… just use a chainsaw.

Also don’t be a moron like I was and burn a hole in your TAD gear fleece doing something like this.

This story – the story of the worst weekend I’ve had in recent memory – really starts on Saturday morning. I go into the Jeep dealer and purchase a new slave cylinder. In the process I also go to pick up the bushings for the TJ, only to learn they are charging a fortune for them ($102 a pair) and that they are some weird succession of parts that require replaced control arms. Can you say aftermarket?

I see immediately why the slave cylinder broke, it’s a cheap plastic piece of crap. Seriously, this thing looks like it fell out of the bottom of a cracker jack box – if cracker jacks were made by lowest bidder in a government auction. I would take a CNC or at least actual metal aftermarket slave cylinder in a heartbeat, who wants to sell me one?

Removal is straightforward enough, although it’s in a moderately awkward (ever notice how the word awkard is awkward? Very meta, that) place. Unscrew the bolts and fish the quick disconnect hydraulic line fitting off. Pay close attention to the o-rings, and I use that term loosely. There are two. You’ll lose them and then you’ll be really screwed, and good luck getting that all back together to where it doesn’t leak.

Pulling my old one off, it snagged up on something and then came out. I heard something fall. Nothing hit the floor. As you can see, there’s a little plastic foot thing that rides in the clutch spoon. Mine popped off. And fell into the transmission.

I’ll admit to you, I did a lot of soul searching. You hear stories all the time of people who drop those little plastic gear oil caps into differentials, transmissions, and transfer cases all the time. It always is a non-story, where some time later the thing is stripped down for an unrelated reason and the little bits of cap are spread all over after a trip through the gears. Maybe this plastic would just lodge somewhere harmlessly in the bellhousing? or maybe the flywheel would just destroy it and tiny little pieces would come out the tiny drain slot on the bottom.

Jeep would like you to believe the JK has some special magical transmission, but it really has the NSG370 from Merecedes. This transmission does not have a convenient inspection port or anything. Some guys who have dropped stuff in there before replace the stock bolts with long ones so that they can pull the tranny back a couple of inches without actually dropping it. I really didn’t want to do any of this. At all.

By now I’ve been running around on other errands all day and soul-searching over this problem, and it’s become evening. I just knew that the JK would run fine until I was in the middle of Nevada or some other god forsaken piece and I’d hit just the right bump and the plastic thing would jump up and lodge in the clutch or something. No. It had to come out, and I had to get it out. I started praying for a magnet that worked on plastic.

I don’t want to drop the transmission and what goes in can come out, so I had the brilliant idea to try endoscopy. And boy aren’t those things expensive on eBay. I ran down to Home Depot and bought a bore scope, and got it back to the shop. DOA. I’m not kidding. So I take it back to Home Depot and they are happy enough to exchange, only that was their last one.

Next morning, I ride the bike down to Issaquah and buy another inspection scope. I come out with my hands full and toss my wallet on the back of the bike, and then check the scope in the parking lot to make sure it actually works. It does. Then I ride away, and it’s only after I get home I realize I no longer have my wallet. I call the store. They don’t have it. Sigh. So I cancel all my cards.

I deal with all this and finally get under the Jeep again. It takes about 15 minutes of fishing around with the scope to find the plastic part. It’s wedged itself into a really awkward (meta) nook and stuck there because it’s covered in bearing grease. Great! Now if I can just fish it out with my bendy tool. Wait, where is my bendy tool? 30 minutes of searching the shop later, I find it. Totally broken, like it got driven over with a car. And I also realize one of the M8x1.25 nuts is missing, which is also weird, because I don’t lose parts. And for some reason I don’t have more. I had it all organized in dishes.

It’s late. The universe hates me. Victoria asks me not to touch her truck lest it fall off the jackstands. She probably has a point. I give up for the day.

Monday, my luck has changed. Chase calls me in the late afternoon to tell me that the Issaquah PD has my wallet. STILL UNDEFEATED. I drive down there to get it, and everything is in it (except maybe my QFC card?). I end up working late on something else, and don’t make it out to the Jeep until today, when I head out with a brand new grabby thing.

