Nate's 2002 TJ, Not so simple anymore by gst95dsm

8 minute(s) of a 391 minute read

Finally had a chance to clean up the Jeep today and do a little post run damage survey, this was probably the toughest I've been on it since a lot of mods ago. Happy to say everything is cool. Only thing I noticed and was a little surprised to see is a big ol dent in my windshield frame, haha I have no idea when that happened! Oh well I'm actually surprised it's the first time i've hit it.



Also had a little extra time to clean my engine bay, kind of a waste of time since it's all dust for the next few months up there. Clean right now though....



Well she's cleaned up and ready for the next adventure....

7-4-2012

Had a chance to go wheeling today. Today we did a short section of Swamp lake trail and The Brewer lake trail, both of these are located just past Shaver Lake CA. The small section of the Swamp trail we did was to check out an old quartz mine..... it's a pretty neat spot with a lot of still standing buildings from the early 1900's I presume....

The miners cabin, still in pretty good shape... 

The actual mine... I've been in it a few times. Not smart but fun.

Random trail shots... Jeep worked good as ever.

Such a poser... 

And here's a vid coming out of Brewer Lake right at the bottom. This is a knarly spot. Very fun to watch rigs come through it. One of my favorite little spots to mess around. Good spot to bang some stuff up.

The clean up has begun... well sorta. It doesn't need much lol. I always like to do thorough post inspections underneath to see what's going on, actually I think I just like laying under my jeep looking at it's guts for some reason. Hot out today ...



Looks like the ol' long arms are taking some abuse, but handling it just fine. I do scrape them a lot, I don't know if it's actually MORE than the short arms...... scraped them plenty too.  



Now this is a little concerning.... I'm surprised it's actually in this good a shape after all these years, but these are definitely some new scratches. I wish there were more options for bolt on oil pan skids for 2.5's! This is going to the top of the next mod list...



The RC skid is holding up great, I'm really surprised just how little I actually drag it around, The only bit of scraping is on the far edges of it, center's never been touched... weird. I'm really low too.  



Ok well after inspecting the front end and looking for anything out of place, everything looks cool. I'm kind of waiting for some front end parts to start showing some wear. My jeep has 87k on it. Stock U-joints, Ball joints, unit bearings...... no issues though so I'll keep running it I guess.  

Now off to the store to get some paint, Gotta get her all cleaned up for her little SAVVY surprise tomorrow.

When you do replace the ball joints, make sure you get Spicer units. A friend swapped this D30 into his Explorer and ran 33" TrXus tires with an aussie locker. The axle was of unknown mileage but the ball joints were within spec and did not have appreciable play. He did not change them and on his first trip out:

The lower joint pulled apart at the bottom and so did the upper joint. This caused the knuckle to come apart and ruined the lower joint beyond any kind of repair.

We were able to stick the upper joint back in and use a bolt through the bottom like this:

So we could get him home like this:

When I swapped an HP30 into my XJ, I changed the ball joints even though the existing ones are good. Remember, we put a LOT more abuse on these than they were ever meant to withstand, so standard service intervals don't always apply. I would also recommend sticking with Spicer 760 U joints (though I don't get the impression that you cheap out anyway).

Well a little painting and I guess this clean up is done! I found out today that Rustoleum DARK grey is a perfect match to the grey RC uses on all there parts. That worked out good.  

I KNOW eventually I'll get sick of touching up the grey because I have to half *** mask off the surrounding black but it'll all stay grey for now, it wasn't to a big a deal and the color match was so good I was surprised.

Touched up arm... 

Love it when the front end is cleaned up... funny how after all the wheeling i've done my stock Diff covers have barely been touched besides the bottom three bolts getting abused... One day i'll get some beefier ones. Anyone reading this ever personally destroy a diff cover to the point it was an issue?? Pics?? Curious...



Rear's pretty boring... my faithful little d35 soldier



Gotta put the wheels back on, torque it.... and call it a day.  

Well after a well deserved nap the jeep is back on all fours, officially inspected and ready for the next trip. Now it's time to give my other toy a little love.... got to finish swapping back to my Supermoto wheels. Stripped a caliper bolt the other day.... damnit!



2003 DRZ400S/SM