This weekend was really fun and really expensive lol. I went with a couple jeep guys from Madison to The Cliffs Insane Terrain offroad park in Marseilles Il. I was not sure what to expect when I got there becasue all that was in the parking lot were some beat jeeps (heeps), and a ton of quads. I was hoping to avoid the mud but that became apparent that would not happen as soon as I hit the first trail.
At some point on the trail, possibly when I hit the really deep hole where the water came into the cab, I managed to so thoroughly soak my alternator with muddy water that I killed it. My battery light came on coming off the last trail of the day and there were many cuss words exchanged. Keep in mind at this point I am 2 hours plus from home and in a different state... We made the call to drive it as far as the battery would take us after pouring water onto the alt to see if we could get it working. We made it all but 10 miles south of madison when my abs light came on and the radio cut out. Next thing I know im super low on power and my tach is going nuts... We pulled off at a gas station and went through my tool box to see what we could jerry rig up to use my aux battery which was still fully charged because my ACR isolated it when the front battery stopped charging. I was able to use a short piece of 2 GA wire to jump the terminals of the ACR. I thought I might blow a fuse trying to start it with the back battery, but she fired right up and we were back on the road! :guitar3: We went right to the local carwash and tried to blow out any mud still in the alt, but no dice it was dead...
I found a screaming deal though on an alternator reman from Advanced auto that is just down the road from my place. I bought it for $130 with no core and a lifetime warranty. What I am going to do is rebuild my Denso and then put it back on and keep the Advanced auto one as a spare. I ended up just swapping in the new alternator in the parking lot of advanced which was super simple actually lol. I think I had the old one out and the new one in, in less than a half hour.
Well then yesterday when I was washing the truck I was unknowingly funneling water into my rear diff by way of my extended diff breather. One thing I can tell you that if you do that mod, cut a new hole, don't use the one under the gas cap to run it through :/
Damage Report:
1x Alternator
1x Botched Diff Breather extension
1x rear diff flush for the latter
1x stretched parking brake cable
Pretty much this is what everything looked like in the whole park... I hate mud...
I did get to pull out this jeep though lol. He dropped into a SUPER DEEP rut there are some other pics of the other side that shows his fender under water completely.
Triumphant 4Runner
I took a different way around lol
And the GIF lol
Headed into the creek.
We found an RIT ramp and I had to do it!!! I was actually quite pleased.
This excursion was a little out of his element I think... It was a completely stock diesel with some A/T's on it. He also had what looked like his entire family in it with him lol, and they didn't look like they were having fun. The trails were almost too tight for the 4Runner I am not sure what he thought he was going to do.
Here is the hole I got stuck in where the water came into the cab and I think where my alternator said Fu@k you! The only pick we have since we couldnt exactly open the doors lol
I thought the bottom of the is hole was a little more solid then this lol, I stopped just before the rock, my spotter was then fired lol. Had to be winched backwards. This was still better than the other option which wasn't even big enough for the jeeps lol.