Fabulous Trail Repairs ... Beyond The Flat

Be wary of inexpensive pitman arms. I had one that I got from 4 Wheel Parts that broke on a rather difficult trail. Fortunately someone in the group had a spare and I was able to get out without issue. If you have your choice of a $45 or a $65+ pitman, buy the better one. If that pitman arm had broken while I was bombing down the road it would have been very ugly. I bought a quality arm from PartsMike and it is bulletproof. Also, consider a proper brace from the steering box to the passenger side framerail.

 

Wow, that is alarming, glad you didn't get hurt. I am curious where it broke at...the spline area, the drag link end or perhaps it just broke in half ?
I continue to be amazed at some of the poor quality parts out there.

 

That's awesome that you were able to get out with borrowed parts, but... who carries an extra pitman arm?!!

 

I do.
I like to carry the parts that can really ruin your day.
Pitman arm don't take up any space/room at all.
In my opinion, you need to be able to steer, stop, and have rolling tires to get out of any bad situation. Without those 3, you're in trouble.

 

It just seems like a random part to carry. Why not a whole box?

In a race once, I clipped a tree with my left front tire while it was turned about half-way to the left. It almost stopped us dead. The impact built so much pressure in the front of the box that it cracked the front cover in half and covered me in steering fluid. Everything else somehow survived.

 

The pitman broke in the middle. I thought I was screwed. It would have been 5 hour trip out to pavement and another hour to the nearest auto parts store. Then reverse. Talking about good luck, I had drilled the taper out of the pit a so I could use a helm joint. Another guy in our group had a air powered drill and a 5/8". drill bit. He ran the drill off of a Power tank. In about 40 min I was back on the road.

 

Of course non of that matters if you don't have the socket for the nut and a ppitman arm puller.I now carry a spare pitman aswell as a coil, HEI module, repair lines for the aiir system, a fuel pump and on and on. It's often the small parts that can ruin your day.

 

Space and weight of course.

In fact, I have both power and manual pitman arms in my Jeep.

 

Last winter i broke the throttle cable right in the middle of no-where.

Took off one of my shoe lace, and use it as a cable, work perfectly to get out of the trail

 

Did that in a '79 Audi Fox once with speaker wire.


The old 134s with the skid plate spot-welded to the oil pan... With enough ridiculous abuse, the u-joint cross on the front driveshaft can come in contact with that pan and tear the spot-welds out of the bottom. All the engine oil leaks out of the holes.

Fix: The sheetmetal screws that hold the shifter boots to the floor thread into those holes and seal perfectly.

 

Wasn't on the trail per se but I lost my quick connect from the slave cylinder to throwout bearing going down the road. Fix was to cut the quick connect off and with four 5/16 clamps, transmission hose, and dot 3 I was back on the road.

 

duct tape fan belt... filled the radiator with the rest of the beer.

 

Put an egg inside a radiator to stop a leak. Worked great...but still need to fix it when home.

 

ahaha good one

 

You can with coil springs.

Either that, or his copilot is a hen.

 

Happened to me In Arizona. Sealed it with pepper.

 

Pepper??? First time I ever heard of that!