Do you know any handy trail fixes?

TheFrenchMan

TJ Enthusiast
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Messages
129
Location
Hemet, Ca
On my first wheeling trip in Big Bear California, I bent my factory tie rod into the shape of a shepherds crook! After scratching our heads for a while and beating on it with hammers and rocks which did nothing, we made a discovery!

667fc43bd57053bf310964bbcdcb8c3a.jpg


The hole in the frame just behind the front bumper is the exact size of a factory tie rod! We were able to slide the tie rod into the frame and use it to get the leverage we needed to bend the tie rod to as straight as we could get it! We still had a good mile of riverbed boulders to get past to get off the trail. We knew the now weak tie rod would just bend again, then we had another great idea!

91308ea42473d749190a84c8ef76561b.jpg
ecdd6a77cc280b41d42f9a475020d441.jpg


We sleeved it with my high lift Jack handle. We made it off the trail and I was able to drive it home 90 miles at freeway speeds with just a measuring tape alignment on the trail!

Anyone have any other trail fixes that help out in a pinch?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Ha don't look to me for easy trail fixes, they're all usually nightmares/difficult to me lol.

I dId come up with a 3 automotive battery stick welder kit to carry in the Jeep that was most recently used to weld a JK track bar mount back onto the frame.

A Harbor Freight welding rod holder, some 1/8" 7018 rod, a ground clamp, two short jumpers to connect between the three batteries, wire brush, slag hammer, some auto-darkening goggles, etc. It does take some finessing, 36 volts likes to blow holes in the steel if you don't keep the rod moving lol. All you need is your battery and two more batteries from friends. Two batteries aren't quite enough as the welding rod keeps sticking, three batteries are a little too much but it gets the job done if you're careful. I keep it all together in a tool bag in the back of the Jeep. A Ready-Welder is the ultimate trail welder but too spendy for me.

Also, carry some gasket material which auto parts stores sell as a square sheet. If your thermostat sticks shut causing the engine to overheat, remove the thermostat and cut a new gasket for the thermostat housing out of the gasket material. That happened to me on the trail two years ago but we had to cut the gasket out of a military MRE (meals, ready to eat) cardboard box. I wasn't carrying the actual gasket material like I do now Don't laugh, the MRE cardboard gasket was leak free until I was able to install a new thermostat with a new 'factory' gasket. :)
 
Last edited:
Ha don't look to me for easy trail fixes, they're all usually nightmares/difficult to me lol.

I dId come up with a 3 automotive battery stick welder kit to carry in the Jeep that was most recently used to weld a JK track bar mount back onto the frame.

A Harbor Freight welding rod holder, some 1/8" 7018 rod, a ground clamp, two short jumpers to connect between the three batteries, wire brush, slag hammer, some auto-darkening goggles, etc. It does take some finessing, 36 volts likes to blow holes in the steel if you don't keep the rod moving lol. All you need is your battery and two more batteries from friends. Two batteries aren't quite enough as the welding rod keeps sticking, three batteries are a little too much but it gets the job done if you're careful. I keep it all together in a tool bag in the back of the Jeep. A Ready-Welder is the ultimate trail welder but too spendy for me.

I do this with my golf cart at work. We have a 110 volt welder but I never have power where I need to weld. The apartment complex I work for is gated with an iron fence and I weld broken hinges on the gates and broken pickets on the fences all the time. This trick works great when it's a quick fix!



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk