Fording or Drowning?

SFJ 4x4 Studios presents

In my oversized four-wheel drive Jeep

A Jeep podcast starring industry experts

Cure monocity

What? Say that again!

With mad scientist Scott Brown

I use my drill press as a sort of lathe

Our host, Neil Simpson

If one light goes on they all go out

Phil Bruce Shenanigans

We are really professional with Jeeps

This is I Speak Jeep

SFJ 4x4 Studios presents

In my oversized four-wheel drive Jeep

A Jeep podcast starring industry experts

Cure monocity

What? Say that again!

With mad scientist Scott Brown

I use my drill press as a sort of lathe

Our host, Neil Simpson

If one light goes on they all go out

Phil Bruce Shenanigans

We are really professional with Jeeps

This is I Speak Jeep

Good morning, afternoon, evening

Wherever however you are joining us

And the goat was included today

We got that for you

We're doing stuff

My name is Neil with SFJ 4x4

Simpson Family Jeeps

And he's sure of that

And I'm sure of the production value of the podcast

Despite the fact that Jeffrey has once again bailed on us

I don't hold it against him

He's a very busy dude as well these days

I'm joined in Grandma's couch studio

Even though Mother Nature tried to blow us away last night

Madest mad scientist Scott Brown

And trying to source vintage drive line parts

And help paint and color vintage drive line

It's already being a Monday

It is such a Monday

It's a Monday is Monday

But we had the goat and we started on time

Despite the fact that Nathan is saying we didn't

Jump to our comments

Nathan is saying Carpe Diem

I'm here to Diem all the Carpe

Carpe the Diem

Billy Joe good morning

Rob happy Monday or something

He had a very busy weekend with the Bantam

Trail individuals

Jeanie saying good morning

Happy to be here

Bradford

Has a word

On the comments

Folks us

Us would got to

Something canoe ride

I got no idea what Bradford's talking about

I gotta be honest with you

Not only can I not pronounce a lick of the word

That he's mentioning

I don't even know what he's talking about

Canoe rides in the middle of

We're good with jeeps not with other languages

Right now the Midwest

The authentic Midwest

Is about to prepare for 24 plus inches of snow

We're gonna get a slushing

And Bradford's talking about canoeing

I don't know

Geaka Jeepers good morning everyone

Nathan trying to claim we're late

Not true at all I started

Exactly at 1019

Joe good morning Mitch good morning

And Rob saying

Good morning Neil and Scott

And Jeanie saying she

Well she's a Jeep person she's enjoying watching you

Build your car on your social page

I appreciate that

And as always we encourage people

To you know jump on

One or both of our

Social pages depending on your

Interest

And Bradford is

Talking about a river in New York

Which I mean it

Sounds great because there's a lot of Native American

It's funny as I deal

Let me just throw my mic into my face

Absolutely

As we deal with so many vendors from

You know the west coast the east coast

And north to south

Everybody's always kind of blown away

At our Native American inspired

Words which of course

From folks who are from this area

We don't think anything of it you know

They're just normal words to us

They're just normal words to us right

If you're going to New York there's some really

Crazy ones

Yes

And that's I mean that's

That's 100% the case because

I'm telling you this

I'm going to spell it for people who are at home

I'm going to spell it because I

Because I feel like you need to participate

With me and I

Feel like somebody you know should like

Phonetically have this

So Bradford is talking about a river

O S

W E

G A

T C

G I

E

There was entirely too many vowels next to

Consonants and consonants next to vowels

Or you know consonants next to consonants

With that said I do enjoy

You know when you're talking to someone out of the area

And they try to say coniat

And you hear canute

All kinds of weird stuff comes out of their mouths

Without question

And

And John Graber's jumping in

He's saying enjoy the winter

And he's down off-roading in the southwest

Last I knew

And high of 106

On Thursday

And he said enjoy

And Mitch says we happen to get 36 inches

Of snow he's upstate Michigan

There which is they're talking about

Two to four feet for some areas

Wow

Just wow for everybody

And I know we have a demographic

In Florida who are just laughing their

Hines off at us right now

They bask in their 80 degree weather

Which would be lovely

Uh huh

I hear that harassment

Anywho folks we're going to be talking about

Forting

Which may or may not be appropriate

With the melt of the snow in the north

But

Coming wheeling season

In general

As always Scott will jump us off

With some of the vintage inspired stuff

We'll see how he relates this back

If he doesn't relate as far back enough

I certainly have some

You know some

Conversation there

And then if you're interested

To know what's happening in our personal lives

Hang out through the outro

Credit scene

And we'll tell you about our

Our weekend updates

And you know other shenanigans

In the process

So where are we going to start

On 40 and maybe

The inspiration of conversation here

Well I would let everyone down

If I didn't go back far enough

So you had to make sure your horse was

Liking water

And then you shouldn't go past the head of the horse

No they swim

Horses swim

Well it depends on how fat the guy is on the back

You're telling me my horse sinks

That is what we're saying

I think you're doing pretty good

So anyways

Moving up from the horse

We went to

I could do

Model T's

And all that kind of stuff

I'm going to write to MB's

Which they're saying about 21 inches

Is when you're maxed out

When did an MB come out for those of our Jeep owners

Who are new air listeners

41

We're in the 40's

This water forwarding depth

Jeep has ever had

Just to set the benchmark

Next one that I kind of

We had duck boats at the time though

We did

But they float

You had amphibious vehicles

Which was an amazing industrial time

Globally

Because there was this attempt

To have these tanks

That swam

And they did have the Ford version

Of the Jeep

The GPA

Which was general purpose amphibious

And that was a small

Boat with a Jeep inside of it

But I don't think that's really forwarding

Because it's a boat

It's floating on the water

Right

Because they couldn't

They didn't have the technology

I don't want to say they didn't have the forethought

Because I'm always amazed at how incredible those

Engineers, how incredible those

Inventors must have been

At the time

But because of a

Different approach

They thought they should float on the water

Versus drive through it

Yes, 100%

And I think too

We just overbuilt everything

So you just expected

To kind of be real conservative

On what your recommendation was

Knowing everyone was going to push

The envelope well past

Sure

Just really go crazy

So

Next one I worried about

Was the M38

That's kind of the KodiGRA

Of the flat fender

And that is 30 inches

Which you'll see a trend here

From there on in

But the fun one is

With the forwarding kit

So we had done stuff in World War II

Enough that someone was like

Hey, the next military jeep

Needs to be like

Serious

If I'm not in scuba gear

In my jeep

Am I really forwarding?

