Jessica My Little B...tch

[JoeLAW]

24 minutes ago, 89 MJ said:

I do! One of these years I’ll need to head up to EJS with my MJ

Thanks much! And yes man, you definitively have to go! Yes it is expensive, yes it is hectic, yes it's quite the adventure just getting there, but it is sooo worth it. Heck, maybe next year, it will be the 60th anniversary  And who knows what might be in store for then. If you consider yourself a Jeeper I think it's one of those you absolutely gotta do at least once in your lifetime. 10 out of 10 recommend! 

[JoeLAW]

Well, this brings us to my last day of the 50th EJS back in 2016, "Big Saturday!" Which consists of all the trail groups getting together in between the main streets of Moab, and everyone leaving at the same time, making a big ol ruckus/parade through main street. It was a chilly morning, the buddy I took was feeling a bit tired and did not want to join me on this trail. So I was solo for this one, we had to meet next to the Tire Pros on Main St pretty early, and I think I was the 3rd one there. Here come the pics and captions to most of them.

 

 

This was our group line up, which was a nice assortment of mildly built rigs, 33" seemed to be the standard tire size, some looked smaller, a couple were a bit bigger but nothing to be nervous about like on the 1st trail I did.

 

 

While waiting there, I finally had a little time to check out this little crawler that was For Sale. Pretty weird build IMO, specially for how narrow those axles were. It almost seemed like they were copying a side x side chassis and putting solid axles on it. The axles were almost as narrow as a CJ-5 stock axle, sitting on 37" tires and the wheelbase of about a TJ I would guess. Neat that it had an Atlas T-Case and Cummins Diesel engine, not sure which one but it had the emblems and the engine had an injection pump. 

 

 

The trail I had signed up for was "Copper Ridge" we took off North on HWY 191 for about 10-15 maybe 20ish miles and got into the desert turning East getting on a couple of Dirt Roads, and eventually getting on the trail. It was a pretty big group, I want to say over 30 vehicles, so the leader was rushing a bit to keep the group rolling along and not waste a whole lot of time by stopping often. Once we got on a pretty large piece of slickrock we pretty much just snaked through it to make sure we regrouped. 

 

 

After that quick regroup we finally stopped for the 1st time, to stretch legs, the one's that didn't air down before it was their chance of airing down. At this point the trail was pretty fun OK views, hardly any obstacles but still entertaining. 

 

 

From there we were just navigating through mainly unmantained dirtroads. I was riding behind a YJ that was like a time capsule from the 90s 4" lift on 33s no lockers, nothing really special. It almost looked like they had taken it out from storage and took it out there. Full family inside of it, it really reminded me of my childhood since one of my uncles got a YJ on some sort of deal it was black, 4" lift, 33x10.5 R15 Super Swamper TSL SXs Rear lunchbox locker, 5sp, 4cyl. That little Jeep went through a whole lot of places it had no business being at. Anyways it was very fun following that little Jeep since the flex is very limited with leaf springs and having open diffs made the simplest climbs and little dried up creek crossings interesting for him. 

 

 

After the dirt roads we ventured into tighter more interesting trails. Ending at a place where there were dyno tracks! Which was pretty cool here are those pics.

 

 

After checking out the dyno tracks that was pretty much the end of the trail. We were quite a ways north on HWY 191 about 5 or 7 miles from I-70. So it was a nice drive back to town from there. This marks the end of my 50th EJS Experience. Hope you guys enjoy, now on to more tech and upgrade related posts.

 

 

 

 

[Pete M]

looks like a blast!  but then that landscape is always a blast.   (unless you roll over, which is bad)

 

I was bummed I couldn't do the trail with the tracks on it while I was out there.  

[JoeLAW]

Man time flies and life happens! We're now at October and I'm varely gonna do another update post to start and try getting this thread up to date.. Anyways as promised more tech related posts on here until I'm fully up to date!

Alrighty, after coming back from Moab for the 50th EJS, I drove Jessica around for about a month or so and decided it was time to change the Transmission filter, solenoids and kickdown cable. So I parked her and started getting some hands dirty on the process.

As per usual, first things first drain the tranny fluid, take of the oil pan, and check out stuff




There he was, there was very fine shavings on the magnets and the oil did look sparkly but nothing major at least not to my keen eye. The oil did look a bit more on the burn side though

 

Took off the old filter and solenoids, nothing looked out of the ordinary there except for just a messy job, it was now time to take off the old kickdown cable in order to install the newer HO longer cable on there. and for that I decided to drop the transmision a little lower. So I took out all the crossmember bolts and placed a jack under the transfer case to support all the weight and being able to control the height of the transmission.

 

 

After lowering the transmission it was time to remove the kickdown cable from its place in the tranny and since I had to install the new one and was not ready to drop the whole transmission to route it correctly I decided to attach a piece of 3/8" clear hose to the lower end of the cable and pull it through to the engine bay. So for when it was time to route the newer cable I'd have a bit of an easier time. And it worked!

 

 

Here's a pic of the difference in length from a Renix era cable compared to a HO era one, it's about a 1.5" difference, not much, but makes the difference.

 

This is when I routed the newer cable down to the tranny from the engine bay, my idea worked!

 

 

And this was the old tranny fluid when I took it to Oreillys to get recycled. Pretty burnt as I told you before. The filter and solenoid install was pretty straightforward so I decided to not document it, I just gave most of the exposed valve body a quick clean with brake cleaner and installed the new components along with new gaskets for the oil pan and filter. As for fluid I decided to go with the Valvoline High Milleage Dex Merc ATF, and a BG Products ATC Plus additive. After putting everything back together and checking levels I took it out for a quick spin and everything seemed to be working fine, once eberything was up to temperature I went up my local mountain pass to test out the new cable and everything improved, shift points were better on the powerband and the kickdown worked flawlessly.

[JoeLAW]

Well, it had been a while since I wanted to flip the u-bolts on my rear axle and eliminate the original lower plates where the shock originally attached to. Since it hanged so low and often got hit by rocks. As you can clearly see on this pic from when we were fabbing my sliders. 

 

The PO had welded some pins right at the middle of the axle tube, kind of the same style as the XJ, however the shock uptravel was very limited. So I remember seeing this picture on a magazine and decided to source the parts myself and get to it.

 

 

Of course I had to do a couple of custom shock mounts a bit higher up from the original lower plate but lower than what the PO had slapped on there. All the materials used on this project were old stuff my buddy had laying around and got repurposed, all but the actual "U-Bolts". 

