Ownership Verified: BCS repeatedly breaks, fixes, and re-breaks his Jeep
- Thread starter BerserkerCatSplat
- Start date
BerserkerCatSplat
Hormone Induced
^I think Moabs should have been a factory option for the GC as soon at they came out on the TJ Rubicon. I have to say I like my 17"s that came from the JK Rubi, but there's a 5.9L ZJ near my house that has the 16" TJ Rubi wheels and it looks pretty sharp.
In other news, after being beat on for some time and now being stuck behind quite a bit more torque than it was realistically designed for, the rather elderly NP242J transfer case I swapped in has started exhibiting symptoms of a stretched chain in 4LO. Thus, my next two junkyard projects will be:
1) Acquire a spare set of Dana 30 knuckles, WJ Akebono brake calipers, and Explorer Sport Trac rotors. These will allow me to design a mounting bracket for installing the big WJ brakes on ZJ knuckles.
2) Disassemble an NP242HD from a Dodge truck, acquire the 1.25" sprockets, chain and rear case half. Pull apart an NP242J, and see if I can mix and match enough components to make a wide-chain TC while retaining the speedo output from the 242J. I'm not sure anyone's ever attempted this.
(worst case scenario is $60 for a replacement chain, but that's a solution for wussies and sane people.)
In other news, after being beat on for some time and now being stuck behind quite a bit more torque than it was realistically designed for, the rather elderly NP242J transfer case I swapped in has started exhibiting symptoms of a stretched chain in 4LO. Thus, my next two junkyard projects will be:
1) Acquire a spare set of Dana 30 knuckles, WJ Akebono brake calipers, and Explorer Sport Trac rotors. These will allow me to design a mounting bracket for installing the big WJ brakes on ZJ knuckles.
2) Disassemble an NP242HD from a Dodge truck, acquire the 1.25" sprockets, chain and rear case half. Pull apart an NP242J, and see if I can mix and match enough components to make a wide-chain TC while retaining the speedo output from the 242J. I'm not sure anyone's ever attempted this.
(worst case scenario is $60 for a replacement chain, but that's a solution for wussies and sane people.)
Crazyjeeper
NickGyver
BerserkerCatSplat
Hormone Induced
Pfft, I'll just twinstick an NP205 then. 
I just realized I have a spare set of NP249 gears/chain (1.25") sitting in a box, so that's another possible option. I still need a case half with an oil pickup recess, though.
I just realized I have a spare set of NP249 gears/chain (1.25") sitting in a box, so that's another possible option. I still need a case half with an oil pickup recess, though.
BerserkerCatSplat
Hormone Induced
Had a tiny bit of warm weather, so even though I've got a nasty case of the flu I went out and swapped the 19# Bosch EV1.3 injectors for the 23# Bosch EV6 units. The only reason the 19#s were in it was because I didn't have a chance to rebuild the 23#s before I built the motor, so I just used the ones I had on hand. 19# is a bit low for this motor, and a quick test drive shows that the EV6 units have given me a smoother idle and a bit better throttle response. Also noticeable is that they've gotten rid of the 2000RPM dead spot in the power curve as well, which is nice.
However, since doing injector swaps must always end in some level of disaster for me, I snapped the clip end of the TV/kickdown cable that connects to the throttle body. JB Weld to the rescue! I'll grab another cable next time I'm at the boneyard but for now it'll hold fine
However, since doing injector swaps must always end in some level of disaster for me, I snapped the clip end of the TV/kickdown cable that connects to the throttle body. JB Weld to the rescue! I'll grab another cable next time I'm at the boneyard but for now it'll hold fine
JipJopJones
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JB weld and duct tape... all a man needs really.
BerserkerCatSplat
Hormone Induced
Long time, no update. No significant changes lately as it's my DD and I don't have a garage to work in right now. Large-scale suspension changes and axle swaps tend to be frowned upon in condominium parking lots. That said, I did find time to raise the suspension by another inch just in time to hit the winter trails. I also snagged a full 5-set of month-old BFG M/T KM's for $300 - same tires I had before but with full tread.
What was supposed to have been a quick 5-hour run out to Margaret Lake and back turned into a 14-hour ordeal! We had an H1, and H3T, 2 ZJs, 2WJs and an XJ. Here's a quick photo recap:
Gorgeous day, snow everywhere and 4 degrees above zero by noon.
The run leader gets ambitious and decides to try his new 33" KM2s in the deeper powder. Nope! Open diffs do him in. H1 pulls him out.
We hit a semi-frozen water crossing. The toughest part is getting over the 6-12" ice ledge on the way out; our fearless leader got his fronts up but couldn't get enough traction to bump up. H1 to the rescue again!
