Destination Unknown - 2022 JTR journal

[chorky]

This weekend I did a film trip with Homeward for Heroes. It is a group that works with vets and first responders to “disconnect to reconnect” and help folks through PtSD and various other mental/emotional issues. I can say first hand this is a most excellent group with a lot of really great people. And nation wide. We had people from Texas, Wisconsin, Vegas, and more. We will be doing more trips this summer, some easy exploring and some a little more difficult off road. There were a few folks that were new, and within half a day we all became instant family and felt like we knew each other for well over 10 years. Truly a unique situation. I am looking forward to seeing what the film crew decides to publish and am confident it will be amazing. But until then here are a few teaser shots!

So for any other vets and first responders out there, I highly recommended joining a similar group Or feel free to reach out to Homeward for Heroes.

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[chorky]

Aside from Jeep stuff, another hobby of mine is photographs. And although it is not Gladiator specific, I find it appropriate to post here. I learned photography back in high school for 3 years straight - when film was still a thing, and you had to go to a photo store to buy unexposed paper. And darkroom's were a place of shenanigans. Jeeps mean a lot to me personally. My dad had a CJ7 when I was a kid, and though my memory is shot, photos show I loved it. I purchased a '06 TJ some 10+ years ago as a way to get back to being 'me' after a terrible divorce and military garbage. Then, a few years ago, I met this group called Homeward for Heroes. Look them up if you wish - but they are an amazing group. So when I found out about them, and decided to participate in some upcoming adventures, it was important to me to get the Gladiator ready - because out exploring is one of a select few places some of us can find rest. So, at the start of our journey this weekend there was a moment that froze me in time.

“Without emotional content we take pictures; with it, we create art” - Gerald Brommer. A well captured photograph invokes from it a feeling, an emotion, a picture in space and time. This is done by being purposeful with a photo, not just snapping a picture.

As I was editing some photographs today to share, I was figuring how to edit a particular shot to bring about the emotion it presented at that time. One that, in honesty, was done in haste - but still had meaning. Later on while perusing some other photos, I was reminded of a similar shot taken years ago with ODA 3315. And suddenly, I was stricken. The emotion experienced during this weekend’s adventure was similar to that of many years ago in a distant place.

As I was working on these, I was reminded of something a good friend said recently. To paraphrase, and add - "The mission has not ended. The mission has changed. The target is no longer the enemy, and the objective is no longer to kill….the target is your brothers and sisters, and the objective is to heal”

So I attempted for the first time to superimpose two photographs. Normally I am not this type of photographer and usually revert to the 'film' days where you make your first shot count like it is the only one - paying close attention to every detail, lighting, all aspects of composition. However, for this particular emotion, a more modern approach seemed appropriate.

Therefore, I name this superimposed photograph - “Adjust fire! Continue the mission! DE OPPRESO LIBER"

 

[chorky]

A relatively simple add tonight. Bed lights. 4 Baja Designs rock lights work perfectly

 

[chorky]

This past weekend took my dad out camping so we both could try our own camp setups. Theres certainly a lot i like about the build and performance of the Gladiator and a couple things to add and change. It was pretty eventful with closed roads, weird weather, and lots of mosquitoes at one site. And even some snow. But it was still fun adventuring.
About this point the road was unexpectedly closed. It was just repaired last year sfter a major fire and alrady washed out again. So taking a moment to look at the waterfall we turned around to take another route

We ended up barely making it to vermillion pass, my hopeful destination just as the sun was setting. Unfortunately there was newly blown in smoke from canada killing the views

 

[chorky]

The next day we drove toward Stony lake in search of another campsite. On the way we stopped at some random side road leading to a stream to check it out for fishing opportunities. It was a old long forgotten forest service campground.

Driving by Fishtrap lakewe stopped for a few minutes to see the boat launch and official campground. But didnt stay long as it was busy with big trailers, motorboats and noisy side by sides. But the view was certainly nice!

My original plan of camping in the parking lot of Stony lake worked well. A coworker and his ‘partner’ (why not just say your girlfriend!?) were at the same lake fishing where they got several cutthroat and even grayling. I have wanted to catch some grayling for years with no luck. My fishing methods and my dads must not have been good as we got nothing so back to camp it was. And the mosquitoes were horrid.

But a nice little fire got rid of them quickly. And I really like these little things. Simple, less fuss than propane or wood, and smells nice.