 

 

 

As far as materials, we ended up using some leftover 3/16" plate and after measuring I did a couple of CAD (Cardboard Aided Design) templates and trimmed them to fit and then traced them on the plate and my buddy cut them off free hand with his Oxy-Acetylene torch, only to do minimal buffing around the edges to clean it up a bit. On the upper plate for the U-Bolts we used some leftover 5/16" thick "C-Channel" and drilled the holes on the wall of it for the U-Bolts to go through, and again free hand cut the semi-circles on the smaller walls for the axletube profile. And for the lower plate for the U-Bolts to rest on he had some leftover 3/8" thick plate which we cut to the leafspring width and then ground off a couple of groves for the U-Bolts to rest on and not slip in case of anything. Mu buddy welded the lower shock mounts on the axle with his old trusty gas powered stick welder along with a "5P Low hydrogen" stick to do minimal cleaning/buffing and prep since there was a lot of crud on the axle tube.

 

 

After getting the work done, I went straight to my local RTI ramp  to check for clearances and shock travel, and everything looked pretty good for just having it pretty much eyed out. Of course I took measurements but most of the idea was all in my head. And as makeshift as most of the items are, I pretty much used and abused that setup since May 2016 till October 2023 and only had one issue and that was that the lower shock bolt pictured got lost after an Overlanding trip I did around Southwest New Mexico. And on the pictures you can clearly see why, I used a regular nut and pressure washer, which I remembered saying I'll replace it with a nylon nut and better bolt, and completely forgot to do until I lost it lol. But I never had the U-Bolts slip or shift from their position, or the shock mounts detach or break from where we welded them in. 

[JoeLAW]

Well, after rocking that upgrade for a while there was a whole lot of little issues that started popping up and needing repair. First of which was one of the tranny cooler lines.. One of the original rubber lines to the original cooler started bubbling up, so I decided to replace both of them to avoid future issues down the road. Once I took them off they started disintegrating, and I was definitively glad that I decided to swap them out then.

 

 

 

After replacing that line, my header panel which was not on the greatest shape to begin with, decided to finally break in half.. I though it was funny and snapped a pic.

 

 

I patched it up a bit just enough for it to work, and put everything back together. Well, one Monday after a weekend of dirtbiking and playing out and about in the desert, I couldn't help but notice that my steering was feeling very sloppy, sloppier than usual. So after work I decided to check things out a bit closer, and upon further inspection I found a lot of carnage to the front steering components. A LOT!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the time I was rocking the Off-Road-Only / ORO U-Turn Steering system, which in all honesty works very well. However, Jeeps are not "Pre-Runners".  Well that weekend me and a couple of buddies were doing a little bit of everything, bombing through the desert, washes, whoops, and a little bit of crawling in between. I'm sure it was on a whooped out rocky section where most if not all of this damage happened. I ended up bending both tie-in plates that attach the knuckle to the 2 frontmost bolts of the unit bearing to attach the new tie rod to. I'm also pretty sure I bent both Inner "Cs" of the 2nd D30 I had installed on there (from a 86 XJ). Well while the tie-in plates gave and bent, the driver side knuckle did not give one bit and broke the tip off.. Not only that but when taking everything apart both upper ball-joints were completely shot. And the scariest part of it all, I completely and super cleanly snapped the front driver side brake line, and in the action somehow it crimped itself sealing/cancelling it completely. Scary stuff.... specially since I drove it like that back home.. There's a saying in spanish that says "Te puedes salvar de el rayo, pero no de la raya!" which basically means that you can save yourself from getting struck by lighting, but not from your time being here. Not trying to bring religion at all into this thread, but basically we all have a timeline and god decides when its time to go. Anyways here's a video showing one of the balljoints that was shot

 

 

 

Since it was still my daily driver at this point, I remembered I had saved a bunch of parts from the original axle including the knuckles and stock steering linkage, so I bought a regular rubber brake line installed the old knuckle back on threw the OEM brake line on bled the brakes and rocked it like that for a while till I saved money ordered new parts and got another front axle for it

 

 

 

 

[JoeLAW]

Well the time came for teardown and re-build. I want to say it took me about 3 or 4 months to get all the parts in and sorted.  My shot was to try and knock out a front axle swap along with welding an artec truss and "inner-C" gussets, plus installing a set of Alloy USA balljoints on a weekend (Or so I thought!  ) . The donor axle was a new to me D30 of a 94-95 XJ with the one piece pass-side axleshaft along with new seals (because I was tired of my leaky front diff.... For prep work I had already installed seals and bearings for the carrier, along with new unit bearings, well enough typing time for some pics!

 

 

Hover Mode engaged!

 

 

I had installed a Spartan lunchbox locker up front thinking it was going to help me out (Which it did) however I did not regear and kept my stock 3.55s on the 33s which were too high for rock crawling and slow wheeling, and this thing made auful popping noises, to the point where I was constantly checking my axle shafts thinking the u-joint might be broken or missing caps but it wasn't the case, it was just the locker.. So I debated throwing it back in the new to me axle, but decided not to the popping noises and uneven pulling specially at parking lots made me not like it... I still decided to take the whole axle apart and keep old parts because you never know! After taking the locker apart I took it to the bike shop I worked at and completely cleaned it with our parts washer. Afterwards I layed it on the table and saw the damage it had, minimal but still damage and on some weird sections of the locker if you ask me. I was glad I decided to run the new diff without it. I think I still have that locker laying around, just wating for someone to need it for parts or something. Here are the pics of that

 

 

 

 

 

The whole locker has some more tear than wear, however this part is the one that did not let me sleep good for a couple of nights, and to this day I still can't understand how that might've happened. And as you can see on the next pic, this only happened on one side of the locker.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see it's a bit to chewed up for my liking, but I bet it still works. Well on to more exciting parts of this post, time for the truss and inner "Cs" to strengthen the D30. Here I am putting my buddy to work once again! 

 

 

 

 

 

Pics of during and after the welding was done, my buddy told me it had a lifetime warranty on the materials, but the welds had a 12" driving distance warranty.  At the time we also welded some homemade skid plates for the LCA mounts at the axle out of some 3/16" plate he had laying around. And once he was done welding it was my job to clean up and prep for paint. I used the epoxy black paint you can get at Oreilys (it's a purple can) which requires minimal prep work and no primer, and I had liked the way it worked with the rocksliders we had previously built. 

