I fell off the face of the earth for a bit there, but back at it now.
Was driving the kids out in the forest past a mountain lake and ... lost the clutch. But I lost the pedal, and there was no getting out of gear. I had parked on a hill and when I went to get started one of the two bolts holding on the clutch linkage mount to the bellhousing sheared in half. Should have used grade 8, and I didnt have the second bolt tightened so I did come back and tighten that one. I think that one being loose allowed too much flex on the other one and snap... had to MacGuyver it back to town with a bolt I pulled off the hi lift jack mount on the Bumper.
So after feeling good about that one we went out camping for a weekend way down a washboard forest road near a fishing lake. I drove it around a bunch that weekend, feeling pretty good about it. Noticed that it didn't "go" like I thought it normally did when I would get started in first but tried not to worry about things too much, just wanted to enjoy the Jeep for the weekend. Had the jon boat tied to the top of the cage with the top off, and all that wind made it pretty hard to hear anything. On the way back home, I jumped on the freeway and had it buzzing up around 75mph for a rare time, and the stiff spring crosswinds made it a bit hard to control. Man the steering feels sloppy on this thing and it feels like there is some speed related issue but I can't pin it down. I was following the family home and they stopped off at McDonald's 8 miles before getting home. The kids were hungry and could not wait 10 more minutes. The man upstairs was looking over me because I decided to stop along with the family and as I came to a stop, at that slow speed, I could hear an awful metal on metal shearing sound with one of the wheels catching to a complete stop once or twice per revolution. Deciding something was seriously wrong, I talked a friend into helping me force the jeep up on his trailer and dropping it off at my house. Upon jacking the Jeep up in the air I noticed the front right wheel hanging like a limp noodle. Upon inspection, it had one lug nut on one lug bolt holding it on, that nut took three turns by hand to remove. The other 4 lug studs had backed themselves back inside the hub/rotor and started shearing off spindle studs. Another 8 miles at 75mph on a curvy freeway probably would not have ended up well, but since things did end up okay I fixed the resulting damage and have moved on. (There was a moment of pause with a beer to calm the nerves down a bit).
I have since purchased an extra torque wrench for the Jeep, and the nuts do not now seem to be loosening up. I had had a few issues with the rear axle, so those wheels had been on and off several times (and torqued each time), but the front axle had been left alone after the first assembly and the lack of re-checking the torque on these aluminum wheels turned out to be a rookie error that I survived, but that won't happen again.
And then on top of those issues my father in law took on a bull elk with a honda accord after dark, and narrowly (as narrowly as it comes) escaped with his life and deservedly soaked up a lot of our time over the last month and a half. Thankfully he is doing much better and now that he is upright and recovered extremely well (still a long road ahead of him but he can walk, talk, think, hear, see somewhat) I can get back to spending a little time on the Jeep.
So this week I have been driving it to work again. And the top is off. And it has rained heavily each day... and it is kind of enjoyable. I am thinking of adding a bikini/bimini top but not sure what to purchase. Something full length would be nice but haven't found anything like that yet.
And as for progress on further completion of the Jeep, after not spending much on it for a large part of the year (except in repair parts) I dropped some money on some poison spyder bumpers. Will be neat to get them in, powder coated and mounted on the Scrambler along with the winch that has been a garage decoration for two years now.
Anyhow, getting back to normal and hopefully will have some free time to get on here a bit more and peruse the Scrambler world.
