Jessica My Little B...tch

[JoeLAW]

After swapping the tire out, the sun started coming down rather quickly so it was time to keep on trucking! I checked how far away I was from Bisbee on google maps, and it said 30mins, however I was on a dirt road that I had never been on before, and I wasn't sure about the conditions on it.

 

Like I said before, middle of nowhere...

 

As I was driving further down the rd, all of a sudden I spotted this couch just sitting there, as if people would go there and hang out, but there was nothing there to see or do.. So of course I stopped and snapped a couple of quick pics. But right after it was time to head on out of there because I wanted to get to Bisbee before sundown.

 

 

After that I kept on trucking towards Bisbee, but not before stopping by Lowell, AZ which was actually featured in the 1st episode of Roadkill. It was kind of funny that I was trying to replicate what they did in that 1st episode but backwards and from Tucson, AZ back home. Specially since I had just attended and event by then and had just met the guys.

 

 

Well I got to Lowell, AZ, and man is that town something else, all in all it's just one street really but I felt like I was in the "Back to the Future" movie when Marty goes back to the 50s era. The whole town is filled with a bunch of americana, old cars parked on both sides of the street restored and unrestored, and a bunch of shoppes decorated with period correct artifacts and motorcycles, an d even some vintage gas pumps set up on the sidewalk for a cool photo op.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Right next to Lowell, is the "Lavender Pit" which used to be one of the biggest open pit copper mines back in the day, in reality the whole reason why both Bisbee and Lowell exist. The pit on its own is quite impressive, very very big, with a bunch of water at the bottom. 

 

 

From there, it was on to Bisbee, which is a mere 5-10mins away.. Bisbee on its own is a very cool town, there's a whole lot of different types of architecture all through town, and since it's nestled within the hills and mountain sides theres the way the streets run through town is not as you would expect. I got to downtown Bisbee parked and then waled over to the local bar where I had some dinner and a beer then I took a little timelapse video of driving through the main street all the way to the end of it. And where it ended I took a nice pic of the full moon with Jessica in between.

 

 

 

 

I remember that there was gonna be a Lunar eclipse that day, so I drove back to the Lavender Pit since it was a very wide and open area to check it out. Afterwards I headed down to Douglas, AZ to spend the night at a hotel. Since all the rooms in Bisbee were booked, and I didn't really plan to spend the night there. I wanted to camp out since I had all my gear with me, but I wasn't sure where it would've been ok to camp at, without being in a private property or just somewhere I shouldn't be.

 

 

 

 

[JoeLAW]

Allrighty, on to the next and final day of this trek. I woke up early and took off from Douglas, AZ to Lowell, AZ to grab breakfast at the Bisbee Breakfast Club, and guys the breakfast was amazing, those pancakes fluffy and humongous! From there, I wanted to take a last stroll through town and then start heading east back home.

 

 Bisbee Breakfast Club, highly recommend it!

 

Once I was done with breakfast I started heading back up to Bisbee, and on this timelapse video you can see how close Lowell is from the Lavender pit, and from Bisbee. Lowel, AZ is actually known as "Erie St." still in Bisbee. I drove straight through town to get this video right, and halfway up the road a backhoe got in front of me, of course heading up slower than traffic, and Jessica's temp started climbing. Since it was January, I was running just 1 fan on the ignition switch but since the temp was rising, I stopped and re-installed the fuse por my other fan. 

 

 

 

After that, the temp got controlled and then started climbing again, so I turned my 3rd fan on and stopped on the side of the road to take a quick pic and let it cool off.

 

 

From there, I kept on climbing till I got on the top of the tunnel from when you head into Bisbee from Tombstone.

 

 

There you can varely see the HWY in front of the front bumper, then from there I saw a dirt road that kep on heading up, so of course I had to check it out!

 

 

 

This is the video of me driving to the top, it was a lot longer than this though, and again Jessicas temp started rising, so I stopped there and opened the hood to let it cool off. From there, it was time to head back down. And here's the video of that!

 

 

 

On this little video I got down from the Antennas and got all the way down to the major HWY to pass through the tunnel, and start heading back home. Once back on the HWY I started playing "East bound and down" and kept on trucking! It was a bit breezy and the tumbleweeds started tumbling! There was soo many, that thankfully I was able to snap a pic of them crossing the road in front of me

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JoeLAW]

I ended up taking HWY 9 heading back east towards home instead of I-10, and I stopped at a couple of interesting points, but nothing too exciting really. One of them was were Geronimo surrendered, and the other one was were Pancho Villa attacked the US, there's a museum there as well, but it was closed by the time I got there. 