 

 

And there it is sitting after paint, that day my friend with the black LJ came out to lend me a hand with installing the balljoints and some other shtuff that needed to happen

 

 

And there it is sitting still and pretty after a whole lot of work!

 

 

Old vs new, we were all curious to see if I had just bend the inner C or if the whole axle was happy, but to everyones surprise, I had only bent the driver side inner C. BTW this was the 2nd weekend of working on this and having my truck on my welder buddy’s driveway which even though he was cool with it it always puts pressure on me because who would like for someone else's junk to be sitting in your driveway all taken apart and hovering lol.. Anyways I decided to stick to it and finishing it that night. I remember it was winter time, and even though we live in the desert it gets very cold at times, even with no wind or any sort of precipitation. So I just sucked it up and kept on pushing to finally take my junk of his driveway.

 

 

I remember taking this pic and it was like 11PM closer to 12AM and all I had left to do was putting the tires and ORO tie rod back on, sometimes you just gotta keep pushing through it in order to get it done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Afterwards I took it to get some fresh gas in her, and then took her on a little cruise through the desert to test it out and try and see how the new suspension upgrades felt and performed. I will post more about those little upgrades on the next post. And I sure hope these posts help someone out in the future. 

 

 

 

 

 

[JoeLAW]

Allrighty in order to keep bringing this thread up to date, I gotta keep posting! This next post is a bit less techy, and more little upgrades that I'm sure will help someone in the future.

 

So, the little suspension upgrades I ended up doing when I did that front axle swap, where a set of hand-me-down 6.5" lift coil springs for a TJ, and a set of Chevy drop shackles from autozone. And while both were very easy to install, the shackles did need some minor mods in order for them to fit properly on the frame and leaf spring. 

 

Let's start with the coil springs, these came out of my friends TJ, that ended upgrading his to the Metalcloak dual rate coils when they 1st came out. He gave these coils to my other buddy with a TJ, and then he upgraded to coilovers up front, so he handed them down to me and I put them to good use. These were a Rustys brand, and heavily used ones too, but surprinsingly plus comparedto the Rough country's that Jessica hada on there when I purchased her. They were just slightly taller than those coils (i'll put pics below) but it ended up lifting it about 1-1.5" more up front. With that being said I kep the 1-3/4" spacers I already had on there, and kept the shocks as well since it was only about a 1" difference and it ended up working out pretty well. I took lots of pics of measuring of the spacers and shocks extended and collapsed lengths for future reference, and it helped out a lot, this new gained height almost nearly made the rear match, and those shackles from autozone made the difference, and matched it to the T which was a pretty cool budget find to essentially lift Jessica about 4.75-5" more less. Here are the pics..

 

 

 

1" Difference on the coils springs

 

 

 

Shock extended length 

 

 

 

Collapsed length, varely noticing they were a 10" travel shock, which in all honesty performed very well throughout the years specially for how cheap they were.

 

 

 

 

Now on to the rear, unfirtunately I forgot to take side x side comparison pics with the Rough Country shackles, and the Chevy Drop shackles, but they were about 1.5-2" longer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took pics of the box for future reference in case I ever broke one, or whatever might happen to one, specially since these were not made for off-road use, and were significantly thinner metal than the Rough Country ones. Surprisingly though, I put those shackles through a bunch of use and some might say abuse and they were still doing fine. after 8 plus years of running them. 

 

However I did have to basically trim the width of the bushing in order to make them fit into the frame, and also had to drill em out to a bigger diameter in order to fit the bolt through it as well. And I ended up doing a mix of drilling the hole on the bushing sleeve bigger, and also sanding down the bolts a bit with a grinder and flap wheel. (I know I know, not recommended at all, but I never had any issues what so ever.) I also had to drill out the holes on the lower part of the bushing in order to fit the bolt through. But that was it, for I think they were $40 at the time, you can't beat the lift and benefit out of them. Here is a little collage I did of before and after these little suspension upgrades.

 

 

 

[JoeLAW]

After those little upgrades, of course I had to take her to my local RTI ramp. However one day the opportunity to get a set of Truck-Lite headlights popped up, and I went for it! I honestly can't remember how much I ended up paying for them but it was something like $200 or so, from a kid that was parting out hiss XJ since he blew the engine or head on it.. He was actually building it up real nice, but since that happened he lost all the steam on his project and started selling a bunch of parts off of it, and I ended up snatching the headlights which are still on there right now, and in all honesty they are a damn good upgrade! Here are the pics of the lights when I 1st got em.

 

 

 

Here come the pics of the flex test, but I just remembered that while doing this whole axle swap suspension upgrade, I lengthened my adjustable short arms, stretching the front axle about 1.5-1.75" forward from stock. Which made it handle so much better, and perform even better when wheeling. Only small issues I had with it being that way was the Core 4x4 Trackbar bracket hitting the artec truss at full compression, which could've been fixed by extending the bumpstops a tad bit which I never did in order to try and get as much active suspension travel on it as possible. The other issue I had, was that the bumpstops from the coil tower were rubbing against the coil spring on the back part of it, so I thought of a quick fix for it by using the winch to pull it forward by looping the cable around the bump stop at the coil tower, and hooking it to the "D-ring" at the bumper. Did a couple of pulls on it and voila no more rubbing against the spring.

 

 

 

 

 

After getting that done, we had to go stretch its legs and test it out! And she performed flawless, we ended up doing a bit of mild fast desert cruising, dune riding, and rockcrawling. And no more rubbing with the coil spring, and only bottomed out up front and hitting the trackbar bracket with the truss.

 

 

[JoeLAW]

After these set of repairs and upgrades, the truck was running great! Not much more was needed so lots of wheeling was done! One of those outings I was able ot get 3 Comanches together for it and we had a bunhc of fun. Here comes a set of pics of different trails and shenningans that I did.

 

 

 

 

 

These were taken at one of our local trails called "Juando Pass" in Anthony, TX

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These were taken at another one of our "Localish" trails in Dona Ana, NM just a tad bit north and east of Las Cruces, NM. Actually just called the "Dona Ana Trails". There's a little bit of everything out there, from MTB/Hiking trails, to dirtbike single track and SXS stuff as well. On the Jeeping trails most of them are done with any stock 4WD vehicle, however you might get some scratches on your bumpers and depending on your ground clearance the belly of the vehicle might get scratched up but nothing too hard, however the obstacles while not hard they are pretty spooky at times like that video above. Very off camber and steep stuff, like I said at times, not always. I always looked at these trails as an introduction to Moab, since there's a lot of parts on the trail that are almost like slickrock.

