Well, things went about as could be expected for the WJ...
Monday my buddy got to my house in Vegas, and we debated taking the WJ or the little 2 door JL Rubicon (with the X package and 35"s etc.) I picked up. Just sitting in the garage the WJ was leaking coolant onto the floor from what I initially thought was the overflow area. It also seemed like it had a power steering or trans leak somewhere (both run ATF) but minor. The head unit wasn't working totally right (I need to shorten up all the harnesses... they're sort of smashed into the dash to get the HU in) and there were a few other little things. We decided to try to take care of the issues and take the WJ if we could. We found the coolant leak, it turned out to just be a loose clamp on one of the heater lines at the core so that was an easy fix. We never found the PS or ATF leak, but cleaned things up underneath and drove around a good bit and it still seemed dry underneath. We took care of a few of the other issues, but not all, and still decided to call it good enough and take it.
Tuesday we got into Moab in the early afternoon, unloaded the WJ, and set the RV up. My buddy hadn't been to Moab before, so I decided to run him down to see town with the WJ. All went well, we got the obligatory hats, t-shirts and stickers. On the way back I decided to run out 128 along the Colorado for my buddy to see, and ended up running up to Fisher Towers. All was going well, up in Moab in the cooler air the WJ ran nice and cold, the AC worked great (other than the blend doors making racket everytime you turn it on/off...), and overall it drove very well.
Tues night we racked out early to get a good early start on the day Wed, which turned out to be crucial. Our campsite for the night of Wed was only ~20 miles into White Rim. Things started well, and we left the RV park around 9 and headed to town to top up fuel in both rigs and exchange a propane cylinder for the Howl. Things started well, and we got out ot the Shafer trail, aired down a bit, and started into White Rim. Of course, that didn't last long...
...coming down the Shafer switchbacks an issue with the tune became more apparent. Slowing down coming to a stop it sort of surges. I think the tuner was having issues getting a nice idle, and with some stalling coming to a stop. I think the solution (but need to get HP tuners on this laptop to verify) they came up with was leaving the throttle a little cracked on decel. Well, the problem with that is it gives no engine braking. It was apparent on the street, but not super noticeable or problematic. On the trail, it means I have to ride the brakes way too much on descents. So, I stopped on the switchbacks to go to 4L (which honestly I usually do on steep descents anyway) but that seemed to only exacerbate the issue.
It wanted to "run away" very slightly, but enough to be no good for the situation... if you know the Shafer entrance into White Rim you know what I mean. In 4L, 1st gear in the trans it wanted to just run at about 5k and was doing very little braking for me. I was focusing on the trail, and getting it stopped again to take it out of low by the time I started smelling smoke, then I saw smoke, and a LOT of it.
Because the exhausts exit just in front of the rear tires they were pushing the smoke that was there out, making it look like it was coming from the exhaust. I figured it sucked a ton of oil through the PCV so it made sense. A quick rev in N once stopped showed nothing out the exhaust though, and while the smoke had mostly dissipated I was still seeing/smelling some from under-hood and kind of coming in around the dash/firewall. I hit the radio and said "I'm going to make sure I'm not on fire..." and jumped out.
Sure enough, I was on fire.
The rear main had pushed out (we didn't verify that on the trail, but it's been verified now) and it was pissing oil right onto the exhaust where it crosses under the pan from the passenger side to the driver side, where it ignited. I've had blow-by issues on a track car in the past that led to a full catch can spraying oil on a header, but it never ever ignited. It's usually pretty tough to get oil to burn by itself. Perhaps some of the PS/ATF was around to get it going, IDK. Either way I had a water bottle in the cupholder I dumped on it immediately, which mostly got it out but not totally. I had a little garden sprayer I use for washing hands and stuff I got to work with and got it out, right as a passerby and my trail buddy came up with their extinguishers. We didn't end up needing the extinguishers, but stayed there a good 15min just keeping an eye on it and coming up with our gameplan.
Luckily my trail buddy's rig is a beast. It's a '94 Ram 2500 with the coveted 12V and a stick. It also has compound turbos, so it makes plenty of power and torque. With his FWC in the back he had plenty of weight for traction as well. Being a stick, trans temp wouldn't be an issue pulling me back up the switchbacks either. So, we got him turned around in a tiny wide spot just past the WJ, then I ran the WJ just long enough to get turned around while he stood by with the extinguisher. It was risky, since running it caused a pretty steady stream of oil to dump right on the exhaust, but everything had cooled some and it was maybe 10-15 seconds. Besides that, we really didn't have a choice.
After having this view back up the switchbacks and to the Shafer trailhead we put the rest of our plan into action. We ran back to town in my buddy's truck and picked up a drop hitch for his truck's 2" receiver since he didn't have one with him and my RV is 2.5 or 3", and to pick up a rental Jeep for me. We took the rental and his truck back to the RV park, we unhitched the trailer, I moved the RV, we hitched him up to the trailer, and we headed back to the trail leaving the rental with the RV. Loading up the WJ went pretty quickly, and we headed back to the RV. There, we dumped the WJ/trailer (didn't even hitch back up to the RV to save time) and I swapped all my gear into the rental. We left the RV park about 4, and got to camp about 6:30pm with time to setup before dark.
We had 2 nights total on the trail, and nothing else went wrong so it was still a great trip, and the views NEVER disappoint on White Rim.
-TJ