Okay, but I think that, I think

And this is completely arbitrary

I think it's because we had this

This expectation

We were going to float

And then we realized that maybe floating

Wasn't particularly effective

Because pioneer days

We attempted to float the wagons

They would

Go to your horse and

Buggy conversation

They would

Point or putty

The wagons so that they could float the wagons

But the problem with that of course

Is a cross current

You're not where you were anymore

No, you're not going from

Point A to point B down the river

You had to figure out how to drift

With the river because

Trig, you had to use trig to figure out where you were going

You had to use trigonometry

Stop it

I definitely know

Those guys out in the western

Yeah, that's exactly

What they were doing

That's exactly what they were doing

But they were trying to float all the time

And I

Dying on my hill to cross

Regarding how we

As humans approach solving situations

That's what we knew, we knew floating

And then floating wasn't working

Because these big heavy military

Equipment wasn't floating very well

Yes, especially when you get a couple

Of holes in them from enemies

From enemies, we're no longer floating

This, or the duck boats

And I got to say

Joggiepers

David Joggiepers was like

Wait a second, so they got, they put a

Jeep on a duck

It was a tiny duck

Yeah, well it was a big

It was a big boat

But there is some, there is something to be said

Compared to an actual duck

Which those that don't know

The duck was a large

Like

Ton or bigger vehicle

Had

You know, six wheel, no

Two in the back, two axles in the back

One in the front, so

Yeah, six, six wheel drive

We're counting

Had to get my toes out to do that

Anyway

You could have put the GPA

In that vehicle

I mean, they're humongous

I've been lucky enough to actually

Been on one of those, not in the water

But in a garage

And it is amazing, now the GPA

They weren't very common

Maybe

The floating problem, I don't know

Well, there was a bunch of

Amphibious approaches in that era

Right, and they were not

Super successful, and

To my knowledge, and of course

I don't, oh man, I read something not too long ago

But Pittsburgh was

Had a prolific duck boat

Tour, there was actually a number of cities

That

As a business model, they got a surplus of

Ducks, yeah, and

It was super cool, I always

Wanted to do it, but it's kind of an expensive

Like for two hours

It was like 40 or 50 bucks

And these are not the landing craft

That everyone talks about with D-Day

That is yet something else

That is yet something else, I'm with you

Okay, so let me stop

From that quick sidebar, so anyway

So now we need to actually sync the Jeep

So we're seven years in

From 41

To 48 is when the M38 came out

We decided

That we should do better

And now we can go to 74 inches

That is

6 foot

2 inches

Under water

That's with the deep water fording kit

And that was only because

We had gone

Everybody likes to do one

Extreme to the other

We had, you know, 6-volt

Crappy ignition

Didn't like water

All the way to the M38, we have special spark plugs

That are screwed

The leads are screwed on

So I had a waterproof ignition

It had

Little diagrams

Of where you put plugs before you went

Fording deep in the water

And where you didn't

It was actually in like a user manual

Or a military factory service manual

And you know when you got people that don't pay attention

You gotta have stickers, so there's literally stickers

On the dash that says

Make sure you put these plugs in

And when you remove them, put them here

And that kind of stuff

So they were serious, they went all in

The DOSC went up

The intake had a

Big riser

The vent tubes were metal reinforced

Rubber tubes

Yeah

The master cylinder

The brake master cylinder had a breather on it

I mean they really

Went

Off the rails

And I'd really like to know

How reliable this all was

Cause I doubt it

I would love to know

And in what capacity, because at that point in time

To just fully

Iterate

When you are sitting in a Jeep

That was previously

The prior

Version of this was able to go to 21 inches

And

A generic rule

Was

To the rocker

To the height of the tires

Still use that

Basically to the rockers

When water starts to come in the Jeep

You're going to have a bad time

As general consensus

No matter what model

But basically, I mean it's my understanding

That as a generic rule

And this was

A bit of my experience growing up and whatnot

It was basically three quarters of the tire

The tire size you go to

Basically three quarters, that's your safety zone

You go beyond that, you're working at optimization

And then you go past

Optimization or potential

Now you're above your tires

You're in uncharted territory

You as the driver

Are fully submerged

You are underwater

Yourself

And I just

Now I want to jump

It was excessive

And I want to jump forward

I don't know about 75 years

In briefly

Mentioned Fred Williams' tube sock

And say we will talk about that

And now I want to go

Go back and what capacity

Was that military vehicle

In the late 40s

Ever subjected

In what terrain

How do you know what's on the bottom of this pond

Or lake or whatever

In tube sock situation they knew exactly it was on the

The bottom of this pond

They went in a pool

If I'm not mistaken

I don't remember

But regardless

Because actually I think the first time he tried to do it

In a pond and he actually like the muck

Sunk down to the bottom

And so he couldn't do it in the pond

Because this is the very conversation I'm having

Is at what point in time are you going

Six feet two inches underwater

And not being boulders

Rocks, mud, muck

Little shrubby bushy things

That want to drag you down

Absolutely, so I figure

Because I don't know the truth

I'm just going to make stuff up that sounds good

That's fair

You just had one

Deep forwarding

Equipped Jeep in your unit

And you picked the

The guy that would just do

Anything for you, the drive it

And you had him in the front

Of the pack

And when it just disappeared

You got another one

Later

And you didn't take the other

Jeeps there

Another GP

Or another Jeep

Whatever the requirement

There were so many guys enlisted in the military

At the time which is

God rest their souls

But I don't imagine they had

A surplus of these

Equipped Jeeps everywhere

Like I said I'd be surprised if

Probably a couple per unit

Would be my guess

Or something that they were expected

To install this kit

And I think

This is

Again this is a completely

Arbitrary based on my

Feeling statement

At this point in time

In my

Exposure to this world

We actually see quite a few 40 kit

Equipped Jeeps

I think it's because they never got used

I bet you they all got surplus

The GIs

Now they're taking the shows are excited

And it gets

People's attention

When the exhaust pipe is holler than your head

Then they get excited

Obviously all the Jeeps

Were equipped to allow

That 40 kit to be installed

But if they were used in great

Use mass

Please correct me but I would be shocked

To see them still relevant

To this day

Mainly because they didn't stick with it

They

Yes

Military vehicles are able to

Ford pretty deep

But I've never seen

A Humvee where people with

Scuba gear are driving it

I don't think this was

I think we had swung

The pendulum

From just crap

To 6 feet 2 inches

And they're like okay

Maybe

There's more of a proof of concept

Maybe we overreacted a little bit

Maybe we need to reign that back

All I can conceptualize

Is almost every Hollywood

Movie there's that moment where everybody's

Gearing up and they're like

Shoving the magazines

And the rifles and putting

18 guns up their back

Throwing some grenades on their

Belt and then they go down

Under the water and they all rise up together

Like a navy team

They're all seals

Right they're all seals

Rambo always does this

At no point in time have we ever seen a Hummer

In that scene

At no point in time do we

Like oh yeah I expect to see the Hummer

