2nd Gen RAM general discussion/NON-tech This section is for general discussions about your 2nd gen RAM. Non tech related RAM threads belong here.

The Official 2nd Gen RAM Forum OT thread

Thread Tools
 
Search this Thread
 
Old Mar 9, 2011 | 12:57 PM
  #2361  
zman17's Avatar
zman17
Retired Moderator - RIP
Joined: May 2008
Posts: 18,729
Likes: 17
From: NH
Default

This is what I'm doing when mine fails. http://www.solidsteel.ca/Trackbar.htm
 
Old Mar 9, 2011 | 12:57 PM
  #2362  
dsertdog56's Avatar
dsertdog56
Record Breaker
Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 1,822
Likes: 0
From: Just south of nowhere in Oklahoma
Default

Originally Posted by Silver_Dodge
Ya, that's the advantage of going with those rebuildable track bar replacements. They still wear out, but they can at least be rebuilt. Who made yours dsertdog?

Once I was wrong...then I found out i was only mistaken!

Apparently the place still exists, or they have a web "page'...


http://www.bellefourche.com/lindstad/

BTW... potential detractors should note that I've had this bar on my truck since 2003 and have logged a fair amount of miles with it. I've adjusted the slack 3 times since then.
The last time I removed the ball end from the mount to replace a now since torn again juck azzed dorman boot, I heard the rubber end bushing rip...kinda like a raw steak being torn in two.. It had been dry rotted.

Apologies for the thread jack
 
Old Mar 10, 2011 | 12:13 AM
  #2363  
olyelr's Avatar
olyelr
Record Breaker
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 2,032
Likes: 1
From: Elk Rapids, MI
Default

Originally Posted by dsertdog56
...kinda like a raw steak being torn in two..

That would be some WTF kind of power to perform such a task, wouldnt it?






 
Old Mar 10, 2011 | 02:48 AM
  #2364  
ColoradoRamLover's Avatar
ColoradoRamLover
Veteran
Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 337
Likes: 0
From: Colorado
Default

Originally Posted by UnregisteredUser
Wow -- I did a major doubletake on that photo. I put my '78 Cherokee in a similar spot in 1990 in the Utah. Backing out when the road pinched out was a real bitch.
Youve been in a situation like that?!?


Thats a real photo right? Man, I would be chittying bricks man if I was in that situation. Oh and thanks camera man for moving the rocks haha
 
Old Mar 10, 2011 | 08:42 AM
  #2365  
UnregisteredUser's Avatar
UnregisteredUser
Grand Champion
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 5,011
Likes: 6
From: Meeker, CO
Default

Originally Posted by ColoradoRamLover
Youve been in a situation like that?!?
Oh yeah. On (actually just off of) Skyline Drive in Utah, which runs along the top of the Wasatch Plateau. We (just two of us in my '78 Cherokee) encountered an unpassable ice fall on Skyline, so hauled out the map to find a way around it. There was a road that went down a canyon behind us, and another road up another canyon that reached Skyline a few miles ahead, so off we went.

It turned out that the top of the road was all kinds of fouled up by the shepherds moving in earlier in the year, with snowmelt flowing in muddy ruts that were deeper and wider than my 33x12's, so we had to be very careful making our way down about a mile or so of switchbacks to lose the first couple hundred feet in elevation. Then it was pretty easy cruising with an early lunch break in the middle until we hit the piece on the cliff face that got narrower and rockier as we went. My buddy walked ahead moving rocks and checking clearance until we got pinched up just like in that photo. Heck, that photo might be the same place for all I know -- it was just like that, vertical on both sides and a long way to the bottom. I climbed out the passenger window and over the hood to walk the next stretch which was the very last of what we'd been able to see from above with binoculars...

... and found that the road was close to if not impassable all the way down to where the forest had grown over it. They weren't saplings in the road, but trees from six inches to a foot in diameter. Small enough for pines but nothing I was going to push over with my front bumper, and it would have taken days and more 2-stroke oil than I had on hand to clear the road with the Stihl.

After a few minutes of standing there feeling deep regret I crawled back in, my buddy crawled in the passenger window and out the back window, and we spent the next two hours or so backing out very, very carefully with my buddy spotting (and not going with me if I went over the edge). It was stressful enough that we both felt the need to take breaks from time to time. There were a few spots where I had to inch around a curve going back and forward several times with minor adjustments of the steering wheel to keep the front outside wheel from going over the edge, and in one of those spots, slightly off camber to the outside (of course!) a chunk of rock face fell from under the wheel and down the cliff. There was no jumping out to save my life anyway, so I stood on the brakes and hoped for the best. Luckily it didn't fall to the frame and I was able to back off with my *** biting the seat cover.

Thankfully it was after that stretch that the part-time converted Quadra-Trac transfer case let go, sticking us in two wheel drive. I'd have never got out of that cliff-hanger in 2WD. As it was, stuck in 2WD (with a 2-Lo, thankfully!), it took us over eight hours to clear the top switchback. The ruts kept catching the Jeep when the front tires (Goodyear Wrangler M/T's) packed with mud and slid into them, then the whole shebang would slide on the skid plates back to the bottom of the switchback, leaving us to jack and fill to get out and try again. We essentially rebuilt the road there by filling the ruts with rocks and branches, and made our last and successful run just as it got full dark.

It was going to be our last run of the day anyway because my jack failed on the last jack and fill operation and my climbing pin kit was at home in the garage. (Ever since, I keep a pin kit on board at all times. Once bitten...) It would have been a helluva day two if we'd been stuck having one.

We didn't get any photos in the cliff section, but I think I've got one or two looking down at it from above that I might post after we get our stuff out of storage in a month or two.
 
