Tennessee Red

[gasiorv]

Prepping the Jeep for being trail guide at the Jeep Jamboree in Hot Springs and I thankfully found that the Passenger side lower ball joint had failed and that the Pitman Arm had developed some fatigue cracks.

The ball joint was a spicer and only had three trail days on it. Pretty sure that it got overloaded on the No Limits trail with Garrett, that trail was tight and technical and the wheels were getting pinched pretty hard. You can see in the picture that the ball was pulled down pretty hard which forced the retaining ring out through lip.

I swapped out the lower and upper ball joints with another set of Spicer Joints and need to start looking for a Dana 60 for the front in the future.

Pitman Arm - My buddy told me that the axle shaft failure was life's way of saving me from a disaster after showing him the pitman arm cracks. I need whatever help I can get, so i will take it!

After looking at the pictures of the internal gear that I sent them, RCV contacted me and told me to check the splines on the shaft because they were most likely stripped as well. And sure enough, they were. I guess I was so focused on the cracks in the internal gear that I never wiped the grease off the splines and looked at them. Anyway, my neighbor has 2003 Rubicon with RCVs so he let me rob his front Driver's side shaft for the Jeep Jamboree. RCV has shipped a new shaft and it is on it's way.

 

[gasiorv]

With the Jeep all fixed and ready to wheel again. I made the decision to stick with the 37" BFG Reds for Hot Springs and headed out on Wed afternoon for Hot Springs. A friend of mine offered up his van for me to use in lieu of tent camping, he bought a Sprinter van and did a DIY camper van conversion and it was pretty sweet!

I stopped at Northwoods Mountain Bike Trails on the way to the Jamboree and got in a few hours of great riding. I love Northwoods! One of my favorite places to ride. With the van I was able to have a hot shower and a nice cold brew after the ride which was icing on the cake!

As far as the Jamboree goes, I was supposed to be a Moderate/Hard Trail Guide; however, the group this year was more into the moderate and not so much the "hard". My motto is "Easy doesn't make good stories" however this group took every bypass, oh well to each his own. So with this group the wheeling I did on Thurs and Fri was pretty easy, we ran moderate to hard trails but I was the only one that took all the hard lines and the rest of the group would take the bypasses. Saturday morning before packing up to head out several of the Trail Guides got together to go out and run some trails before we left. It was a fun morning and we ran some hard trails (Ingrid's Revenge, Headbanger, Shafner's Hollow, Slammer) and I really got to test how the stickies worked. I have wheeled all these trails on 35" and 36" DOT tires in the past (most recently in January) and I have made all the same lines on those tires; however, with the stickies I was able to crawl every line and not give it the ol' TN enthusiasm to get up the lines. I was very very very pleased with the ability to Crawl everything in lieu of having to bump it up over ledges. Not sure which is harder on the Jeep, the bumping (putting high loads into joints, fittings, welds, etc...) or the stickies actually hooking up and putting high loads into the shafts, ujoints, diff, drivetrain, but it is pretty cool to be able to crawl everything!

After we wheeled in the morning, I packed up and headed home. On the way home I stopped at Pinnacle Mountain in Little Rock and rode my mountain bike for a few hours. I had a great ride and it was just a perfect day (wheeling in the morning and Mt Biking in the afternoon). So happy to have great friends, a great family, and a very supportive wife who understands that my sanity requires some Vitamin D therapy.

 

[gasiorv]

Few pics from the trail guide Sat morning ride. It was a lot of fun and a great group. Pics are from one of the other trail guides and she takes some great pics!!

 

[NashvilleTJ]

Awesome report, Victor.

 

[Brianj5600]

Thanks for the write up. Are there other parks that you could compare to?

 

[gasiorv]

Thanks for the write up. Are there other parks that you could compare to?

Hot Springs has more rock and less clay compared to Hawk Pride. If it is wet you're jeep will come with much less mud on it than from an Alabama or TN park. It's a little bigger overall compared to Hawk Pride. Hot Springs is a great park and a highly recommend giving it a go.

