Practical Truck for the Over Prepared Woman

[kevman65]

Great news. Now you saved money for more mods.

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[Elff]

That's awesome news.
A little stressful but with a great outcome and we all learned about a stand up dealership.

Glad to hear it was a no hassle experience as nothing you have done could have caused that issue.

 

[NachoRuby]

The Jeep gods did indeed smile upon me! The problem was identified as the oil cooler. Independent research shows that was a JK problem too

The surprising thing was how the dealer replaced it no questions asks, even when my truck showed up muddy:

Big thumbs up for Umansky of Charlottesville for anyone in the area.

That is wonderful news!

 

[TheOpa]

Heck, they probably owe you some money. If they parked that amazing rig of yours out in front while they weren’t working on it you likely sold another hundred or so Gladiators for them!
still, good to hear it worked out well for you.

 

[A 2]

These stories hardly ever end up as well as yours did.

 

[Kindafearless]

So, quick update. Looks like my last off-roading trip caused a little damage.

I’m not sure if it was the off-roading or the 1500 highway miles that I ended up having to drive :/ Long story.

Anyway, trip was great. Truck performed awesome as always.

Insert fun picture

When I got home, I was doing the post trip check and found an axle leak in the rear driver side axle. I pull the axle, and everything looks ok with the exception of a little abrasion along the axle seal. Whatever the cause, I had gear fluid coating everything.

Tore it down and cleaned everything up and I notice that there is a snap ring on my axle. Which is weird, since there is nowhere for the ring to go. Usually there is a slot they are fit into.

Long story short, I decided to just replace the axle since I have two big trips planned this month.

Weird thing is, I get the new chromoly axle in and compare them tonight. No snap ring, no indent. I still have the old stock axles and they both have snap rings, but they also have an indent to put them in.

Super weirded out. But, the truck is back together for later this month. I’m so glad she’ll be trailered moving forward.

 

[Elff]

Interesting, did you take a picture?

as far as the leak, make sure you did not tweak the axle housing tube.
i could not find the source of an axle leak on my first rock crawler and it turned out that was the cause. Guess i dropped off a rock too hard. it was preventing everything from sealing up, but aside from that, it never caused any other problems.
Im hoping to have all of my upgrades/repairs done by end of Month so if you come back up to AOAA/RC id be happy to meet up.

 

[Kindafearless]

Interesting, did you take a picture?

as far as the leak, make sure you did not tweak the axle housing tube.
i could not find the source of an axle leak on my first rock crawler and it turned out that was the cause. Guess i dropped off a rock too hard. it was preventing everything from sealing up, but aside from that, it never caused any other problems.
Im hoping to have all of my upgrades/repairs done by end of Month so if you come back up to AOAA/RC id be happy to meet up.

No picture, but I have the part laying around somewhere in my pile for metal recycling. I’ll try to remember to take a picture.

 

[wchevron]

Just read through this whole thread. Really impressed with your build. Love the chopped bed, makes the truck look so much better proportioned.

 

[Kindafearless]

Messed up my tie rod a couple weeks ago :/ Recovering from that, I made the upgrade I had been putting off and it got me back out this weekend. Lesson learned, the steer smarts stuff isn’t quite cut out for 40s and hydro.

I went with Fusion since TMR was out of stock, it’s pretty much the same parts I think. I dig the replaceable cartridges and wish I had known they existed first time around.

Fun pictures of the break and creative configuration to get off the trail.

 

[shyoung1]

That was pretty ingenious!

 

[Rusty PW]

Interesting fix.

 

[jsalbre]

Can’t say I’ve ever seen that done before! How did it handle?

 

[Kindafearless]

It got the truck back to the trailer. I kept it slow, but was able to steer and handle a green trail for a couple miles.

The wheels weren’t aligned great, so the biggest pain was getting the truck correctly centered on the trailer in the parking lot.

I wish I could claim this was my idea, but it came from one of the guys on the trail with me. It’s freaking brilliant.

I hope to never do it again though. I have extra TRE cartridges arriving tomorrow and the new drag link and tie rod are installed.

 

[Kindafearless]

Been a few days of wheeling since I last broke something, so it was bound to happen again :/

This time it was a crack in the front track bar mount AND a failure in the rear sway bar mount (from Artec).

In hind sight, the setup of the Artec bracket isn't super strong out of the box. The welds are minimal and there are a couple weak spots that could have been fixed by running a bead along the full length of the bend and connection points between parts. I'll be reinforcing both brackets when I weld the broken one back together this week.

For my trip next week, I'm also going to do a quick fix on the track bar bracket. At this point, I'm going to replace it in the next couple weeks though. I just don't think the factory bracket is designed to take the kinds of pressure I'm putting on it with the track bar riser AND hydro assist.

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