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Long Trip Home!!

2xtreme

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Kayak Pt, WA
Thanks again for a wonderful time at the North West Fest'04. I can not wait to do it again!!

Turns out that in the mud I did fry my alt. and did plug my radiator (washing it out a few times at camp really helped though).

Leaving Sunday morning we got almost of the way up the Chinook Pass and pulled in to one of the pull outs to let the temp come back down. It did come back down slowly (not before blowing some water and air first) and after waiting about a 1/2 hour or so (almost back to a temp of 210) it started to die. I could not keep it alive and the voltage was showing below 9 volts. Some one stoped gave a jump start (which took a long time) and we barely made it to the next turn off. Now we realized that the alt was not putting any juice out and we neede to flag someone down to help us not only jump start it but sit there and re-charge the battery. A young lady (perfect for Tom!!) stopped and let us charge the battery back up on her alt (not before almost loosing her cat and hearing her entire life story). We got in, headed over the pass and coasted all the way down to greenwater. Stoped at the store and asked some people who were rescueing a F150 that put a rock through the oil pan (and other parts) if we could re-charge the battery off their alt. They let us and we were able to make it into Enemclaw and all the way to the Schucks.

Schucks charged my battery while we went to lunch and I bought a new alt and deep cycle gell cell battery for the way home. After lunch my read top got us up to Renton, where we put the deep cycle in and it got me all the way home to Marysville.

Needless to say it was a long tip home (my daughter was in excelent spirits and was perfect the whole time). I will be replacing the radiator and updating the cooling system. Replacing the alt. and will probably replace the front yoke, exhaust header and intake manifold all at the same time.

Thanks again for the great time.
Can not wait to see you all on the trail again soon.

Michael
 
Chinook Pass near Ellensburg? :x If it is, next time although I'd be going to Northwest Fest hopefully I could help ya out. I have plenty of tools(okay, so my dad has plenty of tools) and don't do much other than work ;P

- Kevin
 
Im sorry to hear that Mike(2xtreme) :repair: But I'm glad you made it home alright. If you had been much longer we could have helped you out. You missed a great trip to Funnyrocks and Moonrocks. We took several different lines, trying not to get in too much trouble. (I think Steve(willis) is going to redesign his front bumper) :doh: Hopefully Steve has some good pictures to show. We will make sure to run Moonrocks first next year and stay out of the deep mud right Mike :cool:

I had a great time I will be there for sure next year.
party1:
 
Glad you enjoyed everything and had a good time ,except for the ride home.
I didn`t have a alt.or radiator in my spare parts dept.
Maybe we will have more XJ`s next year.
We had enough food and prizes
I enjoyed everybody and always that area.
Be seeing you again....
Oh , Didn`t the Trail Cord. warn you about the mud ?
 
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Yes Yes we all know "the trail coordinator knows best" :moon:
 
Wow, Michael, glad you made it home eventually. I have concidered a small 'skid' of sorts for the alt to help keep the mud from just packing in like that.

Steve
 
yeah, yeah, yeah. I know better than getting into the mud. and the trail coordinator does alway no best (especially when they are carying spare parts!!) To be honest, the only one that I really think did any damage was the first one (did not even attempt to go through after I know how deep it was (it swallowed the entire front of my jeep) the pic's should show how much of the radiator was under the mud. Other than that one the rest of it was just very slick and not deep enought to do any significant damage to the radiator or alt.

The only trail spare that would have been usefull is the alt and I probably would not have replaced it not being at camp (doing that work on the side of the road is absolutely no fun at all). I think the second bat (optima yellow top) might have just moved up a notch or to on the mods to do list.

really I do no better than playing in too much mud or water. Really I do.

Had a great time, can not wait to see the pic's.
Thanks,
Michael
 
Well, I just looked at the pic's. That mud almost completely buried the radiator!! no wonder the radiator was a little in effective.

I do have a front skid, but not sure that any amount of skid would of stoped the alt from being full of mud. I will let you know what it looks like when I pull it out and get it rebuilt.

Michael
 
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