cross country road tripping in 1989 Jeep Wrangler

[blkshprd]

Hi there,

I am a photographer based here in NY and am working on a photography project that is going to take me across the country and back over a period of 3 weeks and then back out again in July to finish up shooting. All that is basically to convey that I am going to be doing some major road tripping.

I recently purchased an old 1989 Jeep Wrangler Soft top (6 cylinder 4.2 litre) and hope to take that on the road. It has 115,000 miles on it and runs in great condition for the last month that I have been taking it around NY. I have had my mechanic give it a going over and aside from some new tires (Michelin LTX AT2's) that are going in today the car has been tuned up.

What advice do you have for a cross country road trip from NY to CA given that I am taking this car? I would appreciate any general advice that will help me better maintain the vehicle and also have a safe trip.

I also had a few specific questions:

1. how long at a time do you think these Jeeps can run without having to give it a break. Feel free to answer in hours or mileage.

2. Do people here carry ice boxes with them to store food, etc...? Any favorites or systems of use that I should know about.

3. Any body sleep in their jeep while travelling?

4. Any safety tips on how to find places to sleep. I am thinking of parking lots, truck stops, or residential areas but any veterans at this game should chime in.

5. things you must pack...

6. any modifications to vehicle that are necessary?

As you can see, I am an admitted novice and so any general advice or top priorities that occur to you would be appreciated.

 

[kcowyo]

Welcome to the Portal - :beer:


I've done a 2 month long cross country trip in a similar Jeep ('84 CJ-7) and my first thought when reading your post... find a hardtop or buy some earplugs. Seriously. The wind noise from that ragtop may drive you insane before you cross the Mississippi River.

Re: your questions -

1. The Jeep should run fine all day (8-10) hours. Just keep a watchful eye on your fluids and tire pressure.

2. Coolers are cheap and easy to maintain on the road, where ice is available at fuel stops. A small 12v fridge like the Engle or ARB models would be even simpler once you choke down the initial investment cost.

3. I slept in mine. Pulled out the back seat and passenger seat. Cut a sheet of plywood to fit around the console and drivers seat, set it on the rear wheel wells and shored up the front end by the glove box with a couple of cut 2x4's to act as "legs." Laid out a sleeping pad, sleeping bag and blankets full time. The bed made for a nice spot to keep the camera, maps, thermos, etc. I kept my valuable gear stashed under the 'sleeping deck' out of site.

4. Stay away from public spots like truck stops & rest areas & WalMart parking lots. Not always safe and most truckers leave their trucks running all night. Sleep will be tough if not impossible. If you absolutely must go commando, I recommend hotel parking lots or somewhere quiet where you won't stand out. Otherwise find a book on campgrounds on your route and have a few to chose from.

5. Camera, clothes & toiletries, cooler, extra blanket or sleeping bag, water container of some kind, maps & reading materiel and as many tools as you can confidently use on your Jeep if necessary. And an iPod. Don't overpack, keep it simple. *Ziptie a spare key under the vehicle somewhere.

6. Good running order and good tires like you've done are the most important. Finding a used hard top would be in my top 3.


Hope you have a safe trip. :campfire:

.

 

[dusty122]

ive done a few road trips in my grand cherokee and its great. I sleep in the back all the time. wrangler may be a little tight but the post above me had a pretty awesome answer to that problem

bring ear plugs if you are a soft sleeping. the freeway is loud and if you are in truck stops or rest areas or anywhere where trucks sleep. the big rigs will idle all night and are very loud sometimes

as for safe places to stay there are a lot. wal-mart and sams club parking lots are good. they allow you to legally sleep in their parking lots. the idea is that rvs will use them and in the morning buy stuff from their stores. the downside is that these places can be busy in the morning so there wont be much sleeping in

truck stops are also good and very safe. The other plus is that truck stops have showers for a fee along with a bunch of other services

Rest areas are always the best but they can be very far apart (especially in california) the trick with these is either get their early or very late at night. semi trucks take up most of the space between like 10pm to 3 or 4am

Ive slept in a few residential areas and Im always worried that a neighbor is going to call the cops because its a little weird to have some dude sleeping in their car outside their house

camp sites are also an option and can be fairly inexpensive. I always like youth hostels because they are cheap and you meet awesome people. This may be weird if your older but most people in hostels are very welcoming and inclusive to people of all ages. A lot of hostels offer free or discount parking too.

freeway onramps, Ive never tried this but i see trucks doing it all the time. I dont know if its legal but the worst that would happen is a cop tells you to move.

ive slept in hotel parking lots (free wifi sometimes lol) most of the time your are never bugged and if they do just say you are staying with 2 people who wanted some "alone time"

 

[computeruser]

1. Bring extra gas. Even a couple gallons can save the day. Jeeps eat gas quickly, and have relatively small tanks. They usually go further than you think they will on a tank...except that one time you gamble and hold out for the next fuel station...

