The other night I booked a cabin at Badlands with a group of buddies to go wheeling the weekend after the U4 raceat Rush. So April 23, 24, and 25 I will be at Badlands partying/wheeling away.

Also, due to life the new 6.0 is getting back burnered for a couple months. Unfortunate but it's the right thing to do at this point due to non off-road related reasons.

 

Sounds like an awesome time!!

 

Took the Jeep today to get fitted for a custom soft top. Water proof abrasion resistant material, full stainless steel reinforced snaps, and potentially having a custom dimension wind jammer made too. Fairly reasonably priced too for custom one off. Jeep should be getting dropped off at the end of April to have the top made, kinda excited.

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Not going with blue tarp looking material?

 

Lol, no. Going with the black my thumb is on. Honestly, my original intention was for a more sailcloth type material but the lady making the top for me said this vinyl material was much more abrasion resistant and much better for snaps. It’s a vinyl with fiber woven through it, she said the snaps would rip out of sailcloth too easy and this was highly recommended. So we’ll see how it turns out


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Poor top! It will last 1 run with you.

 

Lol. I expressed that concern, she’s sewing the roll cage tie ins on separate of the top itself so it’ll be easier to repair in the future. The reason I’m getting a custom one made is because last time I was inverted I tore the bikini top I was running.


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Not quite Jeep related, but fab related. Our senior welding engineer worked with me on tig welding yesterday for a couple hours. Second time I’ve ever successfully used filler rod with tig welding, pretty proud of myself. Made huge progress yesterday.

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Mr. Trempe was over last week and we were doing a little bit of prep for the Rush U4 race and happened to notice all of my torque converter bolts were loose. Currently stripping the exhaust out so I can get the starter off and access the bolts. In the meantime my wife is working on finally priming and painting the cage. Week and a half left before we leave!

Anyone else headed south for the race? Troy Carr is putting my Jeep on his trailer and I’m bringing the fifth wheel for lodging.

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Good progress

 

Dropped a few tires off at to get hot vulcanized this weekend. Only ended up leaving 3 of the 4 tires to get repaired, one tire (center in this pic) had 5 spots needing repair and it just wasn’t cost effective. I’ll throw some cold compound on it and keep it for a spare.


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My wife painted the cage and axles for me this weekend. Frame getting painted today. I fabbed up my tail shaft support and Brian welded it in while I worked on replumbing fuel. I also rewired ignition and rewired my cooling fan. Headed to Indiana after work today to pick up my tires from Chris, he finished hot vulcanizing them yesterday afternoon.

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Steph is making good use of the dog bed 😂

It looks WAY to nice now with the shiny paint.

 

Steph is making good use of the dog bed [emoji23]

It looks WAY to nice now with the shiny paint.

She doesn’t like my padded mats because they’re too dirty. Lol. And yea, it doesn’t even look like the same vehicle


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Running on less than 4 hours of sleep, I didn’t feel like driving 4.5 hour round trip to Indiana last night to get my tires, so Steph drove for me. I picked up 3 freshly repaired treps to take to Kentucky with my this week, so I’ll have 4 spares total. Tonight Brian and I should be finishing up assembling everything and building a new exhaust.

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Big progress last night. I built new exhaust, Brian replumbed and rewired my fuel, rewired my fan, wrapped up in car wiring, and reassembled the interior. Couple more zip ties, and should be ready to leave tonight. I really want to weld on new bump stop mount up front, but I don’t know if I’ll have time. That might have to wait until we get to KY.


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That is looking awesome dude!

 

I'll be curious how the patches hold up. Normally you don't see an exposed edge that may catch on a sharp rock. I've thought more than once about investing in a vulcanizing machine.

Looking good on the rest of it. Good luck with the race.

 

Thanks guys!

And I was skeptical of the exposed edge too, but because of how it was bonded Chris reassured me it wouldn’t cause issues. We’ll see if I even need them, I’m bringing 4 spares this weekend and those are my last 3.