 

 

 

I did however find another really short dirt road that got you out of the hwy then merged again a bit further east, and right by the Continental Divide, so.. without even thinking about it I took it 

 

 

 

 

"It's just a desert!" But it's beautiful country.. 

 

 

And this is where the Pancho Villa State Park and little museum are at in Columbus, NM, about 1-1.5hrs away from home. Bringing this trip to an end, It's kind of hard to believe how much stuff I squeezed and was able to do in a 4 day weekend, hopefully this inspires someone to head out there and explore, you never know what can be close by, or even happening close to your home town. Whatever it might be get out there and do it!

[JoeLAW]

Well, after that trip there was nothing really exciting happening with Jessica. She was just being a reliable daily driver taking me to and from work about a 60mile round trip, and getting me out to ride the dirtbike on the weekends. Until one Sunday afternoon I get a call from a real good friend of mine (the one that spotted me while crawling those islands at Elephant Butte, NM). That he had gone to the Dona Ana mtns/trail system with him and a buddy both on side x sides, and that they got lost and got to a point where they could not get out, and one of them was about to rollover.

 

They needed a winch to get them out from where they were and since I was the only one he knew that knew the area and had a winch he called me, so there I went. Hauling @$$ on the FWY to get to them ASAP . Once I get to the entrance of the trail system out there, I start taking the dirt roads and trails to get to them, since he had sent me approximate coordinates of where they were at. Since it was the afternoon the sun started to come down, which would make things harder fro everyone, so I didn't even stop to airdown my tires.

 

Eventually I get to the coordinates he had sent me, and it was a very very steep hill, but I couldn't see them anywhere. I called him and thankfully he had reception he picks up and tells me that they're on the other side of the mountain where I was at. And basically in order for me to get to that side I had to go almost all the way back and then take different routes in other to get to them..  Oh well, you gotta do what you gotta do right, as I'm walking back towards Jessica I see that it's leaking oil from the rear part of the bed, which I found rather funny. I touched it and it was warm, and red, so right away I knew it was ATF. I started looking around for a leak from the tranny or cooler lines, only to find out on of the cooler lines at the cooler in the front behind the grill was rubbing against it and did a pinhole on it, leaking a bunch of oil... and since the hil was so steep, it was running all the way down the pass side frame rail to the rear bumper then dropping right at the back. 

 

 

 

This was after getting down from that steep hill, I had to get up on the side, because there was another vehicle passing through.

 

Thankfully I always carry a small roll of tranny cooler rubber hose, along with a spare radiator hose and much other misc stuff.. So I called my friend back and told him what was happening, to be patient but now I had to fix it if not, then we were all gonna be stranded out there. Well I got back to his truck and trailer, and then I realized I had no ATF with me, I had gear oil, anti-freeze, motor oil, but no ATF. So I decided to head all the way back to the closest gas station (Which thankfully is not that far away from where he had his trailer) in hopes that they would have some ATF on hand. Thankfully they did have 2 quarts which I bought, and headed back to his truck and trailer in order to get the job done..

 

 

 

That was after I parked the truck on top. So now it was teardown time, I took off the grill and header panel all together in order to ease the access to it.

 

 

 

 

And here you can see how much it had actually leaked and splatered back along the whole underside of the truck.. yuck!

 

 

On this pic you can clearly see where the tranny cooler line was rubbing against the grill.. I've since routed the hoses differently to avoid this type of problems... 

 

As far as my buddy and his friend, eventually someone else ran into them and helped them get out with no major downs, nothing but scratches. So basically this little outing helped me in finding out this weakness in Jessica.. No worries we've al been there for each other before.

 

 

[JoeLAW]

Since that outing, another friend of mine had told me he wanted to take me out to a new spot, which I had never been on, so there we went! I liked the fact that it was really close to home, and the scenery there was just rad!

 

 

 

This was on the dirt road to get in, which was pretty smooth. I stopped here because I just liked the way the ground looked, nothing but dirt, not a single rock in 40ft or so. 

 

 

 

And this was pretty much on the ridgeline of the mountains. You can clearly see I-10 from there and a lot further west. these mountains are north of Anthony, NM. From there we descended on to the other side of the mountains and headed back home

 

 

 

Those were the 3 little rigs that got out that day... I wish I would've taken more pics of that outing, because the scenery was pretty bitchin. 

