We drove up to Lake Tahoe over the July 4th weekend for a camping trip camping at Zephyr Cove resort. The wife and I left early Friday morning and lugged the 3500 lb Fleetwood Bayside tent trailer, along with a little kid, two dogs, and a crap load of camping equipment (yeah...beer) with the Cherokee. We've towed the same amount with the XJ on previous trips, but this time the Frog had to endure warmer temps and two steep passes.
Unfortunately, the amount of camping equipment we hauled was too much for the weary old Jeep and it overheated a few times on Donner Pass, and again on Brockway summit near the lake. Both passes are at the 7200 foot elevation and we cruised along at a stunning 30 mph. Thankfully, traffic was light and we followed plenty of logging trucks at the same speed.
A normal two hour trip took us four, and I lost plenty of transmission fluid as the engine temps reached the red line. Most of it appeared to seep from the RMS and coated the tranny pan on back, hitting the hot exhaust causing impressive clouds of white smoke as we lugged up the hills. I was able to pull over and let the engine cool so it was never driven in the red for more than a few seconds, at most.
Regardless, this made my wife and I make serious plans to continue our beloved camping adventures. We have a few more trips planned this summer, with a trip to Yosemite in early Fall, and Moab next spring. Serious thinking is in order.
For one, I must regain my lost horsepower and fix the cooling issue. Tonight I ordered an
APN header to replace my cracked stock exhaust manifold. I will install a Magnaflow cat back system next (or just performance muffler) once I get the header installed. I'm sure my broken engine mount was a prime culprit to the cracked header. Thanks to
Brown Dog's mounts that I installed last week, I should not have to worry about that again.
I am also planning to upgrade my
tranny cooler to something with larger capacity. I've seen plenty of write-ups on this forum and I'll need to order something good before the August trips. After that, I'll upgrade to an
electric engine fan, which I hear gives phenomenal results.
If none of those upgrades fixes my power and cooling problems, we will look at buying a
2004 Grand Cherokee LTD for the prime tow rig.
100K XJ and I looked at a few vehicles tonight and I think that would be a good decision. I've owned a 2000 WJ before, and I really liked the 4.7L motor for towing. Great vehicle.
It was a good trip to Tahoe, regardless. Cool lake, great fireworks, and crazy people.
Happy Birthday, America. Peace.
