Just a small project

The trails are open in the Sierra National forest so we went and ran swamp lake this past weekend. Went in wed and drove home saturday. This trail can be done in a day, but its a long day. The first pass was really easy, but then you drop down into the valley and it starts to get fun.


After some technical spots you come to rooster rock. It may look flat in the pic, but I was sliding sideways while trying to go up. Its steep! The camoed 4runner was doing a wheelie most of the way up.


At the top of rooster rock.


We camped for 3 nights at Grouse lake. It was a nice place to camp right next to the lake.


The rest of our friends showed up thursday, we met them at rooster rock.


Some old mining equipment by Grouse lake.


We spent some time on Friday driving over to swamp lake to check it out.


There was this cool old mine shaft you can go into. You can go all the way to the back and it hangs a left. It still has some of the old timbers supporting the roof.


View from the top in between Grouse and Swamp lake.


I let the lady drive a bit. She has only driven a manual trans a few times and never done anything other than dirt roads. She picked it up quick and seemed to have a good time. It freaked her out when I got out and decided to walk a bit though.


I have to say the jeep worked really well! It’s a tank out there and it makes everything look easy. The power steering appears to be fixed. It made little to no noise all weekend and I wasn’t babying it. I am ****ed at my radio as I couldn’t get it work and it was completely dead the whole trip( I even checked for power and ground connections at the radio), but when I pulled it back into the shop it came back on. I haven’t decided if I should drive over it yet or not?

The one major downfall to the jeep however, is still storage space. I don’t feel like I gained a whole lot in the build and what I do have is difficult to use. I wind up having to stack stuff I don’t need during the day on top of stuff I need to access. Its doable, but its really stress full trying to pack everything and make sure the lady and I will be comfortable for 5days. I’m thinking the jeep is going to wind up as a day tripper or for trips when I’m running solo, making it even less usefull than it is.

Kevo

 

Cool pics! You need a little posimoto style trailer for when you need the extra space.

 

Yeah, I'm thinking about it. I just don't know if I want to haul a trailer.

Kevo

 

FWIW, I don't feel like I have to drive any differently when I pull the trailer. I thought it would be a big deal on the tougher trails, but it's like it's not even there. Granted, my trailer is on the small side. I just wanted to replicate the storage space I have in the back of the Jeep so I could get all my camping gear out of the Jeep. I'd really like to run Swamp Lake at some time. Kind of a long drive for me though. Going to try to run the Ducy again in Sept.


Long Lake Trail near Rubicon Springs.

 

The problem with hauling a trailer is that I have a nicely built toyota that easily fits all of our stuff. Its no jeep buggy, but its plenty capable for the shaver area trails. If I was a diehard jeep guy this wouldn't even be a question.

I'm still considering a trailer though. While the jeep is not done, I feel its done enough that I can move on to other projects. I'll have to check out your trailer build thread posi.

Kevo

 

I couldn't find my trailer build in the Fabricators forum. It may have been lost in the changeover to this site. However, here is a link to the photo album of the build.
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/561337968FsBssD

 

Ok, so leaving wednesday for another big trip, going to spend 6 days on the dusy-ershim trail. This'll be my seventh time running the trail. My wife will not be going which is a downer, but it'll be easier to pack the jeep.

Its 100* plus here now so I did some projects this morning, but I'm relaxing for now as its too hot to be in the shop.

Finnally riveted the builders plate onto the firewall. I've heard its a felony to modify vin tags so I actually cut out around it and riveted what was left of the old firewall and the plate to the new firewall. I know it probably doesn't mean much, but at least I'm trying.

My t-case rear output still wants to pop out of gear in highrange. Its annoying when trying to drive it. I shimmed the spring once and I think its time to find some newer stiffer springs and maybe new shift rails, althought if I had the money an atlas is a good fix too. For this trip, and probably a few more, I've simply used a turnbuckle and welded a loop on my shifter and another on my cup holder. I can attach it when we hit the road and tighten it down, then remove it for the trail. Its hookey yes and not everyone can say they're t-case is attached to their cup holders! Ha Ha!!