Equally slowly come up out of the water

Yeah and they did keep this

For the next model

The M38A1

I think it just had to because it was

Basically the derivoration of the

First Jeep they just put a CJ5

Body on it

And an F-head so they wanted

It to swim too just not L-heads

F-heads had to swim as well

But other than that I mean

Really don't think it went too

Far past that I would love to have a

Historian I mean an authentic

Historian out there

Kind of weigh in in some capacity

And be like this is when this

Skirmish was decided

By a semi

Aquatic

People mover Jeep

We all be asleep though

Stop it if they listen to us

Now they probably are asleep

But anyway so

I'm kind of

Impressed with Jeep with consistency

After all that

Hoopla

They pretty much decided

You know what 30 inches

30 inches is pretty good

So and obviously there's

All the disclaimers because it matters

On your model it matters

On your equipment so it's

Not one size fits most even though

This is like the word

But they do say

To the rocker panels

Don't go past that

I think they add all of that fluffed

Up language so that it gives them

An out when it actually comes

To warranty purposes

Correct I think the engineers

Like I can go to 30 inches

And the PR are like

Yeah legal way

It goes but

So and that's

From basically

Everything after the A1

All the way up to JLs

Now obviously JLs we broke

The mold and we had

To do things differently because now

We have different springs for different corners

And we have all this extra stuff

So we're

Still 30 inches for like

Basic

Run-of-the-mill JLs

And then we also could be

Depending on how it's option

So they're kind of flirting with

The idea of Rubicon but they're not really saying it

We're kind of 33.6

And then if you get one

Extreme recon

With the 35 stock

You can do 34 inches

So a whole 4 inches

I

For a lot of folks out there

4 inches is important

It's important

It's not about how many 4 inches you have

It's how you use those 4 inches

There's value in those 4 inches

To be a game changer

And obviously it's all general

Roll of thumb and

Once you have

Utilized your 30 inches

You have a work

List now

You have things you need

Well you should do

Because like Neil

Is already alluding to you have

Everything that can and will be in a puddle

Is now

In your Jeep in very

Tight intimate areas

And we're going to get into a little bit

Of that science and what not

And I do want to add

A piggyback off of what

Scott is sharing

That with the

With the advent of the 392

Because

Air flow becomes hyper

Critical

And that's the thing and if you

Listen to much of what I've said before

When customers ask us to do

V8 swaps

Air flow becomes one of the things

That we as a business have to

Be

Highly conscientious about

Heating and cooling of that engine

In an efficient manner

Becomes more important than ever and of course

If you create a production

Value vehicle

The engineers at Jeep Chrysler

Equally

Have to prioritize that

It's a lot different than doing a V8

Muscle car as I had shared

With Scott in the

You know kind of

The lead up to this

Podcast

Jeep still

Does advertise their fording depth

And they do give us a generic number

Which they know that we will push

But

If you were to go to

A Toyota dealership

As an example a Toyota Camry

I would be nice a taco

They're not going to tell you

What your TRD taco

What your fording depth is

And likewise

As a V8

Car from Dodge

They're not going to tell you

What your fording depth is for your V8

And they're not going to prioritize it

Whereas Jeep with the 392

Wrangler they did

At 32.5 inches and in fact

It's so hyper critical for air

Flow

They actually designed

It's own proprietary

Intake

The Hydra guide

So that the V8 can continue

To get the ample amount of air

That it needs

100%

In and out

Air flow in and out of your air pump

And it has

Four water drains off of it

And it

Basically

Even in the

Situation of a

Bow wake

Which will get to a little bit in the process of fording

And fording techniques

And if that wake was to

Push into the hood

Because it has a live time hood scoop

Yes

That you're good

That it's actually going to divert the water

And allow fresh air in

As your vehicle

Kind of processes

Through the water over the hood

And I cannot not talk about

My father-in-law when we talk about fording

Because while he was not

A Jeep guy in this

Era of his life

He was a Bronco guy

He had a couple

He was into cooler Broncos old school

Yeah it was a dense side Bronco

He bought brand new but anyway

He spent a lot of time in rivers

And streams and stuff

No he didn't

EPA anyway

It was the 70's things were rough

That was good to say it was a totally different world

But he had a weird

And fun concept

Because he had done so much of that

And talking about

Heating and cooling of your engine

His word was

If you dip the oil pan of the engine in the water

It runs a lot cooler

Yeah

So all you gotta do

To truck overheating

Just get that oil pan in the water

That was his thing

That was his word

And about bow

He had us prescribed

Entrance into the water

Procedure

You can't do it with

Zest and zeal

Because then you overcome the vehicle with water

You had to go in nice and slow

And for that bow

And you had to pay attention

When it bounced off the fending shore

And came back at you

Now

Absolutely

He had a whole science for this

And he would go down to like

Truck Nationals or any of that

Where they would go with water pits

And he would be the guy standing there

He used to run that wrong

Because you see how fast he went in there

And look at that bow

And he was right

You could watch it happen

And he's like he's gonna stop right there

And they were dead

And that was his thing

Because he had done it so much

And it's interesting

Because I genuinely

Feel like when we

The Harry Potter

Sorting hat of off-roaders

You have

You have a couple different groups

And actually we should probably do that as a podcast

Absolutely

And so I will not necessarily expand upon

That concept because

Write that down. Somebody remind me at the end of the podcast

I want to talk about the Harry Potter

Sorting hat of off-roaders

You

Find yourself to be a person who does

Or doesn't like water

And I

Really really really like

Water crossings

And we're very fortunate

Where

Our geography

We're around

Glacially

Created water ways

And that tends to give us

Kind of a slate

Or a hard rock

Water bed

That's a pretty even

Demeter

Where they were playing it's all shale bottom

It's hard bottom

And they literally had a road when we were kids

Called the Ford

That you drove across in the water

And if the water was rushing

Too much

You left the chat

You were downstream

And so it's valuable to take this moment

And kind of expand upon that

As part of our

American history

And it wasn't just us but we're fortunate enough

To have this direct experience

I actually saw a post

And I saw a post just this weekend

From somebody

Because the Ford is closed now

But

Back in the day and some of our listeners

From all over the country and I would encourage you

I love hearing from you

So feel free to text us or shoot an email

Tell me where your space was

But we didn't build bridges

If it was a creek bed

Or

A river that had a seasonal

Ebb and flow

You would use that

Thorough fare to cut

Through the hauler, to cut through the creek

Because it shaved time

Maybe you needed, you didn't have to go

Eight or ten miles down the road one direction

When the water was low

They didn't build a bridge

For purposes of civil engineering

They just had this crossing

Through a waterway

And it might have been a hard pack where they threw some concrete down

At a low spot

And then when there was a little bit of water

It was just two or three inches

You drove your station wagon through it

You drove your bias ply equipped rear wheel drive

You know

Ford and Chevy

Of the 20s through the 50s

They literally

My father-in-law would go in

Somewhere downstream of the Ford

And end up at the Ford