 

 

[JoeLAW]

Well, after that I noticed that my K&N air filter was leaving the slightest film of dust on the inside of the intake tube, so I decided to order a UNI foam style filter, just like the one I use on my dirtbike to get cleaner air into the engine. 

 

 

This is a foam filter that you saturate with oil, and it was 3 foams in it, the red external foam that slides on to the main filter, then the main filter which is a finer foam, and another layer of even finer foam that is just lined on the inside of it. After installing it, of course I had to go test it out and where else but the dustiest trail/spot we have close to home. Killbournes Hole. Nothing but silt all over the place. So I invited my buddy that took me on top of the mountain a couple of weeks prior since he had never been there before, and I picked up my older friend that helps me out with a lot of welding on most of my ideas and off we went!

 

 

There we are at the hole itself, from there we took the rim trail of the hole, which is pretty sandy 3/4 of the way through it, then it gets a little rocky and then just silty.

 

 

 

From there we went back to the entrance to crawl/climb a couple of small ledges and have a little bit of fun.

 

 

 

 

After playing around on those ledges me and my older friend took off towards the Aden Lava flow, which is pretty neat because you do not expect for it to be there at all.

 

 

 

 

There's a bunch of ranches close to the lava flow, that are still in use to this day. However I couldn't imagine how much of a pain it would be to try and herd the cattle in such rugged terrain. Eventually, we ended up crossing the railroad tracks from the one that goes all the way to California, and then we got out through Chamberino, NM just a little town/village in the valley in between El Paso and Las Cruces

 

 

I took off the filter afterwards, and after all that silty dust not a single spec came out after I wiped the inside of the intake tube with a kleenex. I really do recommend it, specially since it's lighter less bulky and flows a lot better. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JoeLAW]

Well, I had talked to a Body Shop across the border in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua Mexico. To get the upper part (Black) repainted on the truck, and also a couple of small cracks had started forming on the cab at all 4 corners of the rear window. So I asked them if they could repair that and get it welded. I had told him to let me know when he would be ready to receive the truck since he has a pretty small shop and is usually busy all the time. (Like most if not all body shops)

 

So, in the summer of 2019 it he was ready for the truck and it was time to get her ready and drop her off. Also, a couple of months before I had inherited a 2001 2WD XJ that used to be my little sisters. We got it for her to learn how to drive on and do basic maintenance and care, but she was now getting a new car so I got it and since I can't leave things alone, I had lifted it 2.5" and had snatched a set of 16" original Moab wheels with 31" tires. So I had the steelie stockers sitting around with the original size teenie weenie tires on it, and I decided to take my 33" KO2s off and slap the stockers on to make it easier on the shop and make the truck sit lower. I also removed the front bumper, for easier access for them and to finally replace the motor on my Warn winch, since it went out one time I was side pulling a buddys F-150 on the loose sand in order to keep it from sliding off and pretty much dropping off from top of a small mountain... Anyways on to the transformation into an ugly duckling!

 

 

I was eager to do it all in a day, so I started on an early Saturday by getting the stockers from a friends yard, then hauling butt to the friend that was gonna be giving me a ride back from the shop. So I started with the rear tires first and worked my way up front.

 

 

By this point the bumper and winch were off, which was honestly less of a hassle than I thought it would be, specially since it attaches all the way back with the steering box bolts. 

 

 

Look at that skateboard looking truck!  But it was all gonna be for the better..

 

 

The moment I dropped it off at the little body shop, crazy how tight and very oldschool labor intensive techniques they did there, but far better work than any other shop that was willing to take on this project on my town on the states. As you can see in the background, this shop really specializes in classic cars, and custom cars too. He also has a couple of very high profile clients with newer cars that are the only ones he makes an exception to work on. 

 

 

Not gonna lie, I was a little skeptical of just dropping Jessica off there, but then I saw he was working on a recent model Rolls Royce, and after seeing that I was very relieved, because in my way of thinking if they were gonna try and steal a car from there mine was the least attractive or valuable! 

 

 

 

These are a couple of progress pics that he sent me, we had agreed on a 2 week time period for him to have the truck finished, but as it goes with any shop, it took longer than that. Thankfully I didn't mind since I had my now daily XJ with ice cold AC, so there was no rush on my side, but you know how it goes with mosts shops, if you don't put pressure, they will put it on the back burner.

 

 

 

 

He had someone remove and re-install the rear window. I told him to be real careful, since it's real hard to get replcements and I had also read the nightmares that people had gone through in removing the rear glass. And as you can see in the pics, he fixed the corners on the cab. (Or so I thought..) The rest of the body work looked great!

