What did you do to your TJ today?

tsandershsa said:
I live less then 5 miles from this park but have never been to it since it was turned into a ORV park... back in the 80’s it was just Weyerhauser roads and I was a rookie patrol officer for the sheriffs department... I used to drives those roads looking for stolen vehicles... Beautiful area!
Click to expand...
Absolutely! We'll do another trip in the spring, you should meet up with us.
 
hear said:
Absolutely! We'll do another trip in the spring, you should meet up with us.
Click to expand...
Sounds like a plan! There are plenty of forest service roads north and west of Hot Springs around Lake Ouachita... Blue mountain and Hickory nut mountain that are free and have fantastic views!
 
tsandershsa said:
Sounds like a plan! There are plenty of forest service roads north and west of Hot Springs around Lake Ouachita... Blue mountain and Hickory nut mountain that are free and have fantastic views!
Click to expand...
I know some guys will run the fire trails which is of questionable legality. I've never been up hickory nut mountain, but our place is in Mount Ida, so I pass it all the time.
 
hear said:
Got the new winch installed.... I gambled on the industrious Chinese workforce, and bought a Zeak 13k winch with synthetic rope, hawse fairlead & all that off Amazon for $297. Seems like for the most part most/many winches are made in China anyway, so why pay a premium for the same parts & labor? The answer is because getting stuck aint worth it, but if you wheel with your buddies, you have built in failover. I'll do a review on the thing after a while.

Anyway, discovered just how bad my battery cables were when I went to connect up the winch. Had to send my wife to get a new negative cable (that was an adventure) and then connected the new one....despite not having any suitable ring terminals for the engine block ground. Let's just say I made it work and not ask too many questions.

Then I bought a cheap (but cool) rear bumper off Amazon that got delivered yesterday. And of course, the spare tire doesn't fit now. I had some doubts about the strength of the bumper mounts anyway, so I think I'm just going to return it. Not sure what returning a big heavy bumper will entail, but I guess we will learn. And then I guess I'll save my pennies for a more heavy duty piece. Sometimes you can get away with being cheap, sometimes you can't. I forget what brand this one was, but I have an EAG bumper on the JK and it is quite beefy. Was hoping for similar here, but no dice.
Click to expand...
Have u looked into dirtworx? Great economical option.
 
Went wheeling Saturday in NJ and Sunday at AOAA. Repped the TJ community both days as I was surrounded by JK and JL Rubi’s.
8D572F5C-59C4-444B-9A39-C86CD99C14A5.jpeg
1C415904-D484-4470-88A6-353170802DB0.jpeg
390AB249-98BB-4D83-894A-D04BE49066BB.jpeg
0B2F87FD-7D21-4055-93C5-8C95E61A4ED0.jpeg
BED48D6B-EFAF-4D39-A821-3A708A607C6B.jpeg
91BF5935-258F-494B-8AAD-7ACA77D905FD.jpeg
 
  • Like
Reactions: gaabbee, TJ Hunnicutt, matkal and 9 others
rhanna said:
Im replacing the u joints and cv joint in my front drive shaft. The kit came with a replacement boot but the old one seems to be on pretty good. Does it snap on? I don’t want to start aggressively pulling on it without knowing how it comes on and off


View attachment 210382
Click to expand...
You can work it off with a pair of pliers. To put a new one on simply find something that fits the metal base around it and press it on. I used a ball joint socket I had laying around, fit perfectly.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TJ Hunnicutt
Decided to change the ujoints in my rear driveshaft in spite of the fact that they passed the twist, push, pull test. My thought process was "It's got 191K miles, I have no ieda when/if they have ever been replaced." Post teardown revealed pristine spicer ujoints....my luck. I replaced anyway with some spicer 5-1310X's.
 
  • Like
  • USA Proud
Reactions: TJ Hunnicutt, L J, hosejockey61 and 1 other person
hear said:
Let's see....

PLOWED a doe on the way to Hot Springs ORV, left some hair on the winch knocked out a side marker light, drover over her with both axles. But otherwise no damage.

