JEEPS

[smker]

i take gravel road out to the main highway,  6 or 7 miles to go to work.  few weeks ago every thing  was snow covered,  put her in 4WD, snow drifts were the main thing to avoid,

few days later we had a major thaw and a few days of rain and the road was pure mud , and ya i had fun going home on that mud, 4WD and i cut ruts all over that road and i had a blast for a few days there,  

 so it all dried out and its a hard packed dirt road,   so they put a very thin layer of gravel over it making it like driving marbles,   25 mph and the rear end kept stepping out and trying to pass me,  i didn't use 4WD  not shure if that would have helped  any,  

all most felt like the rear wheels were out of alignment from being pulled out of the ditch the other night but i dont see anything wrong there so it has to be that road.

the gravel was spread out really thin and the the jeep has a real short wheel base,  and i have the larger and wider tires on it, 4WD helps in certain conditions  but not all.of them.

got up to 40mph and had it sideways a few times and that was enough for my liking and had my rear end puckerd up like fort knox.   nothing going in or out,  ive got a roll cage but no airbags, and its also soft top, 

 most of these ditches on this road if you went over,  you would look up and say LORD  im boned,  

   300 ft roll to the bottem i dont have that good of luck.

 

[handymanstan]

I have owned 7 jeeps in the past 6 cj5s 1 cj7 although I sold the last one a 72 cj5 two years ago.  Used to go to Sliver lake dunes all the time back in the 70s.  When driving with wide tires if there was any snow on the road I would have to go 4wd.  I have spun out more than once. Short wheel base is great in the mud but not so good in loose stuff.

Stan

 

[smker]

that is so true,  the jeeps short wheelbase is a plus in most cases,  like last Thursday we had a snow storm move in and i left work 30 min early,  the snow isn't a problem but that 40+ mph cross wind and the jeep is pushed around like a toy,  after i got off the main road and onto the gravel i put it into 4WD and having the front wheels pulling too helps keep you in a straight line and having more control but it doesn't eliminate the puckered up bum hole and cant poop for a day or so

  i dont mind driving on the edge but not at the mercy of a guest of wind that can put me in a deep ditch.

this was taking right after i got home thursday

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• smker
• Feb 23, 2013

 

[mdboatbum]

I had a '91 and a '98. 4wd definitely helps in the loose stuff, but there are some situations where you just have to go into "tractor mode". 4 low and under 10mph. If she's stepping out on her own, you may have an alignment issue. Everything can look fine, but if something's even slightly tweaked with that short wheel base, it can get hairy. I used both of mine to move boats on trailers around the marina, and that short wheel base was awesome. I had a hitch on the front, and I could maneuver so easily around the tight quarters of a marina it felt like cheating.

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• mdboatbum
• Dec 17, 2012

 

[junkcollector]

what year is your jeep? coily or leaf srpings? I'm with boatbum, sounds like a alignment issue initially. have you pulled someone out, or been pulled out lately with it? if so, was strap/chain hooked to suspension or bumper/frame? if hooked to suspension, could tweak it and make it want to walk pretty easily.

how often is 4wd used? possibly front axle/hubs didn't disengage last time it was used, easy to happen if not used a lot, extra drag has been known to cause similar issues

air pressure in tires all equal? if pressure is low in front tires, they'll want to walk around easier. 

confirm transfer case is actually in 2wd. few years ago, buddy had a jeep cherokee, went 4wheeling, for a week afterwards his gas milage was 1/2 of what it was, turns out with the slop in the t/c shifter, he was still in 4wd on the highway for a week. 

hope ya figure it out.

jc

 

[q-in]

I have a 98 TJ with a 3 inch lift,33 tires.Absolutely the worst vehicle I have ever owned when it comes to ice or slick conditions.Throw in a cross wind and it will get away from you in a split second if your not ready.

 

[junkcollector]

lift n tires will help to make it a bit more squirrely. 

check the tire pressure n get alignment maybe. that's going to be the cheapest, most of the time the biggest contributers in my experience too. never ran over 8psi in my samurais. the willys usually ran 15 or so. i drive a mile to work and 9 to the mountains so i never aired em up. just put up with quirky habits on the road.

 

[smker]

it really did feel like an alignment issue and i could pin the cause on getting pulled out of the ditch,  it has leaf springs and the only thing i could get a chain around was the rear leaf spring shackle  and it might have bent something. 

Thurs we had that snow storm and when they got the roads bladed off it took all that loose rock off too,  when i went to work Saturday morning there was a few patches of ice,  but after that no problems and I'm back up to speed again.  50-60 mph    (living life on the edge)    that had me really puzzled tho and never encountered that before,  the conditions of the road was just right for that to happen,   its like that one deer that jumps out and you hit it with your car,  if your were 5 min later or 5 min sooner and you would never had uncounted that deer,  well maby that's more of a timing issue then anything else but anyway it was the loose gravel they spread out.

 

[junkcollector]

so the issue has solved itself? if so. id suspect the 4wd didn't disengage from the prev use. if so, could be in axle or t/c. if you don.t use 4wd a lot, is suspect oxidation/gum build or lack of lube etc not allowing the axle/hibs to disconnect.