 

 

 

 

 

These were taken at our local sand/mini dunes spot which is simply known as "Red Sands" on the eastside of El Paso, TX were I used to go ride dirtbikes with a bunch of good friends, unfortunately that group kept getting smaller and smaller until it finally died.. Also that whole desert area on the far eastside of El Paso got plagued by SXS which made it very unsafe to ride out there, heck even just taking a leisure drive down there can get hairy at times. Still a fun place to get a little bit of everything though, Sand/Fast Dirt Roads/Rockcrawling, and Mud (When it rains) if you're a fan of that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally this set of pics were taken at the trail system at the Prehistoric Trackways National Monument, on the West end of Dona Ana, NM. And just like the trails on the eastern Dona Ana there's a bunch of hiking and biking trails, along with a bunch of really good rockcrawling trails. That trail system was actually cut by the Las Cruces 4WD Club, which started the Chile Challenge even back in the mid 90s. This year was actually the 30th Anniversary and I was fortunate enough to be asked to be a volunteer and help out lead a trail, it is now held at Caballo Lake, NM about 30-40mins further up North from Las Cruces. Anyways, back on to a bit more tech/upgrade stuff.

 

 

 

[JoeLAW]

Well, after all that wheeling it was time to get my LED strips that I used as rock lights replaced. I ended up ordering those new ones from Amazon, and they actually worked pretty well for about 5 years, until they slowly started failing. To this day though I still have I think 4 out of the 8 still working just as good. Here are the pics.

 

 

 

 

 

Old and dull, I think out of the 8 I originally used only 2 were working, and I ordered them from a "reputable" site/brand how I rather not mention.. Originally the job was easy but very very laborious, this 2nd time it was the same process just a tad bit easier since I did not have to run wiring again. But as with anything the work is in the prep, not the actual labor of installing the lights oh well, enough talk.

 

 

 

 

These were the new LED strips, which I haven't been able to find the same exact ones...  I found some similar ones but they were not that good..

 

 

A little side x side comparison of old vs new, completely unmatched!

 

 

 

 

Pics of the new lights wired in and just hangin lighting up the floor for a test before putting them up. I used 3M double sided tape to stick them up under the body at different parts, 2 right on the bumper, 2 on basically on the floor under your feet, 2 at the little lip of frame right by where the gas filler neck is at, and 2 on the lip of the frame at the rearmost location above the leaf spring hanger. Everywhere I put them I had previously grinded off any sort of paint and under coating and given it a fresh coat of epoxy black paint to stick the double sided tape to. \

 

 

 

 

 

And final pics of them installed, they were pretty bright, so much so that you could actually see the lit up floor even with my friends garage lights on, when with the previous ones you couldn't even tell they were on.

[JoeLAW]

Allright, after getting those new rocklights installed, me and my buddy decided pretty much last minute to go to Moab for EJS once again this was back in 2018, so I called in for work that week, and we prepped our Jeeps Monday, and took off on Tuesday. The whole drive up there started by being cloudy, then when we got to Los Lunas, NM to cut to I-40 on HWY 6 and the weather got real, real quick.. Well I'll start posting pics and telling the stories about it. 

 

 

This is when we stopped after Los Lunas, NM. I remember going through there and there was a bunch of police cars on both sides of the HWY and a bunch of crime scene tape blocking down the entrances to the gas stations as soon as you got on HWY 6. So we kept chuggin along and stopped at a wide enough spot on the side of the HWY to put a couple of tarps over our camping gear, since these clouds looked very menacing. [Also, a little backstory on that black LJ, that is my friends LJ that I mentioned on a previous post on this thread back when it was a baby with 31" tires. My buddy had finished doing the 1ton swap on his I want to say about a year before this pic. And since we decided last minute to go on this trip it did not give us enough time to plan accordingly and try to get a truck and trailer to tow the rigs up to Moab, so we literally just winged it, and he drove his LJ there wheeled it (We ran a bunch of trails along with Pritchett Canyon on it) and drove it back home (10hr drive one way) with not a single issue on the whole trip.] And yes since we decided pretty much the day before to go, we did not have any reservations or anything planned at all so we were gonna be camping. Adventure! right.. 

 

After we took off from this site, it didn't take 20mins of driving when all of a sudden we got hammered with hail, and then a mix of hail and rain for about 40mins or so, but we were not stopping 1 because we had to get to Moab, and 2 there was absolutely nowhere to stop! Once we got on I-40 it was raining and got pretty cold, and then all of a sudden the rain turned to snow, and here we are a little MJ and an LJ on 39" BFG Race Tires that were trophy truck take offs trying to stay alive in between a non-stop parade of semis passing us at I want to say 70 while we were trying to stay alive doing 60-65... Thankfully we made it to Gallup, NM were we filled up our tanks and kept on heading north. Where the weather finally started clearing up. 

 

 

I wish I could remember where this pic was taken, but I honestly can't.. However both me and my buddy were having about the same gas mileage, I think I was getting pretty close to 14MPGs and he was getting somewhere in the range of 12-13MPGs and most of the drive from El Paso, TX up to I want to say Shiprock, NM was pretty windy more headwind than anything but all directions throughout which made me a believer of the 1ton axle swap.

 

 

The obligatory Welcome to Utah photo op with your rigs! Seeing this sign as you're driving in never gets old. Even the times we don't stop to take a picture.

 

 

We ended up getting to Moab at around 3-4PM, and the 1st thing we did was go to the car wash to wash off whatever salt might've been on the road and whatever debris we might've accumulated on the road while driving on all that rain and snow. Afterwards we went for a nice lunch/dinner and a couple of drinks at the Moab Brewery. We then took off on Kane Springs, Rd to find a campsite for the night. We found a private one with a bunch of RVs and people camping in a bunch of spots and we decided to spend the night there, and the view the next morning was pretty good, which is where I took this pic.

