Nate's crappy 93 XJ

mbryson · Nov 17, 2014

Kevin B. said:
He turned me into a newt.

I assume you got better?

N-Smooth · Nov 17, 2014

Such a great movie

N-Smooth · Nov 22, 2014

It's raining today which means... Perfect day for a cruise to the car wash! It's been a while since the old girl had a good washing.

Look how shiny-

Leaving for Moab on Thanksgiving and wheeling through the weekend. Can't wait! I have a few little projects I'd like to have done but rather than stress about making the deadline I decided to skip them for this trip. All I have left before I go is a nut&bolt check. I checked the fluids today and it's all good otherwise. It looks like we'll be wheeling with some people we haven't met before so I'm excited.

N-Smooth · Nov 27, 2014

Happy Churkey Day everyone!

Moab, here we come!

N-Smooth · Dec 2, 2014

Great trip to Moab, complete. Drove down Thursday afternoon, ran The Rim for a night run. Always a good, quick run. Friday we ran Hell's then headed out to BFE and played in the main area on some random obstacles for a bit. Then we headed up Lockjaw into Dropkick and finally into Green Day. Such an awesome area that I never get sick of. Saturday we ran over to Pritchett. Cruised through with no issues on the three little XJ's. Ran into the Addicted Offroad guys at Rocker Knocker and helped them with the line a little. Cruised up the rest of the way and my buddies decided they were going to take the road out but I turned around. Took exactly an hour to come back down with no drama at all. I greatly prefer that over the dusty, bumpy road and hitching a ride back to the tow rig. Plus we beat them by 30 minutes. Saturday night we met up with a few friends for a quick run up Fins. Only ran the first half because people were done but it was good to get out and chat with some new people. Got up Sunday, had breakfast and headed home. Good times!
Some pics-

Last but not least- Suicide Hill

skippy · Dec 4, 2014

Lamest trip report EVER

jmaxj · Dec 4, 2014

I think your doing suicide hill a bit wrong, but can't quit tell from the pic.

skippy · Dec 4, 2014

jmaxj said:
I think your doing suicide hill a bit wrong, but can't quit tell from the pic.

Not sure if serious.... There are 2 different lines the left as displayed in this picture and the right that you see more often. Nate is a grade A stellar bad A$$ and of course went for the left line

N-Smooth · Dec 4, 2014

Dorks. I went for the straight line like my buddy in front of me. I actually planned to get over the hole and go right but it didn't work. One little slip and it goes bad. Luckily I have a guardian angel or something

N-Smooth · Dec 4, 2014

Video of me coming down Escalator... It makes the obstacle fun again.
[video=youtube_share;glvq2W2yDNM]http://youtu.be/glvq2W2yDNM[/video]
Some good old fashioned fun at BFE pushing the tipping limits of the old girl.
[video=youtube_share;79bQ5RhstwE]http://youtu.be/79bQ5RhstwE[/video]
Last but not least my buddy making to the top of Suicide Hill and getting denied by a 1' ledge. The last two minutes are of him being stuck... Skip it.
[video=youtube_share;JwHwzrlmdvE]http://youtu.be/JwHwzrlmdvE[/video]

N-Smooth · Dec 22, 2014

So I took the fuel system apart last week since I wanted to put in my walbro pick-up system. Finally got all the hose and fittings I needed so it went together today.

Pretty basic system. It's a little different than most because the pickup was originally in the back, passenger corner but it works. Got it all buttoned up and even tested it. I had so little gas in the cell that the original pick-up tube was barely getting any but I dropped these bad boys into probably 1" of fuel and they worked champ. I even pulled one up while it was running to test the witchcraft. It works!
Now I need to decide if I want to go wheeling on New Years or work on the Jeep... I think it'll depend on snow level (as in I want snow) and if any of my buddies are going.