 

[chorky]

The lake sure was pretty though

 

[chorky]

The next morning we rolled out to see if we could catch some fis and find another camp spot near the trailhead for Four Lakes. This area was part of a 38,000 acre fire from a few years ago where I wrote a timber sale contract to salvage some viable timber, but unfortunately no purchaser was interested. So I was really interested in seeing how many of the lakes were burned over since it was an area I wanted to explore for a few years.
we cruised around a few roads near the trailhead that are seasonally opened, and ended up finding a pretty awesome camp spot that was made for a HLZ during the fire.

it was a great viewing spot being able to see to the next ridgeline and just spot the Priscilla Peak lookout.

This would have been my 3rd or 4th night so far the tent and Gladiator build. So far it is working very well

But it is hard to say otherwise with such a great view

 

[chorky]

But the clouds started to roll in, and it began to rain.

So tarp time it was and get dinner cooking.

 

[chorky]

The next morning we woke to a decent bit of rain but the clouds appeared to be breaking up. So off to the hike we went. It ended up being much harder than anticipated and with weather that actually got worse than better with temps approaching 30, we just pushed through. But it was evident that the fire burned much more than I realized. A shame as this was a really pretty area. But the good news is it will grow back and for the next couple years the wildflowers will be awesome!

here you can see the fire scar on Cabin Lake from the Thorne Creek Fire. Although I wonder what the cabin must have been like to give this lake its name. The area is surrounded with a significant amount of mines and native american history

 

[chorky]

And I found what is probably the only ford in this forest. Breakup is over already but it was deeper than I thought. First water crossing with the Gladiator.

 

[Silverator]

Over the last week I spent time installing the front Warn Elite full width winch bumper, and Quadratec's 12K synthetic winch. I will say up front that the bumper from Warn is very difficult to install, does not line up as good as it should being a Warn product, and comes with sub-par fasteners for a bumper that is rated to handle a 12K winch. I do like still the overall fit and finish, but am very frustrated with the install.

That being said, it all started with removing the factory plastic bumper - which is easy enough.

The most frustrating part about this is removing the excessively amount of small screws to separate the plastic pieces in order to remove the factory fog light harness - which is placed inside the warn bumper to reuse the factory fog lights (or in my case, Baja Designs fog lamps with the factory style harness connectors).

The first step (according to Warn) is to line up the bumper after placing the carriage bolts in the bumper, and slide it onto the frame. They say to remove and discard the inner brackets that provide extra support. They also do not use all 8 bolts, but only 6 because they expect people to install their Zeon series winches which requires cutting the upper inner bolt spot on the frame. Because of this their bumper does not even have the option to add the 2 bolts - which I think is a poor choice. So I reused all 4 of the extra factory brackets since my winch will fit between the rails just fine.

The next step is to install the winch plate support brackets onto the frame horn (didn't realize what this was until after some research). This is apparently the key to how and why this bumper can support a super heavy pull from a 12K winch.

This is where my problems began. After this step, warn has you tighten bolts down to spec. Well.....their spec and instructions are not good, and neither is the fasteners they provide. Because, by HAND, I snapped in half the largest carriage bolts of the kit.

At this point, I was pretty furious, especially after the whole 'fix' warn had for their lower end winches - I was beginning to wonder if their entire company quality was going downhill. So doing some looking and researching, and with community input (https://www.jeepgladiatorforum.com/forum/threads/bumper-retaining-bolt-torque.69579/#post-1147288) I came to the conclusion the bolts Warn provided are mostly grade 5. Some are 8.8, and I think one set was 10.9 (the metric version of grade 8). However, the carriage bolts had some weird markings on them I didn't figure out.

So, off to the hardware store we go. Luckily for me, my local Ace which is 2 minutes away has a good assortment of stuff for being such a small town. The next option is more than 2 hours round trip. So, off comes the bumper.

I opted to not use any of the big carriage bolts and got grade 8 hardware. I didn't even want to consider having this problem again. I also opted to NOT use the bolt retainers (the little round thing that presses onto a bolt to keep it in place. Even though this meant spending more time getting bolts and nuts on - I didn't want that tiny little 1/2mm space between the bumper and frame. It just didn't sit right with me. So, a few hours later, the next day, the bumper went back on.

You can see how tight some of the access is - and this is easy compared to other aspects of this bumper later on.

I felt comfortable tightening these down to spec, about 75 lb-ft

Now it was time to put the winch plate brackets on again.

And I noticed something interesting. The brackets did not line up. The holes lined up ok since there was a ton of play, but the brackets needed to bend for metal to contact metal flush.

But, following their instructions, and some comments from a forum member, I started tightening things down anyway to spec. And guess what - another broken bolt. Well, rather in this case a stripped rivet nut and a bolt that no longer had any threads.