So that's the general area they were

Doing livestock that

I expected them down on the gulf when you were talking about that

Well some of that happened too but

So we had these spaces

And in fact

Our listeners in western Pennsylvania

A kind of famous one is the

Is in Tien S is the Nebraska bridge

The Nebraska bridge

Is a

Super cool space still open to the public

Seasonally

Because this bridge actually will flood up to like

18 feet

And it'll become completely impassable

And of course it's so so valuable for my

PSA at this exact moment

To say

That flash flooding is a real thing

That water

Traversing water

Ways

It can be against local

Environmental laws

And it can straight up be dangerous

So please be conscientious

Of how you play and how you

Recreate

I mean nothing's more fun than

Have your underpass and

It suddenly they get you know

Chest ahead deep and grandma

Decide the minivan is going to swim today

Yeah

That happens almost every spring around here

Absolutely and I

Think that you have to be very very conscientious

Of how emboldened

We are

In our thoughts of

The fact that this American spirit says

We should be able to cross this body of water

I should not have to go 8 to 10 miles in either direction

To go around it I will not be

Encumbered I will move forward

Which I think is that

74 inch conversation

From that poultry 21 inches

You know

Bigger is better and I'm going to

Just put my head down and jeep through it

And

I do

Miss those I do miss the Ford

I remember going down there after a heavy rain

Or a heavy melt and

I don't know challenging myself to drive through

Even though it probably really wasn't that big of a deal

Yeah

I remember being excited to drive through

And of course I still do as I was

Started to elaborate on the fact that

In our area from

Southington to Wellsville to

Anthracite to Roush they all have

Water crossings that

Are

Protected

Now

Likewise there is actually an ATV

Park

Within general proximity to us

That

Had a river way running through it

Which

People downstream did not appreciate

The fact that this ATV

Park was doing

Water crossings

And

Because of

This uber rare salamander

Western Pennsylvania thing

They eventually got

That water crossing

Byway

You know they deemed illegal

And so

I do believe there is a conversation

Of Brown leave no trace and being respectful

Of our neighbors and how we

Do stuff and there are challenges because

Like as you mentioned the 70s 80s

And arguably into the 90s

We just ramrodded our jeeps

And trucks wherever we wanted to

They weren't always hard

Bottom shell crossing sometimes

They were mucky murky bottoms

And we buried vehicles

My family farm

We had a pond on the property

And my cousin

Thought it was a good idea to take our

Three-wheeler out there and attempt to cross it

Well that was like

You know I don't know

16 to 18 inches of that soft

Muck at the bottom of it

And all he did was bury it about

He only got about six feet out but

The three-wheeler headed

Out into the pond and just

Buried itself

And we're going to talk a little bit about

What happened if and how and when

We did do that but I remember

Before we get there we went from

Forting kits

I remember reading

Through the Petersons and the JP Rags

And kind of expanding

My knowledge that

Here we are in the 80s and 90s

And we want to play in the water because again

It was more culturally acceptable for

Just localized

Play you weren't traveling to an off-road park

And nobody knows you're

Serious unless you have a snorkel

Attached

Well we didn't quite have a snorkel just yet

We didn't have those snorkels yet

But we had the big air cleaners

Remember we all used to flip the lids

We had a little purse purse and a little growl

So we had an exposed air filter

Element

You may or may not have had

A good seat

From your air cleaner assembly

To the

To the carbon mutator

One more thing on that kind of note

My other father-in-law's

Big PSA was

Jeeps and fords are better

At going playing in the water than

Chevy's

You know why

Why

Because the fan grabs the water

Throws it up against the bomb the hood

Because you're moving forward

Momentum pushes it back

And if you have a Chevy

The distributor was in the back

So you immediately drowned your distributor

Where an AMC or a Ford

They were at the forward

They were in the front

So the water just went over top of them

Missing them

Your father-in-law would have that belief

Absolutely

Big block crisis were okay

Small blocks were just as bad as the Chevy

I just love

Somebody who's new to Jeeps

Who's just joined us in the JK

To JL World

Has a full appreciation for that era

Of our 4B4

Lifestyles

Because man I remember those

Conversation arguments because

What you're alluding to

Is about where I'm about to lead

With Peterson's and the JP Rag

You had to protect your distributor

Yes

It became this hyper-critical situation

To

Address spark plugs

And distributor

There was conversations of

Using

Silicone of some type of silicone

To silicone your distributor

Well at minimum you had to go find

Like an 80s to 90s Ford

And steal a little rubber booty

They had over the distributor cap

That was your first line of defense

If you were really serious

Then you had to seal up your distributor

You had to seal it up

Because they're vented from the factory

So you had to throw the vents away

And get out your tube RTV

And just glue everything together

And I remember

And I couldn't even begin to tell you

Where or how or what this was

But I remember this offhand comment

It's one of those things that was completely burnt

Into my brain and it was like

In a worst case scenario

If you don't have

Access

To a approved

Product like an RTV

Or some type of gasket making component

You can use hot glue and saran wrap

And I can't begin

I just remember

Being a teenager and being like

I'm going to hot glue and saran wrap

My distributor

And make sure you have WD-40

For when it doesn't work

Absolutely

So

What an impeccable

Experience it was

We weren't worried about the oil

In the motor

We weren't worried about our oils

And our diffs

Or into our transmission

And another fun story

I remember early on in my wheeling days

There was a guy

He had a TJ

And sadly it was an automatic

Much to his

Sadness

And those era of

Pre-02

TJs, they had a Chrysler automatic

And the vent on those

Is behind the torque converter

At the very top of the

The pump

Which is a very tall

Okay, the transmission pump

Oil pump just so everybody's listening

Yeah, so we're talking

Kind of ish

Bomb in the oil pan is about where that vent is

And you can't easily

Make it higher

It is doable but you have to

Have it apart and plug things

And drill new holes and redirect them

It's involved

And he put one or two

Transmissions in that Jeep

Just because of

Following the stick shifts through the water

Yes

And they made it through so therefore I should

And I think as we continue

To kind of build upon this

Conversation

Then there's a couple ways that I want to go

With this, I want to talk about

I want to move into the JK and that experience

I want to go

And I want to talk as well

As far as what happens

When we do take on water

One of the piece that I remember

As a young person being exposed to it

When sitting around

The club conversations or the campfires

And people being like really

Can you do this? And it's like okay

Well if the fluids and the combustion

And the high

Pressure functions

That are happening internally

Stay internal to the vehicle

Then yes you can

Subject the outside of it to fluid

As well. If the insides are sealed

So the insides don't become the outsides

Then it's sealed from the outsides

And only when we have those

Vents and other

Prolonged exposure

Does there become

Problems. I do want to

Kind of touch upon

Your father-in-law's experience

Where he was on the sidelines

And he had done it enough

And had enough appreciation and enough

Finite understanding

Of the process to say

Here's a technique, right?

