2021 Scrambler Owner Association - 17th National Scramble - Rausch Creek, Pine Grove PA

[bigwalton]

 

[Randyzzz]

That dark beer looks pretty yummy! And lovin’ that Jeepster ‘vert!

 

[Oakley]

Excuse me I seem to be lost.... I’m looking for the mall?

 

[Oakley]

Well my wife and I made it back to Georgia with no issues. We hope everyone else also has a safe return.
As this was our first event with SOA I would like to express our heartfelt gratitude for the kindness and hospitality that was shown to us. Always a bit awkward when meeting new groups. We had an awesome time and made some new friends. We are already looking forward to the next event. And with my wife saying I had to build my own scrambler (several witnesses heard this) I intend to start that immediately
We took lots of pictures and I will post them for people.

 

[Oakley]

Few more

 

[brp0830]

Looks like an awesome time! I'm really looking forward to being there next year.

 

[93_Fummins]

Great pictures! Definitely looks like a good time with a good group of people.

 

[gr8dain]

Well my wife and I made it back to Georgia with no issues. We hope everyone else also has a safe return.
As this was our first event with SOA I would like to express our heartfelt gratitude for the kindness and hospitality that was shown to us. Always a bit awkward when meeting new groups. We had an awesome time and made some new friends. We are already looking forward to the next event. And with my wife saying I had to build my own scrambler (several witnesses heard this) I intend to start that immediately
We took lots of pictures and I will post them for people.

It was good meeting you both and great wheeling with you!

 

[gr8dain]

I had a blast and got to visit with friends and meet new ones. The best group of people anyone could know.

 

[gr8dain]

More pics

 

[CJeep]

This was my first, and I also had a great time. Both meeting folks, and wheeling. Reminded me why I got in to Jeeps and this sport.

Don't have many pics, as I was solo, but here are a few.

 

[bigwalton]

So my trip out there sort of sums up everything about the SOA and our Scrambler group. First, I lost my two-month-old ignition coil on the Ohio Turnpike. Got my spare swapped in on the side of the highway and got back moving. Figured I should get another spare if they were going to crap out that fast, so got off on the next exit. At the first light I had to stop and saw an RV with the hood up and fluid all over the ground with two kids, a dog and a woman standing around outside. I thought "Aw man, that sucks for them." as traffic started moving. Got to AutoZone, got a coil and went to leave. Figured I'd update FB to let folks know I was back on the road and happened to see that Kyle Sweet had RV trouble and was stopped at a gas station just off of the Turnpike going south... it was the one I'd seen.



I rolled back up to them to find Kyle, they had the Scrambler in an enclosed trailer and had blown the trans cooler. I waited with them as they tried (on a Sunday morning) to find a shop open or with the cooler. That didn't work so it switched to finding it at a part store. We found one at the local AutoZone hub, 25 minutes back towards Cleveland. I gave him a ride, with the old cooler in the Jeep, to get it only to find it wasn't the right part. Then we decided to go with making up a bypass out of compression fittings and copper tube just to get him mobile. Hit Menards for parts and another part store to get the right special synthetic trans fluid and headed back. Got things installed, tested it through the gears and I watched as he rolled out towards a nearby hotel for the night. I took off toward the National again.



So a couple hours later, the postal starts acting odd. It noticeably misses a number of times and I think "here we go again" with the same issues that happened to me last fall. I checked the codes but didn't see the camshaft position sensor that was showing last fall, but I figured, like the coil, the new one I put in must be going out already. I stop at an Oreiley's and get another cam position sensor and a set of plug wires while I'm at it. I swap things in the parking lot and, while I'm in there, I changed the #1 and #2 spark plugs, then get back on the road. (#1 clearly showed the misfire, brown and sooty) Feels ok for a bit and then starts missing big time again. I get off and as soon as I start to slow down all hell breaks loose. Missing, backfires, bad idle, nothing is working right. I pull over at the only small gas station on that stop and assessed where I was and what I could do.