2. Stay off the interstates. At normal speeds - 70-80mph - they beat you up, tire you out, and burn way more fuel than sticking to the 2-lanes at 55mph. I see up to 50% better mileage at 55mph/2200rpm than I do at 75-80mph/3200rpm.

3. Bring extra windshield washer fluid, some Windex, a sponge with the scrubbie thing on the back side and some sturdy towels. The flat glass windshields on the "true" Jeeps are bug magnets, and it is nice to be able to clean them off once or twice a day.

4. Keep your gear in waterproof containers, and don't set anything on the floor that isn't supposed to get wet. It is amazing how much water can get inside the vehicle when it rains, or when your cooler drain valve leaks.

5. Bring some high quality duct tape to patch up rips in the top in a pinch.

6. I disagree about the hardtop versus soft top. At least with the newer tops (Offered in 1989? I don't know) the road noise differential isn't that great at 55mph. It is greater at 70mph+. But you'll want that top folded down for as much of the trip as you can, anyway, so the soft top is the ticket.

 

[blkshprd]

These two responses have been great. thank you both.

If I can, I had a few follow up questions:

For Kcowyo:

1. you mentioned keeping a watchful eye on fluids and tire pressure. on that note, do you have any insights in to good tire pressure for these sort of road trips. Right now my previous tires (BF Goodrich AT's) were pumped to 30psi, but I am having the Michelin LTX AT2's put in this afternoon.

2. You also mentioned in your final pointer 'good running order'. I am afraid that I am not sure what that refers to. Could you clarify that for me.

And for Dusty 122:

1. you mentioned sleeping at the truck stops and the attached amenities like showers etc... do they mind people in cars crashing at truck stops, and presumably I would have to park there on the sly, or can i be pretty up front about it and tell them I am staying there?

2. there seemed to be a difference of opinion between the both of you as to whether parking lot and truck stops were safe or not. frankly, I would love to use a walmart or sam's club, but i do need some base line that it is reasonably safe as I would be in a soft top jeep. any more thoughts about your experiences on that front?

Lastly, Kcowyo the ziptie for the spare key and he photos of the sleeping deck, which I am certainly going to build now are the kinds of priceless insights I was hoping to get on this site. And Dusty, thank you for all your pointers particularly the hotel line that mutual friends wanted 'alone time'.

A line like that is proof of genius.

Best to you both

 

[haven]

"take me across the country and back over a period of 3 weeks"

Tell us more about the photo shoot. Are you driving from NYC to some location in CA, and then back home? Or does the project involve photography along the way? Are the offroad capabilities of the Jeep important, or is the Jeep just the vehicle you have available for the trip?

Depending on where you're going on the West Coast, it's 2700 to 3000 miles one way. That's about 50 hours of driving when you average 60 mph (you'll need to drive 65 or 70 to make up for time spent refueling, bathroom breaks and the like).

How much time do you need to devote to your photo project? You can drive coast-to-coast on the Interstate highways in four long days, driving 12 or 13 hours a day. But at the end of the trip you'll be beat. A schedule of 10 hours behind the wheel each day for five days is more comfortable.

A better plan in my opinion is a trip that has you behind the wheel for six or seven hours a day. The one-way trip will take 7 full days. This gives you time each day to do a little exploring.

Even better, make the trip one way in 8 days, and avoid the Interstate highways as much as possible. The USA is a lot more than as a string of truck stops and Stuckey's restaurants. The small towns and alternate routes will be a lot more photogenic, too.

Driving any vehicle with 115,000 miles all day for many days may well expose some problem you're not aware of. You should add time to your itinerary for repairs. (On one recent cross-country drive in an RV, I had to replace the truck's transmission, and a few days later, the catalytic converter.) If you avoid problems, then you'll have extra time for sightseeing.

I'd agree with others that, if you value your hearing, earplugs are mandatory in a vehicle as noisy as a soft-top Jeep.

Chip Haven

 

[alosix]

I did this last september in a 1997 TJ with 130k on the clock.

Granted, only the engine and 1/4 of the transfer case actually has that many miles on it as its a Jeep, and parts cycle though. The Jeep also got a fairly full rebuild the month before leaving.

Links to the trip:

http://gowestjason.blogspot.com

A YJ will beat you up more than the TJ would. I did it in 4 days with a dog in the back. Stayed at a few La Quinta's (3) when I couldn't drive any further.

It was a pretty uneventful trip.

The things I remember were
1.) It sucks driving a Jeep for very long in the rain.
2.) The Desert SUCKS to cross in the middle of the day in a VERY heavy Jeep towing a trailer with no AC.

