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

14 minute(s) of a 391 minute read

I zoomed in on this photo.... you can see the joint. These are untouched sawzall cuts. I was quite proud of the fit up. The drivers side wasn't quite as good for no particular reason.

11-8-2013

Only thing I don't have is spare ball joints I don't think... I'll have to check. I'll pick up a cheap one of each. You're cracking me up though Art.... and not because I'm taking you lightly. But because you have no idea how much you emphasizing the difficulty level makes me anxious and excited to do it. I had months of anticipation to run Helldorado, and thought we weren't going to do it..... then when we arrived there was NOTHING that could have kept me off that trail. Little do you know... the videos you post I STUDY looking for lines and what I think I would do in certain situations. I take wheeling pretty serious.... and I take technical rock crawling very serious. I'm looking forward to this.

11-9-2013

Only thing I don't have is spare ball joints I don't think... I'll have to check. I'll pick up a cheap one of each. You're cracking me up though Art.... and not because I'm taking you lightly. But because you have no idea how much you emphasizing the difficulty level makes me anxious and excited to do it. I had months of anticipation to run Helldorado, and thought we weren't going to do it..... then when we arrived there was NOTHING that could have kept me off that trail. Little do you know... the videos you post I STUDY looking for lines and what I think I would do in certain situations. I take wheeling pretty serious.... and I take technical rock crawling very serious. I'm looking forward to this.

Ok well I just went for a test drive.... and I don't really know what to say. I was fully expecting to not have anything to say and that I could feel no difference because I'm only running 4 Duroflex joints. Along with Clevite's, JJ's and R/C joints. Well I didn't even have to get out the GARAGE to feel the difference. Just letting out the clutch in first and feeling the usual NVH you would feel depending on how smoothly let out the clutch and how many RPM's you fed into the drivetrain felt dramatically different. And by that I mean... smooooooth. Driving around town and down some country roads gave me the same feeling, it felt much smoother over washboard type road surfaces and small potholes. I did notice one thing with my Detroit locker in the rear I could feel the Jeep pitch more when shifting between gears. This is a common characteristic of a Detroit and one I'm used to.... but I could feel it more for some reason. Overall I'm a little bit shocked by the difference in NVH. They also have over 5 degrees more flex available before the joint barrel contacts the link bracket. That is going to help take some strain off my link brackets and give my clevites a bit of a break. I'm anxious to flex it out and see if I'm actually able to bottom them out. I know with a double DF jointed arm there would no chance of bottoming out the joints. It's also nice not having a grease fitting on the joint to contend with, and although not a huge deal, being able to dial in the joint length and only going 180 instead of 360 to orientate the grease fitting is a small plus. And my favorite part.... so clean.   Side note..... that was my first test drive since I modified the skid..... Exhaust RATTLED SO BAD it was insane. I don't have the energy to deal with it today.... so on Tuesday (my next day off) I get to pull the skid again. Oh joy.

11-12-2013

Well I dropped the skid again today to see where it was making contact. It was just one spot on the cat. I made some adjustments to my cat hanger to slightly adjust the angle of the cat and height and should be good to go now. I've got everything back installed and you can grab the exhaust and pull on it in every direction without it hitting anything. I hope to not have to drop that skid again for a while. Moral of the story.... Flat skid is doable without a crossmember, flat skid with a decent amount of bracing is doable without a crossmember, but you might as well ditch the stock cat and get one that's smaller. It will make life a lot easier.

Looks like I'm ready for JV this weekend!

The one thing I forgot to check was front driveshaft clearance under full droop. Guess what.... it hit the angle iron. SOB. Dropped the skid, got out the grinder... done.  

I also took a long drive to give it a chance to rattle and I'm happy to say I heard none. I was looking for the roughest roads I could think of and railroad tracks but we'll see how it is off road soon enough.

I need to think of a way to control my suck down winch line when I have it slacked out to allow the axle to droop. It's a surprising amount of slack. And if left uncontrolled can catch on bolts and whatever else. Hmmmmm.

11-13-2013

I crawled right up it after this photo....



And then took this photo....



Then I crawled back down and backed my Jeep up.

It's that dang nub that you catch with your L/R tire that just makes that thing nasty.

11-18-2013

Georgies crack is no joke. I struggled in two spots but made it without winching. Line selection is key. My rig felt very stable on this type of climb. I just got hung up, these are some big rocks.

This was a fun little off camber climb... my rig was feeling quite stable on all this stuff. I was pleased.

Jack gatekeeper....

















I think Art was a little surprised I made the Jack gatekeeper with relative ease. I was surprised myself after watching the videos earlier in the week. Got a little lucky I guess. I only had to reset once and then it crawled it.

I don't have many photos of sledge. I got stuck a couple times basically because I got a little lazy. I had my adrenaline up for Georgies crack, grinder and the Jack gatekeeper and kind of lost my focus on Sledge. To be honest Sledge was fun but lacked the type of obstacles that I like. It was more like someone just dumped a zillion 100lb to 500lb boulders in a small ravine. Mostly all loose. At that point it just becomes a size issue. I was picking lines and placing tires only to have the rock simply move under the weight of the jeep. I'm a patient wheeler but was doing my best to keep up with Art and made a couple mistakes hanging up my rig to the point of winching. Annoyance level was minimal though, I did feel like
I beat the crap out of my rig though, and that wasn't the best approach, I could have been much cleaner or pulled the cable much sooner. Needless to say the D35 took some abuse. Probably more than it ever has. And some of the vertical ledges that I stuffed the D30 into were quite risky but it all held up.

The plaque ledge on Sledgehammer was quite the *****. The ledge is undercut on the passenger side and about 40" tall. I muscled it up though and was SOOOOO close to making it unassisted (well besides Art throwing rocks under my tires) When I finally gave up I had the R/R tire UP the ledge and just needed a little bit of bite to get the L/R up and over. Well we hooked up the winch and basically gave about the smallest tug I've ever seen for less than a foot and it grabbed. I was a little sad I was that close and couldn't get it done. Oh well. It was fun.

Just got her all cleaned up, and she's in good shape. Looks like I may have pulled the drag link out a bit but the tie rod is straight. Front end is tight. One loose jamb nut on a rear control arm, I thought I bent the skid because the exhaust started rattling but it turns out the muffler came off the hanger in the rear and was sagging.  . Overall just some black paint and replace that TRE for piece of mind and it's ready to wheel again.  

Tested! still straight.

Bumper took some abuse. I actually LIKE how this looks though. This tells me that it slid on whatever it was against. Nothing on it hangs up, like D-ring mounts or sharp angles.  

This is a bit of bummer because I can't easily repair it. I think Imped called it a couple months ago. WHY again Metalcloak does the armor not come all the way over??? Haha. I could have avoided this but meh.... when your in the moment in an awesome squeeze it's all good.

Art schooling the Jack gatekeeper.

This is an optional climb on the "grinder" trail. At cougar buttes. It was fun.

I've got a good D35 beating video uploading. It's a little long and might be boring but the camera angle is pretty sick.

This is towards the top of "georgies crack". After I got out and looked at it, it turned out the line for me was to get the rear a few inches to the left and hold hard driver. Crawled right up after that. Good little fight. D35 loved it.