My $ 500 two-wheel drive jeep was a beast off the road until it became terrifying

My $ 500 Jeep has no four-wheel drive, and yet on the off-road trails of Moab, Utah, she amazed me with her abilities. It was right up to the moment when, when I was alone on a track, it sank and my joy turned into terror.

In the morning after finally arriving in Moab after more than a week of traveling to over 45 MPH in my 1976 Jeep DJ-5D Dispatcher, I met some members of the owner's forum. Hummer called Hummer 4×4 Off-Road, who agreed to keep me on a trail. called Fins and Things.

Although it is an easier path for demanding non-drivers, it is a rocky and often steep terrain that can make many standard vehicles sweat, like the Jeep Grand Wagoneer of the last year. If Woody four-wheel drive was struggling on this road, how could my Jeep Postal Jeep two-wheel drive get a chance?

I hoped the answer would be in the upper geometry of the DJ-5.

The postal jeep leaves the road

In the off-road world, geometry is the rule, especially when crossing the "slick rock" offering the traction of a sand paper. The ground clearance, the small overhangs and the small exterior dimensions of the vehicle are the most important factors in terms of total capacity, as they determine the magnitude and height of the obstacles that are present in the vehicle. a vehicle can cross before metal-ground interference.

In this key zone, the DJ-5 is solid, with an approach angle of 43 degrees and a starting angle of 25 degrees. The short wheelbase of 81 inches means that the tilt angle is also good and that the body is quite high above the ground. The exterior dimensions, even with these idiotic mirrors, are tiny. The Jeep can go where the biggest off-roader can not.

It was this shape and size that gave me hope that even my rear-wheel-drive Jeep could climb like a billygoat. And it climbs:

As you can see in the video above, the Jeep is well behaved, although I had a problem with fuel delivery when I had problems. You may be surprised to learn that there are many of these off-road vehicles. Needless to say, my engine was often off, but it was not that bad compared to what happened to me with my drivetrain.

I climbed a few hundred meters on a steep slope and noticed that even with the accelerator pedal on the ground, the vehicle was crawling extremely slowly. Finally, I reached the top of the hill, I parked for a few moments, then I jumped into the drive to put myself in a position to take a little photo shoot. I've lightly pressed the gas, but the Jeep has not moved.

I pushed the gear selector forward in the opposite direction, but I did not feel any jerks crossing the driveline, as this tends to happen when the torque takes the game in the rear differential. I let go of the brake and started the engine, but the jeep remained motionless. At this point, I was confused.

The only other time I experienced this vehicle in gear and the engine running, but I never had the slightest power to reach the wheels, it was when the transmission was in the low state. There was a chance that the jeep leaked a bit, and I did not catch it, so I investigated:

At first, I could not tell how much liquid I had: it seemed that the oil was too high on the dipstick. But after some checking, I finally had a good reading, as shown in the video above, so Alex, who runs the forum Hummer, gave me a bottle of ATF, which I poured into the tube of gauge. I launched the Jeep in the drive, and we were back in business!

I continued on the trail and winter tires of the Jeep's 215 airy sections clung over the rocks, rarely lifting up thanks to the perfectly honed leaf springs of the small machine bolted to a set of solid axles . As it was two-wheel drive, only the rear axle was powered, but with both rear tires still on the rock, the Jeep simply continued to roll.

Until there.

After facing steeper slopes than I expected from this little DJ, I arrived at a rocky slope that would put my starting angle to a severe test. I slowly approached, taking the right lines to keep my tires on high rocks and my chassis well away from the field. Aside from maybe a slight scratch on my gas tank, the Jeep did it down without a problem. But once at the base, it was over.

The Jeep refused to move further, confirming my fear that the problem that had killed my transmission before was not just a case of lack of fluid. It did not matter how many times I passed in transmission mode, neutral or low: my Jeep was still and I needed a tow.

Alex hooked his strap to my front bumper and to the rear towing ring of his Hummer H3. It was sad and sad to see:

It's hard enough to pull a towing strap on a road, but when you climb a 45-degree slope with the tow rope loose, you'll only learn how to use the rope when you're in the middle of the level. That's not what you want to do.

Alex recovered very well, but I could have handled my brakes better, as my front bumper was subject to sudden jolts for most of the track.

Fortunately, I noticed that the transmission was not completely deadso on the steepest slopes, my Jeep Postal has been able to help you. Here is a short excerpt from the towing experience:

Once Alex, Steve (another forum member in his Colorado ZR2), and I took the path, we unhooked the strap and found that my Jeep seemed to roll on a horizontal road. But that left me with a dilemma: am I going back to Michigan now or can I break my way home and pinch myself and my tools to Moab trying to to leave off-road?

"I did not travel 1,800 miles to cover just a few hundred meters off-road," I said. I had to try again, but first, I had to do something about the transmission.

Night repairs in a pile of land with new friends

I did not know what was happening with my transmission. To be honest, I'm still not quite sure today. Even so, the fact that it seems to work better after letting it sit for a while would indicate that it was a thermal problem, a problem that I'm having. I had anticipated.

