4x4tographer

Sorry @ob1jeeper my inbox was full. I cleared it out and can receive messages again. 🙂

Unfortunately I ran into mechanical issues at the trailhead the morning of and ended up deciding to make the trip home. My coolant overflow/recovery tank developed a crack at the "neck" on the bottom of the tank and was pitting out a slightly worrisome amount of coolant when we stopped at the Courtright Dam to take a few photos. The location of the crack wasn't something easily patchable. My suspicion is that (with my sealed coolant system) the extreme elevation - around 9,500ft - exposed a weakness in the tank. I made it home Friday night around 10:30pm - @theksmith went on with Roger and Kevin and stayed in touch throughout the journey. I did, however, grab a few photos on the way up and on the way back down the mountain! Courtright Res. The top of Courtright Dam Looking down the dam spillway Some of the surrounding granite domes surrounding the area https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczOF3ZbF6Dm9-6Iyy7psHEqtIJu-8uK-RdVwtDSIfSxuFzWkzOO3xNTeKsFp0vJQppQVPaY6f46TqMEYAuhX4Y5an5sYXSUeUxpfRsKJSUz6DJ7k5kmsmPfYjztk9qhoAFPJUdj23lqnzap4fqiFPK7oQQ=w2048-h1365-s-no?authuser=0 Dinner-to-go on the way back down the mountains A toppled Giant Sequoia. Jeep for scale. I popped into McKinley Grove to check out the Sequoias. Literally just off the road. The grove is about 100 acres and has about 150 ginormous trees up to 2,000 years of age. The road home wasn't boring. Did my best the stay near civilization, in case the coolant tank took a dump, while also trying to skirt the LA traffic. I took the 99 south to 138, across the north side of the Angeles National Forest and down into San Bernardino to connect to the I10. The 138 was interesting, going from a fast 2-3 lane highway down to a single lane through the tiny towns of Little Rock, Pear Blossom, and Llano (which all had traffic lights). I was surprised at the number of semis on this route. Traffic, of course, came to a screeching halt in easy of these towns. The views sitting in traffic weren't half bad, though! Once I got through San Bernardino traffic it was smooth sailing - though I was tracking a pretty large storm that was sweeping through Indio/Desert Palms. Probably one of the most widespread dust storms I've personally experienced. It took about 2 hours to clear it. That said - a bummer I was unable to experience the Dusy firsthand - but looking forward to the possibility of a redemption run in the future! Looking forward to hearing about the crew's experience on the trail. 😊

Hi Mick, the shelf and water carriers are American Adventure Labs. The carrier for my portable battery is custom made. I designed it in Affinity Designer and then sent the file to Send-Cut-Send, who CNC'd the aluminum and performed the bends. https://sendcutsend.com I used them in the past to create the aluminum tray that my fridge sits in.

Welcome back to Part 2 of my catch-up post 😁. This chapter begins with my shaft. It's seen some miles and had some wear and tear. However, we're also going to look at my rear storage deck and some electrical stuff. The boot over the slip portion of the shaft was a little torn and bulging, but wasn't throwing any grease at this point. This is the OEM driveshaft, so again it has 90,000 miles on it and a number of wheeling trips. In all, it wasn't giving me any issues at all. My decision to upgrade was based on: A desire for a more "bomb-proof" driveline Better droop in the front suspension. In the future I'd like to go to longer shocks for more down-travel. I have about 1-1.5" of unused up-travel with my current set up. However, IMHO, going to longer sticks will set off a chain of upgrades, including a front driveshaft with better angles, longer front brakelines (which I have in my garage, waiting to install). So - since I've been looking to upgrade both my front and rear to a stronger but "smaller profile". My choice ended up being for a pair of Adam's driveshafts - 1310 in the front, 1350 in the rear. Here's a series of shots from the install. My first time seeing green locktite. Rear yoke on the transfer case Flange on the rear differential. Rear diff flange removed Back side of the transfer case The white marker was my attempt to get the pinion nut precisely back to where it was from the factory. However, I couldn't get the pre-load measurement to work out. Instead, torqued it to 140 ft/lbs per Tom Woods' directions and common advice found out there for the install. The rear, all buttoned up. Here's a shot of my red locktite'd pinion nut through the new yoke. The front was a lot faster of a job for some reason. The other project I've tackled recently was a "slimming down" of my rear storage deck. Since I have an AAL rear shelf, and the top of my deck was pretty tall, I had pretty limited leg room when sleeping in the rear of the Jeep. I measured it around about 12" of vertical space which made me feel a little claustrophobic sometimes, depending how much I inflated by air mattress and the bedding I'm using (like my trust 30" thick Coleman sleeping bag). 😄 I basically ended up removing the top with my oscillating multitool and a circular saw. Then took off 3" from the overall height of the walls, and then re-glued and screwed the top back on. Consequently I needed to trim the drawer as well to accommodate the new, shorter profile. Here's the box reinstalled, and a little dirty. My next project was to fix my wiring situation in the rear of the Jeep. I was having some issues with my Bluetti Charger One DC-DC charger running into a voltage issue. The relay would trigger, charge my Bluetti power station, and then the voltage would collapse and the unit would re-cycle. It'd charge the battery, but it took forever as the relay would cycle every 60 seconds or so. Theories ranges from a bad ground to damaged wires to some other constraint along the wiring from the main battery/alternator. It didn't take long to find the culprit. Talk about a minor heart attack finding that. The 100A fuse took a dump, but never disconnected. It became what looks like a superheated mass of melted glass and plastic. The fuse sat at a connection between an 4AWG wire from the main better, terminated into an 8AWG wire that led to the rear. At @theksmith's advise, I upgraded the wiring to the rear to a large 4AWG wire, and ditched the crappy Chinesium fuses for a MIDI fuse holder from Blue Sea Systems. I also re-installed my ground - upgrading it to 4AWG as well, with a shorter cable and a more solid ground mount in the rear tub. Additionally, I make a small tweak to my connector for the Bluetti Elite 100 v2 with a right-angle connector to help protect the connector from things flying around the rear deck. I also designed and "built" this cradle out of aluminum via Send-Cut-Send to hold the power station so I could bolt it down to the rear shelf and run a strap over it to keep it in place. In the below shot you can also see my half-baked Starlink Mini mount, which is a Frankenstein of my hi-lift c-pillar mount and some RAM mount stuff. I relocated my double water jug set-up and moved my 6gal of water capacity to the passenger side, away from my electronics. Whewwww....... that's a lot of work these last few months, especially when it's 110 out! My garage swamp cooler went through about 2,000 gallons of water. Last upgrade - a new mattress inflator! It's from Flextail and is a 5 kpa unit that is smaller than my key fob and includes a built-in lantern. It's 3x faster than my current inflator that is 5x the size!

