The adventures of a Jeep and its driver.
Got some much needed and deserved trail therapy in at Windrock Offroad Park in Tennessee. Along with three other friends, we spend 3 days and drive 67 miles of trails, including Trail 16, mostly blues and blacks. Thought about running some reds, but decided to reserve that for the next trip here when we have more time to pull winch cable. ;)
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With EJS being canceled for this year, and then uncancled, and then canceled, and uncanceled … I lost track, is it on or not? Doesn’t matter. Sitting this one out. Maybe next year.
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Helping a friend replace the engine in his 2013 JK. Everything had been disconnected except the motor mounts at this point. Just need to pull this block and the first part is done. Should be able to get the new block assembled and in by the end of next weekend. It’s been educational for sure.
Celebrating some birthdays this week with a trip to Anthracite Outdoor Adventure Area. Matt, Chris and I have birthday’s within a week of each other. TJ’s is about a month away. Even though Mike’s isn’t close, we let him come along anyway. 🙂 – Video link in my bio!
Spent the better part of two days wheeling the trails at AOAA. This is an awesome off road park for all kinds of enthusiasts. They allow motorcycles, ATVs, UTVs and full size vehicles, like Jeeps. Some trails are restricted to Jeeps only.
Even after two solid days of wheeling, there are more parts to this park we didn’t see than we did. Will definitely be making a trip back some time in the not too distant future.
That escalated quickly!
Apparently, I bent my sector shaft the last time I went wheeling at I have feeling I know when, but it’s baffling that it actually bent. My ABS was going ape shit. Steering wheel way off center. I took out the stock box and it binds part way through the cycle – a sure sign of a bent sector shaft.
My options were limited. I could have replaced it with a stock box for $500. Nah. I could have ordered a but they were 2+ weeks before they could ship. That would be cutting it close for an upcoming trip to Another option would be to get a ported box, but not get the ram, but that seemed to be kind of a waste of effort. The last option would be to just get the complete kit – rip off the bandaid. I went with the Big Bore XD2 steering box, with the new pump, larger reservoir and the cooler.
To say this “kit” was easy to install would be an over statement. It’s more of a collection of parts than a complete kit. There are instructions that literally contradict each other – that could have been catastrophic. The fittings that came with the cooler make it impossible to mount it behind the grill – I got new fittings from And there is no way to mount the reservoir without having to modify the stock air box. I cut a huge hole in the bottom of it to make room for the hoses. I still need to figure out how I want to fill that part in.
I did have to modify my track bar bracket. There wasn’t enough vertical room to mount the tabs for the ram. And my first gen track bar would interfere with the Big Bore steering box and the hoses that feed the ram. I ended up replacing it with the newer edition.
I took my time over a little more than a week. I’m thinking about giving it a test run next weekend at Southington before our trip to AOAA.
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