Earned the 3 badges at the park, plus a bunch of other trails. That place is fantastic, highly recommended. Big Juicy only needed to be winched in one spot, and that was only because I couldn't get on the right line and rigs were stacking up behind us.

Also had a weird knock on the way back after our first day. Thought it was a u-joint or possibly a wheel bearing, but turned out to be one of my wheel spacers had come loose. You may recall this was my #1 concern about spacers, and it came to pass. The driver's side front wheel was very close to coming off. Re-torqued them all and had no problems the next day.

Beyond that, the old girl did great, fantastic even when you consider what she was when I bought her just a little bit ago. No leaks, temp was just shy of 210 the entire way, no shakes on the long drive there. All the other rigs in our group had some sort of trouble with sensors or overheating or shifting.......or just not being able to make it up some climbs.

My JKU had been parked at the cabin after Thanksgiving, so I planned to leave the TJ there and drive the JK home. But I had pretty much "pure" distilled water as I have been slowly flushing the coolant system. Temps are going to be in the 20's overnight for the next week, so I drained the radiator and replaced with a gallon of concentrated G05 and ran it for a good while to hopefully get it all circulated. What I drained was still pretty nasty looking, and I really didn't want to add anti-freeze until I was satisfied that things were flushed out, but I also figured the $17 was better than dealing with freeze plugs or whatever else might result.


Here she is going down the first big hill with several big steps to negotiate. And I took a bad line at the very end which made it harder than it needed to be. I am by no means "good" at any of this. But we get out there and do it just the same.
Click to expand...

WHO GOT THE MEAT?
 
  • Haha
  • Like
Reactions: TJ Hunnicutt, GaTechTJ, reddvltj and 1 other person
hear said:
Let's see....

PLOWED a doe on the way to Hot Springs ORV, left some hair on the winch knocked out a side marker light, drover over her with both axles. But otherwise no damage.

Earned the 3 badges at the park, plus a bunch of other trails. That place is fantastic, highly recommended. Big Juicy only needed to be winched in one spot, and that was only because I couldn't get on the right line and rigs were stacking up behind us.

Also had a weird knock on the way back after our first day. Thought it was a u-joint or possibly a wheel bearing, but turned out to be one of my wheel spacers had come loose. You may recall this was my #1 concern about spacers, and it came to pass. The driver's side front wheel was very close to coming off. Re-torqued them all and had no problems the next day.

Beyond that, the old girl did great, fantastic even when you consider what she was when I bought her just a little bit ago. No leaks, temp was just shy of 210 the entire way, no shakes on the long drive there. All the other rigs in our group had some sort of trouble with sensors or overheating or shifting.......or just not being able to make it up some climbs.

My JKU had been parked at the cabin after Thanksgiving, so I planned to leave the TJ there and drive the JK home. But I had pretty much "pure" distilled water as I have been slowly flushing the coolant system. Temps are going to be in the 20's overnight for the next week, so I drained the radiator and replaced with a gallon of concentrated G05 and ran it for a good while to hopefully get it all circulated. What I drained was still pretty nasty looking, and I really didn't want to add anti-freeze until I was satisfied that things were flushed out, but I also figured the $17 was better than dealing with freeze plugs or whatever else might result.


Here she is going down the first big hill with several big steps to negotiate. And I took a bad line at the very end which made it harder than it needed to be. I am by no means "good" at any of this. But we get out there and do it just the same.
Click to expand...
When I had 1.5" spacers, I used blue loctite, torqued to 90ftlb and ran them over a year and never had one come loose.
 
  • Like
Reactions: reddvltj
tworley said:
You can work it off with a pair of pliers. To put a new one on simply find something that fits the metal base around it and press it on. I used a ball joint socket I had laying around, fit perfectly.
Click to expand...
Does the metal part snap off, when taking off the old one
 
tworley said:
You can work it off with a pair of pliers. To put a new one on simply find something that fits the metal base around it and press it on. I used a ball joint socket I had laying around, fit perfectly.
Click to expand...
If I remember correctly, I used a section of PVC pipe when I pressed my new one on.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tworley
Top Bottom
Back