And that was a thing more

So than

Modern day. We don't talk about modern day

Forting techniques

Because it's less important

Because

As we move into this conversation

About what happens when we do take on water

And what our modern vehicles do offer us

But at that time

Technique

Because our technology wasn't as good

Right?

That 21 to 30 inches

Became standard but guys kept pushing it

To the six and guys and gals

Kept pushing it to the six foot standard

We had

To have the priority of technique

And technique is still valuable

Engineers at Jeep

Chrysler still talk about

Bow Wake technology

And there is a

Speed at which you're supposed to

Five mile an hour or less

Correct. Yep. And that's

Valuable folks who are listening at home

That is actually an engineered

Standard expectation

Barely per Jeep

And if you are in this

There was this Bow Wake technique

Which is the idea that at this speed

I could keep the wave going over the hood

Or going past the Jeep

I would actually keep an air pocket

In or under

My hood space

And so my vehicle would

Continue to breathe

So long as it was within this air pocket

And my father-in-law would say

That you want that

Offending wake to hit you

In the middle of the crossing

So that

Again, you don't make a big wake

You allow the reverb off the other side

You come back, it hits you

And then the water drops

After the wake has passed you

The water level goes down

And then he said, you mad it

Give it a heck. Because now you

The water level has gone down

And now your time is basically

Before that other

Wake comes back for you

You should be a cross.

And there is a whole conversation on effective water crossing

And I don't think that today

We're going to get into it. Today we're talking more

On the tech side of things, the vehicle

And what it means to our Jeep history

Itself

There are a lot of great

I can't speak highly enough

There are a number of individuals from coast to coast

Who offer like 101, 102 and advanced courses

And that's a great place for you

To do this. We all see the really cool videos

Where the Jeep like floats down river

Before it, you know, mats it

And runs up a hill. I don't recommend that

For anybody, but this is a cool

Technique if you can learn it

In a calculated risk

Environment. And as I

Mention, I love water crossings

In Southington and Anthracite

And Wells all have it available

To us. And another thing

He also, my father I would say

And we've experienced here

If you have

Gone out on a trail and you've flogged

Your Jeep pretty hard and everything's pretty

Warm and then you go and you're like

Oh, now I'm going to go to the water

The minute you dip

That axle, that transmission, that engine

Into the water, just like he said

Once the oil pan drops into the water

The motor cools off

So doesn't your axles

Now, that's a

Good thing, but

It could be a bad thing

And I want

You to hold that thought, okay?

