Ian's 4WD Rambles

Cub day out at Rallywoods

2009-05-06T03:59:00.000-07:00

On Saturday 2nd May a number of vehicles from Off Road Express took members of the Belmont Cub Pack, and their parents, for a fun time on the tracks of Rallywoods. I think that some of the parents had more fun than the cubs. A great day weatherwise, and funwise. Only damage was the rear taillight, the same one I have now broken several times, still have the parts tho'

A few other photos can be seen here

Odlins Road 25th Jan, 2009

2009-01-26T03:08:00.001-08:00

What a beautiful day - after a picnic with out church out at Kaitoke a small group of us re-grouped at Jules' place and headed for the Akatarawa Road summit. Andy in his Terrano, Jules in his Mistral, Callum with his quad in the back of his van and me and my trusty jeep. Jules and Andy had friends riding along with them.

After a play on the hill at the carpark we headed off along Odlins Road. A great trip to the summit carpark near the Renata Hut. Some tricky bits saw Andy and Jules having to have several goes with limited articulation, and some great views to be had.

After a rest we headed back out, this time we were able to see both Mt Taranaki & Mt Ruapehu from one view point, amazingly clear evening, beautiful light on the ranges - definitely worth the drive.

Back to the Akatarawa Road to air-up and head for home. After leaving Stokes Valley at 4:50 pm, I got back home at 10:10 pm. A neat evening.

Photos can be seen here.

Happy New Year

2009-01-06T01:55:00.000-08:00

Doesn't time fly, it is now January, 2009 and the jeep has been operational tho' the latter half of 2008 didn't see much action due to impending redundancy at Gen-i. Now that is in the past and I am happily employed again the Jeep has a new warrant & registration.

On Boxing Day I spent a few hours in at Rallywoods with Tony (Taz01) trying some steep tracks, in the downhill direction and getting well and truly stuck on the rubbish dump track. LUckily Tony's winch was working and he was able to get us both out of the mud & ruts. Only damage was a broken rear taillight assembly.

Trying to get parts shipped from the States has been interesting, the parts themselves are cheap, the shipping is not. At the moment I am looking to use a friend as an intermediary as I know she will sort out the cheapest shipping arrangment.

I have just wired up some switches that will give me more control over the automatic gearbox in the jeep, more ability to choose 1st and 2nd, and to lock up the torque convertor.

This weekend will hopefully see me in the Akatarawa's with the CCVC.

Take care, and have a good one

Cheers
Ian

On the road again !

2008-04-14T17:07:00.000-07:00

Another month passes and the news is all good on the Jeep front. About 3 weeks ago I retraced my route up Akatarawa Rd, and along Odlins Road with NO problems from the jeep. I had my eldest son, and a friend from church along for the ride and we got all the way to the carpark at the summit of Odlins Road with no problems.
Odlins Road itself has certainly deteriorated since I first went in there with the Mazda MPV 4WD about 4 years ago, but the Jeep had no issues - I certainly wouldn't take the Mazda in there. It is the first 2 - 3 kms that are the worst, it all gets better after that.
The following weekend I joined up with a charity run starting at Totara Park run by the Wellington Family 4x4 club. They were raising funds for Child Cancer and did a great job. They had run the same trip several weeks prior and conditions were bone dry and dusty. This time it was wet forcing a change in course as the river was too high. I had the exchange student hosted by our Rotary club along for the ride and it was a full day. Meeting at 8:00 am we didn't get home until 6:45 pm. We went through Rallywoods and all over the Akatarawa Forest regrouping in the Maungatukutuku Valley mid afternoon. On the way back the track got quite slippery resulting in a number of vehicles having to be towed up one particular section of track, of course the jeep had no problems at all.
I am looking to join the CCVC trip into the Orongorongo's on the 4th May for my next trip, though may help the ORE group with the work they are doing on the Green Hut at Rallywoods this weekend. They have put in a huge effort and it is looking a lot better there. Watching two 350 Chev powered Toyota's pulling a loaded truck up a slick clay slope was quite amazing, a shame nobody got any video of it.
Take care
Ian

2008-03-12T15:12:00.000-07:00

I finally ordered 2 new CPS's from discountjeepparts in the US, including shipping it still cost me less than 1 bought locally. They arrived safely 1st week of March, Andrew Farmer installed one last Friday (7th). So far I have had a few drives around the Hutt Valley, but nothing long enough to build up enough heat in an attempt to reproduce the original problem. Time will tell. At least it is running again.

Crank Shaft Position Sensor blues

2008-01-31T22:15:00.000-08:00

Over the Christmas break I had a couple of half hearted trips in the Jeep. One into Rallywoods with my brother-in-law, and the other up Odlins Road with my mother and the youngest two kids of my brother. Both times the jeep had problems, in Rallywoods it wouldn't start for about 20 minutes, turning over but no fire. In Odlins Road twice it just stopped dead for about 20 minutes or so.
After a lot of research I believe it is the Crank Shaft Position Sensor, a common failure point on Jeeps. So the old one is out, and now I am just deciding where to get a new one from. NZ - $235 + GST, or the US $NZ150 delivered to the door.
When the sensor gets hot it stops functioning correctly and gives a false signal to the computer, I thought it was an over-heating problem at first, but found others had exactly the same issue.
In the meantime all the carpet is out of the jeep, surface rust patched, four eye bolts secured through the rear floor and the spare & plastic storage box securely held in by ratchet straps.
What a great summer we are having
Cheers
Ian

Passed WoF

2007-12-19T16:36:00.000-08:00

The Jeep is legal again. Pit Stop at Melling fixed the handbrake, seems a clip had slipped on one of the brakes but they cleaned it out entirely, removing all traces of mud etc and took it back to VTNZ who issued the WoF. It seems the small inspection hatch on the back of each drum should have a rubber seal, neither have one. The rubber seal should stop the mud getting in, something to keep an eye out for.

