Video's from the 2015 Jeep Jamboree, TN Mountains

Day 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKXe8tU25AM

Day 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlLZolIK9uo

Day 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPW9OswujMY

Back from TN

We had a great time!. Pictures speak for themselves. Three days of awesome fun, no damage and lots of lifetime memories and stories!

Heading to Tennessee

The Jeep is all loaded up for the 2015 Jeep Jamboree in the mountains of Tennessee. Christopher and I are heading down for 3 fun filled days of off-roading!

Ready for TN Jeep Jamboree 2015

Christopher and I spent last weekend getting the Jeep ready for the Jeep Jamboree in TN which is in two weeks. The biggest item was getting some "mud" protection inside the front fender wells. The factory CJ7 doesn't have much to keep mud from getting up into the engine compartment so we custom made our own protection.

More Improvements - Getting Ready for Tennessee

With the Transmission and Transfer case completed, short of some small adjustments, its time to move to a smaller list of items we needed/ wanted to complete.

We had an issue with the fuel gauge. It was working after the build and then quit working by the time we got to Moab. Long story short, the brand new fuel sending unit in the gas tank was defective, the float filled up with gas (must have had a small leak). After replacing it, everything works fine now.

Testing before re-installing the gas tank.

Notice the air bubble in the float!

It works!

Next it was time to rebuild the carburetor. We were not sure if it actually needed rebuilt, but thought that it would not hurt.

Dismantled!

Rebuilt and re-installed, works great! Does appear to have improved the smoothness of acceleration.

Phase 2 Nearly Complete

The new shifter is installed and the Jeep has been tested! The new 4 speed transmission and split transfer case work awesome. The combination of the lower first gear and lower transfer case low range gears make the Jeep crawl amazing. Going up a steep grade I can let the clutch out and let my foot off the gas and the Jeep will crawl all the way up the hill at idle speed!. I could get out and walk beside it! Awesome, can't wait to try it out on the trail.

The shifter cane came straight, we had to bend it specific to our needs.

Shifter bent to our needs, sand blasted, primered and painted to match the Jeep and installed and ready to go!

Phase 2 - New Transmission, Transfer Case and Drive Shafts Installed

 

We modified the original shifter cover to accept the 4 speed and the twin transfer case shifters, then re-dipped the cover in orange snake skin.

New transfer case towards the rear.

Transmission and transfer case shifter linkages.

New, custom made drive shafts, CV joint for the rear and standard u-joint type for the front.

New Transmission and Transfer Case

The new NP435 4 speed transmission and rebuilt Dana 20 transfer case have arrived!

Phase 2

After our adventures in Moab, we learned that our gearing needs to be lowered in order to increase our ability to "crawl" more up and over rocks, ledges, slick rock, etc. Especially with the manual transmission. So, time to start Phase 2. We are going to upgrade to a 4 speed transmission from the 3 speed and upgrade the transfer case.

We are using Novak Conversions (Logan, UT) to get the upgraded Ford NP 435 4 speed transmission from and to build our Dana 20 transfer case. The combination will take an already impressive off-road Jeep and make it even better (at least if you are in the drivers seat).

Everything has been removed and ready for the upgrades and transfer case has been shipped to Novak.

Transmission and Transfer Case Removed, not as clean as they were before the Moab trip!

Original T150 Transmission. It's for sale $$, fresh rebuild!

Dana 20 Transfer case, ready for shipment to Novak.

Home from Moab

We had a great time and didn't break anything!. We must have done a great job building the Jeep, navigating the trails we chose and avoiding the trails we were not ready for quite yet!

Jeep back home and all cleaned up!

A picture of Christopher's RC Rock Crawling truck, mini "Orange Crush"

Moab Trails

We complete all or a portion of these trails, in some cases, we did them more than once:

• Sand Flats Road
• Bartlett Wash Road
• Hurrah Pass
• Hidden Canyon
• Gemini Bridges
• Long Canyon
• Chicken Corners
• Hidden Canyon Overlook
• Bull Canyon
• Fins & Things
• Elephant Hill
• Hell Roaring Canyon Rim Trail

It rained some on Saturday, then quite a bit Saturday night, then off-on on Sunday and is raining off-on today. Has made the trails quite muddy, washed out some and made "slick rock" off limits at this point.

Fins & Things North Side Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo-gXFU8xcA&feature=em-upload_owner

Scenery

For those that have been asking for some scenery pictures, here you go. For the Jeepster pictures, see next post :).

Laundry, Rain and Mud!

We needed to do some laundry so we took an afternoon to get caught up. Then it rained most of the night and for obvious reasons, we got the Jeep good and muddy today!

Here is a link to another "edited" video of Elephant Hill, going up the front side and down the back on our way to the back country. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVCBCGGNL-E&feature=youtu.be

Here is a link to an edited video for "Fins & Things" South Side, which is the shorter side: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI9ElqNeA7c&feature=youtu.be