Finally got to take the Beer Runner out on a real wheeling trip since Thanksgiving weekend and since fixing all the broken things, and new bump stops. We went to Big Bear and rented a cabin for Christmas for a few days. We took the 4Runner and the Jeeps out on the easier trails just to explore and have a good time, nothing really difficult. There was a little snow and lots of mud. I really hate mud. It makes such a mess everywhere. The bump stops performed great, especially the front ones. It made a world of difference hitting the big stuff. They added so much dampening that I was able to hit some of the big stuff pretty fast that I would normally bottom out really hard. I ended up jumping a few times accidentally without bottoming out hard. I did end up breaking my grill off going through a deep ice covered puddle. I didn't realize that the puddle was over 3 feet deep as I came up to it since most of the frozen puddles were really shallow. Not this one obviously! I was driving into it pretty slow then just dropped off to where the water was over the hood. The engine sucked in a bunch of water and bogged out, killing the engine. It died right as I came out of the water luckily. It took about 2 minutes to start it back up again with a whole lot of white smoke coming out the exhaust. Luckily that was all that broke on that trip. We did get over a foot of snow on our last night there, which was pretty damn cool for us Southern California folk that rarely get snow.
Yesterday I finally got time to install my rear U-Joint. What a ***** that turned out to be. I could not get the caps to come out. I ended up heating it up with a torch and soaked it with PB Blaster, then it finally broke loose. The old U-Joint was completely trashed and the caps where broken too. Now no more driveline vibrations.
Today my brother and buddy invited me to cruise up the mountain to go snow wheeling. It was a blast until my shock broke at the lower eyelet. At first it wasn't so bad because the bump stop supported some weight and gave some dampening. Then about halfway down the mountain, the bump stop ripped off causing me to be completely bottomed out the rest of the way down the hill. I was rubbing on the fender a little bit and the wheel well where the intake box is. It was supper annoying driving home like that, but wasn't anything too bad.
Now I have to replace my shock and bump stop before I leave to Ocotillo Wells for New Years on Thursday. The plan was to go with coil overs soon but I don't really want to spend the money right now on coil overs right after Christmas. I'll just get a replacement 5100 for now and put the coil overs on hold until after tires, UCA's and rear control arms since those are ready to be replaced/ upgraded.
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