 

[smker]

my jeep is a 1991

the jeep wasn't meant to tow real heavy loads, that might not go for the jeeps newer then mine but it tends to wear out the drive train faster, mines a 4cyl 5 speed,   some years ago   ( ill find a photo of it)  i pulled a 17 foot Mark twain boat out of a timber and it was way back deep in a timber and that boat was almost twice the weight of my jeep, the tires on it were almost flat but i got it home tho.

 you cant really compare it to the military jeeps that towed heavy stuff like that in WW2  to what we have today,   how many jeep owners out there  that have a 150 person motor pool right behind them to fix anything that breaks down,   a bit off topic here but if you ever have a chance to ride on a  M-88 recovery vehicle,  its a limo of tanks,  no guns so theres more room inside, it rolls on twin tracks,  if you get the M-88 stuck your options drop real fast,  it has cables and wenches to drag logs under the tracks,   if theres not trees around,  your boned,  i was in the military ten years, ARMY

 

[smker]

so the issue has solved itself? if so. id suspect the 4wd didn't disengage from the prev use. if so, could be in axle or t/c. if you don.t use 4wd a lot, is suspect oxidation/gum build or lack of lube etc not allowing the axle/hibs to disconnect.

ive got a indicator light on the dash if im in or out of 4WD,   a vacuum operated yolk that puts it into 4WD and i can tell the difference  between  2WD and 4WD if it would get stuck in 4WD,   making any hard left or right turns in town and the whole jeep lays over to that side, hard to explain that feeling, the  first time that happened to me i stopped in the middle of a busy street and got out  wondering what the hell is going, felt like the front tires were coming off.

anyway the road turned into a hard packed dirt road and then they  dusted the road with this large gravel that was all spaced out like marbles on a tiled floor and the jeep didnt like that at all,  4WD helps alot and i dont use 4WD unless i really need it,

its not like the older 4WD that has the lockout hubs like the first 4WD's  had to unlock the hubs and then back up 20 feet to disengage the 4WD.

 

[smker]

here's the mark twain boat i towed with the jeep home and restored,   (the boat was a mess  when i started on it)  took 2 summers or 2 years to restore it, its a 1969 mark twain,  85hp Johnson and it drank gas like it was in the 60's   and 50 cents a gal  the real killer was the Marine paint, $100 for pint,  even more when i put the blue stripe on it.  started off with all white hull.

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• smker
• Feb 25, 2013

that was nice but to plain so i added the blue strips and made into a fishing boat,

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• smker
• Feb 25, 2013

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• smker
• Feb 25, 2013

i had wondered  why the 100 gal tank in the nose of it,  2   6 gal tanks  lasted  under 3 hrs of play time on the lake,  so a fishing boat would cost less in gas,  4 cylinder  4 carbs on it, the top 2 carbs and the bottom 2 carbs were only linked together by a gas float bowl ,   top 2 carbs would feed gas from one float bowl,  bottom two carbs had there own gas float bowl,  

 

[junkcollector]

boats look beautiful. 

don't sound like it was stuck in 4 since you obviously know the difference. no idea what it was then. 

never was in army but am familiar with the m88. have a m109a2 i use on the farm. took box off, installed flat bed so its basically a m35a2 now. really glad to have the winch option on mine,. once they get stuck, THEIR STUCK!!!!! my neighbor found out the hard way last summer....... he was trying to push out his uncle who got stuck in the ford. after messing with it for about 4 hours on friday evening, i get the call about 9:30 saying, louie, we got a lil problem..... saturday took 4 hours, n 3 tractors to get ford out of the way, 20 minutes with winch to extract lil green. ripped a 24in diameter cedar tree out that was growing on the creek bank. had to string out ALL the cable +40ft of chain to get to a GOOD anchor point. here's a shot after draining over 1000 gallons of water

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• junkcollector
• Feb 25, 2013

 

[smker]

the front end not locking in crossed my mind to.

the deuce-n-half's do that really well,  when those axles of the  6 wheel drive hits ground your pretty much boned, cant tell if the tires you have are the military treaded  ones with the deep wide concaved tread  or not but that style of tread has pros and cons,  self cleaning and wont load up as much turning them into slicks,   but then there fast diggers, get all 6 wheels spinning in mud and your not moving will bury its self down to the axles in a heartbeat.

anyway hears  what that mark twain boat looked like when i got it home.

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• smker
• Mar 5, 2013

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• smker
• Mar 5, 2013

half way into restoring it,  trying out some ideas to make it look better.

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• smker
• Mar 5, 2013

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• smker
• Mar 5, 2013

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• smker
• Mar 5, 2013

 

[junkcollector]

You sure did that Mark Twain justice. You definately put some labor into it. 

I have std issue ND tires on it. They kept rocking it till the pigs hit the dirt and continued letting the pigs dig holes till the axle tubes were into the dirt. It was a NASTY mess. 

 

[smker]

it took 2 and a 1/2 Summers,   didnt put alot into it but the paint was half  of the money i spent on it

 

[junkcollector]

sure turned out beautiful. paint is NEVER cheap to do it properly. I know exactly where your coming from there.

 

[smker]

thank you for the complements
 

i put around $200 into it since i got it free its a win win deal,  i put alittle into the 85 hp Johnson outboard but it needed a full tune up and that thing was a gas hog,  at first i wondered why it had a 25 gal tank in the nose,  i wonder no more, first time out and it sucked down a 6 gal tank in no time at all, thankfully i had two tanks

 

[junkcollector]

even requiring a 25gal tank, for free i'd take it. 

 

[mneeley490]

I drive a '00 Jeep Cherokee, 2-door, manual transmission w/ 2WD & 4WD. I have to say that it's the best vehicle I've ever owned. I love to drive stick!

The snow around here tends to be on the wetter side, so I've never encountered those sliding problems you guys mentioned. But we have had some storms that have dumped up to 2 feet of snow, and I'll tell you that I was the only one on our street who could still drive.  For a few days, it got to where I was driving everyone else around to work and to do their shopping.

The only problems I've had were the drivers seat ripped up from the mounts, and I had to replace the whole seat. I hear it happens quite often to Jeep owners, but Jeep won't acknowledge it's a defect.

And once, the passenger side front wheel brake siezed up while I was driving. I was about a mile from home, so I limped back with smoke coming from the wheelwell, and hosed it down with water once I parked in front of the house.