N-Smooth · Jan 3, 2015

Well I had a bit of an adventure for the New Years snakes run. Loaded my Jeep on the trailer the night before so it would be ready. It was cold out there. Get up the next morning and head to the gas station to air up my driver front tire cause it was low. While right there I see that I was leaking coolant from the cap so I take a look and the whole thing was frozen! Upper and lower hoses were totally solid and the cap pushed off part way from the radiator freezing. Awesome, right? I had the 50/50 mix straight from the bottle so I don't know what the deal was but knew it would need some work. Started it up even though it didn't want to figuring that would be the ticket to warm it up. It ran for a few minutes and blew the cap off since only one side was heating up. Great. Let it cool off and stopped in Saratoga Springs for some coolant concentrate from Oreilly's. Filled it back up and started it again... Same result. Let it cool and tried again and this time I squeezed the upper hose while it was running and that eventually thawed it out and got coolant through the system. Got to the parking lot, had to use my MAPP gas torch to warm my toolbox to get it to unlock. Got it all unloaded and headed for the trail. Noticed immediately that my fuel cell cap was leaking. Took the cap off and the o-ring was MIA. Great. So it leaked fuel all day and smelled bad. Other than that everything was great and we had an awesome time. Got back to the trailer later and my truck cab smelled awful. I noticed it before I left as well but thought it must be my smelly shoes or something. Turns out my MAPP gas torch was barely cracked open and had been filling the cab for 4-5 hours. So yeah, I should've died either in the jeep leaking gas or the truck full of gas. Creepy. I rolled the windows down and after a while it was all good. Fun trip lol

N-Smooth · Jan 3, 2015

So my leaf spring mounts are trashed. When I built my boatsides I knew they would need work because the factory design leaves a lot to be desired and I am of course extraordinarily rough on my Jeep. They've definitely seen too many jumps and bump-it situations

Here's a pic of what I'm talking about, they're bad...

Anyways, so my current project before WOTR is to replace them with some brackets I'll build, reinforce the area and close up the floor-boatside area. Here's what I got done in the few hours I had today.

This piece of square tube will span from my boatside crossmember to the rear firewall, just like the car seat mount you can see. It will have another piece going down to the new bracket to support it as well.

And finally, a little unibody plate to give me something more solid to weld to. I've worked on XJ's for over a decade and I'm still baffled by the sheetmetal everywhere lol

I'll be working on it a lot since we have three weeks until WOTR and I have a decent list...

bryson · Jan 3, 2015

Looks like it'll be a solid fix.

N-Smooth · Jan 3, 2015

bryson said:
Looks like it'll be a solid fix.

Yeah, it'll work. I've honestly battled with myself about just linking the stupid thing cause it's not that much more work but the cost of c/o's makes it an easy choice to stick with the leafs

I Lean · Jan 3, 2015

xj_nate said:
Yeah, it'll work. I've honestly battled with myself about just linking the stupid thing cause it's not that much more work but the cost of c/o's makes it an easy choice to stick with the leafs

One does not need coilovers in order to have a good-functioning linked suspension.

But yeah, it'll still be much more than just rebuilding your leaf mount, for sure.

N-Smooth · Jan 3, 2015

I Lean said:
One does not need coilovers in order to have a good-functioning linked suspension.

But yeah, it'll still be much more than just rebuilding your leaf mount, for sure.

Sure, coils and good shocks can work for my application but it's so low that coils are hard to package. Air shocks would be easy to package and neat for the slow stuff but I like going fast too much and don't think I'd be totally satisfied.

All of that being said, the leafs work great. When I backhalf it eventually I will go to c/o's

N-Smooth · Jan 9, 2015

Last night started out awesome cause my Roark Supply order showed up. Hotness.

Worked on brackets for the leaf mounts the last couple of nights. Only have a couple hours each night I've basically spent two nights on them. Last night I was drilling them out and having issues with the drill bit "walking" on me and egging the holes. I was getting pissed. And then... The plate on my drill press broke. Great.

I was upset and wanted to throw it into the street. So I got ahold of Carl and asked him when he could have tabs made for me. Well, they're already done and they're sweet! I don't want to make my own brackets ever again.

Hopefully I can get a lot done tomorrow since WOTR is like 2 weeks away.

N-Smooth · Jan 15, 2015

Been working on this a lot... Too much in fact. Finally got both leaf hangers cut off and the new ones all welded on tonight. Still needs some more bracing/plating to finish out the back part of the boatside and finally close up the gaping hole that makes dust fly into the passenger area.

I didn't take any pics of the real progress but did take this one.

Yes, it's a pile of dirt but guess what from.

Inside the unibody rail. Yeah, the spot where I cut off the leaf hangers had all this dirt in it on both sides. My solution was to drill a 3/4" hole in the bottom of the rail right before it curves up into the back. I was able to push all this dirt through there. I also drilled one up front by the LCA's so now I can try to wash it all out at the car wash. Unibody problems...

RockChucker · Jan 15, 2015

My frame had at least that much dirt in it...it's a wonder they don't just rust through

Nate's crappy 93 XJ

.......a few dollars more

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