Misfire codes on all cylinders, but no truly actionable codes pointing to a specific source. It's now getting dark and I'm wrecked, so I decide to try to limp to the nearest hotel on back roads. The trip there was a mess, rapid backfires followed by running ok for a bit, then misses and more backfires. I managed to get there, unpacked the Jeep and trailer into the room and called it a night.



Made a plan to swap the crank position sensor, coil again (just because), check all the spark plugs and probably something else I'm forgetting in the AM and went to sleep. Got up and went to work. Early into it, @spankrjs messages me and says he's driving to me from the national that he just drove up from MS to in case he could help with anything. I'm still FOUR HOURS from the national at this point!

I couldn't talk him out of it, so I kept at it while he drove out. The crank position sensor is moutned in the stock location on top of the bellhousing, so it was very fun to get to, I had to jam my arm tightly inbetween the exhaust and the trans and JUST could reach the topmost bolt. Got all that done, the #1 plug from before I swapped it in to #2 had cleaned itself up nicely and the "new" #1 was showing the start of soot gathering.

I got everything done just before a thunderstorm rolled in and I had to vacate my room or get charged for excessive late checkout. I took one quick spin around the parking lot and tried to park the Jeep next to the hotel so the rain wouldn't hit it as badly. It seemed to run ok, but still showed a misfire code on cylinder #1. So I dumped all the stuff back in the Jeep/trailer and threw my Jeep Jacket on just as the rain started.


While it was raining, I walked to grab food and Raymond showed up. We waited out the rain and took a look at things. We talked through a lot of stuff and checked for spark on #1, which we had. Then we tried unplugging injectors while the Jeep was running. All of them, except #1, showed an obvious miss when we did that. You couldn't tell any difference with #1. We did the same thing with the spark, pulling the plug while it was idling made no difference in how the engine sounded. It was clearly idling with 5 cylinders.

I had swapped to four-hole injectors on the engine this spring, so we thought that maybe #1 was bad out of the box. We found a nearby Napa that had an injector and decided to run there to get it and swap it in.


The postal seemed to run ok and did well on the highway, so we made it to the Napa and got to work. At the same time as I bought the injector, I bought all of the injector o-rings they had, just in case, along with a tube of their syn-lube to hopefully get the rail on without issue and to have the o-rings if one of the others got torn. The injector didn't match, obviously and was a touch longer than the others, but we got the rail back on and it didn't leak. This new injector was very loud, where the others were very quiet, so we could audibly hear that the injector was firing. When we removed the plug, it obviously quit firing but again, nothing happened to change how the engine was running.

Surprised that I could run so well down the highway, we were honestly confused given that I'd already swapped the two spark plugs, done the coil, wires, coil pickup/cam position sensor and the crank position sensor (it was a Mopar unit, not aftermarket). The only thing we could think was some mechanical issue (but it was odd that it ran so well on the highway), so I walked down to the service bay at this Napa and borrowed a compression tester. We tested #1 and #2 for comparison. #1 was around 125-130 and #2 was about 140. We got a bottle of carb cleaner and sprayed it around to look for a vacuum/intake leak on #1 and found nothing. We put a little more RPM on the motor and pulled the injector plug on #1 and there was a slight miss audible, but nothing close to what the other cylinders did. But at least there was SOMETHING.


Raymond and I finally looked at each other and basically said "F&*% it" and decided to button it up and run toward the National just to see what happened. Worst case, I'd park it somewhere, throw stuff in with Raymond and catch a ride back to deal with it after the national.

We got back on the highway and it was doing fine until it had a single noticeable miss. I went to pull off the highway to call the trip done and one last thing pop into my head. I'd mentioned to Raymond that I had reinstalled a vehicle speed sensor (VSS) adapter from Hesco on the speedometer output and connected it last fall, not long before everything went to hell the first time. The VSS has long been debated as to whether you need it or not and what it actually does. I'd installed one when I did my swap, but last fall I found out that I had installed the two wires backwards and it had never actually worked to send vehicle speed to the ECU. I had found out that the VSS was tied to a governor that cut the ignition when you hit 90-something MPH because the speedometer gear I had no longer matched my tires/axle ratio so I was hitting it when I got over about 82 actual MPH.