I want you to hold that thought because

I want to take a moment and recognize a bunch of listeners

Because people have jumped in

All the comments

So

Billy Joe is sharing with us

Her first memories of crossing water was about

Age four, crossing the high water

In the Colorado after snow melt

Caution and common sense are definitely

Required. I've seen some videos of people

Attempting really fast water

We don't recommend that and that's certainly what we're doing here

Charles says good morning from Texas

Nathan says Pittsburgh still has the duck boat

Joe says Ducky tours Pittsburgh

Based on the station square

Like I said, I'm going to do it one of these days folks

I just think it's so cool

I just haven't made a priority

Yvonne says Jeep Jeep

Nick and Linda Perry, good morning

Nathan starts talking about

Tubesock, Bill McWilliams

Good morning, Rob

The rails, they go the other way

They're definitely not

Definitely off the rails

I don't remember what he's talking about there

Nathan

The scuba tank

How big of a scuba tank

Would your Jeep need to keep running under water

Geog Jeepers used to drive the

Golf and Asheville where the Ford was

We all, yep, that's what we were talking about

Nathan, not hard to

Drown his

254 cylinder

Jerry brings up a very good

Point in our comments

Is why I always encourage people to go check out there

E-fans were a very

Big deal at one time

And the older technology

Of an E-fan, the fan might

Kick on and have entirely too

Much resistance in the water

Itself and freak out

And freak out, you would want a bypass switch

To override that fan, you'd shut it off

And I remember that being

Even our factory fans

There was a couple XJ hacks

Where you would go in and you could turn off

The E-fan

And then Nathan

Pulls like a cartoon

Ask if you go fast enough, you can drive on the surface

I don't think anybody's walking on water

Who's listening to this podcast

We're not driving Volkswagen's

With paddle tires

So good morning, good morning to all of you

Who've joined in the comments and shared

So, you know, you started

You touched upon

A little bit of

Thermodynamic properties

Yes, so you have a hot axle

And you then dip it

Into a cold

Relatively cold water

And just like you do

When you get in the pool

From an 80 degree

Day and it is, you know

62 water

And you get in the water and you

Yeah, at least I do

Your axle does as well

And if you're

And your transmission

And if your vents aren't

Able to deal with that

Sudden inhale

It will

Pull water right past the seals

Because the seals are designed

For basically one way travel

They're designed to keep oil in

And relative smuts out

But water

That's kind of a, that's quite a bit

So that seal is

Designed purposely for kind of

One way being harder to pass

Than the other

So basically

A recommendation was

If you go out and you dip your tires

Past the center of the hubs in the water

You better go home and change

Your diff oil

And anything

Likewise similar height

Which is why, you know, obviously

You lifted your truck to the moon

So your engine and transmission

Transfer case weren't in the water

Is actually the value of a high

You know, a high lift at that point

Yep

And I think that this

Is a concept that I think is lost on

Entirely too many people

But I do want to break down the science

Because I do enjoy it so much

And as far as the seals and what not

You know, Scott's talking a lot about the breather

Aspects, right? Because ultimately

Any of these systems

That

You know, working systems

They create friction

So inside are differential

Our axle bearings, our transmission

And it could be

A fluid friction

As well, but basically

The expansion

Of those fluids

The air

Space relative to the fluid

Has to go somewhere

It has to vent out

Likewise, as it cools

Naturally, it will pull in

Environmental

Or ambient

Air

Into the system and equalize

It's a basic

Property at which our radiator

And our cooling system specifically works

With our overflows

Yep

Most of you know to check your

Overflow

When you have an open

System

Cooling system, our JLJT

Owners now have a closed system

More reminiscent

Of our 80s

XJ, MJ, so on and so forth

Cooling systems

And that system being closed

Ebs and flows and expands

Inside this plastic bottle

But that's where this venting

Process happens, it even has

An environmental vent

PSC specifically

Played with this and now

They have a barometric

One-way valve

As part of their

Their

Complete or comprehensive package

And that is something they added to their steering kits

Almost 10-15 years

After they were relative to the market

Understanding that

Their high

Pressure

Closed hydraulic systems

Actually needed some type of

Barometric venting

But they also needed to maintain

Barometric pressure

So there's a super cool kind of process

Big deal

Is the fact that

We used to talk specifically

You brought up the automatic transmissions

Manual transmissions were largely sealed

And you could

Within reasons subject them

To

Some abuse

The clutch was not always faring

So well in the water

But you could get through it

Whereas the automatic transmissions

Were a little more sensitive

And their vents weren't as

Robust

Most manuals in the early

Day, middle of the sandwich

The 70s and 80s

Were basically vented from your

Shifter pole

Or relatively right behind that

So pretty much at the top of the transmission

You had to be pretty deep

To kind of submerge

That

And that's the whole rocker

Best practices is the rockers

So then

What ends up happening

As this

Becomes more and more

Prolific to do these water crossings

The idea was to then

Draw the vents

Up to the top of the firewall

Do the M38

Bring everybody, got a vent

Everybody come together

And we're going to pick a high point

Which on the M38 was the air cleaner

There was like

11 tin bungs off the back of it

For you to put all your vents to

And that was a thing

Especially like you're bringing up JP

Back in the day they would have like

How you did that

What was the proper way to do it

Right, how to tie your vents together

In what capacity were you getting enough fresh air

To and from

Those components

So that when you did hit

The cool water

With these hot parts

They're able to both

Basically burp the system effectively

Yeah

It was one of the criticisms

When the rudimentary

Cold air intakes

Started to saturate the market

Now we had an exposed

Filter element

No longer was it kind of encapsulated

In a box that the engineer had kind of

Painstakingly designed

But now we had this 360

Degree cone

That was just hanging out at the front of the engine

Think TJs specifically

Are what comes to mind

It became very very prevalent

And

That

Exposed air filter element

Had the potentiality to become

Saturated

In a less than ideal

Water crossing situation

So

Ultimately I'm going to fast forward to the JK

Because this is what becomes highly relevant to me

It's basically 2016

We had a customer who picked up

A leftover 2015

He got it on a smoking deal

And

He came to us with a relatively

Young

Professional build business

We all had been doing stuff

The side

Or kind of normal

And listening to our

Fathers on what they did or didn't do

Right and we have a customer

Who comes to us and with the JK

Snorkels became a fashion statement

They were a thing in the TJs

And for functional purposes

How you know you're serious

Yeah it's how we knew you were serious

You had a snorkel and a winch

For looks

But we had a customer come to us

And he said I just bought this Jeep

And I want you to build me a submarine

And

That was one of my first exposures

With kind of this modern day

Interpretation

And

There was

Some folks were playing with this at that time

And we endeavored

To do that for

This customer and

He said basically

I want to use every bit

Of the advertising

Forwarding process

He wanted to use the bow wake

Technique

To get the water up to

Basically at his cow

And he said he was going to go cow deep

Deep because

He had experience or he had memories from

The 70s, the 80s, the 90s

Where they did water crossings

And he wanted to do it in his new modern day Jeep

And so we turned

This brand new

JK

Into a submarine as far as I was concerned

And we had it all sealed up

We had

We had used gasket maker, we had used rubber

Gaskets, all the stuff

Now at the same time Fred Williams

In dirt every day

And something or other

There is this, he's playing

With this concept of tube sock

And

As I mentioned the first attempt under the water

If I recall was a huge failure

Because

Because he got stuck at the bottom of the pond

If I remember

I don't remember if he got stuck on a rock

If he got bogged down with mud like my uncle

Or my cousin in the pond

And he then set out to do it

Kind of like a myth buster situation

Where okay

It didn't work in real world

Situation

Now what do we have to do to make it work

And that's when they actually went to a pool

If I'm not right

Because it was clean water, solid bottom

He ended up putting on authentic

Scuba gear so that he could remain

With the vehicle or somebody put on Scuba gear

He removed

All the interior but one seat

Like they went through

And really purpose built

Tube sock for that one

Singular

Yes, experience

And it was fun, it was fun to see

And again it's valuable to say that

These air pumps of ours

So long as they've got air coming in

And air going out

