YJ, I love you, man!!

Yeah, so the commando didn't work out, to say the least! I started stripping it down waaaayyyy back in May. Hall and I managed to the top off, seats out, and the whole front clip off. Basically everything was rusted on so we just cut and hit with a BFH til it broke off. I didn't mind at the time cause I was planning on using a CJ front clip anyway. However, one fateful night I started playing with tearing down the engine, my prized possession, only to find out there was coolant leaking from the block. Oh my, a truly nasty crack in the block. Well, needless to say, I was BEYOND pissed. I had a company come down and just tow it away...bye bye Commando
Luckily, I still had the Wrangler. It was no offroad miracle, but it impressed me. I had never liked Wranglers after only owning CJs and the Commando. I hate the square grille, I hate how low it was to the ground, I hate the autohubs, and most of all, I hate the fact that EVERYONE has them!! Yet, I bought one anyway...hahaha. I had owned it since the 1st of March and the only thing I had done to it was mount the FREE tires Hall gave to me from his old cherokee. Actually, his cherokee was such an important part of my offroad experience that I have decided to talk about it:

Halls Cherokee: A walk down memory lane :)


Hall bought his cherokee way back in the day, 1998 I'm gonna have to guess. It was a 1988 laredo with an auto tranny, np242 full time tcase and by far, the most beastly vehicle ever. The first thing H did to it was add brand new 30" BFG AT's. With these tires, his Jeep would go just about anywhere. we all watched as the paint was slowly stripped from the sides :) Hall would like to mention that he removed the rear sway bar (front at one point too) so it articulated like a bastard. He drilled 2 100 watt KCs onto the stock roof rack and got pulled over by a statey after blinding one of our friends with them at a major intersection. After he had it about a year, he sank the Jeep past the doors and the engine was hurting. Luckily, he took it for an oil change and the moron mechanics forgot to fill it back up with oil before they started it...can you say free engine? So the cherokee was back in action. After another year and a half of hardcore offroading and high revs from brake stands, the cherokees poor engine started to sound like a diesel. In fact, that became the cherokee's nickname. One day, Hall wa racing our friend JT in his YJ, doing circles around the pits. He couldn't get the Tcase out of 4wd so they took it to a mechanic...yup, busted tcase. They removed the chain from the tcase so the cherokee was permanently 2wd. Finally, all the warning lights were on in the Jeep and H decided to sell it because it was no longer offroad worthy :( The Jeep was sold for 700 to a priest the next town over. Yup, we're all goin to hell :(

Anyway, back to my Jeep. I took her offroad for the first time in May. My friend MJ and I had been working on the Commando and Hall and Cath stopped by to see how it was going (and it wasn't going too well). It was night time, I was sick of the commando and there was nothing to do...hmmm...what to do...Let's offroad!!! So we all piled into the Wrangler, which at the time only had a set of Autozone 55 watt offroad lights and the balding 30" BFG ATs that H gave to me. The only place we knew of at the time to offroad was of course the Weymouth Pits. As I was driving over there, H pointed out that last time he was there, the gate was closed and locked so they couldn't get in. Luckily, we knew of a second entrance behind the local elementary school. As I pulled up to the entrance, there was a huge rock blocking the way. We jumped out in an illegal attempt to move the rock but it was way too big. Silly people, they just don't get how purposeful a Jeep is...I managed to squeeze by with the rock on one side and a tree on the other. Perfect fit. We continued down a long trail to pits. Funny thing is...we didn't recognize ANYTHING when we got there. Someone had begun to build in the pits and had completely torn it apart. MJ tried running over a hill to see what was on the other side and as he made his way up, he fell flat on face and cut himself up.

We gave up on the entrance and decided to go to the main entrance cause we knew that area much better. We drove back out with no problem and got to the main entrance. The gate was open but there were more rocks in the way. So we all jumped out again and tried to move it - yeah, it takes a couple of time for us to get it. The rock didn't move at all, although MJ swears is budged -- I don't think so. I managed to squeeze by it on the left side but there was a large ditch and tree if I went to far to the left so I took it nice and slow. After getting past that obstacle, we roamed around the pits for awhile. We couldn't believe how much it had changed. The huge hill that I have pictures of us standing on top of was just completely gone and there was trash and metal scrap everywhere. The trails through the woods had been run down so it was just an open field of brush and large rocks. We left a little confused but we would return later to figure things out...

A couple of days later, JT took his Wrangler TJ and I drove my YJ back to the pits. MJ and Hall rode along with us. I was trying to get H to bring his Cherokee but he thought it wouldget stuck too easy - by that time it was down to 2wd and the emissions light had come on about 5 minutes before he got to my house. We got to the pits and went through the main entrance and around the rock. It was unbelievably dry and dusty. I climbed this huge sand hill behind JT and couldn't see a thing except for his brake lights at the top. We drove around a little, just checking things out. As we turned one corner, we saw a small house - what the freak?! A small HOUSE in the pits?! Das WACK!! Suddenly this angry white trash guy came running out of his house at us so we threw it in reverse and hauled ass out of there. The pits were now off limits :( We would go back to check it out a couple more times but since then, we have moved on :)

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