So, what to do now? Well I ended up chatting with @Summitdan since he has the same bumper, and he experienced none of what I did. But we talked through some things anyway (appreciate your input Dan!). This was a bit of a problem as there was no room to easily cut out the rivet nut. The bigger problem is Warn doesn't even recognize these rivet nuts even exist. How could they have such bad instructions from 'the best' winch company? So back to the hardware store again.

I opted to get more grade 8 hardware. I drilled out the rivet nut to 1/2 inch (to my surprise it didnt fall out! So I put grade 8 hardware in the hole and squished the crap out of the rivet nut. It was able to torque to spec, so I think it will hold. I also opted to get different bolts for the other rivet nuts, that are longer, after making sure I had the right thread. I think the problem here was the factory bolts just were not long enough to grab threads enough. But, poor on Warn to not even know these exist. So there must have been a change here between 2020 and 2022.

I also opted to get rid of ALL hardware that Warn includes, and get specifically grade 8 hardware. I am very not happy they would not include grade 8.

Finally, after 5 days of working on a darn bumper, I was able to get it up and tightened down. Phew. Warn will certainly be hearing from me as this is a big oversight IMO. And from such a reputable company, just not ok at all. But I do still like the look and lines of the bumper better than any other options out there. Hopefully it will give me years and years of trouble free use.

Ugh! Sorry to hear about your troubles with the Warn hardware. I just ordered the same bumper (took forever to get it) and skid plate - with a Warn Evo winch. I had the local 4x4 shop install it though. Hope it gets done well...... Will find out tomorrow when I get it back.....

 

[chorky]

Ugh! Sorry to hear about your troubles with the Warn hardware. I just ordered the same bumper (took forever to get it) and skid plate - with a Warn Evo winch. I had the local 4x4 shop install it though. Hope it gets done well...... Will find out tomorrow when I get it back.....

The biggest issue for me was the lack of grade 8 hardware. Others have not had the issues I did so who knows. It's still a good bumper though!

 

[chorky]

I was so pleased with how the four BD rock lights turned out I went ahead and installed 4 more on the inside of the cab. Despite being LeD the factory dome lights are total garbage. When its 0430 in dead of winter and I dropped something between the seats I want to see darnit! So this idea I have had for a while and left an open switch spot on the in cab switch pros just for them. I think they turned out excellent.

 

[Blade1668]

On the 4ga I have going to the bed I just crimped and heat shrunk it. Probably should have soldered it too but resistance tests said it was good..... It was tough to crimp though - for me. I can't imagine trying to crimp 2 ga or even 1 ga

Receiver winch mouth work. Personally, IMO I would never use one. They are pretty dangerous from what I have seen. I think it comes down to how you use it though. But the receiver on the JT seems WAY beefier than any other receiver I have seen on a modern truck. It has some massive bolts, and bolts onto the Fram at I think 3 or 5 points on each side. SO I doubt that would go anywhere. It would be more of a question of the rest of the receiver and weld quality.

If you was close by, I have hydraulic compression tool for heavy gauge wiring. I got tired of having to solder heavy gauge wiring. (it can be a failure point) I've crimped using alternative methods in past too.

Well I've got a few of the receiver hitch mounts for winches, only mounted 8k winches (2) and a 6k on them. Ran them double line back on my XJ many times. I probably wouldn't try to use a full 12k winch on one. The advantage of this is you can use in front or back of vehicle and multiple ones. I'm planning on installing a ATV winch on one for light duty uses, but I do have a welding experience and equipment too. Heck with one set of my "jumper cables, I could hook the winch to a tree and run cable to it.

 

[chorky]

If you was close by, I have hydraulic compression tool for heavy gauge wiring. I got tired of having to solder heavy gauge wiring. (it can be a failure point) I've crimped using alternative methods in past too.

Well I've got a few of the receiver hitch mounts for winches, only mounted 8k winches (2) and a 6k on them. Ran them double line back on my XJ many times. I probably wouldn't try to use a full 12k winch on one. The advantage of this is you can use in front or back of vehicle and multiple ones. I'm planning on installing a ATV winch on one for light duty uses, but I do have a welding experience and equipment too. Heck with one set of my "jumper cables, I could hook the winch to a tree and run cable to it.

Certainly appreciate that offer. I ended up finding out NAPA in town had the wire I needed (for the winch). Went with 1 ga since that's what they had but they had a press and was able to do a good crimp on the lugs, so that worked really well. I think the 4ga I have for the camp power system is crimped good but it just doesn't look great. One of those hydraulic tools would be awesome to have.

I think the idea with the receiver hitches are awesome - but for light pulls. Just based on some of the retaining hardware I have seen in the past I personally would be cautious. However, the way the hitch bolts to the frame of the Gladiator, now that thing is solid. Some HUGE bolts, and 4 of them on each side

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