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

8 minute(s) of a 391 minute read

Just went through Tate's phone and saw he got some good pics....

9-11-2014

I have gone wheeling a couple times since I've last updated my stalled build thread! Not many photos were taken. Wheeling with Tate has been lot's of fun and his skills are progressing at a quick rate.  

My Jeep is still holding up well, so nothing is really planned right now but the Tater Wagon is getting some MAJOR upgrades in the next month. New wheels and tires, coil spacers, rock sliders, discos and a winch. I'm incredibly excited to get that stuff on his rig. It's going to look like a different jeep.....

9-12-2014

After putting on my 35's.... It just looked too sick with the wider tires.  

9-20-2014

I took off my R/F wheel today to do some maintenance!  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4NS...9MRxEOuws0xmjA

10-26-2014

It was nice to get away for a day! Between my day job and IAS I've been BUSY! Fordyce got rained out so we went and hit the Kaiser Pass end of the Dusy Ershim trail. It was a good time, the weather was chilly but really nice!

ALMOST rolled my junk..... probably the closest I've been. The trail isn't that hard and I was picking out harder lines than necessary and didn't really see this one coming for some reason, L/F dropped in a huge hole and it started going over, I couldn't reverse because that would have put more weight on the L/F and I couldn't go forward because I was up against a half jeep sized boulder right in front of me. One of my buddies arrived shortly after and realized I wasn't playing around..... "after he snapped the photo" he came over and hung off my R/R so I could back out of it. The angle was so severe that I was literally hanging onto the passenger oh **** handle and falling out of my seat, haha. I kept the enginerunning to keep power to my brakes and steering and at that angle it wasn't getting proper oiling..... check gauges light came on, and it started ticking. It was a tense moment, but all part of the game!  

Yikes!!!

11-15-2014

This actually happened...... digging through the photo vaults!

1-6-2015

So not a lot of pics of Ol' white lightening have surfaced yet of my recent hammers trip but we had a great time. On day one we ran Sunbonnet. I hadn't done any research on that trail but was pleasantly surprised that it was quite challenging. A few of the obstacles didn't look like anything but the rocks were spaced out just perfectly to make you work at it. All in all my rig handled it pretty well. I did need one tug backwards after getting hung up trying to reposition myself. We had 8 rigs to get through the trail and it took us all day. No major breakage or damage.

By day two we down to 3 rigs. Some guys were only planning one day, some guys tore up their stuff a little more than they hoped on Sunbonnet, and another guy got sick unfortunately. We decided to run Sledgehammer. I have run this trail once before trying to keep up with Art. I got myself stuck 3 times on that attempt. Not my best showing. My goal was to run it at a slower pace and only winch the plaque obstacle if needed (it was). The trail was incredibly fun, with a bunch of obstacles that really made you think being on 35's and pretty low. A lot of this stuff you can just mosey through if your running bigger tires. I enjoyed the challenge though. I managed to run it clean and only winch the Plaque and I was quite happy about it!

A friend of mine in his YJ snapped an ear on the front axle at the plaque and things went down hill from there. We pushed on, assisting him with the winch until the very last small rock pile..... at that point the broken axle pushed out the lower ball joint, that lead to the upper ball joint breaking, and consequently the entire R/F wheel and tire assembly falling off the vehicle! That was fun. We drug it off the trail a little bit, and decided to call it a night and return the next day with parts. The repairs went well, we got him back to the trailer and headed home.... a memorable Hammers trip for sure!








JeremyG in the house......








Not good....

1-26-2015

Cleaned white lightening up a little today. I actually can't remember the last time I was under there with a spray can of paint. That says A LOT to how busy I've been lately, lol. I did a nut / bolt check and besides the Jam nut on my track bar, and one loose control arm bolt all is well. My reinforced Barnes flat skid plate is holding up well! Everything looks great under there for the amount of abuse it all just went through at the Hammers.  





THE D35 of all D35's!