It took me about an hour to get it out, and was incredibly difficult. You know those things at Denny’s where you can get your kid a toy? This is like that, but way worse. Imagine doing that, on your back, on cement, with acid (okay, brake fluid) dripping in your face, in some weird contorted position, with an exhaust shield cutting you. It’s like that. Only harder, because the scope has no where to go and keeps falling from anywhere you put it when you move the cable. And the clutch spoon is in the way, and the transmission housing is a weird shape, and and and.

The first time I got it, it fell as I was getting it out and rolled even deeper into the bowels of the bell housing, under the flywheel. At least I had a cleaner shot so there was less contortion and I got it out in a few minutes. Sweet, sweet victory.

Now if I can just figure out what-the-hell with the quick disconnect hydraulic fitting. Seriously? I’d give anything for something metal threaded with a nut instead of this joke they decided on. I don’t get it, because the rest of the JK (other than the exhaust) is so well designed.

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So this was very exciting. I got word this week that my new rear bumper + load carrier was in at the 4wd shop in Lynnwood, so this morning I went and got the Jeep and headed out there. I left the shop looking at all my imported machines and actually thought “at least I have one vehicle that is reliable”. True story. Then when I went to get off of I-405 onto I-5 I realized I had no clutch.

I drove it Richard Hammond FJ40 style to 45th and made it (almost) into the Shell station. Halfway off the street before I lost 1st gear. Some kids gave me a push into the station. Sadly the storm troopers on the corner celebrating May the 4th (and 5th I guess) just looked on. It was quickly obvious that the clutch circuit was empty and leaking out of the bell housing. The clutch on the JK shares the fluid with the brakes, but a little plastic partition keeps it from stealing all the brake fluid, killing you.

I filled it up with DOT3 from the Shell. This netted me back 3rd gear, so I went to the 4WD store thinking I could at least get my bumper, but I got there 20 minutes after they closed.

By the time I got back to Redmond 2 through 6 and R were working, but it won’t stay in 1st for some reason, kind of goes in but pops out. The clutch bled itself out and the pedal feels normal so I don’t know if that’s a secondary problem or not. Apparently blowing slave cylinders is a JK thing – some guy on the Internet went through 5 of them before his truck turned 20. This has got 25 on it so I think it’s definitely premature to be having hydraulic problems.

Although it’s under warranty I’ll probably swap the slave cyl myself (because I am stupid, but at least then I can pack a spare for Mackenzie). I have been running it in the snow a lot and burning up clutch so I wonder if that isn’t related. Abuse and failed JK slave cyls seem to correlate, the grocery getters run fine so maybe it’s just a weak design like the pulley on the 4cyl TJs.

What really makes me sad is the bumper. I wanted to put that thing on.

A primer on driving with no clutch:

If you are driving along the highway, this is the best of luck. Don’t panic. The first thing to do is assess. Hit the clutch and see if you are getting disengagement. Even if the pedal is weak you might get disengagement; you can tell because with clutch and no throttle the RPMs should drop to idle. If they do not, or drop only slightly, you do not have full disengagement and are stuck in gear.

If you do not, you are going to stall when you come to a full stop (as if you were in gear). In theory you can pull into neutral but with no clutch you may not get back into 1st. What you can do is let it stall and then start it (stuck in 1st) when it is time to go again. My JK will start reliably in first.

As you are driving along, you can shift, but it requires matching the rpms. Pull into neutral, let the RPMs drop, pull against the gear you want gently, and rev up until it pops in.

I always felt like, at the 45 to 80MPG they often seem to get, motorcycles are a pretty practical way to help the environment. You can always take it a step further, though, like these guys. And certainly puts you a lot closer to completion if you have a rolling project sitting in your shop like I do.

A word on words. A lot of people ask whether these things are called a “shackle” or a “clevis”. The correct terminology is that the part without the pin is the clevis, and the pin is (surprise!) called the pin. Together, both parts (one entire working unit) is called a shackle. They come in different sizes and forms, for example, the D shackle where the clevis is shaped like an open letter D, straight on the sides. The failed shackle above is a D shackle. There are also bow shackles, which look more like circles than the letter D.