I wasn't about to sacrifice my dignity and get hauled across by a Hummer; I also got my fronts up and found the same lack of traction, but rocked back a bit and gave her the beans and hopped up on the third or fourth try.
The XJ gets stuck during a semi-frozen river crossing, we discover he has no front recovery points despite telling us he did. Novice driver to boot. We transfer my rear recovery point and haul him out ass-first. He takes another run at it further downstream where the ice is thicker and ends up suck in a snowbank pointed upstream. We free him with a bit of work and eventually got him onto the far bank.
The WJs do better, only one needs to be hauled over the ice ledge. GY Duratracs seem to be faring better in the snow/ice than the BFG ATs.
We made it to the Lake, and posed around for a bit.
So at this point things have gone fairly smoothly, so the run leads (H1 and white ZJ) decide that rather than take the same route back, we'll instead drive one of the winter-only trails back to the main trail intersection (Four Corners). None of us other than the leads have been on that particular trail, but they're confident we can do it, so we head onwards. At this point my copilot's pictures become less frequent; much of the winter trail is comprised of very steep, and very snowy/icy hills, so crawling wasn't an option; if you lost traction even momentarily you''d slide down backwards. Thus, SOP quickly became hitting the hills with a 50 km/h runup and firing up at pretty much WOT with a bit of throttle feathering. The vehicles with BFG ATs were sometimes taking 5-8 attempts to make it up some hills. I quickly became hugely impressed with my M/T KM tires; at ~15psi I just pointed up the hill and hit the loud pedal. Even with open diffs I made it up every single hill on the first try, no problems and no pucker moments.
The trail turned out to be a bit lengthy, but we were making good time until we got to a particularly long climb. The white ZJ was first up the hill and got halfway up, and then there was an audible BANG and he stopped dead. After making sure he wasn't going to slide back down, a quick inspection confirmed that his front drive shaft had let go, leaving him essentially one-wheel-drive and incapable of making the climb. The trail was also so narrow that getting a vehicle past him to pull him up was impossible. So he removed the front drive shaft, spooled out the winch, and we got to work.
World's most expensive wheel chock:
So we spent the next few hours winching him up a fairly long hill, about 20 feet at a time and rather slowly. The rest of us were parked at the base of the hill; I got the really awkward parking spot and had to Dukes Of Hazzard my way out the window.
Darkness comes fast in the mountains. This was taken about a half hour before we got him to the top of the hill.
At this point the photos more or less stop because it was pitch black outside and we were focused on getting the hell back to civilization. We hooked the broken Jeep to the back of the H1 and sent them off ahead with a head start while the rest of us got up the hill. The newer drivers had improved significantly over the course of the day; even the first-timers in the XJ made it up on the second go! The H3T with 4" lift and 35" tires ended up having the most trouble with the hill, although I suspect he'd damaged a half-shaft but didn't want to say it.
We knew there was a trail intersection up ahead so we radioed ahead to the H1 and ZJ asking for directions; the response was that they needed a moment to figure out some "navigational issues." This was odd because we knew that both of those vehicles had GPS units. After some time we got instructions to head left at the T intersection, and after conquering a couple more steep hills got word on the radio that the H1/ZJ team had found itself on a tree-laced quad trail while trying to avoid an icy patch of the main trail. We caught up to them as they were winching the broken ZJ through a stand of trees to get back to the main trail, so we parked and gave them a hand to speed things along.
And then one of the WJ's engine died.
Now, it would start for a couple seconds, but it would die almost immediately afterwards. We hummed and hawed for a bit about how we could get this thing moving again; the narrow trail meant that if it didn't move, the 3 vehicles behind it were stuck. I decided it was a fuel issue of some kind and got to work swapping relays; after swapping out the fuel pump relay, it fired right up an ran perfectly... for all of 5 minutes, when it died again. This time however, it would restart and idle, but with a very low idle and was running incredibly rich. The driver decided to let it run for a while, got out of the vehicle to help with the winching, closed the door....and the thing locked itself. He didn't have a spare key. So after much cursing and pulling on handles, we grabbed some gaffer tape, taped up a passenger side window, and handed him a hammer. Fortunately, smashing out the window seemed to cow the vehicle a bit and it ran better after that, haha. It would still die every once in a while but could be fired right back up and head off down the trail again.