 

 

 

As per usual I decided to warm up by running Hells Revenge with my buddy and we had an absolute blast! We ended up doing all the optional obstacles on his LJ except for the Devils Hot Tub, which was full of water and other fluids.. His LJ did almost everything with ease, except for Escalator were we ended up scratching his passenger side rear upper part of the cage thanks to me trying to spot and record video at the same time, but we got him on the right line and got him up it like nothing. I gave Hells Gate my 1st shot ever and failed miserably, having to be pulled out by a 16-18year old girl.. Talk about being humbled  . Afterwards, I showed Potato Salad Hill to my buddy were he crawled up the easy line like nothing, and then we tried the mid line and struggled a bit, but still made it up no problem.

 

 

 

On Thursday we decided to go to the vendor show, which is when most of the vendors and dsiplays are there, and when we were ready to go I found another Comanche on the parking lot and decided to take some pics of both MJs together. 

 

 

We then decided to go up to Area BFE and check it out. At this point Jessica had scared me a couple of times, once at the vendor show, where she wouldn't start at all, and then again up at BFE where again, there was nothing.. So I decided to park it and ride with my buddy to go check out "Helldorado" . We got pretty close to the entrance, and right at the gatekeeper there was 2 Jeeps already broken in the middle of it, when then a group of buggies showed up and crawled around the broken Jeeps, and we decided to hike the trail and see how these buggies navigated through it. Needless to say it was a bitchin and humbling experience at the same time. Bitchin because we actually saw some vehicles go through it, and humbling because we though that once you put 1ton axles under anything you feel invincible and you might be, however your bodywork will take a toll. Helldorado is a no-joke trail, where body damage is guaranteed even if it's a buggy! Friday we ended up running about 1/3 of the Steelbender trail, and then opting to get out to get back into the Spanish Trail Arena in time for the raffle, which we won nothing.. And Saturday we ended up running Pritchett Canyon, and that is a badass trail!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JoeLAW]

After yet another succesful Moab trip, it was a quiet couple of months, just driving Jessica as a daily. Till we went out to a local-ish trail near Alamogordo, NM in Tularosa, NM called "Coyote Canyon". Which is a pretty fun moderate trail where a stock rig can go through, but more built stuff can have fun as well, and at the end of the trail you used to be able to drive right up to a couple of small waterfalls with a lot of running water. Sadly this last part of the trail is no longer accessible by vehicle, since as per usual people started trashing the place.. You can still get to the falls, but now you gotta hike to get to them. I had a friend visiting from Colorado, and we decided to hit it up right before it got too hot in the summer. And here are some pics my friend took of that outing.

PS: This will be a 2 or 3 separate postings post since all of the photos were taken with a high quality camera. Anyways hope you enjoy this post.

 

I had a friend riding with me, because he flat-towed his YJ with his big diesel truck, and somehow someway along the way he ended up bending the front driveshaft turning it into a big bow (I wish I would've taken a picture at the time..) so he and his pup ended up riding with me in Jessica. This is a pretty muddy trail, since there's always a small stream of water running through the canyon. Needless to say, Jessica ended up getting the interior trashed, but this was not the only adventure we were running into. 

 

 

This was my friends buddy that came down from Northern NM to visit, he had more people riding with him and they had a great time.

 

 

At one part of the trail I was backing up to get positioned better to climb a small ledge/rock and at a point I thought I was good but just needed to reverse a bit more. And that's when all of a sudden my rear end just slipped and I fell into this pretty deep puddle. In a way I'm glad I fell in, and fell in while backing up instead of someone else trying to go straight through it because more than likely someone could've sucked water to the engine judguing by how deep that puddle was. Anyways, here are more pics of the stuck, and getting unstuck part of it.

 

 

This is it for this post, I'm guessing this outing will be a 5 or more posts because of the heavy files I am attaching

 

 

[JoeLAW]

 

That's a 33" tire that's fully submerged, and at the time I want to say the corner submerged was about 44-45" from the ground sitting level. And I knew it was not touching the bottom yet, that's simply where it was able to stop.

 

 

 

Well, to get out of it I decided to give it a try in 4L and pretty much just going for it, I figured worst comes to worse, I'd either get tugged out, or use the winch. Thankfully she was able to get out on it's own and honestly wasn't even that bad to get out. It did spin tires for a tad bit, but then it got traction and pulled right out of it.

[JoeLAW]

 

 

 

More pics of the extraction, funny how at the time I wished someone would've taken video, thankfully my friend took these pics of it and now I appreciate them more than I would a video.

[JoeLAW]

 

 

 

This pics give you a better Idea of how submerged it was, pretty deep for how harmless that puddle looked on the 1st picture 

[JoeLAW]

 

 

This was right after we got out, we had to go check the damages, thankfully not even a light bulb popped during the whole incident. 

 

 

And of course I had to do the poser pic after a victorious extraction. 

 

 

[JoeLAW]

 

This was after going up the canyon, and where we started to head towards the falls. 

 

 

Here you can see the falls in the background after we had spent some time there and had a little picnic of our own. 

 

 

And this was a pic of the complete group, which I think it was the perfect size. My friend from Colorado who took all of these pics was driving the Tacoma, which did amazingly well. I can't remember if this was before or after he put a long travel kit in it. Needless to say it ended up being very bitchin, king bypass shocks front and rear along with king coilovers in the front and long travel deavers under the the axle in the rear with ARB lockers F&R.. Pretty bitching build.

[JoeLAW]

 

 

 

And this is the last set of pics, on the exit of the trail. This water crossing is the same water from the falls, which makes it truly an oasis in the middle of the desert. With this post we finish that outing to Coyote Canyon

[89 MJ]

When my MJ comes down here, I might have to PM you to get the locations of these trails or put a little trail ride together. This looks like a blast!

[JoeLAW]

Absolutely man, I was actually eyeing out Tucson, for our next wheeling trip, not sure when we'd head there but hopefully soon enough

[JoeLAW]

After that outing, it was summertime! And that means heading up to our closest biggest watering hole, which is Elephant Butte, NM. I always tagged along with a couple of buddies who had boats and jet-skis and headed out there on Jessica which is about a 2hr or so drive, not bad really. And thankfully I had no issues on none of those trips up there. I took all my camping gear and lots of coolers up there every time pretty much as if we were gonna go wheel. Pics to follow..

 

 

This was the 1st of I think 3 trips or so up there that year. I took off Friday night after work and got there usually past 10PM, but thankfully my buddies already had a camp spot in the beach with the boats and a couple of RVs

 

 

 

Of course I had to take pics of Jessica in the water, since it's not its natural element really. All in all, this lake/reservoir has been a pretty cool spot for years, by letting you camp at the beach, and even on busy weekends, as long as your not doing stupid stuff Rangers don't usually bother you.

