Epilogue

Everyone made it back home safe and sound – after traveling in a $250 truck for four days, even the hassles of airline travel are tolerable! I hope to never again have to smash multiple flashlights, license plates, two bags of tools, jumper cables, spare parts and a host of gps gear and antennas into checked luggage again!

Trip Summary:

Miles: 1774 (including trip to NYC and side trips)
Quarts of Oil burned: 3
Gallons of Gas: 92
Hotels that didn’t provide soap: 1
Hotel rooms that reeked like cat urine: 1
Conversations about Extreme Ironing: 1
Miller Lite Pounders turned into exhaust patches: 6
How many times the Texas Roadhouse staff said they make everything on site: ad nauseum
Wrong turns: too many
Roadside waves from a crazy man with a flyswatter: 1
Stalls while in Reverse: Probably in the teens, including two memorable ones in Roanoke
Thumbs up from a fellow motorist in Hendersonville, NC: Just one
EZ Pass tolls: Stopped counting at $25
Confused looks from the group of Acura RSX and Mitsu EVO drivers at Deals Gap: Priceless

Special thanks to all of our fans that followed our progress and cheered us on. Okay, by fans we mean our spouses, fiancés, parents, family and friends who would support us no matter what we’re doing but the support was appreciated nonetheless. It was really surreal to get phone calls and text messages in the middle of nowhere with words of encouragement or asking why the tracking system hadn't refreshed in the last 15 minutes or so.

The jeep sold on eBay for $560 and the new owner is a jeep enthusiast and welder / fabricator by trade. We can only hope that the jeep will be patched up and continue racking up the miles in the greater New Orleans area. The BABE Rally has really opened my eyes that in an internet world you can still meet really good people that are honest and reputable. We found the jeep on craigslist and sold it on eBay and met two cool jeep fans in the process. Had a bit of a panic when eBay pulled our original auction (you can’t sell titled vehicles in the “parts” section) but Tom quickly reacted and developed two contingency plans and the jeep sold to someone who was watching our original auction.

After the jeep sold on eBay we thought this would get a few raised eyebrows from fellow motorists and rally’ers:
Before the BABE rally, the big pet peeve I had with my car was a cantankerous sunroof switch. After driving a jeep with sloppy steering, straight exhaust and a rotten frame I’ve gained new perspective on how nice my car is and to take nothing for granted. You really don’t need much to get you from Point A to Point B.

Special thanks to the hard working folks at the Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio for building our truck in 1982. The original factory is closed now, but jeeps are still built in Toledo and continuing the tradition of tough trucks. Our jeep performed flawlessly over the course of the trip and never failed to start, stop or do whatever we asked of it. The only real concern we had was the frame. Here’s some pics of the problems with the frame that were exacerbated by our trip but nursed along.

Rear shackle being held up by the body:
Front shackle damage revealed when we pulled the bumper off at Deal's Gap:
We were tempted to go into an Auto Parts store along the way and ask for 2 feet of frame rail for a 1982 Wagoneer and see how long it took the salesperson to realize we were kidding, but never got around to it.

Since this trip occurred over Memorial Day weekend, I’d be remiss if I also didn’t thank the brave men and women in the armed services that continue to protect our country from foreign and domestic threats and allow us the freedom to embark on such a frivolous notion as an adventure in a $250 truck.

If you’re reading this blog, we hope you’ve enjoyed our misadventures and inspired you to get out from behind your computer and embark an adventure. Team Deer God probably won’t be participating in the BABE again but we’ve already started discussing our next adventure. Maybe Red Bull Flugtag or Soapbox Derby? A future Grassroots Motorsports Challenge? Who knows? Stay tuned to this blog for further updates.

Bye, bye Jeep!

We're all on our way back home now, but here's a parting shot of the jeep leaving with its new owner:

Done and Done

Made it to New Orleans! The truck is clean, emptied and awaiting her new owner to arrive at 6 pm Central time. In the coming days, we'll be posting a bunch more photos and making the videos a bit cleaner, so please come back for more details on our trip! Bourbon Street awaits.........

Almost there

We're about 54 miles outside of New Orleans and enjoying all that Mississippi has to offer in terms of landscape. For those fans tracking us at home, you'll probably notice a huge gap in coverage - our cell phone internet card struggled to get a signal out in the middle of nowhere. Going to stop for gas and start stripping the truck of her rally paint and stickers in preparation for the new owner. Truck still running great and we're getting lots of looks because we painted "Sorry, Sold!" in big letters on the tailgate. Here's a link list put together by the rickety van folks of other babe teams and their experiences:

http://del.icio.us/search/?fr=del_icio_us&p=baberally&type=all

Welcome to Alabama

Made it to Alabama after a long day driving through the back woods of TN.

