Maiden Voyage

Well, I finally got the TJ out of the garage and into the woods. Christine, as I call my Jeep, did great. I started out by loading her up the night before and rolling out to Tillamook State Forest with my neighbor Dave. We stopped and picked up subway in Banks and met the rest of the crew @ Rogers Camp. We did Firebreak Five and Archers with lunch @ 7up. It was a great day and fun was had by all.
Pictures and Videos are @

Dana 44 "Rear" issues

Dude, who the hell designed the seal setup for the D44. Crazy! Anyway, I tore into the rear of my new 99 TJ because of my earlier blog about the trip from Vegas to Portland. The metal I discovered in the rear pumpkin turned out to be the passenger side carrier bearing and I needed to replace the passenger side axle seal so, why not do it all. I removed the axles and the axle bearing had broken in two on both sides. So I spent $70 on carrier bearings/races, ~$45 on axle bearings and $40 on just the axle seals. <-- NUTS!
Then I had to buy a hydraulic press to do the work. I drove 20+ miles to Harbor Freight, bought a $130 press, put it together and it will not work to press off the bearings on my D44. I even built my own brace so it was thinner but the press bent the fabbed up brace. I disassembled it and took the press back to Harbor Freight the same day which, total was now 80 miles of driving. I ended up at Napa in Beaverton and spent $60 for them to press off and on my bearings. When I got the axles back the retainer was on backwards. The Napa dude said he didn't take them off and I believe him because, that side had the issue with leaking. So I took them home, cut one side of the bracket and took my Oxy/Ace torch to the other side, heated it up and bent it for removal. I turned it around and put it back on. I will tack weld it in place once I determine the bolt location is sound. This took almost all freaking day. Now it is 8:00 pm and I am just cleaning up the parts. Wow, what a pain in the butt.

Pictures of the process here:http://picasaweb.google.com/esniper/Jeep_99TJ_rear_end_rebuild#

Vegas and back for a 99 TJ Wrangler

I have been looking for a wheeln rig ever since I sold my 98 TJ last year.
I bought another 98 TJ Dec 30th 2008 but, it was a 4 cyl. It was fairly cheap and I was going to build it up to a trail rig as it was bone stock. Anyway I search Craigslist on a regular basis and ran across a 99 TJ in Las Vegas with all kinds of mods: - 37" tires, Beadlocks, Tera Flex 7" lift, Teraflex 2wd low kit, 4:56 gears, and Detroit locker out back with lock rite up front. Did I mention I live in Oregon! I sold my newly purchased 98 jeep and flew out to Vegas. I saw it, liked it but, how to get it home, 1200 miles away? I had the bright idea of driving it back. It only had a bikini top and it was winter but, despite it all I decided to just do it. :) I mean, I am tough and I had a jacket! I started out around 5:00 pm Sat Jan 31st 2009 north of the strip in sin city. Since it had the 7" lift I got some advice on the phone from my bud and wheeln buddy, Shane Carter, to ratchet strap it down for stabillity. This helped somewhat but, it still swayed the entire time I was able to drive it. My plan was to take Interstate 15 south to 58 west. This would put me on 99 N. to I5. I actually left Vegas around 6:00 pm on I15 South. I got a little turned around but, I made it to Barstow California around 10:30 because I was fairly scared of the constant control issues keeping it on the road, "yes I am totally nuts for trying this". I got gas at the crossroads gas station and headed out on 58 west. All four ratches straps had broke at this point and it was damn near impossible to control. I stopped at a Pilots half way across 58 west and bought a heavy duty trucker ratchet strap for the front. I made it to Kingsburg Cali on 99 N. and stopped due to fog, tiredness, and lets face it pure fear of being in the damn thing. OH, if you are ever near this area don't even think of staying at the Tavcam Inn. Anyway, I crashed for a few hours till day break now Feb 1st, and headed north. I started hearing a banging sound and a slight tug now and then toward the right. With all the side to side motion from the lift, tires and lockers I really didn't notice at first. I realized something was up so I turned down the stereo and slowed down as the wind was blowing in the cab, -->"not a full soft top".
I stopped off the highway somewhere in Modesto. The right front shock mount was complete busted and the shock itself was banging up against the tire. The cheap tools I bought in Vegas were no good as the ratched was busted. I decided to tie it off and continue down the road. Around 3:00 10 miles north of Redding Cali I lost all steering capabillities just past a two lane bridge. Luckily I was heading up hill and was in the right lane on a left hand bank turn. Had it been down hill I would probably not be alive to tell anyone about it. After several hours I was able to obtain a tow truck through several phone calls with my insurance, wife, and roadside assistance. The guy who came and bailed me out was the coolest dude on the planet. Gary who owns Northern Automotive in Redding towed me back to his shop and at 7:00 or so at night and we started working on the jeep. We got the track bar back in with a secure bolt and bolted up my shock with a big washer. I was back in business but, with no top, at night, 4000 foot elevation in the pass I decided to crashed for the night southbound at a motel 6. The next morning Feb 2nd I started out around 7:15 am. I made it all the way to Roseburg Oregon and lost the CV joint in the rear driveline around noon. I tried to drive it with front wheel drive but since there weren't any hubs to unlock and the front was locked up I couldn't keep it steady. This was as far as I could get. I called a buddy of mine Jason Woods who drove all the way from East Portland and picked me up with his 2006 Chevy 3/4 ton and trailer. I made it home and will never try a stunt like that again. I do have a wheeln rig now and will be busy working on it after the dust settles from this fiasco!