Old Mar 10, 2011 | 01:01 PM
  #2366  
drewactual's Avatar
drewactual
Champion
Joined: Aug 2010
Posts: 2,697
Likes: 3
From: Cape Carteret NC
Default

Unreg,

I swear to little baby Jesus in a tuxedo shirt, if that had been my truck I would have reported it stolen...
 
Old Mar 10, 2011 | 02:23 PM
  #2367  
Annihilator_X9's Avatar
Annihilator_X9
Captain
Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 609
Likes: 1
From: Grand Rapids, MI
Default

Originally Posted by drewactual
Unreg,

I swear to little baby Jesus in a tuxedo shirt, if that had been my truck I would have reported it stolen...
Haha, this made me LOL. I think I would have done that too.
 
Old Mar 10, 2011 | 06:50 PM
  #2368  
UnregisteredUser's Avatar
UnregisteredUser
Grand Champion
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 5,011
Likes: 6
From: Meeker, CO
Default

Originally Posted by drewactual
I swear to little baby Jesus in a tuxedo shirt, if that had been my truck I would have reported it stolen...
What would be the fun in that? I've always loved a good adventure. As Jimmy Buffett sings it, I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead.
 
Old Mar 10, 2011 | 06:57 PM
  #2369  
ColoradoRamLover's Avatar
ColoradoRamLover
Veteran
Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 337
Likes: 0
From: Colorado
Default

Originally Posted by UnregisteredUser
Oh yeah. On (actually just off of) Skyline Drive in Utah, which runs along the top of the Wasatch Plateau. We (just two of us in my '78 Cherokee) encountered an unpassable ice fall on Skyline, so hauled out the map to find a way around it. There was a road that went down a canyon behind us, and another road up another canyon that reached Skyline a few miles ahead, so off we went.

It turned out that the top of the road was all kinds of fouled up by the shepherds moving in earlier in the year, with snowmelt flowing in muddy ruts that were deeper and wider than my 33x12's, so we had to be very careful making our way down about a mile or so of switchbacks to lose the first couple hundred feet in elevation. Then it was pretty easy cruising with an early lunch break in the middle until we hit the piece on the cliff face that got narrower and rockier as we went. My buddy walked ahead moving rocks and checking clearance until we got pinched up just like in that photo. Heck, that photo might be the same place for all I know -- it was just like that, vertical on both sides and a long way to the bottom. I climbed out the passenger window and over the hood to walk the next stretch which was the very last of what we'd been able to see from above with binoculars...

... and found that the road was close to if not impassable all the way down to where the forest had grown over it. They weren't saplings in the road, but trees from six inches to a foot in diameter. Small enough for pines but nothing I was going to push over with my front bumper, and it would have taken days and more 2-stroke oil than I had on hand to clear the road with the Stihl.

After a few minutes of standing there feeling deep regret I crawled back in, my buddy crawled in the passenger window and out the back window, and we spent the next two hours or so backing out very, very carefully with my buddy spotting (and not going with me if I went over the edge). It was stressful enough that we both felt the need to take breaks from time to time. There were a few spots where I had to inch around a curve going back and forward several times with minor adjustments of the steering wheel to keep the front outside wheel from going over the edge, and in one of those spots, slightly off camber to the outside (of course!) a chunk of rock face fell from under the wheel and down the cliff. There was no jumping out to save my life anyway, so I stood on the brakes and hoped for the best. Luckily it didn't fall to the frame and I was able to back off with my *** biting the seat cover.

Thankfully it was after that stretch that the part-time converted Quadra-Trac transfer case let go, sticking us in two wheel drive. I'd have never got out of that cliff-hanger in 2WD. As it was, stuck in 2WD (with a 2-Lo, thankfully!), it took us over eight hours to clear the top switchback. The ruts kept catching the Jeep when the front tires (Goodyear Wrangler M/T's) packed with mud and slid into them, then the whole shebang would slide on the skid plates back to the bottom of the switchback, leaving us to jack and fill to get out and try again. We essentially rebuilt the road there by filling the ruts with rocks and branches, and made our last and successful run just as it got full dark.

It was going to be our last run of the day anyway because my jack failed on the last jack and fill operation and my climbing pin kit was at home in the garage. (Ever since, I keep a pin kit on board at all times. Once bitten...) It would have been a helluva day two if we'd been stuck having one.

We didn't get any photos in the cliff section, but I think I've got one or two looking down at it from above that I might post after we get our stuff out of storage in a month or two.
That is.... TOO CRAZY! Like I said, I would be ****ting bricks......


The closest thing Ive ever been in a situation like that was on a pass around Silverton. How our 04, non lifted all stock hemi fitted on that part of the pass idk. Because there were 3 vehicles(an old *** truck(like 30's?), a 70's somethin truck and a old cherokee too I believe) at the bottom. Pretty scary.
 
Old Mar 10, 2011 | 07:04 PM
  #2370  
drewactual's Avatar
drewactual
Champion
Joined: Aug 2010
Posts: 2,697
Likes: 3
From: Cape Carteret NC
Default

Originally Posted by UnregisteredUser
What would be the fun in that? I've always loved a good adventure. As Jimmy Buffett sings it, I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead.
I hear ya dude.. I'm all about an adventure, and put my neck out there all the time- but i relate your story more to fast roping 90' off the deck, rappelling 100+', HALO'n, or even diving more than 45'.. it isn't the act that puts the freak on me- it's having to trust a piece of gear.. I hate having to trust equipment to keep me alive..

I'd have put the dang thing there, and then humped my **** back to the villa and reported it stolen.. yup, that's what I'd have done..
 



All times are GMT -4. The time now is 05:40 PM.