 

[Woodrow]

Few pics from the trail guide Sat morning ride. It was a lot of fun and a great group. Pics are from one of the other trail guides and she takes some great pics!!
View attachment 512407

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Nice rocks, Victor. I see you still drive around with less than 4 tires on the ground frequently
Also glad you got a nice bike ride in. I'm planning a Mt. Ashland ride with a friend this weekend which should involve some fun DH (accessed by thousands of feet of climbing...). We'll see how the fitness is I guess.

 

[starkey480]

Prepping the Jeep for being trail guide at the Jeep Jamboree in Hot Springs and I thankfully found that the Passenger side lower ball joint had failed and that the Pitman Arm had developed some fatigue cracks.

The ball joint was a spicer and only had three trail days on it. Pretty sure that it got overloaded on the No Limits trail with Garrett, that trail was tight and technical and the wheels were getting pinched pretty hard. You can see in the picture that the ball was pulled down pretty hard which forced the retaining ring out through lip.
View attachment 512397

I swapped out the lower and upper ball joints with another set of Spicer Joints and need to start looking for a Dana 60 for the front in the future.

Pitman Arm - My buddy told me that the axle shaft failure was life's way of saving me from a disaster after showing him the pitman arm cracks. I need whatever help I can get, so i will take it!
View attachment 512398

View attachment 512399

After looking at the pictures of the internal gear that I sent them, RCV contacted me and told me to check the splines on the shaft because they were most likely stripped as well. And sure enough, they were. I guess I was so focused on the cracks in the internal gear that I never wiped the grease off the splines and looked at them. Anyway, my neighbor has 2003 Rubicon with RCVs so he let me rob his front Driver's side shaft for the Jeep Jamboree. RCV has shipped a new shaft and it is on it's way.
View attachment 512400

View attachment 512401

That would have been much less fun to recover from than the RCV

 

[gasiorv]

Nice rocks, Victor. I see you still drive around with less than 4 tires on the ground frequently
Also glad you got a nice bike ride in. I'm planning a Mt. Ashland ride with a friend this weekend which should involve some fun DH (accessed by thousands of feet of climbing...). We'll see how the fitness is I guess.

I was not in downhill/rock garden shape on this last trip but I did feel pretty good on some of the climbs and got a few PRs on climbing sections. Need to get more practice on the downhills and in the rocks to get back in shape to rail them. I actually just converted my bike back to SS and plan on hopefully get out later this week for some SS fun. Have fun on your ride!

 

[Woodrow]

I was not in downhill/rock garden shape on this last trip but I did feel pretty good on some of the climbs and got a few PRs on climbing sections. Need to get more practice on the downhills and in the rocks to get back in shape to rail them. I actually just converted my bike back to SS and plan on hopefully get out later this week for some SS fun. Have fun on your ride!

DH on a ss hardtail is about as hardcore as it gets, especially if its self shuttle

 

[gasiorv]

After my March Hot Springs trip I have been pretty busy with home life. My oldest son graduated college which had some family visiting, my nephew graduated from high school which had us travelling to Virginia, and my oldest then got a job in Florida so I have used some time to get him moved to Fort Meyers. All good things!! But I have done a few things on the jeep when I had time and I was able to get in a trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota.

In prep for the black hills trip:

