to make it to Rausch Creek some time. Have not heard good things about Haspin Acres. The only people I know personally that have been there vowed to never go back.

 

There's a guy from the Lousiville area (actually, Clarksville, IN) who was at JS a few months back. Don't know if he's been back since. Also have people from MI, PA and WNY who show up regularly.