Is it just me that ONLY has Jeep issues when wheeling?

freedom_in_4low

I'm a rooster illusion
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My rigs have given me thousands of trouble free miles on road...nearly everything that's ever gone wrong was on a wheeling trip. Some of that makes sense, like steering and suspension stuff that's clearly more taxed in those conditions, but others seem kinda arbitrary.

Two years ago my left turn/stop light quit working, between going wheeling and coming back. Not the bulb. I fixed it with oversized screws into the tub.

My first regear revealed itself to be poorly done (improper pinion depth according to the guy that redid it) 1 year after install, on a wheeling trip.

This year my LJ seems to have stuck it's thermostat open and fan clutch is always engaged...in Colorado where half the trip was engine braking downhill, all of it was below 65 degrees outside, following perfectly normal operation through an Oklahoma summer that had nearly 30 days in the 100s. Also now intermittently showing fuel empty with a P0463 code when I have half a tank.

Fortunately none of this stuff has ever stranded me or cut a trip short. It's just weird and i end up carrying 50 pounds of tools with me every time to try to be prepared.
 
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My rigs have given me thousands of trouble free miles on road...nearly everything that's ever gone wrong was on a wheeling trip. Some of that makes sense, like steering and suspension stuff that's clearly more taxed in those conditions, but others seem kinda arbitrary.

Two years ago my left turn/stop light quit working, between going wheeling and coming back. Not the bulb. I fixed it with oversized screws into the tub.

My first regear revealed itself to be poorly done (improper pinion depth according to the guy that redid it) 1 year after install, on a wheeling trip.

This year my LJ seems to have stuck it's thermostat open and fan clutch is always engaged...in Colorado where half the trip was engine braking downhill, all of it was below 65 degrees outside, following perfectly normal operation through an Oklahoma summer that had nearly 30 days in the 100s. Also now intermittently showing fuel empty with a P0463 code when I have half a tank.

Fortunately none of this stuff has ever stranded me or cut a trip short. It's just weird and i end up carrying 50 pounds of tools with me every time to try to be prepared.

Lol, last trip I was pulling into the trail and my check engine light came on.
 
My rigs have given me thousands of trouble free miles on road...nearly everything that's ever gone wrong was on a wheeling trip. Some of that makes sense, like steering and suspension stuff that's clearly more taxed in those conditions, but others seem kinda arbitrary.

Two years ago my left turn/stop light quit working, between going wheeling and coming back. Not the bulb. I fixed it with oversized screws into the tub.

My first regear revealed itself to be poorly done (improper pinion depth according to the guy that redid it) 1 year after install, on a wheeling trip.

This year my LJ seems to have stuck it's thermostat open and fan clutch is always engaged...in Colorado where half the trip was engine braking downhill, all of it was below 65 degrees outside, following perfectly normal operation through an Oklahoma summer that had nearly 30 days in the 100s. Also now intermittently showing fuel empty with a P0463 code when I have half a tank.

Fortunately none of this stuff has ever stranded me or cut a trip short. It's just weird and i end up carrying 50 pounds of tools with me every time to try to be prepared.

Well as long as whatever has not stranded you and you seem to carry a lot of tools. I want to tag along with you. I like to travel light
 
My rigs have given me thousands of trouble free miles on road...nearly everything that's ever gone wrong was on a wheeling trip. Some of that makes sense, like steering and suspension stuff that's clearly more taxed in those conditions, but others seem kinda arbitrary.

Two years ago my left turn/stop light quit working, between going wheeling and coming back. Not the bulb. I fixed it with oversized screws into the tub.

My first regear revealed itself to be poorly done (improper pinion depth according to the guy that redid it) 1 year after install, on a wheeling trip.

This year my LJ seems to have stuck it's thermostat open and fan clutch is always engaged...in Colorado where half the trip was engine braking downhill, all of it was below 65 degrees outside, following perfectly normal operation through an Oklahoma summer that had nearly 30 days in the 100s. Also now intermittently showing fuel empty with a P0463 code when I have half a tank.

Fortunately none of this stuff has ever stranded me or cut a trip short. It's just weird and i end up carrying 50 pounds of tools with me every time to try to be prepared.

Yep, it's only you...🤣

I think my only breakdown was a broken front axle shaft that went at the ears. I was locked with 33's and stock shafts. It's not enough. Fortunately I was five minutes from home and my wife came and got me. I pulled the shafts the next day and drove home. Replaced with chromoly's. GTG now.

Stay strong man...you probably have everything fixed good enough now that it won't happen for a long time.
 
