Re: THe NAC Lots-O-Post Thread
This is going to be WAY longer than 3 lines. Hell, it's probably longer than 3 chapters ..!..
..!..
no build pics, just wheelin pics
Nice!
That water would barely go above the hubs on my new rig
wait wait wait....
people wheel? :bs:
I did yesterday
suffice to say, N4 @ Rausch is wide enough for an M54, but X1 and X4 aint.
I nearly busted both my mirrors off at the same time due to a pair of badly placed trees, they were like ten feet apart but still rubbed up against both, it was too narrow and I had to reverse back out. Wheeling that thing is fun, but it'd be way better out west where the trails aren't such a maze.
So... that was a hell of a trip.
Started driving down around 8-9pm Friday night in the MJ, with a friend (third guy in the jet engine building team) riding shotgun so we could get both vehicles back. Nine to ten hour drive... add in an hour of random 15 minute naps so I could keep it on the road. We arrived around 7AM.
Suffice to say the previous owner is an AWESOME guy and I wish there were more people around like him. I showed up to find a pair of manual transmissions with d20s behind them sitting in his yard, a 97+ XJ on 30s, an entire stack of axles, a J10 with no drivetrain and no bed, a CJ on 2.5 ton Rockwells and 38s, a couple spare engines, a stack of tires none under about a 36, and about 50 spare driveshafts for anything from a deuce and a half down to FSJs and XJs stacked in an open front shed.
Screwed around in town for a few hours getting food, looking at the truck, etc. Owner was nowhere to be found and didn't answer his phone. Around noon, he showed up with ANOTHER J10, beat to hell, glasspacks, with a set of 48 inch supersingle boggers on deuce rims in the back. Apparently he was expecting one more email from me and thought I bailed on the purchase, and just happened to be around.
So we spent a while going over the truck. Temp gauge didn't work, I figured there wouldn't be a problem so I said screw it, who cares. We took it out for a test drive... good lord that thing hauls. It doesn't go very fast, but the butt dyno sure says it does, mostly due to the insane torque and M/T.
Oh, it has a straight pipe... no nothing, just head -> header -> turbo -> big ass pipe. Straight 6 LDS465 engine that leaks less oil than my MJ.
Problems we found and fixed - one tire had absolutely no air in it. The steering box bolts all had about a turn to a turn and a half of slack in them. The 1/2" rivets holding the steering box bracket to the frame had stretched, so the bracket had about 1/16" of play in it. We ground/pounded the rivets out and put in 1/2" grade 8s instead, steering was MUCH improved. Let's just say that death wobble at 40mph in a 20 thousand pound vehicle that rides like it doesn't have any springs is interesting... :scared:
So around 4PM we finished going over it and headed for a notary (after calling around for 45 minutes to find one that was open on Saturdays past 4 AND had temp plates) to get the bill of sale squared away. The result was that I have till the end of August to actually register the thing... it's got PA temp plates on it!
We get ahold of Jack (the guy I bought the MJ off of, jet engine team, etc) who was on his way back from Michigan. Met up in Pittsburgh and got some food with a couple friends from the area. Did some practice driving stick in the Macy's parking lot at a mall (yes, I mallcrawled in a 5 ton camo cargo truck.) Then he headed off and we started the drive to Rausch Creek. As soon as we were on the highway we switched vehicles so I could get a bit more stick time...
It started to rain around when I got on i81N. Did I forget to mention that I don't have a roof on it yet? That was interesting, driving along I81 in a truck I'm not used to yet, with no roof, in a pouring rainstorm, in the dark. Halfway there, I lost the guy in the MJ (who had been tailing me to make sure we'd have parts, tools, another vehicle etc in case of a breakdown, since the M54 was an unknown truck at the time.) So I doubled back and tried to find what the hell happened, I figured he fell asleep at the wheel and I'd be picking up the pieces. Turns out he somehow lost me at a tollbooth and thought I got behind, so he pulled over to wait for me and then fell asleep for a couple hours by accident (we were both running on about an hour of sleep since Friday morning, and it was approximately midnight Saturday/Sunday by this point, so I'm not really surprised.) When he woke up he figured I was WAY ahead, and my phone was dead AND broken, so he hauled ass to Rausch and hoped for the best.
