Slow Panda 2.0

Turned out okay. More gold than I thought it would be. Oh well only $200 for the wheels, paint, and mounting.. The 265s look even smaller with painted wheels..
I'll get better pictures at a later date

 

Havent updated this in a while... No truck updates to report other than a new radiator because mine was cracked. I had ACL reconstruction and meniscus repair surgery about a month ago so I've been slowly recovering from that. I did snag a RuffStuff / Rubicon Trail Foundation Trasharoo the other day. I will get pictures of that soon.

Also been busy with schoolwork and "helping" (as in me doing all the work) my roommate replace the head gasket in his 1996 Jeep Cherokee

 

Are you just going to hang the Trasharoo from the tailgate?

 

Yep. Thats the plan for now. Later down the road I'm planning on making a swing out "tire-gate" much like the one offered by Wilco, but integrated into a high clearance tube bumper.

 

When are you going to start the sas?

 

Hopefully next summer after I'm done at OSU. I just need a few more things and more importantly another car to daily drive. I bent my lower control arm wheeling a few weeks back so thats giving me more motivation to get it done sooner.

 

That'll be sweet, can't wait to see it go down.

 

Hahaha same.... Ive got most of the parts ready to go. The only thing I'm missing are coilovers, and tires and wheels and TIME. When we ran the 65th Jeepers Jamboree on the Con, I won a front and rear ring and pinion setup with the install kit during the raffle, so that saved a couple of bucks..

 

Haven't been here in a long while... little bits to update.
I made the trek to Montana from Oregon to visit the parents for a bit. Then my father and I towed his jeep down to California for the 65th Annual Jeepers' Jamboree. Man what a blast that was. Usually don't like when a lot of people are on the trail, but with an estimated 500-600 jeeps and 1200 people in the springs it was definitely something I want to do again. Hanging out with everyone from Ultra4 racers and company reps to the everyday weekend warrior was awesome! Also won front and rear ring and pinion sets from Motive Gear in the raffle, so no need to worry about gearing for the FJ axles.
During the 19 hour drive to Truckee to stay at a friend's cabin for the night, one of the axle bearing on the trailer seized and blew out just outside of Reno, Nevada. It was about 1:30am, we pulled the jeep off the trailer and pulled the wheel off, and sucked up the axle with a ratchet strap. My dad drove the three wheeling trailer the rest of the way to the cabin and I drove the jeep. The minute I pulled onto the highway I was pulled over for not having mudflaps, the tires sticking out too far and no front plate. Gotta love CHP....



Here are some pics from the Jambo.


I saw this nice second gen in Rubicon Springs. Very surprised to see this in there, but he had more than one Jamboree sticker on the windshield so it definitely wasn't his first rodeo..

After the Jamboree and the 19 hour drive back to Montana I got around to replacing the CVs i blew up out at Edison Butte, near Bend, OR. My friend Kevin was on the tail end of his camping trip to Canada and stayed with me a few days.
(pics from Edison butte)
CVs fixed
After the CV fix we had to "Test it out" and took to the river near my parents' house for some fly fishing with the father.

 

Those El Dorado sheriffs jeeps are sweet

 

Haven't been here in a very long time... School has got me swamped, as I cram as many classes as I can to graduate at the end of the year. But no updates to the truck, other then it running very poorly, still... I still can't chase down the stutter that its been having for about a year now, and still no CEL.

I did however buy a new toy that I have been throwing money at..



I have turned into a lurker for now, until I can get more time and money for the SAS

 

Little update I picked up some lightly used 285/75 for $200. I need some spacers to run them but these will be on shortly

 

You get the tires on yet?

 

@MichaelsTacoma Not yet. I just got back to Montana and I still can't decide on whether or not I want to buy new wheels for the new set of tires and have two sets of tires and wheels or just take the KO2s off and run the Mud Terrains with spacers.

 

Oh I see that's a tough choice. You probably won't even wanna go back to the ko2s once you get those mud terrains on. It's gonna look much better. It's a bigger tire too right?

 

The KO2s are just in really good shape so Im still on the fence about getting rid of them but the deal on the new tires was too good to pass up. And yes they are 285/75/16s and the KO2s are 265/75/16.

 

Well here it is 285/75/16 Mastercraft MXTs on 16x8 Procomp 7069, 4" BS.

I have spacers that I might run later on, but for now Im going to run them without the spacer. I still need to massage the pinch weld with a hammer and trim the flare a little bit. Pretty excited on how it turned out. Going to test them snow wheeling with dad later on this week.


Little comparison to the 265/75/16 KO2 on the Passenger side.

 

Looks killer!

 

Thank you much! Im pretty excited on how it came out!

 

A Major Victory Today....
It took me a little over a year and a half to out the stutter I have been experiencing. To begin I replaced the spark plugs, and wires (which helped), replaced the fuel filter, cleaned all the grounds and added another ground to the block, replaced the IAC, cleaned the TPS, and the throttle body. Cleaned the MAF and then replaced it. None of this worked. The stutter kept coming back, eventually the truck was having a really hard time starting. Every time I tried to start it, I would have to floor it and it would eventually turn over. I figured it was something with the fuel delivery. But then it would go through cycles of not starting and then start fine but have the bad stutter. The stutter was worse under load. AND STILL NO CEL.
ANYWAY... After endless hours of researching here and other forums, I finally found the problem...

The ECT (Engine Coolant Temperature) sensor was bad. This sensor, was causing a sporadic idle, as well as the stutter and the engine dying while driving, it was worse under load. Apparently this sensor is linked to the fuel delivery and will cut fuel or add fuel to the mix depending on what temperature the sensor was reading. This is why I would experience the terrible stutter, lack of fuel.

But I am SO glad that I finally found this little bastard of a gremlin, especially because there was no check engine light and everything else that I had tried was not working. I had thoughts of engine swaps, or buying a new ECU, So glad that the fix was a $20 part.