They don't care if they're sealed up

From the inside becoming the outsides

And the outsides can't become the insides

And that was a big concept for me

As a kid

And that's exactly what they did

Now

I am going to kind of go

A little bit of jumping back and forth

Back in the day

You didn't need to

Elongate your exhaust

Because so long as

The motor didn't shut off

You would continue to pump out

The force of the exhaust

Back pressure being

A conversation that the

Forward pressure of the exhaust

Or the exhausting pressure

Was greater than water pressure

Depending on depth

And this gets into the science

Which I nerd out on

The argument is

If in an emergency situation

Your engine shuts off

You're in trouble

Because we have the same thermodynamic properties

Of that hot pipe

It's going to act like a straw

With revenge

And it's going to suck all the fluid

And now in

Fred Williams' situation

They had like, I don't even remember

Nine to twelve foot tall pipes

Both in intake and exhaust

Yeah

And the fourteen kits of the military

It equally elongated both

That was above your head

Yeah, it was both intake and exhaust

And that air pump continued to

Convent ambiantly, appropriately

And I keep calling the engine an air pump folks

If you haven't caught on to that

Because in this situation

It exemplifies exactly that concept

So the challenge is

I remember folks

Getting into water

And for whatever reason

The electronics geeking out

Something happening

And now the water comes rushing in

Not even so much in the intake

But because it's coming back up

In the exhaust ports

And of course the exhaust ports right into the valve train

From the valve train right into the cylinder

Bad things happen

So to round this conversation

Up to a degree because we are encroaching upon that time

And we didn't really talk about jails and JTs

Other than the fact that

You can go somewhere between

32 and 36 inches

With your Jeep kind of stockage

Depending on equipment

Those four inches do matter

How you use them

So

When you got water

Into

Your sensitive places

Yes

Cast iron blocks

Were more forgiving

Yes

It was important that you didn't try to restart it

When it was full of water

Or underwater

As soon as it shut off

You needed to be done

And you needed to be

Tugging that vehicle back to the shore

From there

You would pull the spark plugs

Pull the wires, pull the plugs

Pull the oil

Drain

You're going to drain the engine

Of arguably

Every

Cavity possible

And then

The next oil you're going to put in

Is the sacrificial oil change

And you're going to want to oil down

Your cylinder walls

Inside the engine itself

If you like it

Don't raw dog them

You want to oil them down a little bit

Because that residual moisture exposed to the environment

Will become flash rust

On those cylinder walls

And valves

When you are doing

Your water up the stream

In your Chevrolet truck

In 1980

And it dies because the water has hit the fan

And drowned the distributor

You had to call my father-in-law

Because he had 250 foot of chain

Yes

And he was proud of that

And you would swim the chain

To him

And then recover him

From the shore

And they may or may not have had the picture

Of that truck stuck in the middle of the water

On the front page of the paper

I love it

So

And I remember seeing these vehicles

They didn't hydrolock

They got to the point where they didn't hydrolock

And that's what you want to avoid

Is sensitive systems hydrolocking

Bad things happen

Because then internal components bend

Uncle Rodney

Exits the chat

He goes out the bay window

That you just blew in the side of your block

So I remember

Having all

I remember seeing all the

Spark plugs removed

V8

Oil down the cylinders

At that point in time

They had already drained and refilled the oil

And now they hit the key

And I remember seeing

Water vapor

Exiting

Exiting the chat

With

Just a fervor

Coming out these cylinders

And it was cool to see

But not by any means ideal

At first start after that

It's always a little rough

It is, it is

But relatively

You might actually be saved

By the grace of the engine gods

Once or so when this happens

Now our modern day vehicles

Where we have multi-piece construction

Engines

And a high bi-metal

Construction, meaning there's aluminum

In there, there's steel in there

There's plastic in there

Which we're teasing for a future podcast

Yep

Things get more complicated

And chances for

Success go down

A lot

As a purveyor of

Wheeling at the outer banks

And being off-road

In a beach

And oceanfront capacity

I've personally witnessed

A grand Cherokee

Be sacrificed

To mother ocean

I've also seen a grand Cherokee

That tried to play where Wranglers were

And the mud line

Was at the windshield

And it no run no more

This was not Rob Morgan's grand Cherokee

Let's just all be on the same page

This was like, you know

This was just your run of the mill

I got done at the grocery store

And I was like, you know what?

I got four-wheel drive

Well that's still Rob's Cherokee

Just so we're on the same page

Rob's modified his

The cutting wheel had come out

At some point

And a little bit of know-how

Also it goes a long way

The Bowway conversation

Still a grand Cherokee

The insurance company

Deems it a total loss

Boom, a total loss

If you are a modern day vehicle

Understanding that

How we relate to these vehicles

The component construction

And kind of

What we're dealing with

Personal experience, the newest vehicle

I know of that got swamped

Pretty extensive and lived the tail to tail

Was a 3-H AK

And that's because it was an old school

Pushrod motor that

Yes, there's some dissimilar metals in there

It wasn't happy

After that, it definitely

Shortened its service life

But it did live the tail to tail

After that

I'd say you're pretty much

Your goal is not to do that

Yeah, and I guess

This gets into a whole conversation

About salt water versus fresh water

Which we haven't even expanded upon

The high electrical sensitivity

Of our modern day vehicles

With, again, subjecting modules

And, you know, computer control

Wiring harnesses

Certain plug kits

Everything is intended to be

Environmentally sealed to a degree

Yes

With that said too though

When you play in this situation

A lot you do

End up with corrosion

In places that you don't expect

My father-in-law's Bronco is no longer with us

For a reason

Rust was definitely an issue with that

And likewise

If you don't go in and clean

Out where things get

And we see that all the time

Because we're, you know, underneath

Jeeps that have been wheeled

So we see, you know, straw

Or

Read sticks, that kind of stuff

From water

Sand in really crazy places

It hurts your brakes

It hurts your seals

Gear oil will turn into this paste

Mud that you gotta clean out

There's a lot to it

You should go in and you should grease everything

You should dump fluids

You should power wash

You should remove wheels

I think that that's a really valuable sentiment

As we kind of bring this conversation to a close

It is all

Dual-bull still by modern standards

You can do it

And I'm gonna give kudos to where kudos belong

Specifically

For guys who are hardcore off-roaders

Who I know have subjected their jeeps

To some really substantial

Beating

Chip Fury and a customer of ours

Dave Welch, both of them are customers of ours

Or were customers of ours

Those guys would

Almost disassemble their vehicle

And seeing pictures

And having conversations with them

They go

Into the obstacle knowing

I just caused myself a bunch of work

And they were okay with that

Well, and it's

Rob Sander as well, and there's other customers too

But they actually take

Solace or joy

In the disassembly, the cleaning, the detailing

Process, whereas

For a lot of us, we want to go out and play

And then immediately

We gotta drive to work on Monday in the same vehicle

Or so

You know anything about that, Scott?

And so for just a simple

Lack of priority

Or even

Evaluation of time

Were unable to address the vehicle in such a way

That allows it

To do these

Depth of water cross

So then we pay the price

Your father-in-law was exactly that

He was a guy's guy

He would go out there, he would push the limit

He would do the thing, he liked

The recovery, he liked the club

Experience, but then he also just

Had to go to work on Monday, like the vast

Majority of us

And that in itself becomes

A little bit of the challenge when it comes

To prolonging the life

Span of the vehicle. Are they capable

Of it? Absolutely. There's a great

History with forwarding

Water and playing in situations

That would have the average

Camry owner shaking in there

In their shoes, absolutely

But

Prepare to do the work, following

Drain your diff

Drain your diffs, inspect

Your vents, make sure they're tied together

The best of ability. Wash out your brakes

Wash out your brakes

And

Understand that

For ten minutes of fun, sometimes you have to do

Ten hours of cleanup. Absolutely.

There is

A savage in the truest

Way possible and the production value

And I appreciate him for this. We do have to do

An amendment or a correction

To today's program

And actually the

Toyota Tacoma trail hunter

Oh jeez

Does come with a snorkel

And is rated for a 14-depot 35 inches

So we do apologize

We do apologize

Toyota, if we've offended you

By saying that

We did not think the taco would be advertised as 14

So to get 35 inches

You have to have a snorkel on a Toyota?

