There is always a better way to skin a cat. If you like camping, and you like Jeeping, as I do, you'll dig my upcoming TJ camping story.

 I like camping. I like how off-road capable our 2001 Wrangler is. What I don't like is what a PITA it can be to camp with a TJ. Using my ability to not know when to admit defeat I set out to figure out how myself and my girl could comfortably go camping for at least 4 days. I started with a new low-profile ARB fridge, modified a Tuffy security deck, added some water-carrying, and some Safari Straps and ended up with a TJ that can go anywhere that I can camp out of in comfort. See the July issue for the full story. Should be out sometime mid-June.

 I saw this cool Autometer tach at the SEMA show. I like the digital display in the middle of the tach so I snapped a picture of it.

 Then, later on, I realized how optimistic the thing is. I don't think I've ever run one of my Jeeps halfway to the 11,000 Rpms this tach is capable of measuring.

 Got a '10 Wrangler? Worried it'll burn to the ground? Bring it to the dealership

Apparently there's been some Wrangler fires. If you own a '10 Wrangler with the auto transmission, apparently you should either take it in for a new heat shield or don't take it off-roading through heavy brush that can get trapped between the shield and catalytic converter.

More info here on Yahoo News.

 Either it is a California thing, or they all rusted away on the East Coast because I'd never even heard of a La Forza before I saw my first one in the junkyard.

It is a cush-looking upper-end SUV from the late 1980s/early 1990s with a 5.0-liter Ford engine in it. Kind of neat-looking, and a cool concept.

 I'm writing this blog a few weeks before you read it. Its the end of April, hasn't broken 50 degrees at my place for two days and I've been in a cloud.

 I found this picture of Red in the snow in the high desert. Here's hoping we've seen the end of snow for the year by the time this blog pops up.

And, since Spring is apparently extinct, I'm also wondering if I'll be sick and tired of hot weather when I see this blog again.

 I'm a watch guy and I'm a tech geek, but this watch, I'm just not sure about.

A guy working the ticket counter at the airport noticed my watch, and I asked him about his since I didn't see any numbers displaying. I almost had to put my sunglasses on when he hit the button to display the time.

  A wheelstand is that thing you see the show car's information on. So when the time came for my MJ to be in a show, I wanted a Jp-magazine-worthy wheelstand. I started with a brake rotor and went from there.

 So, a CJ-7 tailgate, two stock JK coil springs welded together, and a Wagoneer rotor all combined to make quite the unique wheelstand.

 Saw this brake setup at Off Road Evolution a while ago and I w

as going through old pics and thought I'd share it here.

I think their new marketing campaign should feature this picture and the slogan "Wilwood- for when you absolutely have to stop NOW!"

 You know, I hear a lot about southern hospitality and I wonder if it ever really existed.

 Ok, so this picture wasn't taken in the deep south. But it was taken in a small rural town where it often seems like everyone knows everyone.

And, ok, I wasn't really broken down, I just needed to get a picture for a story. But still, there I was with the hood up and not one person stopped to ask if I was ok.

I think the worst part of the thing is, I was stopped right by a stop sign. So people were stopping anyway but no one asked if they could be of assistance. Couldn't have been that hard to roll the window down.

 If you ever find yourself in Moab, Utah, and in need of ring and pinion gears, Checkers on S. Main St usually has them in stock.

 You can then either install them yourself, or have one of the many shops in town install them for you.

Speaking of shops in town, Moab 4x4 Outpost stocks gears and, of course, can do whatever install work you need.

 The other day I was working on Piggy The Pig Truck when I noticed that the steel gas tank had a few leaks. After talking to Hazel I started looking for an old school radiator shop who is used to working on hot rod parts to get a fix.

 Any ways I used the interwebs to find a fairly local shop who will repair and test old steel gas tanks. There bread and butter is repairing radiators for sure.When I drove down to the shop it was like taking a trip in a time machine. Out front was a mid to late '70s AMC Javelin in for some radiator work.Cool! I love old shops like this. They remind me of my childhood and the undeniable American  relationship with cars. Here are some pics of the old school radiator shop. Check out how they don't even bother with painting an area code on their phone number, Old School!:

 B&M has redesigned the Sport Shifter for the '99-'01 Wrangler. After 145,000 miles we started having problems shifting into reverse. We pulled our old short shifter off and found some broken parts in it so we ordered another one.

 The Precision Sport Shifter offers approximately a 30-percent reduction in the throw length over stock and we got so many miles out of ours that it was a no-brainer to replace it. You can see our old one on the top and the new one on the bottom. We contacted B&M and discovered they changed the bend in the stick to better clear the center console.

