Adventioneering

This cracked me up so much I’m still laughing about it. Here’s hoping for a great MGP season – looking forward to Qatar.

I happened to pass Beckler River Rd on the way up to Steven’s this weekend, and it looks like (at least from the highway) all the snow that kept me out in January is gone. The area is still around the snow line, though.

What’s that? You want to run a marathon? Well:

Props to X1 for his first time out. First day out ever, we got him riding Hogsback at Steven’s Pass by the end of the day.

This is supposed to be a story of a couple of anonymous riders hitting the 101 loop and working on corners, corners, and more corners with some straights thrown in for interstages. However, with a weather report threatening snow (and indeed some snow was found), that just didn’t seem like a productive idea. I can’t blame them – these anonymous riders. I don’t mind riding in the rain – at all – working corners in the rain is just as good as working them dry – but I only ride on snow on accident. Like that one time. That I hope to never repeat. Ever.

You get lemons, you make lemonaid, so instead this is the non-story of how absolutely deserted the normally crowded Washington beaches are on a 47 degree pouring rain late March day. It was actually quite peaceful, but not as peaceful as corners. I’m starting to think a place on Crescent Lake wouldn’t go amiss, either. And there was a ferry boat.

The one interesting thing is that – after becoming confused and losing track of 109 – you can totally make it up to 101 through all those endless gravel backroads they hold the rallys on. And for once Garmin redeemed themselves with good cartography (not like that other time. Remember, everyone?).

Length: 414 miles
Moving Avg: 41mph

Photos

Every time I stumble on this I marvel, so I thought I’d just post it. Guy hits deer on the Interstate. Guy was wearing ‘stitch gear. Guy slides out 270′. Ever wonder how Aerostitch go that reputation? Checkout the pics.

Photos

Never having done rear drums before (I know!), but I had learned from previous illicit late-night glances at parts diagrams and curiosity that they seemed to be made of a lot of springs, my first observation is maybe this would be a great time to put on a rear disc brake conversion. Despite the obvious superiority of disc brakes, I’ll admit that just replacing the pads and drums was looking a lot more economical for V.

Honestly they are pretty straight forward. You technically don’t need a brake spring compressor tool – a properly sized socket on a ratchet handle would work fine, although I think it would be a bit more frustrating. If you have an O2 sensor / oil line / whatever slotted socket, that would work a little bitter since you could look in the window, same as the proper tool. Which is only eight bucks anyways, so just buy one.

You also don’t really need a brake spoon for this application, although it does make it easier. I see how it might be essential in other applications, particularly cars with a lot of suspension crap occluding access to the back (inside side) of the brakes. You could get a screwdriver in there too, and achieve the same result.

Really, there’s nothing to fear about drum brakes. There are lots of fiddly little parts, considering how simple a brake needs to be to work, and it’s pretty obvious why this design has gone the way of the dinosaur. It maybe took about an hour to do one side, without a parts diagram and just trying to figure out how the things even worked at all (it’s fascinating), and then maybe about fifteen minutes to do the other one. You’d really haul if you did these things every week.

I had printed out some instructions, and had the shop manual, but in the end I found the instructions confusing and just did it by disassembling one, forgetting where everything went, and then using the other side at the reference. The most important thing to remember is that there is some flexibility as to the order you put the parts back on; for example, it doesn’t really matter if you put the bottom spring on before the top springs, but you better be sure to slot the e-brake lever thing into the pad before you do any of that. It’s intuitive when you get there. Really.

The real excitement came when I took the TJ for a test drive. The brakes worked great and the E-Brake had ridiculous engagement; I can’t even remember the last time I drove a car that really had a properly working e-brake. This thing is all ready for Tokyo Drift. And in the process of doing that (professional driver, closed course) I realized that the steering felt awfully loose and clunky. The reason was pretty apparent why when I drove it back to the shop, and started wiggling the steering rod around. One good tug, and it fell right off the steering box, so V was pretty much about to die any time.

It’s worth observing at this point the TJ has a 1″ body lift on it, which normally doesn’t require any steering adjustment although the extreme angle coming out of the firewall can result in a little bit of rub against the bracket. Some people lift the intermediate bracket in order to decrease the angles, but really the whole thing can be made to work properly. Undoing all the bolts and using a impact hammer and a long drift I was able to pound the rod onto the box properly, all the way, and then I rattled both bolts on with all the pound feet and red loc-tite. Problem solved.

Photos

Trip Countdowns:

Bellingham Freeze-athon: 6 days
Black Rock Desert Trip: 85 days
Mackenzie Trip: 152 days