The Official "After NACFest" Thread...

[Rob Mayercik]

Figured it was time for a new spin on the "I'm home" thread title...

Anyway, made the run home without incident (other than 5 miles of near stop-and-go traffic on 78 just east of Hamburg due to construction - was surprised to see them working this morning). Got unpacked, downloaded the camera, and figured out how to post pics to Facebook (took three or four tries to get it to not put those silly "frames" around the pics. Guess I need more practice at that... )

Thanks again to everyone who came out - as Rich said last night, it's the people that make this event special. I'm already looking forward to the next run...

 

[xcalibur223]

I hit the same traffic on 78. We didn't wind up leaving buddy's til almost noon. Have some wobble in the jeep around 45mph but otherwise did fine. It'll probably be a few weeks til I can get down to look at it.
Had a blast as usual thank you to all for making our event what it is. I also just booked my cabin for next year.

 

[Victor S.]

We just got home ourselves. Had no Issues coming home. I personally want to say THANK YOU to all the BOD Members and everyone in the chapter and everyone that helped put this event together. Welcome to the new members and old members abound.

 

[xCWolf]

I’m home! And it only took 9 hours. Caliper locked up in traffic twice. Pulled over let it cool and it rode fine again. Thanks to every that made this happen. Had a BLAST!!

 

[Rob Mayercik]

Sorry to hear about the caliper, Tom. Glad it didn't cause more problems than just delays on the ride home.

Found a small puddle of gear oil under my front diff yesterday morning - darn drain plug was loose again, and ground up so I couldn't put a hex key in it. Tightened with vice-grips a half turn to stop the leak.

I've run this cover since 2008 and it still works, but the drain plug keeps getting messed up, I'm out of spares, and the bottom of the cover's pretty ground up (which, since I opted for the recessed bolts, means a possible nightmare of grinding to get it off). Decided to just order up a new RuffStuff D30 cover and be done with the drain plugs getting wrecked.

Also, noticed a little moisture in my d/s headlight housing from the mud hole on Friday afternoon. Need to pick up a bottle of rubbing alcohol, pull the light out, and give it a rinse to try and prevent the reflector from rusting (just bought the things in November, want them to stay nice for a while).

 

[xCWolf]

The "good news" is the caliper had done it once before when it got real hot in traffic about 6 months ago and I honestly forgot about it, so I'm not very worried. calipers are cheap enough I'll throw a new one on in a month or so. My speedometer isn't working either but that's so far down the list of things I care about. I drive the XJ slow when I drive it on the street anyways. I monitor all the other gauges like a hawk.


And that reminds me I almost forgot to put my front dif cover on before I left for nacfest. I put it on Sunday night so, what, 3 days? Barely enough time for the RTV to finish sealing. luckily I did or I'd be replacing the front gears too.

 

[xcalibur223]

Sorry to hear about the caliper, Tom. Glad it didn't cause more problems than just delays on the ride home.

Found a small puddle of gear oil under my front diff yesterday morning - darn drain plug was loose again, and ground up so I couldn't put a hex key in it. Tightened with vice-grips a half turn to stop the leak.

I've run this cover since 2008 and it still works, but the drain plug keeps getting messed up, I'm out of spares, and the bottom of the cover's pretty ground up (which, since I opted for the recessed bolts, means a possible nightmare of grinding to get it off). Decided to just order up a new RuffStuff D30 cover and be done with the drain plugs getting wrecked.

Also, noticed a little moisture in my d/s headlight housing from the mud hole on Friday afternoon. Need to pick up a bottle of rubbing alcohol, pull the light out, and give it a rinse to try and prevent the reflector from rusting (just bought the things in November, want them to stay nice for a while).

Im dreading doing this exact thing. And at least your drain plug is still there. Mine is long gone ground even with the cover.