As it turns out, even though the Sport Shifter had some broken parts in the tower, it was the transmission itself that was giving us problems. Actually, we might have mangled the shifter due to forcing the transmission to shift with a lot of force.

 If you are looking at putting Novak's aluminum radiator in your XJ/MJ follow the instructions. I installed it with a mechanical fan, not the electric fans they wanted me to use. It didn't end well.

 While wheeling one day, the upper radiator mount died. Of course it was the one on the mechanical fan side. That allowed just enough movement for the radiator to contact the fan clutch just enough for the clutch to chew into the radiator and make it leak. I put stops leak in the radiator, pulled the mechanical fan, and drove the truck home really slowly.

Then I got a new Novak radiator, but this time I put it in with the electric fans. Of course, I flushed the engine out thoroughly before installing the new radiator, which included pulling the T-stat, cleaning it, and reinstalling it.

Novak ships the radiator with SPAL fans, so I used SPAL PWM fan controllers. I got it all wired up and programmed to come on and off when they needed to. First test drive, overheat.

I then spent an hour or two on the phone with both Novak and SPAL to try and figure out why this system designed to cool LS V-8s in the XJ/MJ couldn't cool my little stroker engine.

I diagnosed the system to within an inch of its life when I came up with the bright idea to pull the T-stat and look at it. The top half was separated from the bottom half. Long story short, maybe I should stop reusing thermostats.

Remember the big tree guarding the entrance to Little Sluice on the Rubicon? Looks like it finally fell over this winter.

 We got an email from Shaun McLemore of The Friends of the Rubicon with photos of the big tree in its current position. It's kinda sad to see it on its side, but here's an image from the 1920s showing it still standing.

One of the cool things about this job is that occasionally we get to help manufacturers out with preproduction part fitment. In this case, this is an upcoming MSD APS starter that I'll be bolting into one of my 6-cylinder Jeeps this week.

 The starter features a 3.5hp motor abusing the flywheel through a 4.4:1 gear reduction unit. Both the armature and the pinion gear are ball-bearing supported (rather than bushings). And the billet mount and smaller overall size will ensure it fits just about anywhere you try to shoehorn it.

 I often get questions about the frame I built for Jp's Project Ground-Up '56 CJ-5.

 While I was building the frame I was pretty excited and did not take enough time to take many pictures, but I still have way more photos than could be printed in the magazine article. I have posted an album on my facebook page and linked it to Jp Magazines facebook page. If you "friend" me and "like" Jp on facebook you too can see these photos and others from this and other projects that Pete, Christian, and I are wrenching on. (maybe even a few teaser pics of stuff that has not run in the magazine yet) 

Jp Magazine's facebook page

Ground-Up facebook pics

Please come "friend" us and "like" us...we are delicate fame hungry Jeep nuts. We need validation!

It's spring time and that means I gotta start getting engines swapped in and out of my '89 YJ and '78 Cherokee. Both of 'em have some issues.

 If you read my Trail Head editorial in the May '12 issue, you know I'm kind of thinking of putting the 5.3L E-Rod in my '78 Cherokee, the 4.3L V-6 from my CJ-6 in my YJ, and (after I give it a rebuild) the 360 from my Cherokee in my '63 CJ-6.

But then I stumbled across ACD Parts and Salvage while in Moab, Utah and saw the company's fully rebuilt, turn-key 3.3L, 3.9L, and 4.5L four-cylinder Cummins engines.

Last week, I spent a day driving Chrysler's 2.8L VM Moturi-powered "Nukizer" concept vehicle around the trail. It reinforced the fact that I don't really like huffing diesel fumes all day on the trail, but it also made me kind of want to look into the diesel option for my YJ a little more.

My biggest problem: money. ACD sells its fully-rebuilt (new injectors and everything) 3.9L engines for about $7,000 and the 3.3L for about $10,000. Steep, but not really out of the realm of a complete V-8 or V-6 swap once you factor in all the little odds and ends. I've kind of ruled out other diesels like the four- and five-cylinder Mercedes (not powerful enough); the VW Diesels (too hard to find and expensive to buy); and oddball stuff like the 300 TDI or HS 2.8L from a Land Rover (too hard to find in this country).

I guess one way or the other I gotta stop waffling between choices and just pull the trigger on something. Am I nuts? Would you spend $5,00-$10,000 to put a diesel in your Jeep?

Patina isn't an art - it's organic. You can't fake it. And not all rusty or old rigs have it. This guy does, though.

 Rot? Not patina. Rust-colored fake paintjobs? Not patina. Nasty, scaly tetanus-type rusty, bare metal? Not patina.

