- City
- Dexter
- State
- MI
Do we want more pics of the Spec-Ops buggy...? DUH! hahaha... PLEASE!
Xelventybillionzillion
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My "new" dream Scrambler
- Thread starter AK-RWC
- Start date
Xelventybillionzillion
- City
- Cobourg, Ontario, Cana
- State
- da
^this.... plus 10 trillion and 5
- City
- Colorado Springs
- State
- CO
Hmm...
Been looking at this pic and wondering if this isn't some sort of replacement for the old FAV (Fast Attack Vehicle) the SOF guys used to use in the desert? Its hard to get a good idea of this thing since its palletized and the suspention is in full droop. That much travel is near useless in the artic but the huge meats would be useful. Maybe just another test rig for a govt. manufacturer trying to get a contract? Curious to see more.
Been looking at this pic and wondering if this isn't some sort of replacement for the old FAV (Fast Attack Vehicle) the SOF guys used to use in the desert? Its hard to get a good idea of this thing since its palletized and the suspention is in full droop. That much travel is near useless in the artic but the huge meats would be useful. Maybe just another test rig for a govt. manufacturer trying to get a contract? Curious to see more.
kryptoniteCJ8
Legacy Registered User
- City
- Houston
- State
- Tx
More pics of the Special Ops buggy please!
AK-RWC
Legacy Registered User
- City
- south central
- State
- AK
AK-RWC
Legacy Registered User
- City
- south central
- State
- AK
Awesome!
When's the aluminum tailgate arrive?
Where's the cottage?
I actually like the black tailgate with "Jeep" stamped in it. In my mind, it makes it more of an authentic Scrambler rather than the cobbled-together set of parts that it actually is. I still have some chromed "Jeep" emblems for a JK that I need to put on the sides since the aluminum isn't stamped. All that being said, my fiance has already told me I need the Aqualu aluminum half-doors; polished, of course.
The cottage is on 8.5 acres of land where I grew up, down near Anchor Point on the Kenai Peninsula. By Lower 48 standards, it's a cabin, but I can't call anything with power, water, and septic a "cabin." It's a house. We settled on "cottage," since it's a small house. I went to school in Homer, but we are in the Anchor Point zip code. The mobile home was in bad shape (we discovered a mold problem), and when mom got sick, my sister and I insisted that she not live there any more. She died before we could get something else on the land. To make a long story short, we got rid of the mobile. I got tired of camping on land where I had a well, power, and septic system. Last fall we ran into a builder, and our project mushroomed from a small framed-in cabin into a full-fledged (small) house. Low interest rates and the fact that I own the land free and clear influenced the decision.
We will probably run it as a vacation rental in the summers. Homer/Anchor Point is a major fishing and vacation destination. Info on Homer with a few random Internet pics:
Chamber of Commerce website: http://www.homeralaska.org/
Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer,_Alaska
- City
- Dexter
- State
- MI
Visited Homer when I was up there vacationing/getting the Postal. My new goal is to get back and rent your new place I've been seriously itching to get back to Alaska for a while now... kind of gets under your skin in a really cool way.
Just giving you crap over your exceedingly pretty tub with the tailgate remark
It would look awesome with the matching doors!
I've been seriously itching to get back to Alaska for a while now... kind of gets under your skin in a really cool way.Just giving you crap over your exceedingly pretty tub with the tailgate remark
It would look awesome with the matching doors!
AK-RWC
Legacy Registered User
- City
- south central
- State
- AK
55-60 degrees and sunshine? Why yes, I believe I will pull the hard-top and drive it every day for a week! Given that we broke the record for snowfall last season, we've had an incredibly mild break-up. I have nothing substantive in this post other than 327 miles on the new engine!
A quick trip to Home Depot yielded another 2x4, four hooks, four eye-bolts, 8 fender washers, and four ratchet straps. I wanted to use some 2x2s that I already had to have it rest on the rails, but there wasn't a way to make that happen and clear the front cage or rollbar.