 

 

My buddy asked me to help him tow his Jet-Skis back to a storage yard where he stored them for the season, getting there was multiple trips for him, and it was nice to be helpful, which also made for a cool pic.

 

 

This was another frind's RV and his pops 5ton Military truck which he lends us in order to be able to park the big RV pretty much anywhere we wanted to on the beach.

 

 

This pic was taken in the 2nd or 3rd trip up there for the season, the water was really low this time, and "Islands" of solid rock surfaced from the water, so I took one of my best buds with me and told him to spot me at times, whenever it got a little hairy or when I couldn't see up front because of the hood.

 

 

Same part but pic taken from the front of the truck

 

 

 

 

This has been one of my favorite pictures of my truck, so much so, that I ended up getting stickers done with it. I need to go now and take another pic in this same spot now that the truck has changed a bit.. hehe

 

 

I kept descending from the 1st hill and saw that I could go to a lower island, so I decided to keep going, because you never know when it'll be as low as it was that time.

 

 

This is when things started to get low and narrow, a bit sketchy but not bad, let's keep going! Also, a couple of other Jeeps saw me and went to that 1st hill, but did not try to go to where I was goin next, and you can see one of them in the background.

 

 

Not gonna lie, at this point I was a bit nervous, I sent my buddy walking to see if it was wide enough, and he told me to keep going.  Thankfully he took pics in the process of crossing through there, you can see a man fishing from his boat and he was maybe 200-300ft away from us. 

 

 

Heading up to this point, I was second guessing my decisions..  Wondering if there was gonna be enough space for me to turn around where this little island ended, too late now! 

 

 

Here you can see the other Jeeps trying to follow, but they did not climb to the top of the 1st hill and turned around when the saw the warning buoy floating there. From this point you can see why I was nervous to pass through there, becasue in my mind, there was to cliffs on both sides of where the buoy is floating.

 

 

Thankfully at the top of the 2nd hill, it did widen out enought for me to be able to turn around. Also, you can see the fisherman getting close to that 1st hill, which means it had to be at least a couple of feet deep (or  more) for him not to hit his prop.

 

 

 

And now that I had my fun and little photoshoot, it was time to head back to the beach, and back to camp. To see if my other buddies had waken up, since the partied pretty hard the night before 

 

 

On this pic you can see where the rock ends or dissapears from both sides on that narrow and low spot. And the guy on the Jet-ski hauling butt in the background. Needless to say it was a neat little adventure with some cool light wheeling done right in the lake. I should've taken at least a screenshot on my phone in google maps to see how the satellitle photo looked when I was on those rocks... Oh well hopefully there'll be a next time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JoeLAW]

Sooo, during that time I inherited another project. My uncle's old CJ-7, this is the Jeep that introduced me to actual Jeeping, Rock crawling, and long distance multiple day expeditions. My dad had always been into off-roading, because he used to go to a ranch and the only way to get there was via dirt roads, he then got into hunting, which eventually led him to off-roading, just like many of the oldschool off-road enthusiasts out there. He got my uncle into it back when I was basically a newborn, and then my uncle saved his pennies and bought this CJ-7. I think he bough it back in 1996 or so, and went through the whole process of building a Jeep, a 4" lift, 33s, then lockers, headers, better gear ratios..

 

This was pretty much a couple of months after he bought it, that's me in a white T-shirt playing in the dirt with my cousins

 

 

 

 

 

Until he decided to go to the "Chile Challenge" event back in the year 2000, and he saw the light. I mean that event at the time was a pretty famous event that brought people from all over the states. I remember meeting people from Louisiana, Alabama, North Carolina, California, Colorado, Arizona... I used to read most of the off-road magazines that were available at the time, and I remember when we were at that event that was my first time seeing a "Super Swamper Bogger Tire", and then I spotted "Rick Russells yellow scrambler", we keep waling checking out rigs by campsites and I see "Rick Pewe" then out of nowhere I see "The Scorpion" buggy, which was the 1st of its kind, and at the time, he had come out on "Top Truck Challenge" from the "Four Wheeler" magazine. So for me it was a mind explosion event, because all of a sudden all these things that I have been watching on magazines are real and tangible. After that event, he went full on and we pretty much took the whole Jeep apart to make it a badass machine.

 

This is a picture from that date in the "Broad Canyon" trail up in the north end of Las Cruces/Dona Ana, NM. Back then they used to run the even in February, so it was cold and windy, that's me again in the flannel jacket. 

 

I remember the 1st day of wheeling, we went to a trail called "Off Broadway" which is kind of Northwest from Cruces, but waaaay out in the middle of nowhere on part of what used to be "Corralitos Ranch" and that day, we ended up bending the tie rod real bad by smashing it directly into a rock. So we straightened it out as best as we could with a winch, and then took one end off and slid the handle of the hi-lift jack on top of it to keep it from bending, because it was now acting like a leaf spring, and instead of turning the wheels it was flexing. 

 

This was the crew that went on that trip. That's my dad wearing green, our cousing next to him, my uncle sitting on top of his Jeep, me next to him, then a very good friend of ours from Monterrey, Nuevo Leon Mexico his nickname is "El Potro" and he is now pretty famous in the scene all over Mexico and South America look him up "ElPotro4x4". Next to him is our cousins very good friend, who is still Jeeping, and hopefully we can go on a trail together soon.

 

 

Right before we tore it apart, we went out to the dunes for a quick stroll, because our cousing was in town, both our cousin and his good friend tagged along on that outing. And there was a 3/4ton 1989 or so Ram that came with us, but that truck was so heavy, that it was getting stuck almost everywhere out there in the sand. Well, on one occasion he got stuck and the truck started to overheat, so he told us to wait for it to cool off before we started pulling it out again. My uncle saw this little dune, and thought hey, maybe I can jump the Jeep there, let's give it a try, are you down Joe? Of course I did not say no, I grabbed on tight to the "Oh $#!&" handle, and we let it rip! Sure enough the Jeep caught come air, then our cousins buddy told us, "Hey do it again, but let me try and take a picture" so without hessitation, we went back and jumped it again, and again, and again.. We must've jumped it at least 5 times, and then I told my unlce that maybe we shouldn't push it, because something might break. Thankfully nothing broke, and nothing bad happenned, we pulled the truck put and started heading back to civilization.