Work, life, and family have had me pretty busy lately - so I've been neglecting signing on to the forum! Over the last few months I've been getting more focused on the Jeep and prepping ahead of the upcoming Dusy Ershim trail trip this September 2026. I've also been chasing down a nagging "shimmy" around 50-55mph in the front end. Since the last update: New Dynatrac HD balljoints for the front end Replacement Clayton offroad bushings in the front UCAs and trackbar Replacement of the tie rod ends for both the drag link and the tie rod itself Replacement of a broken Fox ATS steering dampener bracket New/replacement Metalcloak bushings in the front axle UCA bushing locations A visit to our friends over at @OnPointOffroad for new front brakes and service, differential service, transfer case service, and an overall inspection for "Dusy-Worthiness" New front and rear Adams driveshafts (1310 and 1350, respectively) Re-wiring of my entire rear aux electrical system while trying to figure out a voltage collapse issue when my DC-DC charger is running A "chop job" on my storage/sleeping platform in the rear Design/ordering/fab/install of a new bracket to keep my Bluetti power station safe during trips Install of a like-new American Adventure Labs overhead front molle panel from our good friends @J2DXPLR New hood-mounted Hi-LIft jack mount New Yaesu FTM-150R ham radio with the MARS communication mod (GMRS) Starlink satellite dish install Here's the new Dynatrac BJs - @theksmith was kind enough to stop by and help with the install. Overall, the job was easier than I originally anticipated. The lower BJs (formerly Teraflex) were shot and pretty sloppy. They didn't last as long as I'd originally hoped they would. The removal of the steering knuckles was the biggest pain during the process - requiring a sledge and a 2x4 to knock them out. A combo of WD40, PB Blaster, and a little heat also helped coax them out. My new ICON balljoint press has been invaluable these past few months during the BJ install and when tackling the various suspension bushings around the Jeep. Each BJ came right out after about 20 seconds with this beast of a tool. The reinstall was just as fast. Did the job over 2 evenings - and now I know how to do it! (This was my first time). Next up was an install of an AAL overhead molle panel. I have their seat and door panels in the Rubicon dash red, so I jumped on this when I saw Jacq & Jermey offering it up. THANKS GUYS!!! There was some squeaking when flexing the Jeep on the rocks that was livable. but I think I might have solved it by installing a few rubber washers where the molle panel makes contact with the Jeep's sport bar. Time will tell :) Additionally, I've upgraded my radio comms to a new unit from Yaesu. The base station tucks nicely into the overhead molle niche. A little fiddling with my 67Designs (RIP) platform on the dash, and I've got the head unit and mic nicely within reach. Next up - I tackled my front suspension bushings - but have only gotten as far as the UCAs and trackbar at this point. I'll need more time to replace the rest of the bushings throughout the suspension. Again, the ICON balljoint press made quick work of this. These bushings were replaced with new ones from Clayton. I picked up an optional bushing press tool from Clayton to keep the job simple. New trackbar bushing Here's the ICON BJ press. While I had the UCAs removed, I took a look at the axle-side bushings and saw they were chewed up pretty badly. These are the OEM factory bushings with 90,000 miles on them. About 1/4 of their life they've had 35s and 37s and a longer-travel suspension stressing them out. Again - the ICON BJ press came back out for another jam session in the Arizona heat. Unfortunately I didn't have the "right" adapter in the kit, but the 32mm socket I keep around for removing front axle shafts was juuuuuuuust right. New Metalcloak "duroflex" bushings installed. More to come in PT 2!