The Jeep is equipped with a fairly high first transmission ratio of 2.45: 1 and a rear axle ratio of 3.07: 1. This means that for these tires to transmit enough traction force on the rock to climb a slope, the engine has to do a good regime to generate torque. A hydraulic coupler called torque converter is what allows the engine to turn while the tires remain at a standstill (on a manual vehicle, the clutch performs this function). Unfortunately, in this case, the power of the motor is largely transformed into heat while the torque converter cuts the fluid, and too much heat is the main problem in transmission.

It was for this reason that I had planned to install an auxiliary transmission oil cooler on this small Jeep, but I found myself running out of time for more subtle tasks, like to make sure that the frame does not break or that the engine does not explode.

Fortunately, I brought with me a trans cooler in Moab, as well as a transmission oil filter and a new bowl gasket. I was persuaded that this cooler, pulled from a "ZJ" Grand Cherokee first-generation V8, would solve my overheating problem and turn my Postal Jeep into an off-road beast.

Steve, the ZR2 pilot who joined Alex and me on Fins and Things, was kind enough to let me install my cooler near his property, which consisted mainly of dirt and grass.

Unfortunately, he and a large part of his neighborhood had suffered a devastating fire last summer, and even though some of his neighbors had been able to build new homes since then, Steve was still rummaging through the details of insurance. . His house had burned, just like his Hummer H1.

Steve was staying in one of his neighbor's basements for now, and even though he barely knew me, he showed me a kindness I will never forget. He spent time with me for hours in this very dirty place, helping me to install my transmission cooler, to drop my oil pan, to replace the filter and the gasket and to pour out new oil.

At one point, I found that I did not have enough hose to plug in my gearbox cooler (you can see it in the photo above; it's zipped behind my grille in front of my radiator ), so Steve knocked on the door of a neighbor, who also came to introduce me, mended the hose and refused any payment.

It was not long before night fell and the rain began to fall. Visibility was poor and I was lying on my back under my jeep, covered with automatic transmission fluid – a situation that should have been unpleasant, especially after finding it in my oil pan:

You see that. It is a three-inch section of broken gauge, surrounded by a clearly contaminated liquid, metal shavings and a dent in the pan of the Interior. The previous owner apparently tried to braze some air vents to fill the hole, although I was not worried about it, it was the fact that something in the transmission had failed and to have slaughtered in this saucepan. It had asked me how long this transmission could hold.

It did not help that the filtering side of things did not look much better:

The pink color of the fluid indicates that water could have entered this transmission. But worse were the apparent metal chips in the filter:

While Steve and I were working on my mail jeep in the mud, a man named Bill stopped and asked if we needed lighting. In a short time, he pulled out a lamp connected to an extension cord heading for his house.

"Have you ever eaten?" He asked with his kind, relaxed, almost southern accent. I said everything was fine, but Bill came back a few minutes later with three delicious hot enchiladas, a bottle of water and a can of juice. Bill was hanging out with Steve and me in the mud; I was on my back under the car throwing ratchets as I listened to them talking about everything from politics to local news to the devastating fire ravaging the country around us. It should have been miserable, but it was kind of nice.

These two men had lost everything they owned and, even though they barely knew me, their generosity was what I expected from my close friends, even my family.

"Do you have a place to sleep tonight?" Bill shouted from his garden. "I'm just going to camp by the river," I said. Bill disappeared home and returned two minutes later. "Do you see this camper in my driveway? You can sleep in tonight. And as you can see in the picture above, that's what I did.

Bill even plugged in the power to charge my electronics, and he brought me breakfast the next morning. I can not thank him enough.

Off-road terror

With a gearbox cooler, a new fluid, and a new filter in place, the Jeep rolled beautifully, and Bill's caravan gradually got smaller in my rearview mirror as I headed for Fins and Things. I knew I had to try this track again, but this time, with this heat exchanger attached to my radiator, I was convinced I could kick him and maybe even sail his entire length. .

When I arrived there, the Jeep proved to be the total beast I was dreaming of.

My penchant for its excellent proportions, on this trail, would give it an off-road advantage even compared to the four-wheel drive Wagoneer that I'd been driving the previous year was totally okay.

The Postal Jeep's soft suspension was flowing over the rocks, and the Hankook winter tires were magnificently gripped by the relentless torque of the 232 AMC Inline-six grunted under the hood. tires that have climbed the slopes. The front bumper and the leaf spring shackle remained well clear of obstacles, and the rear bumper had only a few scratches as the small Jeep cube fell off the margins.

The gas tank had some scratches and the license plate, which I had mounted under the rear bumper, was battered thoroughly but hung by a wire.

But, a few moments later, the immense joy of driving a vehicle that my friends and I had resurrected – to look at the suspension that I fixed held beautiful, the frame that I welded held strong and the engine that I repaired kept breaking. long – stopped abruptly.

I arrived at one of the steepest slopes of the entire trail and made the decision: am I trying or going back, I thank for the luck I had present and start my 1,800 km trip to Michigan? As you can see in the video above, I went, but I was quick to realize that it was a terrible decision.