It soon also came to light what the "navigational issues" were; while both the lead ZJ and H1 had GPS units, the H1 didn't have the area maps loaded in, and the ZJ with the Garmin had neglected to bring the proprietary USB charge cable... so it was stone-cold-dead. So in essence, we were in the mountains at 9:00PM in the pitch-black and snow and we were essentially relying on the H1 driver's memories of the trail from the last time he was on it... 8 years ago. I had all the gear and supplies necessary for staying the night in the bush, but it's a last resort you'd much rather avoid, especially considering there's absolutely no cellular reception in the area whatsoever. Calling for help wasn't an option!
Fortunately, after a few more km of hills (and believe me when I say watching that H1 haul the Jeep up hills like nothing was quite the sight to see) we reached the service road to a sour gas plant and followed it back to the main trunk road. Never have I been so glad to see a DANGER STAY OUT sign before!
So in the end, we had one heck of an adventure! I didn't get stuck or break anything, and we didn't resort to cannibalism. Result!
What was supposed to have been a quick 5-hour run out to Margaret Lake and back turned into a 14-hour ordeal! We had an H1, and H3T, 2 ZJs, 2WJs and an XJ. Here's a quick photo recap:
Gorgeous day, snow everywhere and 4 degrees above zero by noon.
The run leader gets ambitious and decides to try his new 33" KM2s in the deeper powder. Nope! Open diffs do him in. H1 pulls him out.
We hit a semi-frozen water crossing. The toughest part is getting over the 6-12" ice ledge on the way out; our fearless leader got his fronts up but couldn't get enough traction to bump up. H1 to the rescue again!
I wasn't about to sacrifice my dignity and get hauled across by a Hummer; I also got my fronts up and found the same lack of traction, but rocked back a bit and gave her the beans and hopped up on the third or fourth try.
The XJ gets stuck during a semi-frozen river crossing, we discover he has no front recovery points despite telling us he did. Novice driver to boot. We transfer my rear recovery point and haul him out ass-first. He takes another run at it further downstream where the ice is thicker and ends up suck in a snowbank pointed upstream. We free him with a bit of work and eventually got him onto the far bank.
The WJs do better, only one needs to be hauled over the ice ledge. GY Duratracs seem to be faring better in the snow/ice than the BFG ATs.
We made it to the Lake, and posed around for a bit.
So at this point things have gone fairly smoothly, so the run leads (H1 and white ZJ) decide that rather than take the same route back, we'll instead drive one of the winter-only trails back to the main trail intersection (Four Corners). None of us other than the leads have been on that particular trail, but they're confident we can do it, so we head onwards. At this point my copilot's pictures become less frequent; much of the winter trail is comprised of very steep, and very snowy/icy hills, so crawling wasn't an option; if you lost traction even momentarily you''d slide down backwards. Thus, SOP quickly became hitting the hills with a 50 km/h runup and firing up at pretty much WOT with a bit of throttle feathering. The vehicles with BFG ATs were sometimes taking 5-8 attempts to make it up some hills. I quickly became hugely impressed with my M/T KM tires; at ~15psi I just pointed up the hill and hit the loud pedal. Even with open diffs I made it up every single hill on the first try, no problems and no pucker moments.
The trail turned out to be a bit lengthy, but we were making good time until we got to a particularly long climb. The white ZJ was first up the hill and got halfway up, and then there was an audible BANG and he stopped dead. After making sure he wasn't going to slide back down, a quick inspection confirmed that his front drive shaft had let go, leaving him essentially one-wheel-drive and incapable of making the climb. The trail was also so narrow that getting a vehicle past him to pull him up was impossible. So he removed the front drive shaft, spooled out the winch, and we got to work.
World's most expensive wheel chock:
So we spent the next few hours winching him up a fairly long hill, about 20 feet at a time and rather slowly. The rest of us were parked at the base of the hill; I got the really awkward parking spot and had to Dukes Of Hazzard my way out the window.
Darkness comes fast in the mountains. This was taken about a half hour before we got him to the top of the hill.
At this point the photos more or less stop because it was pitch black outside and we were focused on getting the hell back to civilization. We hooked the broken Jeep to the back of the H1 and sent them off ahead with a head start while the rest of us got up the hill. The newer drivers had improved significantly over the course of the day; even the first-timers in the XJ made it up on the second go! The H3T with 4" lift and 35" tires ended up having the most trouble with the hill, although I suspect he'd damaged a half-shaft but didn't want to say it.
We knew there was a trail intersection up ahead so we radioed ahead to the H1 and ZJ asking for directions; the response was that they needed a moment to figure out some "navigational issues." This was odd because we knew that both of those vehicles had GPS units. After some time we got instructions to head left at the T intersection, and after conquering a couple more steep hills got word on the radio that the H1/ZJ team had found itself on a tree-laced quad trail while trying to avoid an icy patch of the main trail. We caught up to them as they were winching the broken ZJ through a stand of trees to get back to the main trail, so we parked and gave them a hand to speed things along.