Ever own a boat :whistle:

It's been a bit, but as a matter of fact, yes I have had "a hole in the water that you throw money into".

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My "favorite" was the time my parents came to visit, we loaded up and went to the lake, put it in the water, started it up, no water pissing out to indicate the impeller was working, which gave me reason to believe something was wrong with the cooling system. So I pulled it back out and drove home, pulled the covers and found some ants or something had packed a bunch of mud in the little tube. The impeller was fine, and the engine was being cooled. It just couldn't come out of that little tube.

A perfectly good Saturday wasted.
 
Yep, it's only you...🤣

I think my only breakdown was a broken front axle shaft that went at the ears. I was locked with 33's and stock shafts. It's not enough. Fortunately I was five minutes from home and my wife came and got me. I pulled the shafts the next day and drove home. Replaced with chromoly's. GTG now.

Stay strong man...you probably have everything fixed good enough now that it won't happen for a long time.

Oh, I'm not too worked up about it. Being that everything (except for the gears) was minor and easily addressed. I just think it's odd, since I put about 6-8k miles per year on it and maybe 25% of that is made up of driving to a place to wheel (the annual round trip to SWCO is about 1400 miles), I would think that only 25% of incidents would be on those trips. Hell, I forgot to mention last year, on the way out to western Colorado to wheel with my oldest son, I made it 50 miles into a 700 mile drive and my driver side hood latch broke. I had the zip ties and the bolt, stopped at a NAPA in Kingfisher, OK to borrow a drill to make the bolt holes, then used my phone to order a new latch delivered to the O'Reilly's in Alamosa, CO which I would pick up as I passed through the next day.

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For two failures in the cooling system to both fall in the direction of too much cooling instead of not enough is pretty dang lucky. One of the other guys on the trip had a fuel pump fail on the trail a couple of weeks before...what a pain that was to deal with.

Stories like yours is why I usually think of mine as overbuilt for what I do. Figured I'd rather drop a few Benjamins on chromo shafts BEFORE I ended up broken on the trail. Plus I'm a tinkerer...I enjoy installing mods just as much as I do actually wheeling, and since moving to Oklahoma, my garage is 2 hours closer than any place I can go wheel.
 
Oh, I'm not too worked up about it. Being that everything (except for the gears) was minor and easily addressed. I just think it's odd, since I put about 6-8k miles per year on it and maybe 25% of that is made up of driving to a place to wheel (the annual round trip to SWCO is about 1400 miles), I would think that only 25% of incidents would be on those trips. Hell, I forgot to mention last year, on the way out to western Colorado to wheel with my oldest son, I made it 50 miles into a 700 mile drive and my driver side hood latch broke. I had the zip ties and the bolt, stopped at a NAPA in Kingfisher, OK to borrow a drill to make the bolt holes, then used my phone to order a new latch delivered to the O'Reilly's in Alamosa, CO which I would pick up as I passed through the next day.

View attachment 357578

For two failures in the cooling system to both fall in the direction of too much cooling instead of not enough is pretty dang lucky. One of the other guys on the trip had a fuel pump fail on the trail a couple of weeks before...what a pain that was to deal with.

Stories like yours is why I usually think of mine as overbuilt for what I do. Figured I'd rather drop a few Benjamins on chromo shafts BEFORE I ended up broken on the trail. Plus I'm a tinkerer...I enjoy installing mods just as much as I do actually wheeling, and since moving to Oklahoma, my garage is 2 hours closer than any place I can go wheel.

My sister in law lives near you in Guthrie. She’s thinking of moving to Stillwater. I grew up in Paris, Tx and went to college in McPherson, KS, so I drove I35 which I think passes near Edmond. I remember one time in my 93 Fox body Mustang driving 8 hrs to KS and back 8 hrs to TX just to see a really hot girlfriend. Her name was Barbara, but we all called her Barbie, quite appropriately. That was a long day, but with Nirvana and Pearl Jam blaring and windows down it was worth it!

When I broke that shaft I didn’t know a locker and 33’s needed chromos. It was a real surprise. I did learn that I probably would be fine if I didn’t front bump anything very hard or turn tight while dropping off a ledge. It’s fixed now though. Mr rears are still stock on a D44Locked. I read I’m fine, just go easy on the skinny peddle.

Hope you can break free of the trail breaks. That can get old, especially when far from home.
 
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I remember one time in my 93 Fox body Mustang driving 8 hrs to KS and back 8 hrs to TX just to see a really hot girlfriend. Her name was Barbara, but we all called her Barbie, quite appropriately. That was a long day, but with Nirvana and Pearl Jam blaring and windows down it was worth it!

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