Maintenance, key to survival

i just changed the oil at 2K. It was black, but not bad. At the same time i changed the diff oils. The jeep registers 45K miles. This is the second diff change. i did most of 1 bottle of Lucas and 2 bottles of the called for gear oil.

i first changed the rear diff oil. The drain plug had quite a few shavings on it :( The oil was also quite milky although i didn't really recognize it until i changed the front. The rear diff has a breather hose off the top that snakes up near the body. i am imagining getting some water down that breather. Which also makes me realize that breather should be inspected to be clear. Going forward i'll change the rear twice as often as the front.

After the rear, i changed the front and it looked great, a few shavings but nothing out of the ordinary.

i need to rotate the tires and then i'll be ready to schedule my Unlimited Offroad appointment to get the drag links updated and an alignment. i plan on replacing/upgrading the steering stabilizer at the same time.

We tried out our new dash cam! i created a custom duct tape mount for it that works awesome! No i didn't tape it to the dash. i spent time creating a paper lined holder. The Galaxy Note works just plain bad ass. It's not just a camera while driving, it also runs Waze which is very cool. Check out a sample video on YouTube. You can even hear the drive shaft rub the exhaust as the wheels come 3ft off the ground and the front axle drops down.

Rocks and Valleys and Black Diamonds

i use the internet to my advantage. Sometimes i'm just plain dumb. This last weekend my 11 yr old boy and i decided to take the Black Dragonfly to the Mt. Morris Mounds.

Upon arriving we were told that the Mounds are closed until like June to wheelers. They apparently need to keep us out whilst the quads and dirt bikes have their fun. Maybe it's too crowded? Ya right! i've never been there when it's too crowded. It's an open park with very few tight places. i don't get it. Anyhow the guy said "It's all on the website." Why didn't i check the damn website! Dumb me.

Anyhow, we were not going to be turned away from having fun together as father and son. So i did what any self respecting father would do, drive farther to a different park. We drove an extra hour and half to Rocks and Valleys. We made the right choice. Rocks and Valleys is, from what we could tell, designed and operated for jeepers.

We got the long drawn out overview of the park from a well meaning park "ranger". He told us that with our rig we should stick to the green circles and blue squares and to "stay away from any black diamonds". After installing our $15 orange flag we hit the trails.

We first met and older guy in his stock TJ and he took us to the Valley where we followed him up a small hill. Afterward he was excited and asked "how about that huh!". i looked at my son, he looked at me, i responded "Ya, that was fun!" It was lame. We didn't realize that he took us up his version of a hill climb. We chatted for a few minutes and he also informed us that we shouldn't take "that rig" on any black diamonds.

So we simply went down some trails that scared him off and met up with a group of about 10 modified jeeps. We met a great group of wheelers and proceeded to follow them around, CB channel 22. We had a great time on a few black diamond trails that didn't stress our rig out at all. It was comfortable and fun. Our Full Traction Duratrac setup performed flawlessly.

We eventually came to a hill that had trails like "The Big Ugly". We did find that our rig couldn't go up the down trail and had fun trying some obstacles that put our rig to the test. While here we watched the bigger rigs try some big climbs and were treated to some great action.

Mainly we had a blast watching a guy known as "Tippy" put his jeep on it's side. Enough to get the oil draining out the top. This wasn't his first time as you don't get a name like that for no good reason. It was neat to see 2 winches right the jeep. Very cool.

While there i got a call from Jarod over at Unlimited Offroad. Seriously, at the park! He informed me that during my installation he didn't like the engagement of the adjustable sleeve that attaches to the track bars. He finally got some free new sleeves that correct the issue. Perfect! On the way home i noticed that somewhere between my front end leaving the ground 3 feet and coming down kinda hard i knocked the alignment out slightly. Not too bad but that's ok as it will need an alignment when the new parts go on anyhow.

If you're looking for a great park with great jeepers, check out Rocks and Valleys.