 

 

Well like I said after this event my uncle went full frame off resto-mod/with wheeling in mind per say. And we reinforced the frame, swapped the original axles to Dana 44s from a Scout, swapped in a Chevy 350 with TBI Fuel Injection, did an onboard air system from the A/C compressor, better brake booster, installed a 4:1 ratio on the T-Case.. I mean at the time, it was a pretty badass build. And hand in hand with him our good friend El Potro, bought a brand new Jeep Cherokee XJ, and brought it straight to Roger Little in Chaparral, NM for him to soup it all up as well, by installing Dana 44 axles with gears, lockers etc.. A full cage and a whole lot of other upgrades. Remember at the time 35s were the big tires, and that's where they were heading to with their builds, and this whole post is revolving around that fact. Both of them ended up competing in some sort of Rally in Mexico, and the Jeep actually came out in a couple of magazines, mexican magazines of course. Anyways here are the pics of what in ended up looking like after all the mods.

 

This picture was taken at the Samalayuca Sand Dunes, in the southern part of Juarez Chihuahua Mexico, thats me in blue, and my uncle on the roof, the older gent talking to my uncle is none other than Jim Huff, who did the flat fenders up front and cut the rears up to the max without doing major body mods. 

 

My uncle had 2 sets of wheels and tires, one was a set of 35" BFG Mud Terrains KM (At the time) on regular steel wagon wheels, and the other (which you see on this pic) was a set of 35" x 14.50 Super Swamper TSL/SXs on Eaton beadlock wheels. Again, this was at the time, when beadlock wheels were barely being made available to the general public.

 

These next set of pics are general pics from the magazines when it came out competing on that Rally, and also on a Mexican Jeep Jamboree before the mods

 

 

 

 

Now, on to why I am posting this here, one day my uncle was visiting, and I asked him what had hapenned to the Jeep, and he told me it was sitting in Juarez in an old warehouse. He tried selling it, but at the time he tried to do so, the Jeep was a little outdated, and nobody wanted to pay him what it was worth. So he pretty much abandoned it.. He told me if you want it it's yours, you just gotta go pick it up, and then he said those famous words "it was running perfectly before I parked it"... So I said heck yeah I'll go get this Jeep, and what was gonna be a weekend of getting it running and driving to be able to cross it to the states, turned into a month of going down there every weekend to get the bugs sorted out and what not...

 

 

 

I found the Jeep sitting outside of the warehouse, who knows how ling it had been sitting there under the sun.. 3 of the 4 tires were flat and dry rotted, I had to look for 2 more spare tires, he ended up having another suuuper old but not dry rotted 35 inside the warehouse, and then I bought a 33" whatever that I found at a local tire shop.

 

 

 

 

 

However that was the easy task though, I'm not sure why, but the fuel pump was not working, and I didn't know in what condition the gas inside the gas tank was, the engine turned over, and the oil looked old but not bad. So I ended up rigging a 5gal jug with a click clack electric fuel pump and hooking up the line with an inline filter directly to the TBI. Very ROADKILL style.. Well after rigging that up, I decided to go on a test drive, and guess what, it did not last very long, I was maybe 5 blocks away from the warehouse when all of a sudden it died.. I went to check everything, thinking my line had maybe kinked, or slipped off, but no all that was ok. I then went to check the Jug, and it was empty... I was in awe, I couldn't believe that V8 sucked 1gal per block! So, since I had 2 jugs, I switched the line to the other one and headed back to the warehouse to yet again, check things out and keep planning.

 

This is where it let me stranded... 

 

Well, after I went through 15g of gas, I found why the Jeep was so thirsty. I left it running for a while and then all of a sudden gas started coming out of the fuel cap by the original filler neck. I turned it off, and saw that it had a return line, the clacking pump I rigged was pumping more gas than what it needed! I un-rigged my roadkill setup, and the original pump started working again, I guess it was just dry... Well once I figured that out, I drove it across the border and left it in a buddies business parking lot. I then trailered it to his place where he's storing it for me. 

 

One day, another mutual friend was selling his used 35" Goodyear Kevlar MTRs, which I'm not a fan off, but they were cheap, and in way better condition than the tires it had, so I snagged, them. He had them mounted on his ZJ, which had the 5x4.5" pattern, and before unmounting them I decided to slap em on Jessica real quick to see how it would look ride and handle. And here are the pics..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It looked so beefy and tough, I really liked how it looked, so I started planning for a longish term gear swap and locker install, along with some other upgrades..

 

Anyways back to the CJ-7 just till I finish this post then it's nothing but Jessica!

 

 

I dismounted the tires from the $#!&ty steel wheels, and did the whole swap the next day, got them mounted up on the CJ-7 and of course had to take it out for a spin!

 

 

And there it sat, the motor ran perfectly fine, and believe or not that leaf spring suspension is very nice riding, not hars at all, however it needs a lot of TLC, both driveshafts basically need to get redone, the transfer case linkage is pretty much gone, the steering box is a whole mess on its own.. and the brakes fade really bad. But at least I was able to get it on this side of the border, and it drove under it's own power! 

 

 

 

So I had to introduce them, and we took them out for a quick little stroll to the desert, but plans for it is a re-gear because it's on 3.73s, I want to fix all the small issues it has, and during the process get rid of that front bumper and install something a bit nicer, upgrade the headlights to LED units, re-install the light bar and put another 4 KC lights on it, and I really want to put it on 37" tires with beadlocks. But all that work got put to the side, because bigger plans were ahead.

 

PS: I got rid of that roof mounted pipe for the spare, I hated how that thing looked even with the full size spare on top, plus, weight on top is never good when wheeling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[neohic]

Hell yeah! CJ content!! 

[JoeLAW]

Well, back on to more MJ stories.. This next post will probably take a series of 3 posts.

 

Back in January 2019,  I decided to hit up the "Roadkill Zip-Tie Drags" in Tucson, AZ. I got on the road Friday night as soon as I got off from work, and started heading west on I-10. It was pretty windy during the day but it calmed down at night which was great for me. Right before getting to Lordsburg, NM, all of a sudden the winds picked up, bringing with them a bunch of tumbleweeds. A bunch of cars started swerving around them, I just ran straight through them. I stopped in Lordsburg to check for damages, and there was a only single tumbleweed stuck in between the tie rod and front diff. 