The exhaust header radiates a ton of heat right at the power steering res and lines. In order to try to keep things as cool as possible I fabbed up a simple stainless heat shield bolted to the header. Luckily the steering did pretty well last time.

I also plated off the drivers footwell area. The expanded metal was a neat idea, but its too small of an area to really see anything and the drivers side just funnel exhaust system heat right at the driver. Nice in winter, not so nice in summer. A simple aluminum plate with 4 screws should fix it for now.

I checked my front wheel bearings and kingpins and every things seems super tight. So it seems like its ready to go.

I've been thinking about my packing situation. I put the cooler at the back thinking that its big and heavy, so if I put it in the back I could just leave it there. That doesn't work, I need it out of the way to get to the rest of the stuff. I was thinking of making a rack that is the same height as the top of the fuel cell and that way its one level floor area. Underneath the rack I could store all my spare parts and maybe some tools, stuff I hopefully don't need frequent access too. On top it would be one level floor making it easier to get stuff in and out, plus the cooler could go up against the front seats. If I made it modular I could also use the rear half of that rack to mount the rear seat if I ever decide to get one. Of course selling this and buying a 4dr JK would probably be a smarter move in the long run, Ha Ha!

I wish working around the house was half as interesting as working on my jeep! (Don't tell my wife that!)

Kevo

 

So its all been working pretty good over summer. I have a few things I wanted to change and it really needs to get painted. There is quite a bit of surface rust going on. I spent the last month or so tearing it down. It now looks like this:


Now the fun part! Cleaning! Spent most of the day sanding and scrubing. I got the roof area done and primered it. I think its too cold though, I was getting a lot of runs in the paint and I don't normaly.

Hope to have this back together and functioning for april.

Kevo

 

What color? Nothing like tearing apart a complete vehicle. I had mine together several times during the last build. Ya keep getting faster. hehe

 

If you are painting in cooler weather, try warming your paint first. A warm water bath to heat your cans or paint cups will help a lot.
Of corse, having the metal warmed will help.

 

Yeah, I should have warmed up the paint. Kinda a pain though, there is no hot water in the shop. Unfortuneatly the shop is well ventilated as well, so warming it up is almost impossible. The thermometer said 52deg and the paint can said to paint in 50-90deg weather. I'm thinking the tubework may have been cooler.

Color will be a hammered grey for the chassis and hammered black for the axles, links, trans crossmembers and skidplate. The hammered texture paints help to hide things so I'm not too concerned about the runs. A lot of guys have had good success brushing the rustoleum hammered paint on so I might try that to get away from all the overspray. Plus one brushed on coat probably equals two sprayed on coats or more.

I wouldn't expect a huge amount of progress for about a month, but I'll update this when its painted and reassembly begins. Luckily I've got some time off from work coming with the holidays and we're not going anywhere this year!

Kevo

 

Almost done with paint! I'm starting to think I should just pay someone to do this for me! I'm really burn't out on painting.


Kevo

 

Looks great! I couldn't agree more on painting. It was the least favorite part of my build.

 

Now, when you think your actually done with a paint job, get out your flashlight and start finding all the spots you missed. Used another spray can just touching things up on the underside of all the tubes.

I'm calling it done for now. It'll sit till this weekend and I'll start reassembling things. I still have some other bits and pieces to paint though.

Kevo

 

I'll just put some teaser shots up here.



Kevo

 

OK, ya know we want more! Really like the eye popping yellow.

 

Done, sort of.






I still have the spare tire carrier and roof rack to paint. I haven't installed the center console yet because I want to rewire the stereo system and I'm just not motivated to work on this thing anymore. I did pick up a d300 yesterday. It will probably sit for awhile, but I'm thinking that may help to solve my t-case issues in the future.

Enjoy!
Kevo

 

Really like the red on yellow.

 

Here is a pic of when it all started. Just found this in my toolbox. I believe this is the day after I brought it home. I believe this was probably winter of 1996. I'm sure my folks had no idea what to make of it.


Sorry for the crappy photo, this was before the digital age.

Kevo

 

Hi res digital would only make it look worse! But look what you did with that thing!! Unreal! Congratulations! Now for some video...