[AssBurns]

Well if anyone hasn’t seen how my weekend went, here it is. It was actually one of the best weekends I’ve had in a while despite everything that happened. My wife, daughter and I went to Ocotillo Wells for Tierra Del Sol this past weekend and met up with some friend that I grew up with but never made it out to the desert with before. So this was the first time wheeling with them. They are all Baja racers and grew up racing Jeep Speed and other classes. We got out there Friday night and within 2 minutes of getting to camp, we were aired down and on our way wheeling. Just goes to show that there was no ***** footing around. They wanted to find some of the hardest stuff out there which was some pretty nasty notches (Not the notches everyone usually goes to but some super gnarly stuff that most sane people wouldn’t attempt in a vehicle). I had to bypass the really hard stuff but still made it through some pretty wild stuff for being only 2wd still. I did have to hook up the strap a couple times in some sandy sections. After some of that we cruised down to the Iron Door, which is a hokey little bar in the middle of the desert. Drank a few Pacifico’s then made our way back to camp and proceeded to drink by the fire until the last one went to bed. Pretty much did the same thing on Saturday, and Sunday too.
So all that fun didn’t come without any damage. If you haven’t been out to the Truckhaven/Ocotillo Wells area, it’s all big mud hills, washes and notches (which are giant ruts that can start from being a little rut that you can drive over then turn into a 10-15 foot deep mini canyon that a vehicle can barely squeeze through). Well there were some spots that were just that, squeezing through and hitting body panels. Got a nice set of scratches along with a dent on the rear passenger side quarter panel from Friday night. Then on Saturday I cut the corner just a couple inches too close to the wall and blew out my drivers side rear window. Then rubbed the wall again shortly after than in the same spot. Good thing there was no window to break that time! Then what ended the night for be want blowing out my rear end again going up a sandy hill coming out of one of the notches.

Overall the weekend was an absolute blast wheeling and watching my buddies in their built rigs do some pretty wild stuff.


This was right after blowing out my window and hitting the quarter panel again. The notch finally opened up enough to get out and check it out.


The new dent above the fender from Friday night




Tail light got some fresh cracks in it.



Blown out ring gear.



Pinion has a couple small chips but no broken teeth.



Video of the broken diff. No idea how this happened.
https://youtu.be/y0-87ItR76E


Those 40” tires make the ledge look tiny.



My daughter spectating. She wouldn’t let us take her out of her onesie






My daughter seeing how deep the ledge was first hand



We climbed through some mud tunnels



A TTB swapped XJ
Some inspiration right here!

[theesotericone]

Originally Posted by AssBurns

Video of the broken diff. No idea how this happened.

Talk about getting after it. Your living up to my mantra. Build it, beat it, break it, repeat.

Are the bearing caps bolts still tight? Maybe they came loose allowing play in the bearing then total destruction?

[psraff]

Originally Posted by AssBurns

This was right after blowing out my window and hitting the quarter panel again. The notch finally opened up enough to get out and check it out.

Seems like our windows always take a beating. I've seen quite a few of these on this forum, mine included. Always wanted to weld up some armor to protect them.

[4-Ripcord]

wait you took out another diff?

[phattyduck]

Originally Posted by 4-Ripcord

wait you took out another diff?

Looks like he's 0 wheel drive at the moment.

-Charlie

[AssBurns]

Originally Posted by theesotericone

Talk about getting after it. Your living up to my mantra. Build it, beat it, break it, repeat.

Are the bearing caps bolts still tight? Maybe they came loose allowing play in the bearing then total destruction?

Not super proud of it at the moment. Sometimes I'd rather just spend my time wheeling or upgrading, not repairing breakages again and again.

The bearing caps are still tight. All the painted bolt torque marks were still lined up.

I spoke with ECGS today and they said - "All the pressure is on that side. When it shock loaded it jumped the threads, that’s why the lock is still in place but bent way out. It never spun just shot out.

You can send it in again and we will go through it. Be advised do to the short duration of the diff life you need to either get a bigger diff or change driving style.

What size tires are on it?"

I'm not sure if they believe me when I told them the hill I was going up wasn't bad enough to cause this IMO.

Originally Posted by psraff

Seems like our windows always take a beating. I've seen quite a few of these on this forum, mine included. Always wanted to weld up some armor to protect them.

It would be cool to have some sort of way to protect the window, but anything I can think of would look retarded or just get in the way. I should probably just pay closer attention to things when I'm wheeling in tight situations.