I figured, "why not" and pulled out a zip tie, climbed under the Jeep, disconnected the VSS, tied it out of the way and told Raymond what I was doing. We agreed to run one more exit and get off to make a call one way or the other. We got going and I had zero issues. We came up on construction and google actually told me to get off on the next exit anyway. I figured that the back roads would actually be a good test, so I got off and kept on going. The Postal pulled the hills at 45-55 just fine and never had another problem. We got back on the highway after our detour and I was running just fine until we stopped for fuel.

So Raymond drove out and back 8 hours, we screwed around in the Napa parking lot for a couple hours but we made it to the National just after sunset. The postal managed to make it through the event and the only real issue (other than ripping off yet another rear lower shock mount) was that the swapped injector started leaking at the rail and I had to swap the injector we took out back in on the trail. Thanks to @gr8dain for shuttling it out to me on the trail after I realized I had stupidly put it in my trailer and not in my parts boxes in the Jeep.

Set up to camp Monday night at Rausch:


Now that I'm home, the Jeep doesn't want to idle and was running rough at low speed as I got closer to home. I'll dig into it more, my current theory is that one of the lifters on that cylinder needs the higher oil pressure at higher RPMs to work right. Nothing else seems to make sense as to how it runs BETTER at highway speed. There's clearly no way I was pulling hills towing the trailer with just five cylinders firing.

I made it through the trail ride on Tuesday and the awesome scenic ride to the Yuengling plant and home again, so that's all that matters right now

Just goes to show how this group won't leave people stuck and will bend over backwards to help each other out

 

[gr8dain]

This was my first, and I also had a great time. Both meeting folks, and wheeling. Reminded me why I got in to Jeeps and this sport.

Don't have many pics, as I was solo, but here are a few.

Glad to meet you and wheel with you this past week. How did you like the "moderate" trails?

 

[Belizeit]

Glad to meet you and wheel with you this past week. How did you like the "moderate" trails?

Is " moderate " like a 4 on a rafting trip ?

 

[gr8dain]

Is " moderate " like a 4 on a rafting trip ?

We had 2 different moderate groups for this event. Dustin Bryant led one and Jessica Bryant led the other. I kind of knew that Dustin would be a little more than my idea of moderate, so I went with Jessica. Very glad I did. Although we hit some trails that I would call a little more than moderate, it was a nice challenge for me to get used to my new set up and push myself. We even crossed a "red" level rock garden. And I was happy that my Scrambler did it without even missing a beat. In a moderate ride, I am used to the "Blue" with some "Black" level trails from Rausch Creek. I hit a lot more black trails on Monday than I planned, but it was awesome.

 

[John N]

This was my first, and I also had a great time. Both meeting folks, and wheeling. Reminded me why I got in to Jeeps and this sport.

Don't have many pics, as I was solo, but here are a few.

Great wheeling with you Mike, I’m glad you had a great time. It a good group.

 

[CJeep]

Thanks guys. Yes I really did have a good time both meeting folks and wheeling. So, I'm definitely not used to such rocky trails that are kind of non-stop rocky. Monday was bit of a workout, but I never got stuck, and I didn't break anything real, so I guess it wasn't too hard, but it wasn't "easy" either.

And happy father's day to all the dads out there . . .

 

[CJ8Rockcrawler]

So my trip out there sort of sums up everything about the SOA and our Scrambler group. First, I lost my two-month-old ignition coil on the Ohio Turnpike. Got my spare swapped in on the side of the highway and got back moving. Figured I should get another spare if they were going to crap out that fast, so got off on the next exit. At the first light I had to stop and saw an RV with the hood up and fluid all over the ground with two kids, a dog and a woman standing around outside. I thought "Aw man, that sucks for them." as traffic started moving. Got to AutoZone, got a coil and went to leave. Figured I'd update FB to let folks know I was back on the road and happened to see that Kyle Sweet had RV trouble and was stopped at a gas station just off of the Turnpike going south... it was the one I'd seen.