I finally got to Rausch at approximately 5AM. It was STILL raining, so I got in the passenger seat of the MJ for a couple hours of sleep... woke up around 8AM (still raining.) I figured what the hell, we're AT Rausch, I might as well find out how this thing does, so I got a sticker for it and headed for the new property. Sorry, no Rock Creek pics, I figured I should take it easy since I had another 10 hours of driving to do and still wasn't sure it was going to make it. We hooked up with a couple guys with huge tubed-out Broncos who were heading for the new property. They were doing reds/blacks and the trails were way too narrow, so we split up. You know the washed out, ditch filled area at the downhill end of N4? The M54 went straight through that... I barely had to steer. Just pointed it and hit the pedal and it went.
Halfway back up N4, it suddenly stopped. Wouldn't even crank. I feared the worst... but after a few seconds of head scratching I realized that a manual transmission, non-computerized military turbo diesel would only behave that way if it didn't have a battery. Sure enough the negative battery terminal had popped off... pushed it back on and it started right back up, so we headed for X1 and X4.
You don't realize it driving an XJ but those trails are damn narrow AND damn short. We were eating trees every single time we went under them, they kept hitting the hood. Got about half a mile down X4 and nearly busted the mirrors off, so I had to reverse back out of it...
Trail carnage: 1 hood latch completely destroyed (tensioning spring blew up, so the latch just flops around now, it's a CJ style one just much larger); battery disconnected (reconnected and kept driving); d30-carrier-sized chunk of granite wedged between rear dually tires (had to beat it with my 4lb hand sledge till it broke and fell out.)
Figured at that point I was pushing my luck, so after a quick checkup we hit the road again. Made it as far as that really long hill / pass in NY on i84 and suddenly realized I had no air pressure (thus, no brakes - they're compressed air over hydraulics instead of vacuum over hydraulics), no tach, no alternator... :scared:FAWK!!!!!!!! :hang:
Not only that, when I tried to stop, I discovered the parking/e-brake was worn out too! It worked when I left Rausch, WTF! :scared: It took me about a half mile to stop with no air assist with both feet on the pedal pushing as hard as I could.
Pulled over at about mile marker 23. The truck IMMEDIATELY overheated to the point that it blew the oil fill cap half off. Having been used to 4.0L engines that don't like overheating, I feared the worst... Turns out the air compressor belt got eaten pretty hardcore, whipped around the engine compartment and shredded the tach cable, then had the decency to jam itself into the fan/alt/water pump belts and shred them as well. The entire engine was WELL above boiling point, it was raining still and the manifolds and valve cover were sizzling.
We didn't have any belts to measure and buy new ones, nor any idea of how to put them on, nor much of anything... and this is why smartphones are awesome. My phone was dead (battery) but Chris' phone was still working. So we googled a bit (still on the side of the road) and found the NAPA part numbers and the specs (36 degree V-belts, 47.38" and 51.36" long, .47" wide at the top) and headed to the nearest town to hit up Advance Auto Parts. They didn't have any of the 47.38" ones but we managed to get some of the next size down and made them fit by adjusting the alternator all the way in, squeezing the belts over the pulleys, and then adjusting it back out a little. Had to "bump" the air compressor belt on because there is no adjustment, you're supposed to unbolt the front of the compressor pulley and use a massive wrench to unscrew it from the shaft. I don't have a massive wrench so we said XXXX it and bumped it on.
It started up... and not only that, it ran great still! Apparently they make military head gaskets out of unobtainium.
Drove it the rest of the way home and passed the hell out at about 1AM (having had 4 hours of sleep since early Friday morning.) Woke up at 9AM, showered and drove it to work...
Colin, you know you want to test drive this thing before I leave work tonight.
hopefully someone took some pics, I'll see if I can find some on facebook.
