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| Home | My 1997 XJ | Co-Pilot | Pictures |
I met up with Roger, Judy, Nicholaus, and Brian for some trail runs. My friends Matt and Chanin also rode along with me and took a lot of these pictures. |
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At the top left is Nicholaus in his Grand Cherokee. The Grand has a 4.5" lift and he runs 31" Super Swampers. At the top right and lower left is Brian, who is stuck on a hill on the green trail. Brian also drives a Grand Cherokee, but he has a 2" spacer lift. Brians original coil springs flex like crazy, but his lack of ground clearance left him high centered on this hill. However, Brians Grand also sports the 5.2 L V-8 which makes his Grand a very capable off road vehicle. He let me drive it around on the sand hills and it sure is a nice engine to have in an off road vehicle. At the bottom right is Roger and Judy in their TJ. They are running stock height with Super Swampers and they get around the Badlands just fine. |
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At the left is a group shot of the three Jeeps that accompanied me on this trail ride. Brian is working on getting his sway bar links secured after they had become loose. On the right is Brian as he makes his way up a rock ledge on the green trail. This is a challenging section because to the right of the picture is a 30-40 foot cliff. Everyone made it with no problems. |
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For the first time in several months, the creek at the Badlands was not frozen. We took advantage of this and made our way through the creek on the green trail. At the left I am taking a corner in the creek heading for the tubes. In the middle picture you can see that I decided I would try the tube with the more difficult drop off. Last year I had gone through this tube without problem. It was a pretty sharp drop off, and I knew I might have problems clearing my rear end. The picture on the right below shows me creeping my rear wheels towards the drop off. I was trying to take this as slowly as possible in case I hit my rear end on the tube. My engine and the engine fan were in the water at this point. You can see the steam created by the hot engine being in contact with the cold water. |
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Well, I did not check the depth of the fall off and I paid for it. When I dropped the rear wheels out of the tube, I landed pretty hard on my rear bumper. It appears that no damage was done, but I was stuck with my rear wheels hanging in space and no front locker to carry me forward. Nicholaus got to try out his winch on the trail for the first time. Go to Attica, IN - The Badlands - 2/10 for more pictures of me stuck and my friends working to get me rollin' again! |
After we made our way out of the creek, we took some time off for lunch. We then went to the quarry for a little while and played on the rocks a little bit. In the upper left picture, Nicholaus is trying to make his way up this hill. At this point the trails were starting to thaw and it was very slippery. Unfortunately, no one made it up this hill during this run. In the upper right picture, I am attempting to make it up the same hill. In the lower left picture, I was able to make it up a different rock face despite the slippery conditions. In the lower right, I am trying a short section of the pink trail. It was not that technical, but it was hilly and had some good off camber sections. |
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It would not be a complete trail run unless somebody with a Super Swamper rolled a tire off the rim, and this day was no different. Nicholaus took the casualty today, and we all pitched in to get the tire changed. |
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| Home | My 1997 XJ | Co-Pilot | Pictures |
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This web page was created by
Derek Paschal.
Last updated on 26 Nov 2006. These pages created and maintained using Arachnopilia 5.3 "Careware". |
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