View attachment 95076

I rolled back up to them to find Kyle, they had the Scrambler in an enclosed trailer and had blown the trans cooler. I waited with them as they tried (on a Sunday morning) to find a shop open or with the cooler. That didn't work so it switched to finding it at a part store. We found one at the local AutoZone hub, 25 minutes back towards Cleveland. I gave him a ride, with the old cooler in the Jeep, to get it only to find it wasn't the right part. Then we decided to go with making up a bypass out of compression fittings and copper tube just to get him mobile. Hit Menards for parts and another part store to get the right special synthetic trans fluid and headed back. Got things installed, tested it through the gears and I watched as he rolled out towards a nearby hotel for the night. I took off toward the National again.

View attachment 95045

So a couple hours later, the postal starts acting odd. It noticeably misses a number of times and I think "here we go again" with the same issues that happened to me last fall. I checked the codes but didn't see the camshaft position sensor that was showing last fall, but I figured, like the coil, the new one I put in must be going out already. I stop at an Oreiley's and get another cam position sensor and a set of plug wires while I'm at it. I swap things in the parking lot and, while I'm in there, I changed the #1 and #2 spark plugs, then get back on the road. (#1 clearly showed the misfire, brown and sooty) Feels ok for a bit and then starts missing big time again. I get off and as soon as I start to slow down all hell breaks loose. Missing, backfires, bad idle, nothing is working right. I pull over at the only small gas station on that stop and assessed where I was and what I could do.

Misfire codes on all cylinders, but no truly actionable codes pointing to a specific source. It's now getting dark and I'm wrecked, so I decide to try to limp to the nearest hotel on back roads. The trip there was a mess, rapid backfires followed by running ok for a bit, then misses and more backfires. I managed to get there, unpacked the Jeep and trailer into the room and called it a night.

View attachment 95046

Made a plan to swap the crank position sensor, coil again (just because), check all the spark plugs and probably something else I'm forgetting in the AM and went to sleep. Got up and went to work. Early into it, @spankrjs messages me and says he's driving to me from the national that he just drove up from MS to in case he could help with anything. I'm still FOUR HOURS from the national at this point!

I couldn't talk him out of it, so I kept at it while he drove out. The crank position sensor is moutned in the stock location on top of the bellhousing, so it was very fun to get to, I had to jam my arm tightly inbetween the exhaust and the trans and JUST could reach the topmost bolt. Got all that done, the #1 plug from before I swapped it in to #2 had cleaned itself up nicely and the "new" #1 was showing the start of soot gathering.

I got everything done just before a thunderstorm rolled in and I had to vacate my room or get charged for excessive late checkout. I took one quick spin around the parking lot and tried to park the Jeep next to the hotel so the rain wouldn't hit it as badly. It seemed to run ok, but still showed a misfire code on cylinder #1. So I dumped all the stuff back in the Jeep/trailer and threw my Jeep Jacket on just as the rain started.
View attachment 95047

While it was raining, I walked to grab food and Raymond showed up. We waited out the rain and took a look at things. We talked through a lot of stuff and checked for spark on #1, which we had. Then we tried unplugging injectors while the Jeep was running. All of them, except #1, showed an obvious miss when we did that. You couldn't tell any difference with #1. We did the same thing with the spark, pulling the plug while it was idling made no difference in how the engine sounded. It was clearly idling with 5 cylinders.

