Lonewolf's 1998 Jeep Wrangler Sport

So my next problem was a drivability issue. Anytime I go faster than 60 mph I get a really bad sway. It was a weird gentle sway but it was hard to keep the TJ in a lane. I thought maybe the ball joint eliminators were causing a problem, I had recently reinstalled my steering stabilizer so I removed that but the problem was still there.

I guess the 1/2 inch taller coils threw my caster angle out of whack because I moved the upper arms a few turns back and did a test drive up to 85 and the problem was fixed!

It’s been awhile since I updated. I’ve been trying to get it out as often as possible , but this winter won’t give up Rubicon or Fordyce

I went to Hollister again and also hit up Prarie City, both were fun family trips. heres the photo dump from those trips.

I finally Made a day trip to Fordyce a few weeks ago . It was a good day trip. We couldn’t make it past the river crossing since it was too deep and there was a lot of standing water but nothing broke So it was a good day.I also was able to fit 2 TJs on a 22 foot trailer and it towed pretty good.

Last weekend me, @Alex01 and my 2 buddies did the Rubicon. It was a awesome two days of wheeling camping and hanging out. We had a 2 hour delay while waiting for a large group to exit but we still made it to rubicon springs by 5. There was no line at Soup Bowl so we were able to all do that obstacle.

NashvilleTJ said:

Wow. That is awesome. Wish I was closer.

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yea California definitely has it problems but good wheeling is not one of them !

Now that the summer wheeling season is over I can update this a little bit. After Rubicon we did slick rock a few times and Fordyce a few times.

I like slick rock because it is the perfect day trip family trail. It’s usually uneventful but on this trip one of the people in our group broke a front axle U joint. We were able to get it fixed pretty fast. There was very little traffic on the trail and we were dodging rain clouds but it ended up being a good day. Here’s A few pictures.

Next up was a trip to Fordyce we planned on doing it from the bottom and exiting out of the committee crossing. This was a no drama trip other than a rain storm that made the second half of the trail muddy. The only other people we encountered was at the River crossing exit, an XJ got hung up on a rock underwater and grenaded his driveshaft. His Group tried to pull him across but that got him more wedged so we ended up winching him backwards to remove what was left of the shaft and then pull him back across.

Alex01 said:

Who could that have been??

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well it was a hard section of the trail that it broke on

So after the Fordyce trip and me and @Alex01 planning another one to finish the top half of the trail I realized I had to fix/upgrade a few things. The river crossings get pretty deep and after seeing this picture of Alex’s Jeep

I realized I needed to do something about the intake.My intake is directly behind the headlight, so going the other way in this crossing would definitely mean a swamped filter or worse. I didn’t want a snorkel so the only option was a Cowl intake. It’s a little louder but if I swamp the cowl I’m under water at the dash so I probably have bigger problems.

So the next thing I needed to address was the steering. I was hitting the tie rod on everything . So I finally took @Alex01 advice and drilled out the knuckle and welded in a insert to flip the tie rod. It was way easier than I thought and I am still wondering why I didn’t do it sooner. I had to trim and beef up my sway bar mounts but other than that it was a straight forward fix

JMT said:

Is this enough steel on your sway bar bracket? I'd be afraid that would twist. I was twisting the stock sway bar bracket without trimming at one time.

Did you consider getting the BMB raised sway bar brackets to give clearance for the Tie Rod Flip?

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I guess I forgot to mention that I welded in a piece of steel to strengthen that and so far I have done two more trips and nothing has bent yet but if I get any sort of bend out of it and will probably go towards the BMB raised mount

MeanGreen86 said:

This was a great read for a lazy sunday. You definitely have quite the selection of trails out there. The rubicon looks amazing. I can't wait to get my LJ out there someday. Great build and solid rig.

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Thank you! Yea as you can see the wheeling is definitely hard on stuff though. The Rubicon is definitely a bucket list trail and Fordyce also has great views, let me know when you make it out here and we will go wheel!

Next up was a trip to Fordyce, me and @Alex01 wanted to enter at the committee crossing and exit at meadow lakes, so essentially do the rest of the trail we hadn’t done. There was some snow on the ground and it made everything slightly more difficult. The water crossing was pretty deep and was almost coming in over the top of the half doors!














The wheeling was great , we had to use a bit more wheel speed than usual to get out some of the slick rock faces but all in all it was great until it wasn’t. We got to winch hill three I decided I would try the hard line 1st after about 20 minutes of trying I decided that since I didn’t make it more than 8 feet it wasn’t happening. Alex was next up he made it all the way till the last climb and we heard something let go, it ended up being his front axle shaft U joint.


There is no way he was going to be able to back up or winch backwards so we figured the only way Forward was up! I was turning around to take the bypass to get up top to winch him forward and midway up the climb something snapped in my front end and I lost 4wheel Drive and had a horrible grinding noise. Needless to say I was out of the game, luckily there was a broken Toyota and a Jeep on 42s at the top so we were able to use them as a winch point and get Alex to the top where we could make repairs. That was a feat in itself because he ended up overheating his winch so bad it stopped working and almost flopped sideways.

We were able To get him to the top and pull out the broken u joint and made the choice to go back downhill as he had only 3 Wheel Drive and I had two wheel drive unless it was a hard climb I would put it in four and cringe at the sounds coming out of the front axle. It was a long process but we made it down to the Crossing where I got stuck going downhill and I needed Alex’s assistance but he was stuck coming up hill. It added about 30 minutes to the day of just trying to make it a few feet. Alex ended up strapping me all the way out and we made it back to the trucks in mostly one piece.

My damage from the day was unknown broken axle parts, a ripped soft top and bent my steering.