A quick trip to Home Depot yielded another 2x4, four hooks, four eye-bolts, 8 fender washers, and four ratchet straps. I wanted to use some 2x2s that I already had to have it rest on the rails, but there wasn't a way to make that happen and clear the front cage or rollbar.
AK-RWC
Legacy Registered User
- City
- south central
- State
- AK
Our sister 4x4 club held their annual "Show & Shine" event last weekend, so I polished the Scrambler up for its first trip outside Anchorage.
I also got my JK "Jeep" emblems stuck on. I had to space the letters out to match the AMC-era spacing, and measured their proper location from my CJ-7. Here's my artful shot, with the CJ-7 reflected.
Much to everyone's surprise, it ramped 812!
And I won an award for "Bling-tastic."
This is the last image I have of it before everything changed, as it will never again look this pretty and clean.
I didn't put the soft-top on it for the weekend, betting that it wouldn't rain. Of course the temperature dropped, and it rained. She was getting cold so I offered to buy her a hat and gloves (she hadn't brought any), an extra fleece jacket, and at Walmart I also bought this piece of canvas drop-cloth and affixed it to the front cage with zip-ties. With the seat heaters and the Chevy blower-motor upgrade, we actually stayed plenty warm. Obviously it was drafty around the edges, but it got us home. Now I think I want to have a custom half-top made that will match this profile and fit down over this part of the cage!
I needed to get tow-points installed for a planned clean-up that the ATV club hosts at the Knik River Public Use Area. My bumper had only been hanging on by two bolts because my brackets didn't quite fit the new frame, so I got motivated:
I had to cut one of the brackets off and move it over about 1/8", and finally cleaned out the flashing from the tow-hook holes to install the hooks properly. For the back I didn't have good lighting when I was thinking about it, so there's no picture, but it's just a factory CJ rear hitch. Nothing fancy, but it's at least something to pull on.
To avoid having another shackle invert, a friend gave me a chunk of 1/4" plate to make new shackles. I wasn't excited about drilling 16 1/2" holes through 1/4" plate, and have been looking at drill presses for quite some time. I saw that Sears had this one for $150, and it's a 6-amp 2/3HP unit. Reviews on it were generally good. It was well worth it for this project, but the bearings immediately started sounding bad after the first hole, so I'm debating returning it and looking for a bigger unit.
Shackles drying.
No more bent springs!
I also got my JK "Jeep" emblems stuck on. I had to space the letters out to match the AMC-era spacing, and measured their proper location from my CJ-7. Here's my artful shot, with the CJ-7 reflected.
Much to everyone's surprise, it ramped 812!
And I won an award for "Bling-tastic."
This is the last image I have of it before everything changed, as it will never again look this pretty and clean.
I didn't put the soft-top on it for the weekend, betting that it wouldn't rain. Of course the temperature dropped, and it rained. She was getting cold so I offered to buy her a hat and gloves (she hadn't brought any), an extra fleece jacket, and at Walmart I also bought this piece of canvas drop-cloth and affixed it to the front cage with zip-ties. With the seat heaters and the Chevy blower-motor upgrade, we actually stayed plenty warm. Obviously it was drafty around the edges, but it got us home. Now I think I want to have a custom half-top made that will match this profile and fit down over this part of the cage!
I needed to get tow-points installed for a planned clean-up that the ATV club hosts at the Knik River Public Use Area. My bumper had only been hanging on by two bolts because my brackets didn't quite fit the new frame, so I got motivated:
I had to cut one of the brackets off and move it over about 1/8", and finally cleaned out the flashing from the tow-hook holes to install the hooks properly. For the back I didn't have good lighting when I was thinking about it, so there's no picture, but it's just a factory CJ rear hitch. Nothing fancy, but it's at least something to pull on.
To avoid having another shackle invert, a friend gave me a chunk of 1/4" plate to make new shackles. I wasn't excited about drilling 16 1/2" holes through 1/4" plate, and have been looking at drill presses for quite some time. I saw that Sears had this one for $150, and it's a 6-amp 2/3HP unit. Reviews on it were generally good. It was well worth it for this project, but the bearings immediately started sounding bad after the first hole, so I'm debating returning it and looking for a bigger unit.