And then one of the WJ's engine died.
Now, it would start for a couple seconds, but it would die almost immediately afterwards. We hummed and hawed for a bit about how we could get this thing moving again; the narrow trail meant that if it didn't move, the 3 vehicles behind it were stuck. I decided it was a fuel issue of some kind and got to work swapping relays; after swapping out the fuel pump relay, it fired right up an ran perfectly... for all of 5 minutes, when it died again. This time however, it would restart and idle, but with a very low idle and was running incredibly rich. The driver decided to let it run for a while, got out of the vehicle to help with the winching, closed the door....and the thing locked itself. He didn't have a spare key. So after much cursing and pulling on handles, we grabbed some gaffer tape, taped up a passenger side window, and handed him a hammer. Fortunately, smashing out the window seemed to cow the vehicle a bit and it ran better after that, haha. It would still die every once in a while but could be fired right back up and head off down the trail again.
It soon also came to light what the "navigational issues" were; while both the lead ZJ and H1 had GPS units, the H1 didn't have the area maps loaded in, and the ZJ with the Garmin had neglected to bring the proprietary USB charge cable... so it was stone-cold-dead. So in essence, we were in the mountains at 9:00PM in the pitch-black and snow and we were essentially relying on the H1 driver's memories of the trail from the last time he was on it... 8 years ago. I had all the gear and supplies necessary for staying the night in the bush, but it's a last resort you'd much rather avoid, especially considering there's absolutely no cellular reception in the area whatsoever. Calling for help wasn't an option!
Fortunately, after a few more km of hills (and believe me when I say watching that H1 haul the Jeep up hills like nothing was quite the sight to see) we reached the service road to a sour gas plant and followed it back to the main trunk road. Never have I been so glad to see a DANGER STAY OUT sign before!
So in the end, we had one heck of an adventure! I didn't get stuck or break anything, and we didn't resort to cannibalism. Result!
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I hope we get snow soon, that looks like far too much fun to miss out on. :lol:
syncview
Well-Known Member
God I love those JEEPs and the H1! looks like time well spent for fun!
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Fuck yeah H1!
Silly little Jeeps, thinking they can go offroading.
Silly little Jeeps, thinking they can go offroading.
KaJuN
Disco Inferno
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I was thinking the same thing. And as much fun as an old quarry or someone's farm is, really getting out into the wilderness like that looks like an incredible experience.
Silly little Jeeps, thinking they can go offroading.
I'm KaJuN and I approve this message.
prizrak
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That makes all my fun drives look more boring than a daily commute.
argatoga
Can't Start His Wank
Fortunately, after a few more km of hills (and believe me when I say watching that H1 haul the Jeep up hills like nothing was quite the sight to see) we reached the service road to a sour gas plant and followed it back to the main trunk road. Never have I been so glad to see a DANGER STAY OUT sign before!
So in the end, we had one heck of an adventure! I didn't get stuck or break anything, and we didn't resort to cannibalism. Result!
A sigh of relief.
//I'm hopped up on pain killers so that may in fact not be funny.
Crazyjeeper
NickGyver
That looks like a lot of fun. Makes me wish I had my CJ up here in NoDak to do some winter wheelin.
You do know that the first land rover was built from a surplus Willys from the war right?
You do know that the first land rover was built from a surplus Willys from the war right?
BerserkerCatSplat
Hormone Induced
I'm glad you all enjoyed the trail report! It was a fantastic adventure and a lot of fun (although at the time there were some tense moments) and all's well that ended well. I didn't get any videos since my D300 only does stills and I forgot about using my phone, haha. One of the other guys did get a quick video of the H1 crossing the frozen creek like it was nothing; say what you will about Jeeps and Hummers, but that H1 was damned impressive. The driver was a super nice guy; this is his fourth H1, he's had one since they became legal in Canada and runs it at Moab with the AM General team annually. Hell, he's pretty much FinalGear's favorite person; his other daily rides are an '08 Viper ACR, a couple motorcycles, and a Miata. :lol:
[video]http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v241/projkez/?action=view¤t=video-2011-12-17-12-17-02.mp4[/video]
[video]http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v241/projkez/?action=view¤t=video-2011-12-17-12-17-02.mp4[/video]
JipJopJones
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Awesome trail report. I'd still like to get some of the pictures from a few of my trips I did in the summer up here, but alas, I have still yet to receive them from the photographer.... >_>
Also, I need someone who I can wheel with. Going by myself can get... sketchy.
Also, I need someone who I can wheel with. Going by myself can get... sketchy.