Learned a few things:

Gatlinburg, TN is the Disney World of the Smoky Mountains. I've checked that off my list of places visited and hope never to go back. Cherokee, TN wasn't much better - definitely tourist trap towns and their traffic contributed significantly to our time on the road today. Here's a shot that didn't have a cotton candy or leather moccasin vendor in the background:Our exhaust failed at a joint just before the catalytic converter so we dealt with straight pipes for the bulk of the day. It's loud as hell but sounds mean and "goes" with the overall theme of the truck. We thought the lack of backpressure would hurt our mileage, but we're still averaging 20 mpg. No one believes our mileage figures, but our wallets will be our witnesses! We're continually amazed at the durability of the truck. We've burned only about a quart of oil for the whole trip and other than checking the fluids in the morning, we haven't really babied the truck. Start it, let it warm up and then hit the highway. The exhaust is pretty quiet at highway speeds but the bulk of today was spent between 35 and 45 mph so the truck is stuck in 2nd gear and wailing. We don't have a tach and the 258 is not a high revving engine, but she's loud! The tranny only shifts to 3rd around 55 mph, so it's a bit frustrating to be roaring around in second all the time.

We took the truck through Deals Gap today and have a bunch of pics, but here are a few to whet your appetite. Here's what we tried to avoid:
We let AJ, our resident race mechanic, quattro nut and purveyor of windmills take us through and he did a fantastic job. Everyone was on board with the notion that we should take our time, let other traffic pass and not abuse the jeep. We stopped several times to watch other cars and bikes go through and also to let the jeep's brakes cool. After Deals Gap, we decided to take a group picture and it had some unintended consequences. Here's the pic:
After we each stepped on the bumper, we realized that it was pretty spongy and eventually fell off. We decided on the spot that ripping the whole bumper off would be better than worrying about us running over it or another motorist or biker running over it. We strapped it to the roof with bailing wire and realized that removing the bumper BEFORE Deals Gap probably would have been the answer to our brake cooling needs. Bumper or not, we got all sorts of looks from people along the route.
Back at the hotel tonight, we managed to cram the exhaust pipes back together and tighten down the clamps. The hole in the pipe was quickly patched with 6 layers of Miller Lite pounders. Everyone pitched in and made sure we had plenty of material to keep the exhaust quiet!
In other news, our truck sold today on eBay and we're currently making arrangements to deliver her to her new owners. We want to maximize our time on Bourbon Street so were leaving at 0700 and not waiting for the official rally start. We haven't been doing the challenges anyway and were out of prize contention by Day 1.

Other BABE Rallyers on Deals Gap

The black festiva going all out - listen for the tires squealing at the end!


Here's the prelude:

More Deals Gap Videos

Asheville, NC

Made it to Asheville, NC today. Pretty uneventful and we're happy to report the jeep is still averaging 20 mpg. Pretty unbelievable because we've been pushing 70 mph on most legs. Who knew that 2.73 gears, a 2 barrel carb and 25 year old vacuum hoses would give us such good economy! We're stoked that our decision to purchase a 25 year old sport ute has turned into a fantastic rally vehicle. Today's challenge was to dress like Elvis. The thought of wearing polyester all day sounded awful so we really didn't prepare for today. We managed paint "Hunka Hunka Burnin Junk" in temporary paint on the truck and called it a day. We were going to paint sideburns on the truck but laziness took over and we didn't even get that far. We were tasked with taking pictures with 10 different groups of people along the way while in costume, but the whole scavenger hunt portion of the rally really isn't our thing, so we just drove to Asheville. We probably won't do the BABE again, so we'd like to think that we brought online vehicle tracking to the party and will go out on "a high note" a la George Costanza!