Have a great Christmas everybody

WoF second time around

2007-12-17T16:17:00.000-08:00

Finally took the jeep for its WoF second time around. After the first go I have got a new windscreen through Novus and courtesy of my insurance policy. That took a bit of sorting as sourcing a new rubber trim took some time, and the first piece of glass they ordered was too wide, seems there was a change in model somewhere. I removed the tyre carrier from the rear and sold that to another Jeep owner. I also found the hole in the exhaust and filled that with gunk. The only one I wasn't sure about was the handbrake. I removed the drums, cleaned out the surplus mud, sprayed brake cleaner everywhere and left it at that.

In the meantime I also tried drilling holes in the floor of the rear cargo area to put in some eye bolts as tie downs. In the process I found it was wet under the carpet and further investigation showed areas of surface rust. So a tidy up job, and some POR15 to stop the rust spreading. It never stops.......

Finally back through VTNZ in Lower Hutt this morning, and the only thing wrong is the handbrake so off to Pit Stop tomorrow. The inspector at VTNZ was a fellow jeep owner and suggested some new wheels with larger offset due to the rubbing I get especially in the rear with the 30" tyres on. Always somebody out there willing to help.

At Pit Stop there was a large Hemi motor sitting under a cover, I suggested they drop that in the Jeep while looking at its handbrake, however I understand that with 600 hp at the rear wheels it is a bit too much for the Jeep.

Hopefully by the end of tomorrow we will have the Jeep legal again.

Warrant of Fitness time

2007-10-20T03:07:00.000-07:00

This morning I took the Jeep up to the VTNZ in Upper Hutt for its warrant which was already 2 weeks overdue. With the jeep not being a daily driver there was no hurry, and with other things happening the last two Saturdays I hadn't had a chance to get it done. So this Saturday I headed on up and read the paper while waiting. 1.5 hours later I got the list of things stopping the jeep from getting its WoF. Nothing major, but all things that will have to be sorted.

1) Handbrake is not working efficiently
2) The tire carrier is lose, the bottom bolt wobbles around in the hole and needs to be sorted
3) The exhaust has a leak somewhere
4) There is a crack in the windscreen

So back home and after lunch and a trip to Pak n Save I put the Jeep in the garage and tackled the tyre carrier. I had wanted to remove it anyway as it has already cracked the rear hatch. So out with the tools and the garage creeper and to work we went. After snapping two bolts and grinding the head off another I just about had it off, this had all taken a good couple of hours. With a growing pile of clay on the garage floor and in my eyes I was able to get my son to hold the tyre carrier at such an angle that I could access the last bolt holding it to the bumper and snapped the head off. So now the tyre carrier is no longer attached to the jeep fixing item 2) on the list.
Interestingly enough some of the bolts I don't have a matching socket for, odd sizes, especially those holding the tow bar on, which it looks like I would have to remove first before I take off the bumper, what a job.......
There are still two more days to have a look for the exhaust leak, and try and work out what is wrong with the handbrake. It will need to be a call into Novus to get the windscreen fixed.

Oh well, this way you learn about your own vehicle, and become more familiar with what holds it all together.

2007-10-15T01:42:00.000-07:00

Andrew Farmer did turn up and gave the Jeep a good service. Apart from changing the filter and engine oil he checked both diffs, no problems there - oil was clear and at the right levels. He suggested I remove the anti-sway bar to increase the articulation. As soon as I have got a new warrant I will remove it and see how things go. After the driving in the river the previous weekend I was thinking that I would need to extend the breathers on the diffs to the appropriate levels but we found out that jeep had already thought of that and both diffs have extended breathers, the front diff extension ends up at the top of the fire wall, the rear diff extension disappears into the chassis, not sure where it goes to from there.
I was going to try and give the jeep another water-blast so the WoF man doesn't have to look through the dirt, he might find things on purpose :-) but the weekend ended up too busy, and it is still dirty so maybe Wednesday night.
Must be time over the long weekend for a drive, so who would be up to a drive along Odlin's Road on Monday morning (Labour day). Add a comment, or email me if you want to join in, maybe an early start and breakfast in UH first.
Have a great week

2007-10-08T02:19:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I attended a NZQA certified 4WD driving course, Saturday was theory along with a river crossing in Rallywoods, while Sunday saw us practicing at Aotea Block. We practiced failed hill climbs in both manuals and automatics, a big difference in the technique. We then moved onto traversing uneven ground, sidlings and last but not least a controlled descent down the steepest piece of hillside we could find. Then it was play time, the wet weather helping make conditions fun.

You can see my photos from the two days at http://good-times.webshots.com/album/560950573oQpwBE and http://good-times.webshots.com/album/560958808MNQGMQ

Now I just need to wait a few days for Mike to mark the test papers to see how well I did. There were twelve of us on the course, and the theory was done over at Whiteria Polytech in Porirua, haven't been to a polytech, or Uni for a long time.

The jeep is once again muddy, and Andrew Farmer is coming to service it on Thursday, before it goes for a warrant which is also due.

I wonder what is next, a trip over Labour weekend maybe?

First Post - 26th September

2007-09-25T13:35:00.000-07:00

Here I am with my first blog post, thanks to Wayne a 4WD colleague. So instead of typing up an email each Monday, or every 2nd, 3rd or 4th Monday as it has been I will try my luck at the world of blogging and you can subscribe, or not, as the case may be :-)

Here is a picture of me stuck in a swampy bit at Aotea block on the 16th Sept, it was just too boggy and I kept on getting high centred. In the end I was pulled out, almost tipping it over. Apart from that it was a fun day.

Time to do some work so that had better do for now.