On the last trail run my truck made an odd noise. I was sure I had blown one of the header gaskets or a collector gasket. It was in the middle of a long climb so I figured I'd investigate when we got to level ground. It went away before that and I have no idea what it was.
So I know the feeling. Probably comes with old trucks running on a bunch of different parts that are custom and from various other vehicles. I guess.
I remember wheeling with a buddy of mine and his engine was knocking something fierce. We said screw it if it blows it blows. As we were driving along it suddenly got quiet but he was still driving. We all stop to take a look at the next obstacle and this guy walks up with a crank pulley in his hand and gave it to my buddy and said it flew off a ways back. Good times.
Crazy noises are creepy noises. I’m just glad it went away.
I’ve had stories like that from way back in the day with my Jeep. that was 12 years ago.
Come to think of it, it’s been that long since I’ve done any legitimate wheeling.
And I haven’t done a shakedown run on the truck yet.
This is gonna be great.






On a different note, I whipped up some bumpstop extensions for the front:
Really, what I should have done, was cut off the shock mounts at the axle and welded new ones lower on the axle tube. The way this first revision of the shock mounting ended up, only gives me about 3.5” of shock extension at ride height, from a 14” long travel shock. I could probably get a couple more inches by lowering the axle shock mount. But alas, I didn’t have time, so I have to take it out of the bump travel, so I hopefully don’t bottom out my shocks.