As the Jeep descended the level, its sliding doors creaked and trembled as the tall, sleek, slender body swayed back and forth. The brakes creaked a little while preventing the Jeep from accelerating along the rock wall, but no part of the body touched the surface. The descent may not have been graceful, but it's downright easy for the DJ.

But at the base of this obstacle was another steep slope. I stopped at the place indicated above and put my foot on the accelerator pedal to load the slope. Nothing. I've reversed the Jeep: zero.

The giant smile that had been welded to my face during the previous hour instantly disappeared and I felt a deep sense of regret in my bowels. "I'm so stupid," I gasped, placing my right hand on my forehead. I had broken the fundamental rule of off-roading: I had gone alone on a trail and now I'm stuck with a stationary iron oxide cube of 2,600 pounds and it's impossible to get out .

Some ATVs are past, but their occupants were tourists with very little off-road experience and no strap to shoot me. Most hard-road Jeepers had left since the end of the Easter Jeep Safari. Even if they had not done it, it would have taken a winch to get me up this steep slope that I had just shot down.

It was around 11 o'clock. At that time, and the Hummer group that had been guarding me the day before was on a trail that was not supposed to end until the evening. They will not save me. Nobody was going to save me. I was alone, tasked with solving not only the problem of the Jeep's exit, but also finding all my tools and myself halfway across the country to return to Michigan, in case the trans of the Jeep would have been permanently destroyed. I felt a deep sense of helplessness and fear when I sat thoughtfully in my hot jeep.

I could no longer see the beauty in the endless redrock or the snow-capped mountains in the background. This beautiful place which, for years, represented for me pure happiness, has become gray and does not mean anything to me; I was only concerned about fixing the situation in which I was.

I had no choice, really: I had to go up the Jeep. To do this, I let the Jeep cool for 20 minutes and, while the transmission was now working to a certain extent, I tried to crawl to the center, but to no avail. As shown in the video above, I did not even manage to cross the steep part of the obstacle before the trans failed.

I waited another 10 minutes and I tried again. The transmission has failed again. Then I tried a third time and, just when the transmission started to stop, I hit a bump and the engine stopped. I immediately started to roll back, so I quickly spread my foot and pressed the left pedal. The brakes froze and the Jeep slid on the rock in the steep slope. I could not see what was behind me, I held out for life, while the Jeep was chirping downhill (some tires being more adherent than others). Sliding backwards obliquely on a steep rocky slope was absolutely terrifying.

After being stopped at the base of the level, I tried to sort out my problem of fuel supply by placing a jerrycan under the hood and feeding it from the inlet hose of the fuel pump. That did not solve my engine failure problem (I bet the carburetor is the culprit), but the good news is that after playing with my fuel system and leaving the car cool for 20 minutes, I managed to climb the Jeep "Bypass" less steep.

I do not know if this was officially part of the trail, but it was just a rocky wall without vegetation and it was my only choice. I had to get down fins and things.

The feeling of accomplishment when I finally invented this seemingly unbelievably steep slope was huge.

But the terror was not over.

After climbing each level, I had to make sure to let the Jeep sit down before trying another slope. With at least 10 minutes of recovery and the trail filled with slopes, I rode the Jeep for hours.

Finally, I became impatient and worried about the health of my transmission, so I took advantage of the slowdown to help on the slopes. This, in the off-road world, is a terrible idea. Rock high speed crawling is ideal for specially designed Ultra4 machines, not for $ 500 shitboxes with old narrow leaf springs and frames patched with a Harbor Freight welder.

But I went for that. I let go of the brakes in the descents and tried to avoid the jagged rocks while climbing the climbs. Despite the fact that I have carefully chosen the lines on these slopes, I have conquered the ever-alive shit of this Junkyard-type mail delivery vehicle.

The POStal project hit and jumped down the slopes, snuck up against the rocks and flamed up the slopes. The Jeep apparently shouted mercy as its rusty metal structure groaned with each impact. During what seemed like an eternity, I forced the Jeep to make me guilty across the trail. I felt bad about what I was doing with a vehicle that had graciously taken me from Michigan to Utah.

But then we succeeded.

I've bypassed the Jeep looking for damage, but I found only traces on the fuel tank and a curved registration plate. Dazed, I went back into the jeep and drove to the east.

The nerves soothed, I did not see the landscape in grayscale. The mounds, mesas and arches on the deserted roads of the Utah countryside fascinated me with their bright orange color and, as I passed by, I could not help but realize how much I had luck.

I had ventured off-road alone into a vehicle that had never been designed for off-road use and had suffered from transmission and fuel delivery issues the day before. But I had to fix it and I felt confident. Too confident. It was silly, especially since I understood the risks. It was the fourth of my adventures in Moab, and I spent many years tearing and thinking outside the box. I was ready to find a way to get the Jeep off the trail and fix it or scrap it, and I was ready to find a new way to return to Michigan.

It would have been a huge problem and I did not know how I would have done it. This is why I felt this feeling of dread when the transmission failed at the base of the sharp decline. I never felt in danger, I felt deeply, deeply screwed. Take a lesson from me not to do something like this for yourself. Fortunately, I have succeeded, but it is not something I would like to do again. I've lost too much life expectancy to stress alone.