Originally Posted by 4-Ripcord

wait you took out another diff?

Yeah I don't feel like this one was completely my fault though. Could be, but I don't think so.

Originally Posted by phattyduck

Looks like he's 0 wheel drive at the moment.

-Charlie

[Inv4drZm]

Originally Posted by AssBurns

It would be cool to have some sort of way to protect the window, but anything I can think of would look retarded or just get in the way. I should probably just pay closer attention to things when I'm wheeling in tight situations.

4x4labs makes a rear bumper for 4th gens and they have 'side sliders' on the sides of the bumper wings. Should help push your rear end off of obstacles.

3rd gen rear bumpers aren't as huge as the 4th's but they still might help. Should be easy to weld on to yours.

[theesotericone]

Originally Posted by AssBurns

Not super proud of it at the moment. Sometimes I'd rather just spend my time wheeling or upgrading, not repairing breakages again and again.

I understand that. Everything is a lesson man. Just learn from it and move on.

My first truly capable off-road rig was my 77 F-250. 400M fully built, 4 speed with granny 1st, 6 inches of lift and 38's. I was 22 or so when I built it. I broke everything on that rig at least once. Some things multiple times.

I was young and drove it like a race car. I didn't care because I had another DD and the skills and money to fix it when needed. Breaking shit was like a badge of honor between my friends and I. The more obstacles you did the better. To do them you, or one up your buds, you ended up broken a lot of the time. I had a blast doing it.

Looking back, I could have still done everything I did in it without breaking nearly as much. I have a much larger skill set now. I'm older and drive fast when needed but slow when it's smart too. I lived and I learned.

[Dezert4Runner]

So you had to put the runner on one of you buddies’ trailers to get it home or what? That situation reminds me of Danny out at Calico. About 2 hours from home and a broken rear diff!

That JeepSpeed is bad ass! I don’t like Jeeps a whole lot but that thing is what I want my 3rd gen to grow up to be one day but with IFS Long travel.

Off topic but I saw a post of yours in the Southwest regional section about a trip near Williams in Arizona. Did you hit any trails out there? Any recommendations? We’ll be in Sedona next month and we’re making a day trip from there to the Grand Canyon South Rim and Bearizona but I’d like to hit an easy trail if there’s something worth a detour in the vicinity.

[AssBurns]

Originally Posted by Inv4drZm

4x4labs makes a rear bumper for 4th gens and they have 'side sliders' on the sides of the bumper wings. Should help push your rear end off of obstacles.

3rd gen rear bumpers aren't as huge as the 4th's but they still might help. Should be easy to weld on to yours.

I've seen those things before but I doubt that those would have helped in this particular situation since I think the body actually leaned into the wall pretty hard, not just rubbing along it. Some of those tubes seem like they would just end up getting in the way and getting caught up on stuff. Good idea for folks that want to protect themselves from body damage, but I just don't want to break windows really. I'm assuming you are talking about something like this? https://forum.ih8mud.com/attachments...er2-jpg.55693/

Originally Posted by theesotericone

I understand that. Everything is a lesson man. Just learn from it and move on.

My first truly capable off-road rig was my 77 F-250. 400M fully built, 4 speed with granny 1st, 6 inches of lift and 38's. I was 22 or so when I built it. I broke everything on that rig at least once. Some things multiple times.

I was young and drove it like a race car. I didn't care because I had another DD and the skills and money to fix it when needed. Breaking shit was like a badge of honor between my friends and I. The more obstacles you did the better. To do them you, or one up your buds, you ended up broken a lot of the time. I had a blast doing it.

Looking back, I could have still done everything I did in it without breaking nearly as much. I have a much larger skill set now. I'm older and drive fast when needed but slow when it's smart too. I lived and I learned.

I always seem to quickly forget how much it sucks to break your vehicle enough to leave it out of service for weeks on end. I get the whole badge of honor thing, but I don't have much of that kind of pride. I just get a little stupid in the moment of things and say "Fvck it!" a little too often. I always seem to have a blast doing it though!

Originally Posted by Dezert4Runner

So you had to put the runner on one of you buddies’ trailers to get it home or what? That situation reminds me of Danny out at Calico. About 2 hours from home and a broken rear diff!

That JeepSpeed is bad ass! I don’t like Jeeps a whole lot but that thing is what I want my 3rd gen to grow up to be one day but with IFS Long travel.