Pictures of the rig

Jarrod

Florenc ATV Trip (Sept 27th and 28th)

Well, Dave and I got up @ 4:30, dragged ourselves to the prepacked trucks w/Quads and started the drive to Florence from Cornelius. We took 26 to 217 to I5. It took almost 4 hours with a stop for breakfast in Eugene at the Ye Olde Pancake House. It was a local version of Shari's and was quite good. After chowing down we headed to Florence South Jetty. We got to a 2 acre property owned by Dave's coworked Stan. We met up with Ed, Stans neighbor, and he mentioned the day use parking lot was filling up fast so we turned around and parked at the second day use staging area with all our gear. Ed, Stan's neighbor is 75 years old and has two 400ex quads. He loaded up and followed us to the parking site. We unloaded and hit the dunes. Ed showed us around all morning and ran some pretty cool trails. We broke for lunch and chowed down on sandwiches and cheese puff's which, Bitzy, Ed's dog, thouroughly enjoyed as well. We hit the dunes again and Ed rolled his quad on the second tree island south of S. Jetty. I thought the worst. Dave and I rushed over on our quads and help him up along with the quad. Ed was fine. His 75 year old bones were in better shape than mine I tell you. This guy was amazing. I hope I am still able to ride a quad at 75.
We finished up the day portion of our ride around 4:30 ish and headed back to setup camp. Stan's camp site resembled a waste recycling facillity complete with old trailers and spare parts from various unfinished projects. I can't complain, it was close and free! We setup camp tents and dining canopy and headed out around 6:45 for a night ride. Wow, I have never done a night ride on a quad and I am not sure I will again. It was pretty wild. You couldn't see over the approaching drop off, "Razor Backs" as they are called, so it made for an interesting ride. We rode till we were about to get kicked out around 10:00 pm and got out of there before they locked the gate.
Back at camp we had a few drinks, burgers, and enjoyed the raging camp fire for a few hours. At roughly midnight I think we decided to crash. I just want to say that all air matresses SUCK! I have yet to find one that doesn't leak! Needless to say after a rough nights sleep I woke up to a coyote and a black dog barking and howling. After the mutts left we got up and hit the dunes again. This time we were a bit sore from the previous rides but we still ripped it up pretty good. Old Ed had to get goin as he ran out of gas and flipped over to reserve so we followed him out. Dave and I packed up camp and headed for home. We stopped at good old Dairy Queen for a healthy lunch and made in home around 5:30 ish.

Florence Quad Trip (Solv run) 2008

Today I woke up at 5:30 and smacked the alarm snooze button. Ten minutes later the insistent noise returned so I got out of bed. Did the usual morning hygene and met up with Dan in the Cornelius Fred Meyer parking lot @ 6:00 am. Almost four hours later we were at the South Jetty near Florence. We grabbed our Solv trash bags and headed out for a few hours picking up garbage.
Then the fun began. After riding around aimlessly for an hour and some change a subset of the original group got to have some real fun. We ran all over the South Jetty to Driftwood II campground. What a blast. I had been there before but it was so windy it was hard to make heads or tails of anything. We ran up so pretty steep bowls and tree shots as well as hit some pretty cool jumps. We basically started jumping the south side of all the razor backs. We had two Raptor 700's, one 660, and a Honda 400 with us. Nobody got hurt and we didnt' even have a wreck. Fun was had by all.

Fixed the website

Ok, I found an old server in a closet and low and behold it had an old backup of wheeln from 2004. It didn't have everything but that is ok. I had the videos and that is what I wanted. Of course this isn't before I rerendered everything last week but it still saves me time making the shortened and compressed vids for the web. :) Cool, I am so happy.

Anyway, check out the old vids if you care.

Thanks
Jarrod

Wheeln Website Completely Hosed

Well, I did it his time. I wanted to move hosts for one of my other sites. I first backed everything up and then made the move. Since my current host for wheeln only allows 100 mb of storage, I was using this other domain for several links. I thought I had pulled the files I needed down. When I had already terminated the other site, I realized the ftp completed but with errors. Guess what, I didn't get all my files and the old host (1and1) tells me the deleted the site once I cancelled the service.
Arrrggggg, I am so stupid.

It is going to take me a while to figure out what I want to do and rebuild the site.