 

 

Another progress pic he sent me after wet sanding it getting it ready for polishing. At this time I was very eager to get it back, but patience always pays off in the end.

 

 

 

 

And there's the finished work, 2 weeks after the deadline we had agreed upon, which in all honesty was not bad and I was expecting worse. And the work was great! It looked pretty bitching all around, he did polish the whole truck and I waxed it after using for a bit and washed it for the 1st time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JoeLAW]

Well the day after I got it I went to my older friend's house the older gent that helps me out with all the welding projects and more on this truck and other vehicles as well. Anyways I went to get the new motor on the winch installed, and the original winch plate painted since I had never painted it since I installed it, because at the time I was in a rush to put the truck back together since the next day I had to use it for my commute. I also took advantage of the time the truck was being re-painted to splatter another coat of spray on bedliner in a can on the front bumper to re-fresh it. 

 

 

Unfortunately I only have pictures of the new motor, but the old one was pretty fried, and the contacts for the brushes were very worn. I'm pretty sure I kept it and I probably have it laying around somewhere in a box, thinking one of these days I would take it down to Juarez to get it re-built.. 

 

 

Then it was on to remove, clean, prep and paint the custom winch plate my friend had made for me yeeeears ago. 

 

 

 

Finally back on her shoes! Still looking funny without the front bumper but better nonetheless. 

 

 

 

Out with the old, and in with the new! Also at the time, another friend of mine, the one with the black LJ had acquired a Warn Power Plant winch that came with the regular steel cable, and he replaced it with synthetic line. So he gave me the "used" cable which looked pretty brand new to me. So I took advantage of everything being apart and replaced my old winch cable with that newer one. (Hence why there's no cable on the winch at this time)

 

 

 

And finally after a full Saturday's day of work the bumper and winch were back on the truck, ready for me to install the new cable on the winch, and then ready for new adventures!

[JoeLAW]

It din't take long before I took it out, it was the following Sunday  We just went to our local trail called "Juando Pass" in Anthony, TX nothing too challenging on the trail, but there's a pretty big optional waterfall at the end of it, and a couple of pretty big ledges hidden in the back part of it if you want to play around. The cool part about it though, is when you go to the back part, you can hit a small trail on the ridgeline of the little mountains back to the end of the trail, which usually has great views specially at sunset.

 

 

This is on the backside of the trail, most of the people that run this trail don't come up here, a lot do, just not most.

 

 

Right to the passenger side of Jessica is where the 2 big ledges are at, this is when you're heading up towards the little ridge trail. This trail is a pretty short kinda scenic trail (if you end up going to the ridgeline trail) because you have great view of the Franklin Mountains to the East, and amazing sunsets to the West, overlooking I-10 and the Valley were the Rio Grande flows.

 

 

This is that little Ridgeline trail I was telling you guys about.

 

 

 

Funny I ended up leading the trail, with a bunch if well built big rigs behind me. Right behind me is one of my best friends, he was the 2nd one in our little group that did the 1ton swap, then all the way in the back is his Dad, which was the 3rd one to get his swap done, and had had it ready for about a year or so.

 

 

And this is the group back at the "end" of the trail. You see those tires on the blue JK, they're under Jessica now, I would've never though those tires would end up under it.. Goes to show ya, you think you plan for even your project truck, and things change. Don't get stuck planning too much, before you know it you'll ran out of time to enjoy the moments your project will give you.

 

 

And me and my bud flexing on a rock, 33s, next to 42s.. 

[JoeLAW]

Well, time for another side post, this time of the XJ I inherited. Like I said before, we bought this XJ for my little sister to learn how to drive on and do basic maintenance. Athen she got a new car, and we tried selling this one but had no bites at all so I decided to keep it, and since I can't leave things alone, I started fixing it up.

 

 

This is a pic of when we first got it.

 

I first started with a set of 16" Moab OEM Rubi wheels that already had 31" tires mounted on them, then added a small lift consisting of spacers up front, and then an add-a-leaf on the rear.

 

 

The wheels were painted, but they had done a really bad job painting them, so I decided to strip them..

 

 

Once the wheels were clean, not only were they Moabs, but the brushed aluminum ones which I think might be rarer, Who knows..  And they look nice in the picture, but they wad a bunch of scrathes along with curb rash. They were also scratched on the actual spokes of the wheel.. So I decided to get them painted again.

 

 

 

This was after the wheels were painted, and I had installed the spacer lift up front.

