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So where do you guys get the lumber for these projects?  Is this public, private or park land?  Regardless it's awesome work you guys do, we should all commend your group for your hard work.  95 percent of the people in our sport take and never give back.... very few would put forth the effort..... nice work.

 

Thanks.

 

This is public, national forest land.  The materials are provided by the forest service using state grants.  We've also got a great ranger to work with who was there each day.  He even joined us on Saturday, his day off.

 

Willy

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Our club spent the past weekend volunteering as campground hosts at Evan's Creek.  For the second year in a row we had a really good turnout.  Saturday I think we had 13 rigs show up and four stuck around for Sunday.  I was solo so I only got a few MJ pics.

 

Saturday was foggy almost the entire day.

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We had a YJ rip the shackle hanger off the frame.

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After years of abuse I finally put a small hole in a sidewall.

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Ron and I squeezed into one camp site.

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Sunday turned out to be beautiful and clear.

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We ended up with a great view of Mt. Rainier before packing up and heading home.

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More pics here.

 

Willy

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  • 2 weeks later...

Spent yesterday at Elbe Hills for our monthly club run.  We had a good turnout and a really good time.

 

Deb drove the first half of the day.

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Mt. Rainier in the background.

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After lunch we hit the Swamp Trail.  Somebody had been having some fun with a backhoe and we were the first group through.

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A lot more pics here.

 

Willy

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  • 2 weeks later...

We made one last trip to the Fortune Creek area before the snow closes it until next year.  It was wet, cold, and it even snowed on us, but we had a great time and found a couple more mines.

 

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This mine was in great condition.  We were told about it last year but weren't able to find it.  For a mine this large there was no discernible tailings pile that made finding it difficult.  It split several hundred feet in.

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Looking back towards the entrance.

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Much of the ventilation ducting was still intact.

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The view from near Van Epps Pass.

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This is another mine we found near the old Van Epps town site.  I was able to identify the tailings pile and a trail leading down to it on Google Earth.  This time we were able to find the beginning of the trail.

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This was the mostly caved entrance.  It connects to the old ventilation shaft at Van Epps that was filled with foam by the forest service a couple of years ago.  Water was pouring out of it.

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Sunday morning Rob's starter decided not to work, so out came the strap to get him lined up with his trailer.

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Three of us decided to run the Fortune Creek trail.  We ran into quite a bit of snow the higher we got.

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Gallagher Head Lake

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At the end of the Fortune Creek Trail.

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More pics here.

 

Willy

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I read that Dana 44's with Highsteer or over the knuckle used a 6 inch but a stock 44 used an 8... I measured mine at 7.6 inches but after getting my beadlocks bolted up the offset cuts me down to about 6.... so I'm going to weld up a better set of steering stops and go with that. I priced that very set and gotta say I'm seriously Jealous.... is your trackbar in the stockish location? (on your 44 axle) Post up picks so I can see where you mount it.. I'm hoping to put it on top of the Trackbar mount but I'm not sure if I'll have enough room

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It all depends upon the length of your pitman arm and where your drag link attaches to the knuckle in relation to the ball joint.  I'm running a Wagoneer pitman arm which is longer than stock and results in the tie rod/drag link travelling further, hence the ram with more travel.

 

No, my trackbar is mounted above the axle tube.  It is integrated into the TNT truss.  There are lots of pics starting on page 15 of the D44 build.

 

Willy

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 6 months later...

It has been a while and the MJ has been through a lot of updates the past couple of months.

 

First up was revising the front bump stops.  After a year of wheeling the previous bump stops did their job, but were not left in very good shape.  The studs had bent and one bump stop had completely separated from its molded in mounting bolt.  I also needed to cycle the suspension with the new bump stops to make sure everything cleared the new tires.

 

The old bump stops.

 

My original plan was to go with something that offered a more progressive stop to the suspension.  I picked up a set of rear bump stops intended for late model GM trucks.  They were nice and soft like I was looking for, but only worked effectively when contacting a completely flat surface.  With one tire at full bump and the other drooping the axle and contact pad on the bottom would then become angled in relation to the bump stop and they would completely deflect off to the side resulting, in metal on metal contact and way too much up travel.

 

What I ended up with was a different style of Daystar bump stop on top and UMHW pucks on the bottom.

 

Willy

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I swapped out the front 3/4" coil spring spacers for 1 3/4" spacers to help level the truck.

 

While working on the front suspension I noticed that pretty much all of the polyurethane bushings were sloppy.  After a couple of frustrating circles with TNT I didn't get the exact replacement bushings I needed for the upper control arms, but I at least had some that were close enough that I could make work.

 

I also found a crack in one of the upper control arms.

 

I ground it out.

 

And welded it back together.

 

Then put the front suspension back together.

 

 

Willy

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The larger tires required some fender modifications.  I opened up the tube fenders and took a sledge hammer to a few strategic areas on the inner fenders.

 

 

Patched over the openings I created.

 

Willy

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Then I pretty much dismantled the front clip.  I took the opportunity to do a little maintenance by replacing the timing chain and gears, harmonic balancer, alternator, thermostat, TPS, and radiator hoses.

 

Willy

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Then it was time for a few upgrades.  I picked up the Flex-a-Lite aluminum radiator and triple fan set up last summer.

 

 

The fan controller.  I also replaced the cheesy, generic parts store coolant reservoir with a much nicer Napa universal reservoir.

 

Willy

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With the steering reservoir now taking the space of the old air box I knew I needed to come up with a new air filter set up.  I picked up a 3" AFE cone filter, some 3" exhaust tubing, some fittings, and built a bracket to support everything.  The 3" exhaust tubing fit perfectly in the filter and the swedged end was the right size to fit in the stock tubing.  I welded on a bung for a place to mount the vent from the valve cover and the line coming from the charcoal canister.

 

 

 

Willy

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Got to test out the upgrades this past weekend doing some trail maintenance in the Fortune Creek area.  We had great weather as we installed sign posts and explored the mining history.

 

We were running ahead of schedule Friday so we stopped in Roslyn on the way.  It is a pretty interesting old mining town.  We took a nice walk out to the cemetery.  It was much larger than I expected for a town this size.

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Willy

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