Ate lunch in Roanoke and ruined someone's outdoor lunch with our reverse, stall, reverse, stall parallel parking maneuver on Campbell Ave. We thought it was funny, but I'm sure that their salad with exhaust vinaigrette was not what they expected! Took a spur of the moment detour at Natural Bridge, VA and were thoroughly disappointed. Went down a long gravel road for a better view and didn't see much. Back on the road, we followed the suggested rally route and took the Blue Ridge Parkway. Little did we know that it was 188 miles and the speed limit was 45 mph. We met up with a fellow babe'r and followed the prelude team for a bit. Their motor was burning sooo much oil that we started to get sick of the fumes (and trust me, we're used to smelly exhaust by now) and bailed for the interstate. Our jeep really doesn't do well on the twisties, so the relatively straight interstate made for a much nicer journey. Plus 45 mph on the parkway is right in the awkward spot of the jeep staying in 2nd gear and roaring or abruptly upshifting into 3rd on the downhills. Not pleasant. Made it to Asheville and were greeted with a hotel room that reeked of cat urine. Seriously, we've been in a truck with no AC and still has a hint of dead deer blood, so this room was pretty rank. The hotel management quickly rectified the situation and gave us a new room.

We all took quick showers and jetted off on a trip to Hendersonville, NC to meet up with former coworkers for dinner. Saw a much nicer two door waggy on the way and thoroughly shocked the poor driver with our enthusiasm for his ride! We've noticed the further south we drive the more thumbs up and cheers the jeep gets. North of the Virginia border, we only got dumb looks and stares. After dinner we headed to downtown Asheville and met up with the black Festiva babe'rs and had a few drinks. Deals Gap tomorrow. Stayed tuned for videos of our rig barreling along the turns! Here's some pics from today:

I live in a van down by the river.....

These folks were nice enough to link to our site. We saw them roll in late last night and it seems that they've had quite the journey so far. Check out their site: Rickety Van

More Photos

Photos from Day One in Random order:

Virginia is for lovers....

Arrived safe and sound in Harrisonburg. Exhaust leak came back about 30 miles outside of Front Royal, so the jeep sounds like a Babe car now. Took Skyline Drive and took lots of pics...more to come after a shower and a few beers.

Back in MD...

We're back in MD again. As far as we can tell this Jeep has spent it's whole life in MD and was purchased new at one of the Al Packer dealerships. With any luck, someone in LA or MS will buy the truck and she'll never come back to MD! Special thanks to the folks at Sportsdatasource.com for providing the gas for today's journey. If you're a sports fan, check'em out! Thanks to all the fans following the blog and posting comments, too. We'll try to get them all up on the page as fast as they come in. The tracking system is working pretty well so far, but will probably have much more lag as we head into VA and further on our journey. Enjoy it while it lasts!

Some other competitors...

Trying not to barf the sandwich Tom just made me all over the laptop as we hurtle down the Turnpike, but here goes some uploads...

1st day thoughts

Rolled out the parking lot this morning in a flurry of horns, loud music and exhaust smoke. First challenge was to buy as many individual items in KMART with $1. Rumor has it a team bought 5 cent gift cards so our two pkgs of Whiskas cat food won't hold up. Remainder of the challenge today is taking pictures of various road signs along the route. Jeep's running great - 65 mph with no problems. Getting 19 mpg too. Wish you were here?

On the road....

Random Day Zero Pics....

The Band's back together...

We made it to Staten Island in one piece and completed all the necessary rally registration paperwork. The jeep's running great and hasn't missed a beat. 32 teams are on the rally board in the hotel lobby so it looks like about half the registered fleet has shown up. Picked up AJ at Newark International Airport tonight and the truck's running great. 0900 start time tomorrow, so we'll keep you posted as things develop. Stay tuned.

Off to the Garden state

Had lunch in Canton with the Chrysler LeBacon team, Volvo Team from the UK and the Clutch Dumpers. Off to Jersey to pick up another team member. Getting 19 mpg. Something must be wrong with my calculator....

Going Looney....

We're meeting at least 3 other BABE Rally teams at Looney's in Canton at the crack of noon tomorrow. Hopefully, we'll score some parking spots in the square. Sort of like what they do in downtown Wellsboro, PA for the STPR but only with crappier cars!

Email address

Want to get in touch with us on while we're on the road? Shoot us an email at:

deergodBABE@gmail.com


and we'll personally update you on our journey and maybe some pics if you ask nicely :) We plan to use the "blog via email" feature to make posts while on the road, so please be sure to check this blog often for every scintillating moment!