• I did a rebuild of the 241 Transfer Case, a clunk had started to develop when i would push in the clutch when under load in 4wD and I found that the fwd and aft output shafts had some play and that it would be time. I changed all the seals and bearings as well as the chain. Chain definitely had some play, not sure if the amount of play required change at this time but combined with the slop developing in the bearings it was definitely time for rebuild and the clunk has gone away. Thanks to the BFH garage for having video as well as a few writeups on this forum for the help on the rebuild. I did end up pulling the transfer case again to deal with a leaking input shaft seal, but the 2nd install resulted in a good seal.
• Since I had the transfer pulled I decided to address the squeaking throwout bearing (which has been squeaking since I installed it in 2021). In addition to the actual throwout bearing I also changed the fork and pivot point.
  • Centerforce N1764 TO bearing
  • 52107555AB fork
  • 52087542 pivot point
• I also made the very hard decision to get rid of the 37" stickies, I really liked those tires and I feel that I would have been good using them here in the south east with the lack of traction, but I didn't want to deal with the probable breakage if I headed west. I was actively looking for a front axle (specifically a 78-79 Snowfighter) and I came across a few but I came to the realization that if I was going to go through all the work and spend all the money just to run 37" stickies, I might as well spend the same money on building it to run 43" stickies, it really didn't make sense to spend $10k+ and accomplish hours and hours of work to run 37" tires. SO, I sold the 37" BFG Reds with a tear in my eye and reinstalled the 36" TSL SX's.
• I also added a breather line to the top of the transmission, I found it to be needed after our last East TN trip where we got into some deep water. BUT, I also did some trimming and massaging of the tub which allowed me to push up the transfer/trans a little higher and I kinked the breather tube without me seeing it (I really didn't even pay attention). So on my first long drive it blew trans oil out through the shifter tower and in order to solve that issue without having to drop the tranny again I just reached up and cut the breather tube to allow it to breath (I will drop it and fix it here soon).
• Replaced Battery due to battery issue (just a O'Reily's battery).
• Reinstalled the parking brakes after I removed them during the March Arizona trip (working on the jeep on the trail and removed brake shoes to get access to axle retention plate bolts).
• Installed the WRG winch line and fairlead that I got as part of the ROM contest. Both got a workout in South Dakota!!

Then we were off to South Dakota. Here is my write up of the SD trip, it was some of the best wheeling that I have done. Black Hills Trip

Black Hills resulted in the following damage/fixes:

• Bent the drag link pretty bad, I am surprised that it did not give me any problems on the drove back to camp from the trail. I typically bend it in the area next to where the Tie Rod attaches, but this time it was bent up in the adjuster area, the treaded area was actually bent. I did find it back at camp and used the winch to bend it back enough to wheel without making contact with the track bar and hydraulic ram. When I got it home I did remove and bend back to relatively straight using Hydraulic press.
• A lot more body damage, especially at the rear corners. I just need to cut the rear of the tub off and tube it and truly start turning it into a buggy on 36s, but not sure if/when I will be able to do that.
• I lost a few bolts out of one of the beadlocks. I did notice that at camp and retorqued all the bead lock bolts during the week of wheeling (they did work there way loose). I have also gotten into a habit of retorquing my lug nuts every morning before heading out on the trail and I do find them to have loosened up.
• Few nutserts holding on rocker rails were pulled out of the tub/fender.
• Did a thorough bolt check when I got home and retorqued everything.

I also noticed that I again had excessive (1/8"+) veritical play in the balljoints. I know that vertical play is normal and per spec up to 0.063" and to only focus on the lateral play in the upper (which there is none). But after the balljoint failure back during the Arizona trip (luckily I found it at home and it didn't completely fail on the trail), I needed to find a way to strengthen the BJs on the Dana 44 to take the beatings that my driving style induces (even though I am no longer running the 37" stickies, the 36" TSL SX are just about the same dia as a normal 37" and provides the same moment arm and loads into the ball joint as a 37" tire). So to try and ease my mind of these BJ's I just purchased the American Iron BJ Eliminator and a new set of knuckles. My current knuckles are original and the TRE do require a washer, etc... and I figured if I am going to upgrade to Eliminators I might as well also change the knuckles to make sure all the tapers are good and match. The elliminators and the knuckles should arrive today and I will hopefully install them in the near future.

