Gretchen's 11/22/2009

[Technohead]

A group of us from Ocean State Jeepsters wheeled Gretchen's on Sunday. Gretchen's is private land that is open to member clubs of the NEA4WD and is about the closest thing to wheeling utopia that I have ever seen. Trails range from "easy" to "extreme". There is an easy/moderate loop trail with difficult and extreme trails branching off. Its a really nice set up for groups with vehicles ranging from nearly stock to highly modified since everybody can pretty much hang together. My friend Brian is an OSJ prospect and brought his new JK out for the club initiation. I convinced him to get some sliders but the vehicle was completely stock otherwise. He was doing OK for a while; the factory limited slips were actually working very nicely, at least until the front differential grenaded! Welcome to the club Brian!! And good thing you are under warranty. On to the pictures:











Somehow managed to get through here without any body damage. At one point there was only 1/4" of clearance between the tree and door handle. That stump is what saved me; once the front tire hit the stump it pushed me away from the tree:



This is one of the extreme sections. Photo is taken from the main trail. You can see places where buggies riding 44's scraped on the rocks:





This is where Brian smoked his front differential:



Took quite a bit of heavy lifting to get him back out to the field in 2wd. In this photo we had just winched him over an obstacle on the "easy" trail and a big rock (visible under passenger door) decided to come along for the ride:



A few videos:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...4EAC35438309B4

The snow should start flying soon so this could be the last wheeling trip until spring.

[CTeunuch]

looks like a good time. id love to head there some time. are you a member of any other clubs, or just osj?

[ELLLLLIOTTTTT]

Nice pics, I really like your front bumper.

[Technohead]

After a few weeks of dicking around my friend Brian finally got his JK fixed. First trip to the dealership they diagnosed a bad driveshaft and replaced that. This was after I told him to tell them the front differential had grenaded. So he got it back the first time and tried it out in 4hi during some recent snow and nothing. Back to the dealer. Here is what they found:





Splines were twisted and one of the spider gears is cleaned right off.

What a bunch of idiots at that dealer. Brian told me the mechanic was saying things like he must have been going really fast and/or tried to shift into low range while moving. Coming from a mechanic that completely misdiagnosed the failure on the first trip to the garage (and obviously never tested the first "fix") such comments are ludicrous. The truth is that Brian was hung up on a rock and the gear grenaded under relatively mild loading (especially compared to what the rest of us were doing).

What's more, Brian told the mechanic that it happened going over a rock to which the reply was Jeep's are trail rated not rock rated. Ummm, hellooooo . . . can anybody say Rubicon!