Well, I guess it's time to fix my parking brake. I did some light wheeling today in the mountains, stopped at a gas station near the freeway on ramp to get gas and a beverage.
I was inside of the store for all of 2 minutes, and when I walked out, my Jeep was missing. Brief thoughts of it being stolen or my memory completely failing me - thinking that I had parked it at the pump closest to the store, but it just wasn't there. It was at any of the pumps.
There I stood, in the dark with no sight of my Jeep. Panic starts to set in - I begin scanning 360 and it's no where to be found. Then, in a distant parking lot ~150' or so from the gas station, I see a silhouette reminiscent of nearly every Jeep pic on the internet taken by owners showing that suspension flex pose:
It all starts making sense: my parking brake had failed. Gravity took its natural course - taking my Jeep for a ride down a slight incline that gradually got worse as it neared a small (unoccupied) office building. It gained momentum, jumped a curb, then planted the rear tire and long arm suspension on a boulder rock barrier outside of the building (I guess this sort of thing had happened before to them).
As I started walking towards the kill zone, I began to assess the situation and how I was going to rescue my Jeep. Initially, I thought that I could crawl forward off of the boulder that I was hung up on, with some risk of smacking my fuel tank on the way down. Then I see that a large, sturdy tree branch had pinned the end of my roof in place, and I would have had to climb 6" or so to get off of the rock, opposing the strength of the tree.
The Jeep was stuck. I did not want to risk crushing the back of my hard top roof nor puncturing my fuel tank (cascading a bad situation into a possible building fire). I surrendered and called a local towing company, who for $163 - lifted and swung the rear end over the boulder, nicking my drive shaft just enough to put a nice 1.5" scratch on it.
No real damage to report, my front fender that I painted with truck bed liner a couple of months ago may need a bit of paint. My front passenger amber light exploded, but the bulb inside of it still worked. There are some scrapes under my front and rear long arm suspension, but they are very minor.
It sucks, but I'm just glad no one got hurt - that could have had a terrible ending!!! For $163, a little sanding / paint, and a new amber light cover is something that I can live with. Getting out the FSM now to read up on the parking brake....
I was inside of the store for all of 2 minutes, and when I walked out, my Jeep was missing. Brief thoughts of it being stolen or my memory completely failing me - thinking that I had parked it at the pump closest to the store, but it just wasn't there. It was at any of the pumps.
There I stood, in the dark with no sight of my Jeep. Panic starts to set in - I begin scanning 360 and it's no where to be found. Then, in a distant parking lot ~150' or so from the gas station, I see a silhouette reminiscent of nearly every Jeep pic on the internet taken by owners showing that suspension flex pose:
It all starts making sense: my parking brake had failed. Gravity took its natural course - taking my Jeep for a ride down a slight incline that gradually got worse as it neared a small (unoccupied) office building. It gained momentum, jumped a curb, then planted the rear tire and long arm suspension on a boulder rock barrier outside of the building (I guess this sort of thing had happened before to them).
As I started walking towards the kill zone, I began to assess the situation and how I was going to rescue my Jeep. Initially, I thought that I could crawl forward off of the boulder that I was hung up on, with some risk of smacking my fuel tank on the way down. Then I see that a large, sturdy tree branch had pinned the end of my roof in place, and I would have had to climb 6" or so to get off of the rock, opposing the strength of the tree.
The Jeep was stuck. I did not want to risk crushing the back of my hard top roof nor puncturing my fuel tank (cascading a bad situation into a possible building fire). I surrendered and called a local towing company, who for $163 - lifted and swung the rear end over the boulder, nicking my drive shaft just enough to put a nice 1.5" scratch on it.
No real damage to report, my front fender that I painted with truck bed liner a couple of months ago may need a bit of paint. My front passenger amber light exploded, but the bulb inside of it still worked. There are some scrapes under my front and rear long arm suspension, but they are very minor.
It sucks, but I'm just glad no one got hurt - that could have had a terrible ending!!! For $163, a little sanding / paint, and a new amber light cover is something that I can live with. Getting out the FSM now to read up on the parking brake....
All kidding aside, and all things considered, you really dodged a bullet on that one. Minimal damage to your TJ is great. Minimal damage to your wallet is better. But no one being injured? Priceless, my friend!