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This past weekend was our first time at an Ultra 4 race and man was it awesome. We got to pre-run the course, do some rec-wheeling, and pit crew for MI team. The buggy performed great and didn’t have any major issues. Congrats to Jesse Oliver and Randy Koll on second place in their class. Unfortunately the other two Michigan cars didn’t fare too well but everyone came home safe with only a couple more injuries than we showed up with. Brian had quite the tumble in qualifying but luckily walked away just fine. It was a great weekend making new friends from across the country as well as hanging out with our racecar friends that we didn’t get to see a lot last year.

This Tuesday my wife bundled up in some of my hunting gear and power washed the buggy, then last night she welded up a center counsel mount for an ammo can while I stuck some fire extinguisher mounts together. Bolting them on to the Jeep tonight then tomorrow afternoon we’re headed to the Badlands with a group of buddies for the weekend.

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Glad you had fun - U4 races are a lot of fun to attend. but ummmm ... the other MI teams didn't do so well? Casey Gilbert took the poll and first place in 4800. Seems pretty decent to me.

Congrats to Jess and Randy. The motor worked well for just firing the day before he left. And a bummer about Brian and Jamie for sure.

Was there another MI team that didn't do well?

 

Glad you had fun - U4 races are a lot of fun to attend. but ummmm ... the other MI teams didn't do so well? Casey Gilbert took the poll and first place in 4800. Seems pretty decent to me.

Congrats to Jess and Randy. The motor worked well for just firing the day before he left. And a bummer about Brian and Jamie for sure.

Was there another MI team that didn't do well?

I’m not getting into the political stuff, but “MI team” is 3 cars. Brian Trempe, Jacob Tuma, and Jesse Oliver. Casey opted out of being part of the team from what I’m told I have no idea why.

But yes, Jacob’s car pre ran the course probably 5 times but unfortunately had electrical issues causing him to miss qualifying and then only made it a couple miles into the big race due to a mechanical failure. So for “MI team” only one of the three cars finished the race, but if you’re counting all Michigan teams then yes, Casey did win 4800. It wasn’t even close a close race and honestly it was kind of funny listening to his pit crew telling him to slow down because he had such a lead. Lol


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Jeep is loaded and ready to leave tomorrow, which is the earliest I’ve ever been ready for a wheeling trip. Not kidding.

Also currently in the garage while steph practices welding tube, and I’m not going to lie I’m pretty impressed with how far she’s come.

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Those are really good looking welds

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Glad to see you had fun and everything held up. Guessing the tire with the patch was ok?

Steph is laying down some nice welds for sure. Better than I can do at times. You have the lincoln 210?

 

The three tires I had hot vulcanized never even had to get taken off the trailer, I had a good weekend with tires. I have one tire on the buggy with cold vulcanizing and it’s holding up fine so far.

And yea she impressing me that’s for sure, but remember she’s practicing on a table and can set it up to be as comfy as she wants. This isn’t crawling through an engine bay laying on her side lol.
Yes Lincoln mp210 with Lincoln .035 wire.


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The week after the Rush race myself, a group of buddies and my wife went to The badlands in Indiana for a weekend of wheeling. It was an absolute blast. My favorite part was watching friends who had never gone rock crawling before, beat on the buggy. I took a long tumble down one of the rock faces in the quarry, but after a couple rolls we flipped it back upright and kept wheeling.

Pete was loving driving. Other than his truck at silver lake, he’s never driven anything more than his four wheeler offroad. He was grinning ear to ear, only took getting stuck once to realize he needed to put the tires on the big rocks instead of smashing the axles into them.

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Hellll yeah! Glad to see you’re out having fun and it’s holding up.

 

Hell yea! Thanks. Since I finished it in October I’ve done nothing other than maintenance and upgrades. Steph even bundled up in my hunting gear to go out and wash it between the last couple trips.

The only issue it’s had is I filled my master cylinder with air while rolling since I thought hitting the brakes while upside down would help. Lol.

I ordered a bunch of LS parts earlier this week, and need to order new Wilwood dual master cylinder and pedal set up soon. I think that’ll be my next major upgrade

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