 

 

After that it was smooth sailing, with cooler temps, very little traffic and no wind. At a point I decided to find out how fast I could go on Jessica, and this is where I topped off at. 

 

 

After that I decided to keep it at 80, and just cruise.. I ended up getting to Tucson Dragway at around 9:30-10PM, and I just rolled straight in to the fire pit where everyone hangs out at, right across from where they displayed the roadkill vehicles on front of the Pilot Transport Semi. The only Roadkill car on display was the "Muscle Truck", and it was pretty dusty and crusty but still badass. 

 

 

 

After I finished checking it out, I went by the fire, and cracked open a beer. Then I started looking on the facebook even who was attending. I couldn't be the only one from my town there, and all of a sudden I realized a good buddy of mine was coming, so I texted him, and he turned out to be parking like 2 spots next of the Pilot Semi, with a whole crew of hot/rat rodders and enthusiasts from my town. So I asked him if I could setup right with them and sure enough, no issues at all I setup my tent, and kept on hanging out until it was bed time. 

 

 

That's his 06 Ram 2500 and his 55 Chevy Gasser in the back. 

 

Well, next morning the shennanigans began, turns out most of the crew that showed up with him were gonna be racing in the different classes, and ultimately in the battle of the beaters. Plus my bud and a handful of others took advantage of the open track to test and tune their rides. 

 

 

 

After these guys got their rides ready, I went to check out the rest of the Roadkill project cars. 

 

 

 

 

The General Mayhem, Draguar, Stubby Bob, were all there and at the time the Vanishing Paint Camaro had just been finished so it was it's kind of debut.. Needless to say all cars were cool, and what a lot of us that saw the shows that we thought there's no way the rigged that up that way, I can honestly tell you, they did... There was a whole lot of half-assed "roadkilled" stuff on all the project cars, but I really love they motto. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to work! Of course, there's stuff where if you plan it and you give yourself the time you can do a rather good job instead of half-assing it, but the main message they used to portray was "Don't wait until everything is exactly the way you want it to be", sometimes you have to drive your project and enjoy it a little bit, instead of stressing about it and leaving it on the back burner, because you want it perfect.

 

Anyways, there was a lot going on the day off the event. Most of the guys from the crew were going down the track all morning and early afternoon, until they stopped the session in order to start with the races. And one of the guys from the crew, which I became good friends with him and all of his crew from Holtville, CA ended up winning the race (The Rambler Guy), and has kept on winning it almost every time he goes. Needless to say it was a very good time, met a lot of good people, and the event in itself was super fun, lots of rides to check out, and now that they do it in October it's been growing. Definitely something to check out. This ended up being the group of guys (from the Hardnocks crew) that did the "Battle of the Beaters" that year.

 

(Except for my buddies 55, and the rat-rod)

Well, just like the event all good things must come to an end, not my trip with Jessica though. Adventure was about to begin! It was time to leave the track, I took a quick pic at the sign and started heading back East on I-10 towards the town of Tombstone, AZ. Since I had never been there but had passed through there a whole bunch of times. 

 

 

Once in Tombstone, I was very disappointed, or I guess I like more authentic stuff. The whole town felt and is a yuppie tourist trap town.. I mean sure, little kids would enjoy it specially if they're into cowboys the wild west and stuff, but the whole thing was just too fake for me.. So I was about to start heading to Bisbee, AZ, (which I also wanted to check out on this trip) when an older gent saw me walking towards Jessica and started asking me questions about it. So we chitchatted for a while, how one of his friends used to have one and what not.. And then I asked him what was he doing in the parking lot, and he told me he drove a bunch of execs of some company in PHX there, and I told him how the whole town felt like a cheap tourist trap and he laughed and told me to check out Gleeson, AZ which was just 20miles further east from Tombstone, and that was the real deal, pretty much a ghost town now, but the original jail is still standing and is now a sort of museum, which sometimes is open, and sometimes it's not. So I started heading there, and trying to hit as much dirt as possible on the way there.

 

 

This was where the asphalt ended and the dirt started. So I took this pic because of that, but also those reddish mountains you see in the background that right there is called the "Texas Canyon" and if you've ever travelled on I-10 east or west in between AZ and NM you pass through there and it's pretty bitchin rocks all over both sides of the HWY there's a rest area right on top of the pass, most people name it Dragoon Rd. because that's the name of the exit on the west side of it.

 

 

After a little while I got to the Jail, I parked right in front of it and snapped a quick pic, and then the owner of the jail and land arrived and was kind enough to let me check it out on the inside of it. Walking up to it, the 1st thing you see is one of the original cell doors, (There was only 2). Once inside, there was a bunch of random trinkets and artifacts of the era, along with old newspaper articles featuring stuff that had happened there, and old pics with captions from the owner. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These set of keys, were from all the locks and jails from Gleeson to Tombstone, and Bisbee.. 

 

Once outside there was a plaque, and the remains of a very old car with bullet holes. 

 

 

 

I then went to check out the ruins of an old general store, and the old hanging three, with the original cable still around it, where the tree had grown over it. Crazy to think that a bunch of people go hung from it, and they used to also chain them to the cable a couple of days before hangin them..

 

 

 

 

After checking that out, it was time to star heading south towards Bisbee, I asked the owner if he new if I could get there via dirt roads, and he told me that there was one I could take, but I had to go out all the way into a small hwy 1st, however it as just as far to head back to Tombstone and head down, than to go to that other hwy and get on dirt, so I did just that. I got to the little HWY, saw a gas station, filled up because you never know what might happen and started looking for that dirt road which I found, and at 1st it was graded and nice, and then it slowly started getting rougher and rougher with baby head rocks poking through and making the ride very bumpy.

 

 

Well, after it got really bumpy, I decided to air down to 15psi and as I was cruising down the dirt road all of a sudden I started hearing a timed hiss noise. So I turned down the volume on my tunes, and started listening, and sure enough.. My front driver side tire was hissing.. 

 

 

In all honesty, I was a bit excited that I got the flat because I got to use my new bottle jack that I would always carry, but had never used. So I parked it in a flat level surface, got my full size spare out, jacked it up, and swaped the tire. The flat one ended up being a slash that I had seen before after doing a harder trail in Las Cruces, NM but never leaked so I ran it. 

 

 

This is the spot were I changed the tire at, in the middle of nowhere with nobody around. However I was trying to do my best take on an original "DED-Dirt Every Day" style trip/adventure. More on the next post..