 

[chedisme]

We made it home no problem. My Jeep is still at James house. Turns out the pulley that failed isn't needed if I run a non ac belt. So I'm just going to do that. The ac doesn't work anyway.

 

[Rob Mayercik]

Im dreading doing this exact thing. And at least your drain plug is still there. Mine is long gone ground even with the cover.

Discovered this morning it's still dribbling - will put some kitty litter down on it tonight when I get home from work. Bought the litter years ago as a traction aid, now I use it as oil absorber.

Believe me, I'm not looking forward to the replacement either - I'm figuring on spending a fair bit of "quality time" with the grinder to make sure I've found all the bolts at the bottom, and then I have some extractors that I think will get them out if I can't get a hex bit in them (pretty sure I can see all the hex ports) - I don't really want to have to try and grind out the heads and then unthread the shanks after the

Still, painful or not, once it's done it's done.

 

[Rock2pus]

Sad part is I worked pretty good at getting a 30 cover or two for this year's raffle but nothing was available!

 

[Rob Mayercik]

Maybe they didn't have them in stock at the time? I ordered mine on the 21st, was waiting on my doorstep on the 24th (and that was with the having a banner that said there is a 4-5 day turnaround on new orders). I must have timed my order just right, I guess.

My new is one painted and ready to go on, now I am just waiting to see if I'll get enough dry weather Friday or Saturday to actually put the thing and mow the lawn for the holiday.

 

[vetteboy]

Not surprisingly...about what I expected to find.

This thing looks like it will fit so I gotta swap a bunch of guts back & forth and build some new shifters. Nice little project, I don't mind this kinda stuff.

 

[Rob Mayercik]

Not surprisingly...about what I expected to find.

Considering how long I think you've had that in the buggy (it'soy;246ne you put in when you built it, right, and that came out of something else, if memory serves?), it certainly doesn't owe you anything at this point.[/QUOTE]

This thing looks like it will fit so I gotta swap a bunch of guts back & forth and build some new shifters. Nice little project, I don't mind this kinda stuff

Nice. it almost looks to me like maybe you subconsciously planned for this from the start. That the Stak case you told me about?

 

[Rob Mayercik]

Still, painful or not, once it's done it's done.

Update: Needless to say, after 13 years all I did with the hex bit was round out the bolt heads. Extractors didn't really work either - what I have needs deeper holes

Have embarked on a plan of drilling down through where the hex key fits with a 1/4" bit, then following up with 7/16" until I get low enough to cause the head of the bolt to snap off. Once I've got the cover off, there should still be enough left of the bolts to grab with vice-grips to unscrew

Got four done Saturday before the rain came, six left to do. Picked up an extra set of drill bits yesterday, but didn't get back to the job. Have a drain pan underneath to catch dribbles until I get back to it this weekend.

 

[Rob Mayercik]

Update: Needless to say, after 13 years all I did with the hex bit was round out the bolt heads. Extractors didn't really work either - what I have needs deeper holes

Have embarked on a plan of drilling down through where the hex key fits with a 1/4" bit, then following up with 7/16" until I get low enough to cause the head of the bolt to snap off. Once I've got the cover off, there should still be enough left of the bolts to grab with vice-grips to unscrew

Got four done Saturday before the rain came, six left to do. Picked up an extra set of drill bits yesterday, but didn't get back to the job. Have a drain pan underneath to catch dribbles until I get back to it this weekend.

Finished the job on Saturday. My two-stage drill plan worked very nicely - that took the heads of 5 of the bolts, the other five I got most of the heads off, and then was able to use a flat screwdriver and hammer to actually get them to turn and unscrew.

I even managed to not damage the lubelocker under the old cover, so since this was the first reinstall on it and it wasn't leaking, I reused it and saved the one I just bought for the future.

Next job up is to pull the headlights and swap on the Hella dust boots in place of the Autopal ones (the Autopal ones did not hold up well, and let water into the left light at NACFest. Hopefully actual Hella boots hold up better...