Some upcoming trips:
-Hawk Pride next weekend.
-Windrock in August
-SMORR in Sept (Crawl the Ozarks guide with AMS417)

My original plan for this year was to also do a Northern California trip to check off my bucket list items of the Rubicon, Fordyce, and the Dusy Ershim. However, due to having to use vacation to move my son to Florida and to also take care of some other personal items this year, it looks like those bucket list items are going to have to be pushed to the future. Hey, at least it gives me something to look forward to. I also added the Montrose and Grand Junction Colorado areas to my bucket list after just watching some videos of wheeling in that area. I also have to get back to Arizona to hook up with my buddy Scott and Garrett to finally finish one particular trail and to hit some that I wasn't able to. Bucket List keeps growing and I need more time!

 

[Apparition]

Looking forward to see how the ball joint eliminators work for you

 

[zackcj7]

I've been running the 36 SX on my TJ for over 2 years now and couldn't be happier with them on southern trails. What pressure are you running them at?

 

[gasiorv]

I've been running the 36 SX on my TJ for over 2 years now and couldn't be happier with them on southern trails. What pressure are you running them at?

I am on beadlocks and have the bias ply TSL SX and run them at 4-5psi. I also siped them. Yes, I love them (but those Reds were like magic). If you get somewhere where there is traction (South Dakota had some) the bias ply chunk pretty quickly, don't know what the radials would do.

 

[zackcj7]

I've found the sweet spot on my rig to be 6psi. West Virginia is the farthest west i've had this rig so far. I have some chunking and small cuts, but they are so dang thick it hasn't been a problem so far.

I have a friend that runs reds and they do really well, but look like they are 30 years old with all the wear, chunking, and cracking.

 

[gasiorv]

When the debates start on 37s and Dana 44 ball joints, etc... just point them to this post. This year I had a ball joints fail in three days and now I had the replacement fail in 9 months and it is a trailer queen and has only seem trails. I also broke a RCV inner shaft this year and 9 months later I found the replacement shaft with the splines twisted. And I am running 36" tires, not even 37s. Let them debate that it is OK and to just stay off the throttle, their buddy has done it for years, etc... Here is the proof that if you are going to wheel it, it will wear out faster with the bigger tires. I have no experience with how they hold up if you only drive it on the road and don't plan on finding out.

This is the passenger side which was completely failed, the driver side was still intact but wore enough to require replacement. Both uppers were good, but they should be they are only 9 months old

I will admit that I am seriously considering jumping from 36s to at least 37s or possibly 38s on the next go round, but I also know that stuff is going to wear out and break and I am willing to put in the inspections and maintenance after every trip (at least for now, not sure how long that will last from monetary perspective).

 

[gasiorv]

Also found the one flaw with the Barnett diff cover, if you beat on it enough in the rocks, the lower holes collapse in over the bolt heads and you have to grind them open to get the bolts out. The holes also pack up with Alabama clay which dries like concrete.

 

[Apparition]

When the debates start on 37s and Dana 44 ball joints, etc... just point them to this post. This year I had a ball joints fail in three days and now I had the replacement fail in 9 months and it is a trailer queen and has only seem trails. I also broke a RCV inner shaft this year and 9 months later I found the replacement shaft with the splines twisted. And I am running 36" tires, not even 37s. Let them debate that it is OK and to just stay off the throttle, their buddy has done it for years, etc... Here is the proof that if you are going to wheel it, it will wear out faster with the bigger tires. I have no experience with how they hold up if you only drive it on the road and don't plan on finding out.

This is the passenger side which was completely failed, the driver side was still intact but wore enough to require replacement. Both uppers were good, but they should be they are only 9 months old

View attachment 575829

View attachment 575827
View attachment 575830

I will admit that I am seriously considering jumping from 36s to at least 37s or possibly 38s on the next go round, but I also know that stuff is going to wear out and break and I am willing to put in the inspections and maintenance after every trip (at least for now, not sure how long that will last from monetary perspective).

Try some ball joint deletes?

 

[gasiorv]

Try some ball joint deletes?

They are going in now.

 

[Wildman]

Time for a Ford HP44.....
I'll let you know in a year how it does with these 38x13.5x17 M/T Baja Pro XS tires on it.