A couple weekends ago I carried my BOB/SHTF bag to the offroad park for the first time since I put it together. Over the course of one weekend it got a lot of use.

1 ziplock bag/1 ziptie/12" of duct tape - Used as temporary replacement for lost brake fluid reservoir cap on a buddy's rig

sewing kit - Another buddy ripped his pants so he sewed them up

hatchet - had to cut a BIG limb to attach to the side of the Jeep to keep the broken axle from falling out and turning the Jeep into a tripod

another ziptie - hanging a lantern

aspirin - had a killer headache one day

immodium - another guy had serious gastrointestinal difficulties

Not bad for one weekend worth of use. All items replaced as soon as I got home. I'm quickly becoming known among my friends as the guy who's always ready for whatever goes wrong. Due to the amount of tools and spare parts I always carried, they already thought that to some extent, but even more so now.

Well done!

Of course, now you have to worry about them all showing up at your door when the zombies come.

-Blast

p.s. Any pictures of the jeep/tree branch repair?

Sounds like it's time to replace the d35 or go non-c-clip

Always great being prepared...

Ditto on what Blast said... Tell them to make their own zombie plan!!!

and you probably earned yourself a new nickname too.

It's always good to get some use out of your emergency kit. I can't tell you how it pains me to go through and toss out of date items that saw no use only to restock them "just in case"

On the other hand when you use any of it to help yourself or others the expense doesn't really seem to matter.

Sometimes it's cool to be the "go to" guy. Sometime it's not so good when they expect you to keep restocking everything by yourself.

When I went camping with friends last summer, no one got hurt, and none of us needed a PSK, but we used an amazing amount of equipment and pieces from my Medium PSK and FAK.

We used a lot of my kit for various things around camp, but most of it went to repair model rockets we were launching.

I used my Leatherman's blade, saw, scissors and file.
We used my marking tape as streamers for various rockets.
We cut 550 and unbraided it to repair parachute strings.
We used Duct Tape to repair everything from burn holes in parachutes to broken fins.
We Used 550 with a rock tied on the end to retrieve rockets from trees.

And then it got silly...

I taught the guys how to make "bottle rockets" out of the engines we had left.

We cut sticks, shaped and filed down knots with the Leatherman.
We made loops for the launch pad guide with twist ties.
We attached the engines to sticks with duct tape.

Oh yeah, a pic of the tree branch. Gotta pour gear lube (bottle sitting just above tire inside the Jeep) on it to keep it cool while riding back to camp when it's roughly a mile or so. That's my buddy tightening the ratchet strap, I'm standing behind him with the Mechanix gloves on.



ToddW - Yeah I know, it'll be upgrading to a beefier axle though, c-clip eliminators are too much $ for no real gain. I've only broken 2 rear shafts so far in roughly 2 years wheeling it with a welded rear. I already own a full float Dana 60 out of a 1979 F-350, but I need a front to go with it.

Now THAT sums up ETS! Great picture, thanks!

-Blast

One day I'll end up breaking one on the outer end, then I get to build a skid with my hatchet, a couple of big limbs, and ratchet straps, lol.

IMHO ditch the FF D60, go 14b. Cheaper, and WAY easier to work on. All of my rigs have/had 14B rears. The only thing I want to replace is the detroit with the new ARB they have for them.

When I got into wheeling I broke my d35 yoke my first trip out, after that I broke the detroit, and then I upgraded! HAHA

Got to be careful with stuff like that! I've done model rockets for years. You are definitely losing a lot of stability launching them like that... Think fire and danger!

Now, for Blast, that seems right up his alley...

Earlier this winter the local Walmart closed out their model rocket stuff. I picked up six 3-packs of "C" engines for $1 per pack. I feel all tingly every time I look at them. Oh, the possibilities...

-Blast

When the axle does fall out of a Dana-35 C-clip after breaking the axle, the technique of using a log as a skid does, in fact work. I remembered this from the US Army Driving Manual , page 22-8

NOTE: This is not my vehicle

That is so freaking awesome!

I was having a rotten day until I logged back in for the first time in about a month. Reading the story and seeing the picture reminded me that ETS is not just tools and gear. It's really about people, initiative, creativity and a refusal to lie down and give in.

Thanks for the mood lifter :-)

Wow, I suddenly feel a lot less nervous about the spring that broke in my suspension on Monday. Still glad it goes in the shop on Thursday, but not as scared now.

by Bill Mauldin

We've had to engineer a lot of things out in the woods. I call it my "No rig left behind" policy. No way am I leaving my or anyone else's vehicle out there to get stripped or burned. We'll get it out of the woods if we have to drag it out on skids on all 4 corners.

ToddW - Yeah, I've kicked around the idea of the 14-bolt, the Dana 60 was free and is in really good shape. I have a friend who runs one and has beat it like it owes him money with no problems. Locker won't be an issue as I'll just weld it up, but a lot beefier welding than the D35 is right now.

IronRaven - A spring isn't very bad. Coil spring or leaf spring? In one weekend (the same weekend listed above) I managed to fry my winch (being repaired as we speak), snap that axle shaft, my starter died (replaced already), and kill my throwout bearing (working on getting a new one in). I knew very little about automotive repair until I bought this Jeep new in 2005. I bought the Haynes manual for it and have repaired a lot since then.

It's amazing how much you can learn to do on your own.

Coil spring.

And everything I know about cars I know from Haynes manuals and Tom And Ray. But this noise fits into the "loud and potentially violent sounding" territory. Doesn't look like it would be that hard to fix if I knew how to detatch a few things, and had a garage, I'd just pull the whole shock... "column" is the best word I can come up with, don't know the right one. Unbolt it from up top, and swap in used parts from a bone yard. But I figure if one is getting bad, get the other one checked.

Yeah, I wish I actually had a decent sized garage. Most of my wrenching has been done either at a friend's shop or laying out in my yard under my Jeep. It's not a bad idea to have it checked out, noises on a vehicle that didn't make them before are never a good thing.

On my Jeep there are always noises, I get nervous when something stops making a noise.

Great find! "D" engines are even more fun! And then you can also get into multi-stage rockets... Yet I digress...

I always wanted to make a shoulder launched "missle"... The little voice inside my head talked me out of it tho... Something about, "Probably not a good idea!" kept echoing in there.

Funny, I never hear that voice... I have a very loving wife who tilts down her glasses and gives me that 'if you do that i going to smack you then I am going to take your toys away' look.

:-)

I've known I need to have some work done on the front end for about three months. When I pulled half a turn of spring off the strut I kinda realized sooner or later was now. *laughs*