Adventioneering

Spent a pleasant night camping out along the Index-Galena Rd, which is one of my favorite spots. This actually, I think, the first time I’ve ever gone camping by myself, and the first time I’ve spent a night in a tent in years in the Seattle area. Everything is so close, we tend to make day-trips of it all.

Photos are here.

Prior to some year, which is widely accepted to be 2004 although I have also heard 2002 so it may have varied by country/market, the power steering systems on TJs were filled with a MS5931 power steering fluid. This fluid is widely sold through the dealer network for a pretty penny, although non-MOPAR aftermarket fluids claiming to meet or exceed MS5931 are available from some automotive stores.

After 2003, the fluid from the factory was ATF+4 which has better temperature properties and is more widely available. There is a lot of information that says that you should not put ATF+4 into your pre-2004 TJ.

The truth is that you should not mix the fluids, but, if you are flushing the system or have lost most of the fluid, you can replace your fluid to ATF+4 thereby “upgrading” the vehicle to the 2004+ spec. I recommend this since ATF+4 is a lot easier to come by, and it’s what I intend to do when I swap out the steering box, hopefully this weekend.

If you swap to ATF+4 in your TJ, be sure to placard the vehicle so that future mechanics know which fluid to use.

This swap is authorized by Chrysler via TSB 19-005-03, reproduced here:

Steering - Power Steering Fluid Usage

NOTE :This bulletin supersedes owner’s and service manuals for the vehicles listed above that may state to use MS9933 in the power steering system, and that may state not to use automatic transmission fluid in the power steering system.

Very easy job on the Jeep, only 4 screws involved to remove the shroud and switch, and another 2 to separate the headlight switch assembly from the wiper switch assembly. It’s a very nice design, very clean and clever, I like it a lot. The new multi-switch works perfectly, and fixed the headlight problems as anticipated. No wonder it went out - turns out it’s made by Lucas, Prince Of Darkness.

Ordered a new steering box and a MFS switch. Maybe this way the Jeep can avoid turning into the Land Rover. I am not sure how I feel about my local Schuck’s turning into an O’Reilly’s.

The USFS recently announced that that they intend to publish a MVUM for the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest by March of 2010. This is, as far as I know, the first MVUM to affect any of the parks in Washington state.

Under the 2005 Travel Management Rule, which I had never heard of until about a month ago, National Forests are standardizing how they communicate with forest end-users about vehicular access. Under the new rules, each forest will publish a map (the MVUM) which indicates which routes are open for use to which classes of vehicles (e.g. ATV, motorbike, 4×4). All other routes within the national forest, regardless of signage or anything else, will be off-limits to any vehicle use.

I have heard but haven’t yet confirmed that users will be required to carry a MVUM with them in their vehicle, and can be cited if they don’t have one while on national forest land. If this is true I can’t imagine they will be enforcing it for the paved, touristy bits of the NF system, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see USFS and other law enforcement workers issuing citations to off-roaders for it.

We’ve had the TJ I don’t know how many miles now. Enough time to drive it across the country from Seattle to Boston and back to Seattle, as well as Nevada and a bunch of other places. During all this time we suffered through the fact the Jeep didn’t have cruise control.

If only I had known then what I know now. It turns out that unlike many vehicles, retrofitting cruise control onto a TJ is very easy. Most TJs (including mine) were pre-wired for cruise control, and the function is handled by the PCM computer, not a separate and costly cruise control computer.

The blank, black colored plastic spacers on the steering wheel are where the cruise control buttons go. There isn’t a stalk or multi-function switch like in many vehicles, at least on this version of the TJ. I don’t know if they changes the cruise control when they redid the dash in the last few years. In addition to the switches, you probably will need a new clock spring that has enough leads for the cruise functions.

The cruise control servo mounts onto the bracket shown above, and plugs into the connector shown above. If you have this plug on your TJ, you are prewired. If not, MOPAR also makes an “overlay” harness that contains just the minimum required to add cruise control without having to replace the existing costly wiring harness. The servo then has a throttle cable that runs out to the spare space on the throttle.

All the PCMs are apparently programmed for cruise control, so nothing more is required, just plug it in and go. The instrument cluster has the cruise light already, because the TJ clusters use LEDs for the instrumentation, and they are all the same unit regardless of the options fitted to the particular vehicle.

Best of all this is a relatively inexpensive job, the list of parts required (if you are prewired) is about $120-$150 from OEM sources.

It was almost a year ago that I went to Walden Pond , the only time I have been there. Like many people I had read Thoreau’s 1854 classic “Walden”. If you are not familiar, it chronicles Thoreau’s life living in a small cabin that he built himself near the shore of Walden Pond in Massachusetts. Ever since reading the book I had wanted to visit the place to feel perhaps that sense of connection.

Although I lived in Waltham, MA basically right off the street that leads to Walden Pond, it took about a year for me to make it out there. It was finally a nice quiet, cold day and despite the snow it only took a few minutes to make the trip in the TJ.

Walden built his cabin through barter and about thirty dollars in cash. In today’s dollars, that would be about $665. He hoped to isolate himself from the nearby community of Concord and experiment with living a more “natural” existence.

The Walden area is now a state reservation. This means you get to pay for parking to visit the site of the man who took a vacation from civilization. I was in utter shock as I paid the little robot parking machine $5 for the privilege.

Nobody had de-iced or cleared the sidewalks around the elaborate interpretive reconstruction of Thoreau’s cabin, so I guessed the parking money must be going someplace else.

As I walked down to the pond I reflected on how Thoreau is widely regarded to be one of the founding fathers of the conservationist movement. Back when the population was so low, land was plentiful and game seemed unlimited, it was probably hard to conceptualize having to preserve any of it. There was, I am sure it seemed, enough.

Thoreau wrote “A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It’s earth’s eye, looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature”. Walden is pretty, but not majestic. It is not like the western lakes cut out of alpines or laying in valleys. It’s very quiet, and conservative, in keeping with much of the New England landscape.

As I started to hike the trail around the 60 acre lake, I realized pretty quickly what they have been spending that parking money on. Barbed wire. Signs pleaded with me not to walk anywhere I pleased, later signs threatened. Herded like cattle I and the few others out that day slogged around the lake.

It took half an orbit of the lake to reach the location of his original cabin, now long one. Instead, stones and chains encircle it now like an eerie cross between a grave and a monument. A sign proclaims one of his more famous quotes. Reality is only a few paces away, a pair of train tracks for Boston’s commuter rail. Trains whiz by regularly, disturbing the solitude.

I wonder what Thoreau would have thought of this. The east-coast mentality of “conservation” had turned his pond into an attraction. I was surprised the trail was not paved all the way around, rather than just in portions. Perhaps if they raise the parking rates just a little more.

Photos

Walden Pond is located at 42.4384, -71.342.

I updated the waypoints file with the latest. Added is an expanded collection of waypoints around the PNW area, as well as some southern desert spots. Also included for the first time is a very accurate track of the PCT.

It’s all happening right now. Good morning!

This is the coolest thing I’ve seen in awhile.