Hey, you picked up on the right

Piece of information that I saw

Jeep World, we got

32 to 36 without a snorkel

Yeah. So

I see you

Toyota

Toyota, Ford, you're all just playing catch up

Just is what it is. I had a lot of fun

With today's program

I hope you all did at home as well

If you want to contribute to the conversation

Text us at

440-855-2100

Or send us an email

A contact

C-O-N-T-A-C-T

At

S-F-J

4X4.com

And we'd love to hear from you

About some of your cool off-road

Wheeling

Well, and

I did not

I like everything

We've learned stuff the hard way

So you don't have to

Maybe you can contribute to our viewers

As well. We are going to be coming back

In the future talking about some

Tech, specifically plastic

In modern day vehicles

Good, bad or otherwise

Until next time, Jeep on

Jeep on

So this weekend

I got to put a radiator

In my truck

I don't know, I'm a little disappointed

That I actually did that well enough

I really want the

noise

And also

It was kind of

It was a nice day

Wasn't actually that bad of a job

Definitely

You can see

Doing an all-metal radiator

Would be a complete pain in the butt

Glad I went with back the life of factory

Style

And will continue to do so

Other than that was relatively easy

It's amazing how efficient

Our cooling systems on these modern day vehicles

Are

It's literally a e-core

So this tiny, thin radiator

And I can just, the hot-rotter

Was like, that's not good enough

Need like a 4-core radiator

And then I waited

For it to get the operating temperature

For the thermostat to open

And waited

Because it's just so efficient

It just

I just did not get up the operating temperature

Really fast

And went up and then back down

A couple of times and finally we were able to get

You know, up there

But relatively

Half a gallon of coolant all I lost

Was able to do it that way

So I was pretty happy overall

With that process

Onto the T I did

Work on making it more

Shored up so the back of the body

Up to this point you would like

Get a stiff breeze and it would flap

At you and move all around

Rough weekend for that

So I was able to

Finally decide where I wanted

To put supports, how to tie them into the original

Supports exactly what I was going to do

I'm trying desperately

Not to

Do 1940s technology

Where we add

20 pounds of steel for no reason

Because this is a light car

And the lighter it is the more fun it will be

With a

Paltry 120 horsepower

That it has

Massive flathead V8

It will look cool, it will sound cool

Absolutely, so I was able to figure that out

And kind of get the

Back of the body finally where I'm happy with

Help the driver's door alignment

Even more so

I did rebuild the latch on the driver's door

And that is now latching as well

So I have two functional doors

Fancy

And I was able to also

Fit up the trunk lid

And realize just what a big pile

Of garbage it is

But one thing I thought was fun

This kind of show where we've come from

So on this car

Originally you would

So you pulled it forward

To open the door

Onside

Or you push it back and that locks the door

And there's this little tab that

Kind of keys in so it does that

It's like a whole CJ door

Kind of

And there is no lock cylinder on the driver's side

Because you're supposed to exit

And enter the vehicle at the curb

So you were parking on Main Avenue

You were parallel parking

You had to slide across the bench

Get out the passenger door

And then you could lock it

With the singular lock cylinder

On the passenger door

Get the heck out of here

Then if you were lucky enough

To have a trunk

Which my coupe does

The key on this

100 year old car

Was not the key that you use

For the door and the ignition

It was an old school skeleton key

No

That went in

And just released a latch

So I guess if you had anything

You wanted to keep secure

You put it inside the car

I mean I think

A bobby pin would got you into the trunk

No problem

I just think that's fun

That's all it has

It's just literally

A hole for a skeleton key

To go in the deck lid

And it would move the latch

So it's not going to have that anymore

I'm going to fix that with a handle

Or something I'm not quite sure

But yeah

And there's one on eBay for $50

A skeleton key?

Or a Model T

For the trunk

Like you put it on there for $50

I was like are you plugging your own

eBay sale at the moment

If it was like three bucks

I would have bought it because it's just cool

But $50 now

I don't need that for a price of emission

Yeah

I thought that was super cool

I love that kind of automotive history

Man

I also worked on the driver's side

Bottom of the quarter

Basically right behind the door

That two door sedan

That lost its life to make my coupe live

I had saved the panels from that

Welded that in

Ironically

It's quarter of an inch to a half an inch

Longer on a coupe

There versus a two door sedan

For some reason I don't know

Same door, same cow

Quarter of an inch different in the wheel opening

But I'll fix that

And I got the other side to do yet

Just trying to work on

Making it more and more

Structurally sound

So that things don't flap and fall off

I think that's fair and appropriate

Wow

That's very cool

So for me this weekend

As always

We're going to squeeze

10 pounds into 5 pound sack

You know how we do

I thought was really fun

I saw kind of explained

And this is kind of the quirky stuff

That within reason

My family prioritizes

It was Friday the 13th

On Friday

It was then Pi Day

On Saturday

And it was the Ides of March

On Sunday

It was a pretty good

Kind of folklore inspired

Or I don't know fun socially emotional weekend

For us as far as

Just finding joy

And little things

So had to do

As always in my family

My kids stay very busy so in and around

The kid activities

Where the Jeep life takes us

My wife and I are both

Rarely shut our jeeps off very long

So once again

My daughter was involved in a

Prolific dance opportunity

Which took us

Into uncharted territory but in that process

We celebrated Pi Day

Those people who are on my social

Page saw that

What was the Pi of choice

She got particularly excited

Over pecan

And I went for

The tried and true pumpkin

Just because it's kind of out of season

And I

Either one of those just as a

Great gateway to my heart

My dad was always like an apple pie

Like a straight up old school apple pie

And the place we were at had some

A cookie dough pie

And I really wanted to walk on the wild side

And get that but given the opportunity

To have pumpkin and pecan out of season

I took it

And so we had

A pie and coffee date basically

We ended up in two jeeps

We converged on one location

And then from there we went and found

We went hiking and got some outdoor

Space

And that was great

That was great and

I had to call you right away and be like

Did you know this thing exists?

Not and I grew up

In that area

I mean this is

This is maybe two miles of crow flies

From your old house I just couldn't believe it

I kept repeating it because I was like

Really? Yeah and

My sister called in attention that

The property that my wife

And I have built our homestead upon

May actually have a competitively old tree

On it which I need

To be more conscientious of

And there has been a couple people

Who have documented my tree over

The decades

And I

Again I should be more appreciative

And maybe I should actually go look

Into this tree of my own

Time to get the tape measure out

Correct and that's exactly what she was calling

Into contention because

We went and visited one of arguably Ohio's

Oldest oak trees

In the state of Ohio happens to be right here

In northeast Ohio we get again jeeps

My wife and I converged into two jeeps

One location

And 18 feet in

Circumference which I thought was really

Appropriate for Pi Day

I've found something

That's what I do folks

My oddities

My

Expansive finding information

And being exposed to stuff doesn't stop with jeeps

Not exactly weekend but

When I was broke down last week

And you had to come and rescue me

That tree that we were beside must be

About that age or older

That was a big tree

Scott and I did some flat towing

Last week just for funsies

Had been a while

Had been a while since we did some hillbilly

Shenanigans

Might as well just let the jeep

Break down on the side of the road

This was not one of our modern jeeps

It was appropriate for it

It was appropriate

And then

Yesterday I was really tickled to get back into

The weather

Even despite the wind

Was opportunistic

But yesterday was gorgeous

Yeah and it was great to get

Back involved in the homestead

And start to

Find my tools as far as

Getting them back into kind of

Project mode

From kind of winter storage

And some other stuff

Just in time for winter to come back

Yeah winter 2.0

To smack us

Upside the head that's unfortunate

Any who folks

We have

A lot of jeeps to attend to

I've got estimates

Just absolutely piling up

On my desk and parts logistics

And kind of a challenging time

Of global proportion

And getting stuff here in a timely fashion

At a reasonable cost

So we have

To attend to that as much as we would like to

Continue to just

Jabber with you

We gotta get to work

Yep jeep on

Fording or Drowning?

About this episode

Fording

Ford Model T

amphibious vehicles

Ford GPA

general purpose amphibious

floating

duck boats

Jeep

Rubicon

35 inch tires

Toyota

Toyota Tacoma TRD

engine cooling

oil pan

water crossings

flash flooding

environmental laws

RTV

transmission

scuba tank

winch

off-road

mud line

four-wheel drive

seals

gear oil

power wash

radiator

flat towing

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