 

 

And here a pic of both of them together, I named the XJ Merlina.. After having the Trucklite LED headlights on Jessica, I needed a better light for Merlina, and since I like the way the truck lites looked and performed I decided to order the Amazon(China) version of them.

 

 

Man, what an improvement that was! Also, those lights behaved smoother and brighter than the Truck Lites

 

 

 

 

After that I decided to get it re-painted, at the same shop in Juarez, I also asked him if he could color match all the plastic pieces from the flares to the bumper end caps, I did tell him to take all the trim off and just leave it "shaved". They did take a loooot longer than I expected, but the Holidays got in the way, which was the main reason why they took so long. It was 4 months total. 

 

 

 

 

However the end result came out bitchin! Now I had people asking me to sell it to them, but I told them it was now too late. I really liked the way this turned out, plus it was very reliable, had ice cold A/C never overheated, it was a great little suv.

 

 

 

 

 

Not long after I got it back from the shop, I installed a hitch I got for it in order to put my dirtbike and bike racks.

 

 

 

After a while I wanted to install some fog lights, and I found a set of flush mounted ones on Facebook Marketplace, so I bought them ordered some amber tint, stuck that on the lense and pluged it all in for it to work. The end result was great and it worked surprisingly well on very dusty conditions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And since I had the MJ on 33s and about a 4.5-5" lift, I had to take some side x side pics for comparison, crazy how close they are in lift height, but yet how far they are in length.

 

 

 

 

I ended up driving it all the way to Glamis, CA with my dirtbike in the back, no issues what so ever on the way there. Hell we even took it on some mellow sand trails just by airing down the tires, and keeping momentum we did not get stuck at all, remember this is a 2WD model. On the way back however it overheated on me really bad right by Yuma, AZ but thankfully my friends from Holtville, CA (The guys I met on the Roadkill Ziptie Drags) rescued me right away, we ended up changing the water pump, thermostat, and rad cap, and I was on my way home afterwards.

 

This little XJ was great, the only drawback was that the heator core was leaking, but since I live in the desert, I could live with no heater for most of the year. Well, unfortunately one day it got stolen.. with all of my tools and even my MTBike inside. I had left it parked at a friends business that's close to the border crossing but not really where it wouldn't be safe, or so I thought... I left it there because we had to fly out of Juarez for a vacation fro Thanksgiving, and it's quite the hassle when you drive your car to Mexico, because to get back into the states you have to do a pretty long line that usually takes about 1hr, but since it was Thanksgiving weekend it would've probably taken us 2-3hrs since everyone travels on those dates, so it's better to park close to the crossing and walk over, you save a lot more time and get some excersize in. Well, when I came back Merlina was no longer were I had parked it.. At first I though no biggie, maybe somebody moved it, but then once I didn't find any news from anyone, I decided to file the police report with hopes that it was still on this side of the border.

 

2 Days later I get a call from the Police, telling me that the XJ had been involved in a hit n run accident on I-10. At first I though the worse, and started asking questions to see if somebody had gotten seriously injured or even killed, and they told me that it did not involve anyone else, so I was relieved. They told me it had a whole lot of tools inside and even a bike, and that made me ecstatic! I seriously couldn't believe those words, but, because of all the stuff that was still inside, they thought it was suspicious and that I was trying to pull a fast one on them. Thankfully I had all evidence that I wasn't even in the country, the moment that accident happened. To make this long story a bit shorter, it took them about 2 weeks for them to let me get all the stuff from the car. And then another 2 weeks for them to release it to me, and that was a whole other ordeal.. But anyways I was finally able to get her back and when I did, man it was long gone... completely totaled. And at the time, I only had liability insurance, learned my leason on that one. Anyways, at least I was able to get all my stuff back, and the rest I sold in parts and even gave some away until I finally called someone to pic it up and get rid of it.

 

 

This was the day they finally let me get all my stuff back. Man she took a hard hit, and since it was centered I though I was still salvageable, but boy was I wrong..

 

 

The moment I picked it up

 

 

 

 

And once I had it back in my possesion, I took of the Moab wheels (Duh!) And sold them dirt cheap to a friend that had a Liberty(which he then totaled, and I got one of the wheels back, the rest were trashed..) I took off as much parts as I thought I would need in the future, cleaned it up, and sent it to the junkyard.. Now, I know what most of y'all are thinking, it doesn't look that bad, but both front sections of the unibody were very tweaked, the motor had a hole in the block, and the front axle was badly bent, after I saw those 3 major flaws that's when I called it and looked no further to try and get it re-built... Anyways guys, back on to more MJ stuff with Jessica!