Rusty762's Project Overlander TJ 8

[Rusty762]

Hey guys, had a killer trip! The Swamp Lake trail was the roughest I have ever seen it, mainly due to the high number of vehicles and lack of rain/snow this year. Many 3-4 ft size boulders that were usually half buried were rolling loose on the trial, if you want a challenge the trail is a blast and harder than anything the Rubicon has to offer with top notch scenery. I only took a couple of pictures and shot a lot of video and will post that up once I get it edited up. Here are a couple for now....

Packed and ready to roll, installed the new Genright rear bumper and some mud flaps so I am street legal now!




Rainbow mine, the entrance to this mine is usually locked. We had a stroke of luck and the new owner was working in the mine, got to talking and turns out he went to school with my sister. I had been in the mine before, at the end of the tunnel the shaft goes vertical but is flooded. I have always wanted to dive it and see how far it goes, the owner is a geologist and they are taking tungsten out of the mine and he was more than happy to let me dive it, more on that later.



What a lot of the trail looks like right now, there are some hard spots like V rock and Rooster rock that have some really interesting lines with high potential for body damage.



One of the many beautiful meadows along the trail.



Ran into these guys at Grouse lake, cool group of guys. This jeep was on its first shakedown run like me, John just finished it the weekend before. 37's, 14" Kings front and back with 3/4 link, stretch, Dynatrac 60's, it was one of the many incredible rigs we ran into on the trail.

 

[locrwln]

^^Very nice. Glad to hear the Jeep worked well.

Jack

 

[bluejeep]

any pics of the rack you mentioned?

 

[Rusty762]

^^Very nice. Glad to hear the Jeep worked well.

Jack

Thank you!

any pics of the rack you mentioned?

I have not started on the rack, trying to recoup from the suspension and axle still. Probably will not start on the rack until January, have some solid ideas and need to capitalize on space as the last trip was interesting with the amount of gear we had. I had to leave spare parts like Driveshafts at home which was not a good feeling.

 

[Oman4x4]

Sweet build... good to hear you got some better comfort and noise levels with the half-hard-top - that's the goal with my Brute conversion.

Would be interested to see what you have planned for the cargo rack - have some ideas myself at the moment but need to measure things up and start designing it...

 

[Rusty762]

Sweet build... good to hear you got some better comfort and noise levels with the half-hard-top - that's the goal with my Brute conversion.

Would be interested to see what you have planned for the cargo rack - have some ideas myself at the moment but need to measure things up and start designing it...

Hi Oman,

good to see you over here on Portal. I have been watching your build progress, going to be a sweet rig! I saw the photoshopped pics of your troop cage carrier. I am still thinking along those lines maybe, with one or two racks incorporated into the rear cage that allow the use of Rubbermaid 24 gallon bins, 8 gallon bins and a 37" BFG spare mounted vertically behind the drivers seat.

 

[Rusty762]

Here is a link to my shakedown run last weekend at Swamp Lake.

https://vimeo.com/72249159

 

[jscusmcvet]

Nice video... incredible scenery. Looks like the jeep walked anything you asked it to. Couple questions that I am sure you have already answered earlier in the thread...

What tire size? I like that they are tall, but look narrow as well... Happy with the BFG AT?
Did you modify your steering?

Thanks,

John

 

[Rusty762]

Nice video... incredible scenery. Looks like the jeep walked anything you asked it to. Couple questions that I am sure you have already answered earlier in the thread...

What tire size? I like that they are tall, but look narrow as well... Happy with the BFG AT?
Did you modify your steering?

Thanks,

John

Nice video... incredible scenery. Looks like the jeep walked anything you asked it to. Couple questions that I am sure you have already answered earlier in the thread...

What tire size? I like that they are tall, but look narrow as well... Happy with the BFG AT?
Did you modify your steering?

Thanks,

John

Thanks John, I am running 37" BFG All Terrains on 17x8 alloy wheels. The AT's are a top notch tire and what I have always run other than the BFG mud terrains, I wanted tires I could drive long distances to the trail with low noise and good manners on the pavement and off. They fit my needs perfectly and are so quiet on the road, no noise at all. They perform great in the rocks and sand, I stay away from mud unless its on the trail in the sierras and do a couple snow runs each year and have had no problems with them on the snow.

Right now my steering is the Currie Currectlync, I will be upgrading the steering box and adding hydro assist at some point.

 

[Rusty762]

Just finished a week long trip through the High Sierra wilderness, here is a link to the video on vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/76492538

 

[jscusmcvet]

Great video, looks like an awesome trip. Looks like the jeep performed flawlessly. Oh, and the music selection had my little Joe hoofing it in place as he watched the video . Can really see your suspension working well in the small boulder sections.

John

 

[FKreider]

Any pics of the multirotor you are using for the aerial portions of the video?

Jeep looks awesome, I want to wheel terrain like that so bad, everything we have here in the northeast is wet and very tight, lots of tree's.

Also what software are you using to edit your videos?

 

[Rusty762]

Couple of pics of the cage finished up, pretty happy with how it turned out. Just need to finish installing the corners and rockers.

 

[Rusty762]

Hey guys here are some pics from my run into Coyote Lake, did not shoot any video or take many pictures. I loaded up in the morning and ended up being a couple inches from my bumpstops, once I loaded up with wood I was on my bumps so change of plans happened last minute and I was concerned about going into Swamp Lake which is fairly technical with no travel in back. Here are a couple of pics showing the corners and rockers installed.







Coyote Lake was always my dads favorite lake to wheel into, fish, hike and sit around the campfire with his other wheeling buddies. I remember learning how to hunt for Snipe when I was 8 years old at Coyote, its a beautiful lake and the John Muir wilderness starts at its shores and there are some great hiking trails around the lake also.





Spent some time teaching my cousin the proper way to stand, hold and handle a handgun. He's a natural.



We only saw one other jeep on the trail the whole week, his name was Jim and he had been at Coyote Lake for two weeks alone. He had an amazing jeep so I took some pics of it, he has had several jeeps and built this one from the frame up.















Jim also had a really trick little trailer...

 

[locrwln]

Great looking trail and phenomenal looking jeep. Are those fuel tanks next to the driveshaft?

Jack