I had swapped to four-hole injectors on the engine this spring, so we thought that maybe #1 was bad out of the box. We found a nearby Napa that had an injector and decided to run there to get it and swap it in.
View attachment 95048

The postal seemed to run ok and did well on the highway, so we made it to the Napa and got to work. At the same time as I bought the injector, I bought all of the injector o-rings they had, just in case, along with a tube of their syn-lube to hopefully get the rail on without issue and to have the o-rings if one of the others got torn. The injector didn't match, obviously and was a touch longer than the others, but we got the rail back on and it didn't leak. This new injector was very loud, where the others were very quiet, so we could audibly hear that the injector was firing. When we removed the plug, it obviously quit firing but again, nothing happened to change how the engine was running.

Surprised that I could run so well down the highway, we were honestly confused given that I'd already swapped the two spark plugs, done the coil, wires, coil pickup/cam position sensor and the crank position sensor (it was a Mopar unit, not aftermarket). The only thing we could think was some mechanical issue (but it was odd that it ran so well on the highway), so I walked down to the service bay at this Napa and borrowed a compression tester. We tested #1 and #2 for comparison. #1 was around 125-130 and #2 was about 140. We got a bottle of carb cleaner and sprayed it around to look for a vacuum/intake leak on #1 and found nothing. We put a little more RPM on the motor and pulled the injector plug on #1 and there was a slight miss audible, but nothing close to what the other cylinders did. But at least there was SOMETHING.
View attachment 95049

Raymond and I finally looked at each other and basically said "F&*% it" and decided to button it up and run toward the National just to see what happened. Worst case, I'd park it somewhere, throw stuff in with Raymond and catch a ride back to deal with it after the national.

We got back on the highway and it was doing fine until it had a single noticeable miss. I went to pull off the highway to call the trip done and one last thing pop into my head. I'd mentioned to Raymond that I had reinstalled a vehicle speed sensor (VSS) adapter from Hesco on the speedometer output and connected it last fall, not long before everything went to hell the first time. The VSS has long been debated as to whether you need it or not and what it actually does. I'd installed one when I did my swap, but last fall I found out that I had installed the two wires backwards and it had never actually worked to send vehicle speed to the ECU. I had found out that the VSS was tied to a governor that cut the ignition when you hit 90-something MPH because the speedometer gear I had no longer matched my tires/axle ratio so I was hitting it when I got over about 82 actual MPH.

I figured, "why not" and pulled out a zip tie, climbed under the Jeep, disconnected the VSS, tied it out of the way and told Raymond what I was doing. We agreed to run one more exit and get off to make a call one way or the other. We got going and I had zero issues. We came up on construction and google actually told me to get off on the next exit anyway. I figured that the back roads would actually be a good test, so I got off and kept on going. The Postal pulled the hills at 45-55 just fine and never had another problem. We got back on the highway after our detour and I was running just fine until we stopped for fuel.

So Raymond drove out and back 8 hours, we screwed around in the Napa parking lot for a couple hours but we made it to the National just after sunset. The postal managed to make it through the event and the only real issue (other than ripping off yet another rear lower shock mount) was that the swapped injector started leaking at the rail and I had to swap the injector we took out back in on the trail. Thanks to @gr8dain for shuttling it out to me on the trail after I realized I had stupidly put it in my trailer and not in my parts boxes in the Jeep.

Set up to camp Monday night at Rausch:
View attachment 95050

Now that I'm home, the Jeep doesn't want to idle and was running rough at low speed as I got closer to home. I'll dig into it more, my current theory is that one of the lifters on that cylinder needs the higher oil pressure at higher RPMs to work right. Nothing else seems to make sense as to how it runs BETTER at highway speed. There's clearly no way I was pulling hills towing the trailer with just five cylinders firing.

I made it through the trail ride on Tuesday and the awesome scenic ride to the Yuengling plant and home again, so that's all that matters right now

Just goes to show how this group won't leave people stuck and will bend over backwards to help each other out

Thank you again Eric for all your help. We made it home in one piece! I hope you get your issues with the postal figured out.

 

[GreatCJ8]

Was next years location released at the event?

Great question

 

[bigwalton]

Great question

Colorado, not remembering a specific town.