My "new" dream Scrambler

[AK-RWC]

Still no moose.

 

[MrBeep]

Hang in there. I have confidents in you.

 

[AK-RWC]

Whatever. I like veal. This weekend is easily the most sketchy three days of wheeling I’ve ever done. But my tag is filled!

 

[Belizeit]

Looks like it's working well !

 

[MrBeep]

AWESOME! Congratulations. I do love it when a plan comes together.

 

[AK-RWC]

It was a very long night. Just got the blood cleaned out from inside the Jeep. The moose is hanging in my buddy’s garage, where he’s all set-up for processing at the moment.

 

[designerRob]

Congrats! Looks like your moose winch setup worked well.

Sure is beautiful countryside you have up there!

 

[AK-RWC]

Lots of changes: I accepted a new job this month, requiring me to be in Juneau for the first 3 or 4 months of each year. Because I'm stupid, I want to bring the Scrambler, but there's no way I want to drive the Alcan to Haines in the winter on mostly bald Boggers. So I ordered up some 40" Mickey Thompson MTZs which arrived on Christmas Eve, and we are desperately trying to find where my TrailReady beadlocks are since they were supposed to be delivered last week. Over the weekend I switch to Mobil1 5W-50 (with a bottle of Comp Cams break-in fluid for the ZDDP), found some new wipers (CJ wipers are impossible to locate around here), and installed my old Monroe steering stabilizer from my orange 7 because it was the only thing I had that worked out to be compatible with both the axle side bracket I had, and the new RuffStuff bracket. I'll get some pics assuming the wheels arrive, I can make the beast work for the trip. I have to leave this weekend to catch my ferry in Haines on Sunday afternoon!

 

[bigwalton]

Hopefully it's a congratulations kind of deal with the new job and you found your wheels Looking forward to seeing the new setup. Boggers aren't my cup of tea, so it will be cool to see this rig with the MTZs.

 

[AK-RWC]

It’s the kind of job that brings me to work back in the Office of the Governor (for the second time) and which you can’t really apply for. I got a phone call right before the election in November from the person who was about to become the Chief of Staff, which led to a conversation two weeks later where I was asked to come serve in the new administration. Either way, I REALLY wanted to bring the Scrambler down to Juneau just for the sake of rocking my big CJ-8 down at the capitol for a couple months during the session.

Wheels didn’t make it in time, so I’m sitting here in Haines waiting for the ferry...in my Subaru. (sigh)

Tires stacked up in the garage:


And I got the steering stabilizer brackets figured out (I need to get a different RS5000 stabilizer, but this was my “what do I have in the garage right now on a Sunday evening” solution):


And I even changed the heater core. It’d had a small leak for about a year, which got a little worse when hunting. I did an oil change, and started it up to get it warm when I realized the leak was worse and I was getting steam accumulating on the windshield.


All for naught. Wheels are supposed to arrive sometime next week after missing the last barge up from the freight forwarder.

 

[bigwalton]

Sorry about the wheel delay, that sucks. Enjoy the new gig.

 

[AK-RWC]

Still no wheels. There were several snafus from the distributor, but at this point I’m tired of the excuses. My buddy is ordering direct from TrailReady.

In the meantime, I re-bent my soft door frames to fit the existing cobbled-together aftermarket everything:


I dropped them off at a local shop to have the BesTop skins modified to work on these frames.

Then my wife let me pull the top and I threw in the towel and put the Boggers back on for now. Last night I did a little polishing. I need to bring this thing back to shiney!

 

[AK-RWC]

Still no doors, and it’s getting cold. A friend of mine is letting me borrow a set from a YJ because my wife’s 5.9L ZJ is still down getting the engine rebuilt. Also, still no wheels; that’s yet more comedy of errors. I’m also now borrowing some 35”s on my old wheels just to get my RPMs in a reasonable and actually driveable range. In the meantime, my job was cut a couple weeks ago, so I’m on the job hunt suddenly and unexpectedly. But it’s allowed me to work at my buddy’s shop on the paint prep for both my half doors (pictured test fitting) and my full doors.




And since I’m DDing it, I found out my coolant tank melted. Just swapped to an aluminum tank. Now watch the line melt on me!

 

[jims chop shop]

Wow , you make that tank ?
Never seen one for sale like it

 

[AK-RWC]

Wow , you make that tank ?
Never seen one for sale like it

Amazon!

 

[AK-RWC]

First round of painting showed me that I needed to re-sand the full doors. Oh well.



You can kinda make out the scratch in the passenger door down low on the left that we didn't catch when I was doing the prep work, and the driver's door had some defects (and drips) as well. So I spent another day while unemployed over at my buddy's shop sanding those two; I have no idea when he'll get around the repainting them. I also needed to sand out a drip from the tailgate, so it also got completely re-scratched up. And now I have a job, so I'm leaving the cut-and-buff up to him (after another round of paint, of course)!

 

[Drahcir495]

Wheeling trip!:

Just went though 18 pages and am just amazed at what you have accomplished. I don’t know where to begin with all that I could compliment on in this build. So, I say well done sir and leave with this picture of perfection!

 

[AK-RWC]

Just went though 18 pages and am just amazed at what you have accomplished. I don’t know where to begin with all that I could compliment on in this build. So, I say well done sir and leave with this picture of perfection!

Thanks! I appreciate the compliment.

Nothing really to update though; the full doors and tailgate got repainted again, but my buddy wants me to come do the cut-and-buff, which I haven't had time to do now. We eventually gave up on my wheels because the shipper lost the pallet they were on (along with a winch), so they paid the invoice and my other buddy who is a TrailReady dealer re-ordered them.

 

[AK-RWC]

Not much of an update, but I finally have a set of doors again! Now that it’s -11, I don’t have anything except my little rollers, and I’m not driving it with soft doors in the winter.

 

[AK-RWC]

My wheels still haven’t arrived, but these used Racelines showed up for sale locally for a reasonable price. My friend who ordered my TrailReady set offered to buy these for me to run as a gesture of good will until mine actually show up. It’s been incredibly cathartic to drive this once again with an appropriately sized wheel.





It occurred to me last night that I could put my other AMC emblems on too! And today I washed the grime off from having to daily-drive it a little through the fall and winter (yes, with soft doors in sub-zero temps) while the my wife’s ZJ was down and she needed my commuter.