The pictured shackle one came with my RuggedRidge XTreme HD bumper. It attaches to a mount attached by grade 8.8 bolts running through the bumper into the front of the Jeep frame. As you can see from the photograph, this shackle has failed. I actually didn’t notice it until later, so I am not 100% sure when it failed. I suspect it was when I attached the hook from the 12.5k# SuperWinch to the shackle and tightened it down hard to wring water out of the line.

With each line of rope on the drum, the power of the winch decreases. Since the line was all the way in when this happened, SuperWinch quotes a spec of 7,012 lbs of force on the 4th wrap. It’s entirely possible the shackle failed at much less force, as well, that’s just the most it likely could have been. This is (relatively) not that much so it’s worrisome that the shackle failed.

When I was inspecting the shackle, the first thing I noticed is that its not a rated shackle, or anyways if it is, I can no longer read the markings because of the textured coating that RuggedRidge has sprayed on the shackle to match the bumper. Shackles come in rated or unrated varieties. If the markings had been raised, I think I would still be able to see them, but I’ll allow they might have been stamped. We’ll see, though, that this is most likely an unrated shackle.

An unrated shackle is one manufactured to a design specification (a given strength) but the company manufacturing it does not necessarily have a quality or test plan in place to ensure that the shackles they are producing meet the specification. They may not even state a strength. In other words, the shackles are not guaranteed to hold any particular load.

A rated shackle is one which complies with various federal, domestic, and/or international standards for quality and strength. While vehicle recovery is a legitimate use of a shackle, and they also see a lot of similar use in marine applications, the gold standard for shackles, line, and chain is overhead hoist operations. This is the sort of affair where a load is lifted into the air with the possibility that humans may be underneath. Naturally, the government and other standards bodies feel very strongly about that sort of thing.

Here we can turn to the US federal standard RR-C-271D for more information:

3.5.3 Type IV, shackles.

3.5.3.2 Form and dimensions. The form of the respective shackle types and classes shall be similar to that shown on figures 19 and 20 (see 6.2). Dimensions of shackle bodies and component pins and bolts shall conform to the dimensional requirements specified in table XI through XVI.

The first thing is when you start to look at the strengths, you will see that the working load limit is a lot lower than the breaking strength, usually by 5 times. This is known as the safety factor. This is not a license to go randomly exceeding the working load limit, as that safety margin is there for a reason.

You probably wouldn’t go rock climbing with carabiners that were unrated and had markings, and you should not perform recoveries with unrated gear. When they are rated, shackles and carabiners actually have a lot in common. The shackle is rated for a straight pull, which is where the load is perpendicular to the pin and then at 180 degrees (opposite) from that position. In this configuration the shackle is going to be the strongest, at its design strength. Pulling across the shackle, particularly with the pin missing, significantly reduces the shackles strength.

If the angle is changed between the load, as in the above picture, the strength of the shackle correspondingly. Some manufacturers will state how much in their technical information, and it varies, but typically there is a 30% reduction for a 45 degree pull and 50% reduction for a 90 degree pull. Always use real numbers from the manufacturer’s technical data. There are no “rules of thumb” in recovery and hoist operations. One piece of equipment may not perform like another, even if visually similar.

This is important to keep in mind as during vehicle recovery we often shove all manner of things into the shackle, for example, two recovery strap ends and then the winch hook, and often the load can end up being something other than straight.

While I haven’t measured the failed shackle looks to be at least 3/4″. We can look at the standards to see how a rated shackle would have performed. The WLL for a 3/4″ shackle is 9,500lb for grade A or 14,000lbs for grade B. Both working loads are above the 7,000 lbs the winch could exert. However, the pull looked to be about 45 degrees. Taking 30% off each rating would be 6,650 and 9,800 respectively. In this example, a grade A shackle would have been marginal (the load was greater than the WLL) and a grade B shackle would have been safe.

