New Springs and Assorted Jeep Goodness

So after a year or so of little in the way of upgrades this past month has yielded some big changes to the Jeep.  I've been running the puny Dana 35 rear axle which is fairly weak and has a tendency to snap the axles when coupled with larger tires and a heavy foot on the gas pedal.

Last month I ordered a Ford 8.8 axle from East Coast Gear Supply.  This axle is much more robust than the D35.  I passed on changing this in my backyard and instead had Jason at Rock Your 4x4 do the install.  He's a member of our club and I'd highly recommend him for Jeep work.

I then ordered a pair of Rusty's 3 inch springs for the front as my old springs were sagging and the 2inch budget boost wasn't giving me enough clearance.  The rear netted about 5/8" more lift with the axle change so nothing was changed out back.

Before

A Jacking Calamity

Yes that's a winch cable holding the hi lift jack

The likely culprits

The next day

Almost finished

Tada!

Caryville Flats and The Flame

Our club had a fun ride that covered both of these very cool spots in Royal Blue recently.  The flame is a pipe sticking out of the ground that vents natural gas and seems to be perpetually burning.  Caryville Flats is a spot on the south end of Royal Blue that offers a breathtaking view of the Lafollette area and beyond.

Just pass the KY...

.../TN border on I-75 lies the Daniel Boone National Forest.  Thanks to a few tips and relentless research by the crack (smoking) team here at IronJeep we found some trails up there!

Intentions are to eventually post exact directions and reports in the trail section over at the mothership http://www.ironjeep.com.  We also hope to return soon and get more pics and some videos.  As it stands, I definitely think a club ride up here would be worth the trip.  We found trails from easy to moderate and didn't nearly scratch the surface of what's available in this area.

The KY officials seem to be taunting us with this sign:

 So gentleman, the gauntlet has been cast, we must return for high water. :P

And I leave you with a pic of a happy Jeep, she's been clean too long:

Royal Blue Sand Mines

Last weekend our Jeep club along with ET4WD ventured up to the sand mines at Royal Blue.  According to a couple of friends that were on the trip with us, TVA mined sand out of the top of this mountain to be mixed for concrete for the dams.

The first hill climb turned out to be quite tricky as the rains made everything a muddy mess and we ended up having to winch up one section of the hill.

We stopped just short of the top at the wheelhouse.  This is where they brought the sand down from the top and loaded it into carts for the ride down the mountain.  Here's a picture of the wheelhouse:

Everyone with lockers continued up to the top where there's a small lake and lots of sand. (duh)  :)  Pictures never show it, but it was pretty steep up this last part:

And here's a video as proof that we went up there:



Special thanks to my stunt driver for making me look good.

Merry Christmas

Wow, I've been slacking.  Between the holidays and beer brewing we haven't had much time for jeeping this past month.  There's a new spot I'm dying to check out, but I'll save that for next month after deer season ends.

We did manage to sneak in a ride to Windrock last weekend and it was a blast.  I almost saw a Jeep roll over, I thought I got stuck, and I did get stuck a couple of times.  Here's an obstacle on trail 21:

And here's Jason attempting it:

There is a lot of awesome scenery at Windrock:

And lastly, here's Jeff negotiating the creek.  Please ignore the idiot cameraman pointing at a rock.  ;)

Post Turkey Ride

Black Friday presented an opportunity to get up at 4am, fight the shopping zombie hordes, and try to score some crap from the local malls. We here at IronJeep said nay, we will not conform. We went wheeling in the Jeep! Our first stop was Royal Blue for some mild rock crawling:

Next on our agenda was a little known area called Eagle Bluff overlooking the sprawling metropolis that isn't Lafollette:

For our grand finale we headed up to the upper end of Royal Blue to check out a trail at the Hatfield Knob elk viewing tower.  We rode down Overlook Trail which lived up to it's name:

And lastly here are a couple videos from the Royal Blue trail we started on:




The second one was taken by my co-pilot and step son Brandon who was in for the turkey day festivities.  Sorry it's sideways he's an IronJeep rookie:




* - No harm either real or imagined came to any Knoxville area Jeep clubs in the making of this blog post.

A ride I did with the East TN 4wd Club

This was a great ride, with the ET4WD.ORG guys doing  the cascades at Windrock.

This was way out of my league. :)