This is patina. We spotted this local Utah truck swinging by the Walker Drug store in Moab, Utah during the 2012 Easter Jeep Safari.

 A while back Pete blogged about how Google Maps had finally updated and he could see his M715 Moses in front of his house. Well I just noticed that Google Maps not only has a very fuzzy image of my old XJ (Shoe Horn XJ ) in my driveway, but the fat guy in a white shirt is me probably getting ready to work on the flattie!

 See I do do all my own tech/fab/installs. Now that I am a big time fancy schmancy Magazine Feature Editor hopefully I can find a local shop to do so I can sit around on my laurels!

Are you one of Jp's Jeep Chix? Want to win a genumatic Jp babydoll T-shirt? Click the link below to find out how.

Contrary to what disgruntled, mustached readers (male and female alike) think, we don't objectify women here at Jp magazine. That's why we're not going to "pick the best submission." 'Cause to us, every Jeep Chix submission we get is the best: real Jeep girls with their real Jeeps? Yeah, that's the best.

So then, how do you win? Easy - simply click the link and post up a photo of you and your Jeep. We'll rev up our trusty computer contest picker thingy to select one of the submissions at random. Honest and for-real-no-foolin.

Hey, and if you'd like to see your shot in the actual pages of Jp magazine, email a good, high-res image to christian.hazel@jpmagazine.com with Jeep Chix in the subject line.

Its a week and a half before Easter Jeep Safari. I should be all but finished with the Jeep I'm taking out there. Instead I'm like the little boy trying to plug the leaks in the dam with my fingers.

I was planning on taking Red, our '01 TJ to Moab, and have been working on getting it running, driving, and wheeling after almost 3 years waiting on the sidelines, and getting worked on only between other projects. After a month of driving it though, I lose reverse. I nail down the problems and order parts... still none of them have shown up.

So, I move on to the next Jeep and f

inished the front axle install and then overcame the Comanche's overheating, and took it wheeling last weekend to find a massive leak in my air system (so no front locker). Got back from wheeling to find a loose shock. Then took the truck to the office and coming back, the speedometer stops working, kicking a check engine light.

Then, my master bath faucet decides to spring a major leak, forcing me to shut off all water to the house. That, of course, leads to a valve replacement, which leads to a faucet replacement, which leads to this that and the other replacement.

Then, on a plumbing parts retrieval run, the Cherokee decides its time for he power steering to crap out. I pull over, check it out, and find the reservoir low. Not alarmingly so, but low. So wander in to the store, buy some power steering fluid (never mind I've got gallons on the shelf at home) and top it off. Over the next 25 miles at every stop I check it, and add a little. The steering works better with fluid in it, but obviously there is a leak and its not at the top. Sector shaft here I come. Not all that surprising I guess after 2 solid weekends of wheeling out in Truckhaven.

On top of that, I'm trying to wrap up two projects both with deadlines before I leave for EJS and they are both kicking my butt, in their own ways. Even without the plumbing, and the Jeeps randomly dying I'd have my hands full just with those two (more one than the other really) projects.

Oh, and to top it all off, I'm losing keys on my laptop again. IT has replaced the keyboard on my laptop 3 times now, and each time seems to last about 2-3 months before I start losing keys. This time the "t" is going out, requiring me to either hit it harder or repeatedly.

Ah well, its true what they say, I guess, "When it rains, it pours."

So, when you see me in Moab, I'll be the guy with all his hair pulled out, the rental Saturn, the plumber's crack, and the really buff left index finger.

I went junkyardin' yesterday and today. It was fun, and I found some cool schtuff. I was looking for some fuel line parts and an XJ front driveshaft  for the Ground-Up CJ-5. I kept my eyes peeled for the usual other junkyard gold  like any FSJ (to grab parts for the Pig Truck), Dana  44s rear axles from XJs (no luck), Front Dana 60s (no luck there either), cool granny-geared trannys like SM420s, t-18s, etc. I usually wont pull a tranny, but they are fun to look for...I'd prolly pull an SM420 if it I was feeling up to it.

 I also have been toying with the idea of maybe putting an SM420 in my 4 banger TJ. I knew I would need a SM420 and a bellhousing from a 2.8L Chevy   S-10 or Camero. Yesterday I found and pulled a bellhousing from an S10 with what I was pretty sure was a 2.8L V-6 (I'm a Jeep guy, not a Chevy guy!). Someone else had pulled the stock tranny  so all I had to do was remove a few bolts. I then conned my buddies into checking on a truck that was being parted near by that I was pretty sure should have an SM240 in it. I was right, but the yard was about to close. Well I went back today and after pulling the SM420 I stopped at a local pick-a-part just to look. I found one Cherokee Chief that I had to resist tearing apart, cause it did not really have anything that I don't have (only LOTS of spare parts for Piggy). I walked away from an unmolested wide track Dana 44 front, and offset rear. It wasn't easy. I may go back.