However, the breaking load is much higher, 37,500lbs and 70,000 lbs respectively. Deducting the 30% tax for the 45 degree load, the breaking strengths are 26,250 lbs or 49,000lbs depending on the grade of shackle. In other words, a standard rated shackle of either grade would not have broken against the exerted 7k pull or even the 12.5k rating on the winch.

It would be easy to assume the safe size for a shackle, then, was a working load limit that exceeded the pull strength of the winch. There are situations, however, where you can place more force on a component than the winch itself can provide.

One such situation is with a pulley, which for vehicle recovery typically comes in the form of a snatch block. When properly used, a snatch block cuts in half the amount of force required to move a load. To look at this another way, it doubles the potential force of the winch. If you have a winch pulling 10k lbs, the anchor attaching the block to the load could exert 20k lbs. The winch itself and the anchor attaching the end of the line will themselves only experience 10k (each).

Now of course comes the tricky task of replacing the shackles. I haven’t measured yet so I don’t know if they are the JATE size, or something else. They look a little narrow for that, but we’ll see.

I thought to head out to the Naches area after hearing that NF-7080 is open and clear. I wanted to see if I could get over from NF-70, even though there are reports that NF-70 is closed at Pyramid due to a wash-out, I’d be coming over from the west side.

Unfortunately, I got stopped by snow at 47° 5.781′N 121° 26.991′W and had to do a little winching. The snow isn’t really bad at all – I think rigs with good tires, chains, and/or a bit of determination could get through. It’s firm and wet and if your rig can float and grip, you’d be set.

There were still plenty of guys with their sleds getting in what has to be the very last of the snowmobiling. I bet they can’t complain about riding in 65 degree temps with a clear sky.

It was after the first time I winched that I realized I wanted my winch to work properly. And thankfully I had my tools. The weather was so great I figured what better place to work on it, so proceeded to dig into the problem.

After pulling the relays and disassembling the wiring it turned out to be that several of the pins had come out of the connectors; two on the remote socket and one on the waterproof jumper from the relays to the solenoid. This is why I was only getting intermittent power-in.

So much for Superwinch quality control? I am grateful it was a simple problem, though. Probably for the best that I had the opportunity to dig into the motor control anyways so that I know how it works. All repaired, it winched the rest of the day without incident.

7030 is in the same general situation. I winched through a section that everyone else had given up on and made first tracks up past a rock slide, but it was just more of the same. Spotted a few really great camping spots though, which is encouraging, because this area feels a lot closer than bumping all the way around on 90 into the classic Wenatchee area.

For a long time I’d been trying to figure out what to do about tool storage and tool control. I always had a few tools for working on bicycles and computers when I was a kid, but I didn’t really start accumulating them until I was 18 and bought a used BMW. As I proceeded to destroy it as only a teenager with poor impulse control can, it needed repairs, and every time, it seemed like I was buying one tool or another.

At first I had a little red toolbox. You know, the kind that look like a lunch box. That lasted for awhile but pretty soon I had to upgrade to a bigger black one with some drawers. And then finally one day I broke down and bought a set of craftsman boxes. You know, the cheap, non bearing kind. Honestly that setup lasted for a really long time – through Kansas City, Seattle 1.0, and Boston.

When I moved back for Seattle 2.0 I got rid of most everything I owned, trying to make the rest fit in this tiny trailer. The tool boxes had to go and they were craigslisted away. The tools I shoved into a huge pelican case that I used to use for my photographic enlarger and now was empty. It looked like someone over-packing a suitcase for a long trip, except, tools. That thing must have weighed a couple of hundred pounds full of tools, but at least it had wheels.

Then I got the shop and it was easy enough to spread the tools all over everywhere, since there was a ton of room. I fantasized like everyone else about acquiring some huge snapon or matco roller cab (aren’t those prices something?) and having this huge thousand pound empire of tools. I even seriously considered some good deals that floated by on CL.