Off topic but I saw a post of yours in the Southwest regional section about a trip near Williams in Arizona. Did you hit any trails out there? Any recommendations? We’ll be in Sedona next month and we’re making a day trip from there to the Grand Canyon South Rim and Bearizona but I’d like to hit an easy trail if there’s something worth a detour in the vicinity.

Yeah I put it on my buddy's trailer and drove his XJ home. I really need to get a truck and trailer just for this reason. I can't really afford that at the moment though since I don't want to finance a vehicle and don't have the cash to buy one in full. JeepSpeed is pretty sweet for sure! These guys are pretty involved in pretty much all sorts of offroad racing. My buddy preps race vehicles before races on everything from Baja Trophy trucks to Ultra4 buggies.

I want the same thing out of my vehicle except I don't really like the week front end that our rigs come with, so I'll be swapping that with something a little stronger.

When we went to AZ, we ended up not taking the 4runner and just made a road trip out of it to check out the cities a little more since we someday want to move out there. There looks to be all sorts of pretty cool trails out there though!

[JBurt]

Glad you had a good time. Sorry about the diff. Maybe this will help

https://www.ajtdesign-llc.com/online...atch-p90515189

[AssBurns]

Originally Posted by JBurt

Glad you had a good time. Sorry about the diff. Maybe this will help

https://www.ajtdesign-llc.com/online...atch-p90515189

That's pretty awesome! I'm not a patch guy, but I went ahead and bought one just for the hell of it haha. Thanks for the share!

[Inv4drZm]

Originally Posted by AssBurns

I've seen those things before but I doubt that those would have helped in this particular situation since I think the body actually leaned into the wall pretty hard, not just rubbing along it. Some of those tubes seem like they would just end up getting in the way and getting caught up on stuff. Good idea for folks that want to protect themselves from body damage, but I just don't want to break windows really. I'm assuming you are talking about something like this? https://forum.ih8mud.com/attachments...er2-jpg.55693/

Yes, but more angled outwards to push off of trees. Like you said though they could get caught on more stuff but 3rd gens are narrow right? I've seen a guy weld them on at even more of an outward angle than this:

[AssBurns]

This past weekend was pretty frustrating to say the least. Got pretty much nothing accomplished. My plans were to fix my broken window, but it was raining all day Saturday so I could only get so much done between the few dry periods. I did get the window surface cleaned up and cut the new window out of the quarter panel that a buddy gave me that had a good window still in it. Waited till Sunday for things to dry up so I could put the new window in. Last week I ordered some 3M Single Step Primer and 3M Windo-Weld Urethane. When I opened up the primer, the jar was dried out already! What was supposed to be liquid was rock hard. Luckily Amazon is pretty awesome and with a quick email, I'll have a new one here tomorrow.
I also had some other plans to do some work outside on Saturday but rain killed that pretty quickly.
After reading BFAD's thread, I went ahead and purchased a wireless winch remote control and was planning to do that on Sunday as well. A couple issues I had with that project. Firstly, when I went to unbolt one of the nuts that hold the wire to the solenoid on the winch controller, the bolt just broke off the solenoid. I was able to solder the wires together but eventually I'll need to replace that solenoid. Shortly after that I realized that my winch controller uses 5 wires instead of the 3 that most winches use. I guess it can still work but I haven't really figured out exactly how yet. So while I was trying to figure that out, I decided to bench test the remote controller it didn't seem to work. I was able to hear the solenoid click but it wasn't sending any power to the wires that are supposed to control the in/out on the winch. Sent that back for return today. Once I figure out how to wire it all up correctly, I will order another one.

Lastly and most importantly was fixing my diff. Initially I was going to have a really good buddy fix it for me since he knows how to set up a diff and was is able to get a really good deal on some gears and install kit. I figured it would save me some time since shipping the diff back to ECGS was going to take 4 days minimum each way plus time to get it fixed there. He let me know that he would be super busy all week at the MINT 400 and would be able to help me on Sunday or Monday, and should have the parts by then. Well I spoke to him Wednesday right before he left for the MINT 400 and haven't heard back from him since. No response to my calls or texts. The whole idea for me to go through him was to save time. Now I can't expect to wait on him any longer so I will be shipping it back to ECGS tomorrow. Luckily they are super awesome to deal with but now I will still be looking at another 2 weeks minimum to have my diff back in.

I'm pretty frustrated right now. Mostly at the whole diff thing. What a waste of my time!

[JBurt]

That blows. I'm sorry your weekend and your diff aren't working out well. I wish I was closer and new how to set up diffs.

Looks like someone needs a DD.

https://inlandempire.craigslist.org/...518205403.html