You probably won't have the Desert issue as bad as I did. after the first climb on 40 I realized I couldn't push the Jeep that hard up the hills, decided to run up them @ 40mph and I was fine.

Good luck with the trip. Will be an adventure.

Edit: And, a month after I got there I broke a rear driveshaft on the way to work. Apparently that's one part that I forgot to lube up good enough before heading out.

Jason

 

[dusty122]

Ive never had a problem staying at truck stops and have never felt scared while I was there. It may be different if you are a female traveling alone but I have never had an issue staying at a rest area or truck stop or had a complaint about staying at a truck stop. If you use a lot of their facilities you may want to ask someone at the counter. Most of the amenities you have to pay for but are cheap. Most truck stops have places for cars to park that is separate from the trucks but close by. Just dont park to close to the trucks (IE so they cant pull straight out easily u may get bugged about that) Sams club and wal mart parking i think is pretty safe because there is almost always atleast another RV there and if you are close enough to the building there are probably video cameras. Also you are in an 89 jeep so you probably arnt a huge target for people wanting to rob you in a parking lot. also just be smart about where you park. If you are in what looks to be a bad part of town down make camp there.

 

[Desert Dan]

There are so many wonderful places to stay besides at truck stops.

A truck stop would be good for showering, food and fuel etc before heading out to a camp spot

 

[blkshprd]

computer user --thanks for the tips, especially the 'stay off the interstates' I wondered about that and efficiency. As far as the soft top that i have it is a replacement 'best top'. Honestly, I may still need the ear plugs but at around 60mph the sound is not that bad at all.

Chip, to clarify: I am going to take it slow and I appreciate the time suggestions that you make for staying on the road. I am thinking about driving it out to CA over the next 3 weeks, leaving it at my parents out there and then flying back to NY for a gallery opening I have in the city in June and then catching a plane back out to CA for the drive back, where I hope to spend another month on the road, shooting more photos.

Jason, just got the driveshaft lubed last week and ball bearings changed, too. Had axle examined and gone over, as well. Incidentally, no dog with me or trailer; I am taking one bag and a prayer. (by the way, nice blog, my jeep is the same color -- excuse some schoolboyish enthusiasm there.)

Also, no AC in the jeep, so top down or bikini top for as much as i can in the desert.

Lastly, any rule of thumbs with picking roads off (or parallel) to the interstates? or any favorites I should check out? Right now I have on my shoot list some pretty specific spots I have to hit on the itinerary: chicago and georgia (maybe new mexico and arizona on the way to California)

Thanks guys for the generous responses on this forum. the whole thing has helped enormously.

 

[blkshprd]

do people have any favorite guides for the country that cover some good camp sites and hostels etc...? when i first came to America from England about 15 years ago, i went across the country via greyhound and the popular guide then was 'Let's Go'. I know now of lonely planet as another good book.

any thing you swear by as a must have in the car or even a favorite map? I am going to be using my i phone gps in a pinch.

 

[dusty122]

lonely planet books are my favorite travel book and seem to be the best that I have found for the budget traveler. I dont know how they are in the US though and how many books youd need to buy. THe other downside is their books are expensive. If you are a AAA member (which would probably be good to have for a trip this long) you can go into their offices and they will give you tons of quality maps and books for free. You can even have them plan out your route for you. atleast thats how it was 10 years ago it may have changed. a good rand mcnally map is also a good thing to have. you want the large book one because a normal folding map is the biggest pita plus i can never figure out how to refold it back together lol.

 

[blkshprd]

dusty, thanks again man, I feel that I have plenty of gold on this thread to pick through and do some informed shopping tomorrow.

 

[haven]

Three weeks for a one way trip sounds much more manageable!

Since you're an East Coast resident, and driving a vehicle that lacks air conditioning, I don't think spending time in the desert in summer would be very enjoyable for you. That means you probably won't want to spend much time in Moab -- save it for the Fall or Spring. You can drive across the deserts of Nevada and eastern California at night, when it will cool off to 95F!

The timing of your trip might work for a visit to the trails in Colorado high country. Late June is a little early for the Alpine Loop trails around Ouray to be clear of snow, but some will be open. The paved roads are pretty spectacular, too.

If you're interested in landscape photography, I'd recommend that you drive US 395 in California. The Alabama Hills Recreation Area west of Lone Pine CA is a great site for photos of the Sierra Nevada range. The Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in the Inyo National Forest east of Big Pine CA is another favorite for nature photography. Visit the Mountain Light gallery in Bishop. It has become a shrine to the work of the late Galen Rowell. Lee Vining is the town next to Mono Lake. After a stop at the the Whoa Nellie Deli, drive west over Tioga Pass and on to Yosemite National Park.

Chip Haven

 

[dusty122]

No problem. Ive been lurking around on the boards for about a month and Im excited that I finally have a topic that I have a lot of experience with.