Truth is I knew I had a problem with the traditional concept. Huge tool cabs work great if you work at a GM dealership and you have your service bay and your tools seldom (if ever) stray very far from that bay. I went adventuring enough where I needed to take my tools, which meant pulling them out of the cab and tossing them into something… else. Usually bags (I like bucket boss), pelican cases, or both.

If you keep moving your tools around and spreading them over horizontal surfaces for storage, with no system, then you start wondering where your tools are. I did a recent inventory and found that a few sockets and a couple of wrenches and some ratchet bits had wandered off. Those few items were a three digit replacement bill, and I only buy the cheap stuff, Craftsman. That stung a little, not so much because I am cheap, that it was just a useless expense.

I will also admit that at least once or twice over the last 16 years that I have been working on cars and trucks that I’ve left a tool in an engine bay. It starts off innocently enough, you are using an extension for a distant bolt, don’t need it, and set it aside on a radiator or battery tray or whatever. This sort of behavior crashes planes and probably wrecks cars too.

So I knew I wanted tool storage that was a) portable and b) introduced FOD control. I wanted the FOD control both so I wouldn’t ruin an engine but also so that tools would be less likely to walk off. In the shop I had graduated to using these Stanley organizers for my tools that you can get anywhere.

This was actually a really solid solution; I had a box for metric sockets & wrenches, a box for SAE, a box for screwdrivers, a box for handled tools, etc. It worked well but I was always digging around for tools, and there was no tool control at all.

I was inspired by pictures I saw on expedition exchange of some kid who had what looked to be an Army GMTK (general mechanics tool kit) in FOD pallets. There are different manufacturers, but for example, C.H. Ellis. These are foam pallets that fit into zippered pouches with individual positions for each tool, so inventory and FOD is easy – it’s obvious when you are missing a tool.

Pricing out those bags versus the Pelican 0450 which is a lot more rugged, not to mention waterproof, the Pelican actually came out to be about the same cost, a little more if you considered that you had to provide your own foam (about $85 for a set of the good stuff).

For sockets, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. The regular metal rails with the clips suck. I didn’t want to cut individual foam positions for sockets – while possible, I wasn’t 100% sure about what sockets I wanted to carry and besides what if you want to add or remove one later. I ended up with Ernst plastic rails. I had heard good things about them and it’s all true, they are really fantastic. They are easily configurable, hold the sockets securely, and come with labels so you can have an easy inventory. Plus, no more digging around for the right socket.

For the drawers, I set out inventorying my tools and trying to figure out which ones I would want to have with me all the time. I was trying to make my equivalent of a GMTK – basically, hand service tools for vehicles, plus the specific tools required to work on TJs and JKs in the field (for example, 30, 32, 34, 35, and 36 sockets). I decided to electrical service tools early on (wire strippers, multi meter, etc). I could build a separate kit for that.

I knew I wanted the tool control foam. The Pelican 0450, honestly, doesn’t really work without it. You can pile all your tools loose into a drawer and they will indeed stay there, but you’ll have problems opening the drawers and getting them out after all your tools bunch up. They have a different set of drawers with elastic straps for the tools, but that looked annoying.

The gold standard is this special foam that resists oils. Look specifically for the stuff that is impervious to aviation hydraulic fluid and you’ll be fine. You usually have two pieces of foam; one for the tools and another colored piece under-neath to create an obvious silhouette when the tool is removed.

I looked at getting the foam laser or waterjet cut. This is really the gold standard, but it’s expensive, running into several hundred dollars. In a lot of cases, it works out best if you actually send them your tools. I think this is a great solution if you know precisely exactly what tools you want in your kit, or, you are doing lots of kits. I wasn’t sure of either of those things.

So it was time to call in favors! I knew I worked on VJ’s Jeep for free for some reason. She graciously agreed to spend several hours laboriously tracing and cutting tool shapes out of foam blanks.

Although I am still going around on what tools I want in the last couple of drawers, I think the result turned out pretty well. And I find I have an extra sense of re-assurance when I head into the mountains with this in the back of the Jeep, since I know definitively I have all the tools I need to handle almost any situation.

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