More of a Tech "How not to"

[Brody]

So you are on a rocky trail and have managed to get hung up on some rocks. You give it the gas, hear metal grinding away, but persist until you are off the rock. Then you continue on your merry way because, after all, you have your undercarriage protected, right? Shortly afterwards you are on another obstacle, hear a bang and forward momentum pretty much stops. Gas again and no progress. You finally get your lazy ass out of the rig and look underneath only to see that your drive shaft is now in two pieces. Did you bring a spare? Nope. Do you have a welder or sticks and cables to battery weld it? Nope. Suddenly, you and all of your buddies are faced with the not too happy prospects of getting your lame ass off the trail in 2WD all because you didn't stop to look at what may have been the initial grinding sound. Great fun was had by all.

Moral: Don't be a ******* lazy idiot and when you hear actual grinding sounds (or for that matter, any sounds way out of the ordinary), you should get out and take a look. In regard to strange noises on your rig, if you are hearing then before you do a planned run, don't dick the folks you are going on the run with and go anyway. Fix the problem.

This picture was from another forum where the guy was lamenting the fact that his 'new' drive shaft 'broke' and spoiled his day. You can see the grooves that he wore in the drive shaft trying to get over some obstacle. This, incidentally, makes quite a racket and isn't easy to ignore.

[Mporter]

Lemme guess, he probably has a JK with ~20k dropped into it too.

[Brody]

No idea. It just seemed like a good thing to remind people about. I have weird noises in my heap, I certainly am not going to get out on a trail with it and will check out weird noises if I get them on the trail before going much farther. If you can isolate the noise and figure out what it is, then you can make the decision based on whether to drive it farther or not. I have done this when I know that I have broken teeth on a gear set and needed to get down to the pavement.

There was another guy who is no longer on the forum who took his rig out on a run KNOWING that his half ass fab work and welds on his driveshaft were no good. That is some lame **** right there. How hard is it to weld a good weld when you have the drive shaft on your work bench? This clown welded some ****, knew it was ****, reinstalled the **** work, then took it out and broke it on the trail. Not too much you can say about stuff like that, is there?

[scout man]

that is an impressively clean break (said from a guy who has seen many of driveahaft break). That definitely wasnt your average "dent, then rip", or too much torque. That is a sharp rock that sat in one spot while the driveshaft kept spinning away. Like Pete said, that would definitely be a ginding sound, and not just for a few seconds.

[SCRubicon]

Lemme guess, he probably has a JK with ~20k dropped into it too.

Is that a jab at the most capable Jeep ever built? :D

[scout man]

nope, only a jab at the folks who spend more at 4 wheel parts than they did on the initial Jeep, then have no freaking clue what they have, how it works, or how to fix it, i would guess!

[SCRubicon]

Apparently they had no clue to begin with because they *edit* made the mistake of shopping at 4-wheel Parts...:lmao:

[scout man]

exactly

[RidgeRunner]

I have a friend, who shall remain nameless, and used to be on this board who is just like this. He's extremely hard on his rig(s) and wheels his junk with known issues. For the most part I don't wheel with him any more simply because I know that if he breaks, I have to fix it on the trail since his mechanical ability is practically nill. I can't, in good conscience, wheel a rig that I know had a chance of breaking because of shoddy work or needed repairs. I don't want to put my friends in that position because of my irresponsibility, and I expect the same from my friends.

It's a shame because I actually like the guy, but I don't want to spend my day on the trail fixing some thing that he already knew was wrong.

[Popsgarage]

Amen to that, Dave. I know a few of those!

[mattzj98]

made the mistake of shopping at 4-wheel Parts...


damn posers!

[Brody]

It's a shame because I actually like the guy, but I don't want to spend my day on the trail fixing some thing that he already knew was wrong.

I know people like that too, and there were runs that LaDawn and I simply didn't do for the same reason. I don't mind crawling under someone's rig on the trail when something breaks and needs to be fixed. **** breaks wheeling and that is just a fact of life, but if there are known issues or bad work that needs to be done right to begin with and someone takes their rig out on a trail run anyway, especially if they are going to rely on someone else to fix it (usually standing around chatting up everyone else while their friends fix their ****), I would just as soon pass on doing a run with them. It tends to put me in a real bad mood.