Great route for sure! I’d give it a 2/10. It’s pretty much a graded road. Gets bumpy for a few sections, and fast paced boogie in some other spots. Most of the first part of the trail is shelf roads and switchbacks. Extremely scenic, and a solid climb from ~2K feet to over ~5-6k feet in a few short miles. You might not see see another soul on the trail, it’s pretty remote. We only saw a pair of adventure bikers once until we got up to the rim.

If you're interested, we have a number of in-depth threads on GMRS. GMRS for Beginners GMRS on a Budget General GMRS Discussion Midland is a widely used brand - decent stuff. I've run my MXT275 for about 5 years. I've recently moved to a Yaesu set-up. For antennas, I've been happy with Midland's MicroMobile 6DB high gain antenna. I also use the "ghost" antenna on occasion, but it certainly has its limitations, depending on where you mount it. It's always best to mount it as high as possible for direct line-of-sight to other transmitters/receivers. You could look into a magnetic mount for the ghost antenna. However, it's worth noting that almost every Midland GMRS radio comes with a magnetic antenna, right out of the box. I'd recommend using that for a few trips, playing with antenna placement to see how different locations impact your RX/TX quality. In terms of external speakers, I've never found it necessary - depending on the Midland radio you get, the mic and head unit will both have speakers. I'd also plug the importance of getting your GMRS license, just to keep you on the up and up. It's $35-ish, covers everyone in your household for 10 years. Easy to get.

A few favs from our recent Lake-to-Rim Overland Route. A rare personal appearance, thanks to @johnpa

Posting up some photos from our recent "Lake-to-Rim" overland round from a few weeks back. This was an exploratory trip on some trails none of us had been on before. It was a nice weekend on some easy-going trails (though bumpy in a few spots) on a sunny weekend! @theksmith @johnpa @Liz @Adventure F150 The trail begins at Lake Roosevelt and (in the routes we took) spans 163 miles, ultimately ending on top of the Mogollon Rim. The route quickly climbs from 2,100 ft to 5,000+ ft inside of a few hours. we topped out at almost 8,000 ft. The primary route is called "Rock House Road" and splits off from Cherry Creek Road about 17 miles into the route. From here you're winding your way through canyons and over mountains as you drive deeper into the Tonto NF. Much of the route skirts along the edge of the Ft Apache Reservation and is extremely scenic and remote. We only saw one other group of people, 2 adventure bike riders coming down the opposite direction. We didn't see another soul until we arrived in Rim Country. We met up at 2pm on a Friday and made quick work of the route, reaching our campsite by 5:30pm on Middleton Mesa - a wide open grassy mesa at about 5,600 ft. Some nice views of the surrounding mountains. On Day 2 we made quick work of the route, arriving at the Rim around 11am, and hitting camp around 4:00pm. We found a fantastic campsite, isolated, in some deep pines for plenty of shade. We ended our trip in Clint's Well - topping off our tanks with some sweet sweet dino juice at the local Sinclair fuel station. If you're interested in downloading this route and waypoints along the way - check it out here. Camp night 1 on Middleton Mesa Along the way we dipped through the mountain town of Young - a few people topped off their fuel - others grabbed bacon and ice cream at the local general store ;) On our way out of town we took the "Boulder Bypass", which is a narrow, windy trail that takes you past a pretty remarkable field of boulders that must have been deposited by a glacier a millennia ago. The rocks are like nothing else along the entire rim - most are the size of a house. There are a few shady campsites nearby. Later we popped by a few overlooks along the rim. Here's the 260 from the Military Viewpoint. Campsite night 2 My 4-wheeled sauna Here's a look at the 2024 Horton Fire burn scar. We popped over to check out some unique camping opportunities at Myrtle Point - 4x4 high clearance needed. There are 2-3 great site down this short trail right on the rim. We also stopped along a few other view points along the way to check out the sights.

A fav from the recent Rug Road trip!

Photo dump! Hide your wives! A sleeping legend. Also, the creepy horse. Remember kids: Your chance of being murdered by a horse in the wild is low, but never zero. Mood lighting.

Holding up some rocks for @Ladybug! One was blue, one was green!

No, it’s dead weight. I was too lazy to remove mine, but I will next time I have my fender liner removed on that side. It’s much easier to remove through the wheel well than it is removing the fuse box and the PDC items/connectors below the fuse box just to get to the battery.

Totally! There a so many different engine/battery variations on the JL it’s a little tough to remember them all!