Shackles drying.
No more bent springs!
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AK-RWC
Legacy Registered User
- City
- south central
- State
- AK
My beer selections for the evening.
Since the paint was still drying, I prepped the Jeep and took a three hour nap before getting up to drive to the KRPUA. Since I was an hour late, the event had already started. A guy in my club had camped out the night before, and our president was already ahead of me, so I jammed out to the Friday Creek area. The minor water crossings weren't an issue, and the springs absolutely ate-up the trail getting out there. Yes, I was along, but I did wire up my VHF so I had communication with several other 4x4s, and there were hundreds of people out that day for the clean-up. Plus I'm fairly familiar with that part of the trail to Friday Creek. After the creek, I took two wrong turns, but eventually drove up on their camp where I took these two.
Since the ATVs were covering the area between the parking lot and Friday Creek, our club president and I decided to head further out to the glacier. We found one stretch of less than a 1/2 mile where we quickly filled two bags with beer cans, but it was pretty clean after that. We jumped out of the trees and got back into the flats where we saw this:
A VW bus, that somebody had put a transfer case in. My friend vaguely recognized it, and recalled that it had once been driven as PART of the clean-up. Somebody later told us it got rolled two or three years ago out there, and drug to its current location where somebody cut out the axles. Either way, we weren't going to try to drag it 7-miles with two Jeeps. It will have to wait for next year when we can get a moose-buggy to it. I did grab a bullet-ridden propane tank that was stacked in the wreckage and added it to my trash collection.
We stopped on a moraine in front of the glacier for a photo-op. On the way back in, we also spied a tire sticking out of the gravel, which it turned out was connected to a VW Bug. We noted its location, but again, it will need to wait for shovels, a buggy, and a future clean-up.
$75 later at the carwash, but I know I'll never get all the glacial silt gone.
All in all, a great shake-down run, and we collected a fair amount of trash. I did have a nut come loose for my left rear shock, and noticed that my front shocks both got dents where the spring-plates made contact. I now have over 700 miles on the chassis!
AK-RWC
Legacy Registered User
- City
- south central
- State
- AK
I really should wait to get a traction bar made up and get the bumpstops on, but at a minimum I needed tow-points and to address my shackle-issue. For now, the tire is just strapped down in the back. I already love the aircraft tracks I put back there, and need more tie-down points!
AK-RWC
Legacy Registered User
- City
- south central
- State
- AK
I feel neglectful of my thread. Since May 1, I've started a new job, found out that my cottage is built 25% on state land and entirely within an easement, had my fiancé lose her job, married her anyway, and had the Scrambler break down at 10:00 pm the day after the wedding 175 miles from Anchorage...I never did recover the the 2-belt pulley that fell off my alternator.
I've had one more minor offroad trip, but only have one photo. While the Jeep generally has continued to work well, I pretzeled the tie-rod in my buddy's backyard, and have encountered steering problems as my front springs have failed onto the top of my tie rod. Additionally, the ball joints are trash. I have high-steer knuckles in the garage, but need to get the one side machined and buy arms. I still haven't made a track bar, or put my winch on (at least I have all the steel!). And I'm more than officially out of money (the wedding was all on me too).
I'll try to get a few Jeep pics up this weekend. I apologize for not being around to contribute to tech, etc.
I've had one more minor offroad trip, but only have one photo. While the Jeep generally has continued to work well, I pretzeled the tie-rod in my buddy's backyard, and have encountered steering problems as my front springs have failed onto the top of my tie rod. Additionally, the ball joints are trash. I have high-steer knuckles in the garage, but need to get the one side machined and buy arms. I still haven't made a track bar, or put my winch on (at least I have all the steel!). And I'm more than officially out of money (the wedding was all on me too).
I'll try to get a few Jeep pics up this weekend. I apologize for not being around to contribute to tech, etc.