I busted a motor mount on the Little White YJ on Sunday, but I had fun doing it!
A friend from Upstate NY contacted me about guiding a group of 3 Jeeps from up north on their field trip to RC. We had a stock 2009 JK Rubicon on 32's, a locked TJ on 33's, and a TJ Rubicon on 37's... so, once again I was in the smallest Jeep!
With only 4 Jeeps, we covered a lot of ground on all 3 properties. We hit some of the Green favorites, like "O", 14, J, the 101 trail and the Hills. Took the 2 big Jeeps to some of the black hill climbs and to the Big Rocks. After the JK driver got more confident in what his Jeep could do, we hit Blue trail #15. He ended up very pleased with the capability of his new Jeep, and now has some beauty marks on his skid plates! The highlight of the day for me was to make it up one of the steep rocky hill climbs at Crawler Ridge!
I walked up as a spotter for the 2 big Jeeps, so I got to survey several different lines. Thinking back to some schooling on black hill climbs with open diffs (Thanks Ted), I said, "I can do this" and backed up from the bypass and proceeded to make it all the way to the top... without the aid of a winch or tug strap!
I bounced around a bit on some of the big rocks going up and lost the top half of the driver's side motor mount, but that didn't stop me from surmounting a pretty big challenge for my little Jeep! ( I know this isn't a really big deal to some of the folks reading this, but wheeling a 4 banger YJ with stock drive train, open diffs, 2.5" of lift, and 31's can be a challenge... even on the blue trails. Tackling a rocky black hill climb in this set-up had me pretty stoked!)
