Lessons Learned: A Story of a Stick versus a Rubicon

NevadaZielmeister said:
Exactly. You and I are on the same page here. The nice thing is that it was a simple phone call to Drew at ORE and it will be fixed and, hopefully, will be avoided next time. My biggest worry was how I was unprepared for the results after, the being stuck in the forest. That will happen again, next time I will be prepared and ready. Thank you for your help.
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Even if you do that, shit can happen. Just don't give yourself some false sense of security with every mod you throw at your jeep.
 
Glad to hear your family is ok, and you still had a good experience. Me and friends have removed a crapload of people from trails from unplanned rollovers to simple popped beads that turned into nightmare tires shredded that tied and ripped brake lines to simple run out of gas events. tried to be prepared and ahead. In some cases no amount of planning will work like trail carnage or simple bad luck. We took a new Tacoma out of a PUBLIC trail where some fawker had hid pieces of wood and nails to slash tires.... :grayno:

The JK's have some inherent shitty designs that can be addressed and I am a total newbie on them but can se at a glance. Undercarriage protection is inadequate and some little things here and there can leave you stranded. best way is to prepare, keep in mind that several JK's will never see trail or forest road action in their lives so aftermarket has jumped in to address a bunch of opportunities that make the JK far from perfect form factory. As much as some guys may say stock skids and steering are just fine, stock axles are just fine, plan ahead and upgrade and pretct what you can base don your needs. Carry spares on items that easily break even if you have no clue on how to fix a u-joint chances are someone will have teh tools and know how to help you out (as long as you have the part). Carry a fire extinguisher, tire repair kit, a quart of oil (remember those unplanned rollover events ;)?, and some random zip ties, hoses and clamps. Also, bring some tools with you ;)

From all the lessons learned, make sure to bring extra treats and entertainment for the little ones and do not let this discourage you from future rides, but think of it as learning experience on what you can do to help be better prepared for when things go South next time :)
 
Nevada Z dont beat yourself up and dont let others do it for you.
Shit happen out on the trail. Shit happens on the road too.

One of the first things I did after getting my Rubicon was to bring it home and slide under it to have a look around. Very surprised to see that a vehicle built and designed for the off road world would have exposed trans cooler lines and sheet metal pans fully exposed.

I had bought her sight unseen. I thought that at one time all Rubicons had full skid plates under them.
I also thought they had steel bumpers like the 10th anv. I had checked out at the dealer prior to ordering mine. :doh:

My old Daddy used to say "Make all the mistakes you want, as long as you learn from them"

So you learned a lesson. Good. You passed it on. Good for you. It might save somebody someday if they read it and think about it.

Shop for a good set of skids. I looked and read all could about them. The Evo ProTek skid have worked well for me. I was concerned about the heat held in by others.
I like my Protek so well that even after doing my long arms I went ahead and did major surgery to the crossmember/ trans skid to retain it.

Now pack you a good bug out bag, bring your firearm, pack up some tools, some food/ water, recovery gear, OH hell the list just goes on and on. Might need that Stryker after all. (God I wish I had one for a trail rig)

It will not be your last trail damage. Really that is kind of part of the fun. Think of the story you get to tell.

PS this last year I shoved a tree branch right through a brand new Dick Cepek mud tire on my Burb. Year before it was a tree branch through the radiator turning around at the mine.
 
As everyone stated, glad everyone is ok! you never know what will jump up and get you. Just today there was some large rack made of angel iron in the freeway that several people were driving over. Of course driving a jeep, i can go over anything a mini van can. Well, I decided to avoid the object after I saw it bouncing up and hitting their under carriage... not sure how much damage they all took, just take one unlucky bounce for something to get you.
 
Shit happens off-road like others have said. You can only prepare for so much. I doubt anyone carries a spare trans pan either. You have to improvise as you can out there.
 
Sticks only get along with other sticks. :harhar:
But seriously, glad you and the family made it out safely. Probably the smartest thing you did was to wheel with another friend. Something I don't always do. Even with quite a bit of recovery gear, one thing I always make sure is that I have provisions to survive for a couple of days regardless of the weather. If you think you may be in need of a local for recovery assistance in the future, message me for my number. Love the color of your new ride and it sounds like it will be quite the beast after you finish making the changes you are planning. The only thing I find ironic is that with your avatar, you were unarmed.
 
My dad has broken all kind of lines and bent parts that look unbendable, on his Ford tractor. Off road, you'd be surprised where a random stick will go, even if you are moving very slowly.
 
Desert Crawler said:
Sticks only get along with other sticks. :harhar:
But seriously, glad you and the family made it out safely. Probably the smartest thing you did was to wheel with another friend. Something I don't always do. Even with quite a bit of recovery gear, one thing I always make sure is that I have provisions to survive for a couple of days regardless of the weather. If you think you may be in need of a local for recovery assistance in the future, message me for my number. Love the color of your new ride and it sounds like it will be quite the beast after you finish making the changes you are planning. The only thing I find ironic is that with your avatar, you were unarmed.
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Crawler,

Thank you for this post and your comments. The irony does not stop with being unarmed. Which is a huge irony in itself, since both my wife and I are competitors across many different disciplines. The fact that I used to be a deputy with the Sheriff's Department for Search and Rescue makes my not bringing survival gear deplorable. On any given searches, especially ones where we were deployed in a severely remote location via helicopter, we needed to be able to survive under any conditions for days and days. It sucks when the search itself becomes a rescue.

I will PM you here in about 3 minutes. Thank you again for your words and hey, let's go wheeling after I pick up my rig in early June. And the favor is to be returned if you ever get stuck, okay?
 
notnalc68 said:
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Yes, I looked very hard at these skids. They are VERY nice and seem to offer a ton of protection. My dilemma was that I am going with the Long Arm upgrade for the Double Throw Down system so this probably would not have worked that well. In fact, they will have to cut away a small portion of one of the Protek skids to accommodate the Long Arm mount location. However, I really like the look of these skids.
 
I think there is one design flaw in jk's...the trans pan seems to made out of alum foil. When I 1st crawled under my rig to get a better picture of how to better protect the undercarriage, the 1st thing that jumped out to me was how unprotected the oil pan & trans pan were. After really looking at the trans pan, it seemed a bit flimsy...and there is no decent way to hook up a trans temp gauge to it (I originally tied in the sending unit to a line coming out of the cooler, which wasn't ideal). I found a really good trans pan from PML...it is thick alum, has ribs for better cooling, has more fluid capacity, and has a machined fitting to hook up the sending unit for a temp gauge. My trans fluid now runs about 30 degrees cooler on the trail.

Of course, the next step is to fully skid off both pans, which I did. The bottom of my rig looks like a seal...just slide up and off the rocks.

As far as sticks are concerned...I've seen them take out a couple brake lines...both sticks were hidden in the deep mud...which is another reason I don't like mud any more...
 
JAGS said:
What model year did they start doing that? Haven't looked, but I have 2012. Wonder if this will display on the cluster.
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It must be 2015...I've scrolled through all of my options on my 2014...it doesn't even give you tire pressure, only if your low...
 
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