I was then walking around when I noticed a rolled TJ. There are a few parts I need for my TJ so I had a look and as I walked around the back I noticed it had rear disc brakes...Hmm??? TJs only had disc brakes on Dana 44s from the factory....Look at the cover, and yep, it's a Dana 44. So I pulled it. I mean I don't need a TJ Dana 44, but it was straight, the axles turned smoothly, the pinion turns smoothly, it has a factory tag that claims 3.73:1 gears, and it definitely has disc brakes. I can sell it if I can't use it!

I get home, and the S-10 bellhousing fits the SM420 and the pattern on the front of the bell looks like a match for the back of the 2.5L 4-cyl. Later I am sitting at the house recuperating from what was a good day junkyarding (in my book) when the door rang. I go to the door and there is a guy there who says hi and asks if I am interested in selling Piggy The Pig Truck. I said: "Nope, but you are welcome to look at it". I followed him around to where the Pig was parked and we got to chatting about our many Jeeps. Apparently he is a Jeep nut  too!

Then I notice that he has parked a patina'd FC150 in front of my house! Seriously he drives a '59 FC150 around Phoenix??!!?? What a weird day!

 California just introduced a bill to exempt pre-1981 vehicles from emissions inspection. This could be huge for all you California based Jeep nuts out there, and heck anyone who is a gear head in California. Follow the link below and contact your senator! If we are all lucky the rest of the US that already has emissions inspections, or soon will may follow CAs  lead on this. That would mean much newer, pre-1981 cars and passenger trucks would be emissions exempt. 

For more info and to contact your CA senators click the link here

http://echo.bluehornet.com/hostedemail/email.htm?CID=2293968426&ch=9CD5E5648EBF6896815A1C40D0E2C1A2&h=9000054d1ae9a2b9b478d0b6e1fe9ab8&ei=NE-IVTNYN

 My stroker MJ was off the road for a while there. First I went wheeling, one of my upper radiator mounts died, and my fan munched my radiator.

 Novak graciously agreed to replace it under warranty, provided I tell people to follow their instructions and not use the radiator with a mechanical fan.

Then, while waiting for the replacement, I decided I needed to throw a Dana 44 under the front of the truck with the spring buckets relocated to move the axle forward and get the 35s out of the wheelwells. Mind you, this was in the middle of Hazel and I being the only guys at the magazine, so we were pretty dang busy.

Plus there was Christmas, New Years, and all other kinds of traveling tossed in there too.

I got the axle in and dialed-in (stay tuned for a future issue with that story), got the new radiator in, with the Novak-provided SPAL fans controlled by SPAL's pulse-width-modulated controller reading temp off the factory temp sender.

Then I take the truck for a drive, the morning I'm set to go to TDS's Desert Safari, and it overheats within a couple miles of my house. No time to mess with it, the Cherokee gets tapped to go wheeling in the desert, but I figure it must be one of the new parts because it was fine before with the mechanical fan.

After some time in the desert I have some ideas and spent some time last week checking, and double-checking my wiring, the programming on the PWM controllers, etc etc. Then I get to go back out to a JCCA event in Truckhaven this past weekend without the truck, and had more time to ruminate. So, I come home, get settled in on Monday and spent some time yesterday with my infrared thermometer on both the MJ and XJ. I had suspected that the cleaned-up for the x time T-stat might have been the problem (after spending a couple days checking stuff of course), but when I saw the MJ was hotter at the head by the T-stat than the XJ at the same temperature and the radiator of the MJ was much colder, the T-stat got yanked and swapped.

So, a day or so of install, for mounts, wiring, connectors, etc. Three days or so of troubleshooting new components and double-checking new parts. All to find out a 20-minute swap of something that I thought "Naw, that would be too easy" was the problem.

 So I am certifiably obsessed with Jeeps.

 I love building and driving Jeeps! As some of you may know that extends into scale Jeeps as well. I built this 1/8th scale remote controlled Flatfender over the course of a year or so. I started by making scale drawings and then made the body out of steel shim stock. The fame is made of 1/2-inch square tubing that I bent to match a 1/8th stock Flattie frame and then cut down the middle. The roll cage is 3/16ths steel brake line. The suspension is set up similarly to my 1:1 '49 CJ3a. I admit that the attention to detail may indicate an obsession. I don't care. It's fun. Every wash is a trail and any rock a challenge! The best part is that if this thing rolls and I cant drive it out of it I can easily use the old ten-and-a-half to right the Jeep.