Update

Well, I've been remiss in updating the blog with the repairs and updates performed on the jeep. So, in no particular order here's the skinny:

1. Rear window works now and has a toggle on the dash near the steering column. Press the toggle up, the window goes up. Press it down, the window goes down. Repair of the window was due in large part to copious amounts of my Dad's time and his knowledge and application of Belzona products. Good stuff, check out their website.
2. On a night run I discovered the the dash lights do work - you just need to find the sweet spot on the dimmer switch and then never touch it again. We still have the always on "seatbelt light turned into dash light" though as a back up.
3. Changed the oil and filter. The previous owner gave us a filter so it seemed like a good thing to do. Bringing a couple of quarts extra for the trip but in close to 200 miles of driving so far, I haven't seen much oil consumption.
4. Still ignoring the inoperative fuel gauge but have discovered the jeep gets about 14 mpg in mixed highway / city driving. That number will probably go down with 3 other guys and gear but it's not as bad as I thought it would be. The "fuel gauge" is blue painter's tape on the dash with a mileage marked down denoting a "suggested refueling stop" accounting for some reserve and knowing the tank is approximately 20 gallons. We're all engineers so we shouldn't have a problem with the math...but I bet we run out of gas due to hangover, confusion, short attention span or the fact that we lose the radio presets every time we shut the truck off. Stay tuned.
5. Mounted the eTrex GPS on the dash using some left over copper pipe, zip ties and a 2x4. The cell phone antenna for the wireless card was much easier because it has a magnetic mount and was simply plopped on the roof. The borrowed DeLorme GPS for the nav system is zip tied to the dash near the eTrex. It's not pretty but can be removed quickly when we get to New Orleans.
6. Plugged the original, leaky left front tire and mounted it on the right front. The old spare is on the left front and the old right front is now the spare. Still make sense? Put the "new" spare back under the truck and forgot to swap the chrome trim ring back to the "new" right front. We've easily got the nicest spare tire on the rally, but I'm not climbing under the truck again for a crummy trim ring.
7. The budweiser can exhaust patch lasted exactly one trip to work before it blew out. In exhaust repair part deux, I simply rotated the rest of the can over the hole and put on some heat activated exhaust repair tape. I also patched a hole in the rear muffler. MUCH quieter now. Let's hope the repair lasts. If not, our stereo goes to 11. Anyone who gets that joke will be welcome on our Babe Rally 2k8 team.
8. The "headlight on" buzzer decided to buzz whenever the key was on, regardless of the position of the headlight switch. It was promptly removed and is now living at the bottom of my toolbox.
9. The parking brake works and releases. It is however a last resort. It SLOWLY brought the truck to a complete stop from about 5 mph or so. Let's hope we don't ever need it.
10. Speaking of brakes, we inspected the brakes. Rear drums work and don't drag. Front brakes look good and have plenty of pad. Greased front caliper slide pins and topped off the fluid.
11. Jacked up the rear of truck slightly, locked front hubs and put the truck in drive. Only the rear wheels spun, so we're 100% positive that the truck is in 2wd, no matter what the dash or 4wd lever says. WE then unlocked the front hubs, lowered the rear end and acted like we didn't see the neighbors scratching their heads.
12. Checked the fluid in transfer case and rear diff. Fluid in transfer case looks brand new. I bet the previous owners couldn't figure out the damn 4wd system either!

All Dressed Up!

Spent some time putting on stickers and paint today. Here's the truck in full Rally Trim:

Exhaust Patch

No further explanation necessary:

Babe machine!

Cleaned the truck to take photos for our eBay ad. Here she is all cleaned up:

More video...

Took some video of the engine running to include in our future eBay ad:

Success!

Fixed the tranny return line tonight and took the truck for a test drive. No apparent leaks and everything works as it should. I duct taped the seatbelt warning light to the back of the gauge cluster and it works great as an instrument panel light. Put about 3.5 miles on the truck and made sure it shifts into all three gears - got up to a blistering 35 mph too. Engine pulls strong and didn't stall, hesitate or backfire. Still have a lot of cleanup work to do, but the goal for the immediate future is to focus on getting as many miles as possible on the truck to work out any potential problems. Last few items remaining:

1. Inspect / repair brakes and change brake fluid for good measure. Our resident jeep expert, Tom, mentioned that the Dana 44 calipers are notorious for binding due to rusty caliper pins.
2. Verify cooling system / thermostat works - still haven't had the truck up to normal operating temp because it's still cool here in the evenings. The gauge has stayed towards the bottom end of the green.
3. Test truck at highway speed to see if the tires need to be balanced
4. Buy a spare tire (probably used)
5. Clean up wiring, hoses, tighten every nut and bolt within reach, etc.
6. Reinforce the frame in key locations
7. Troubleshoot fuel gauge (leaning towards ignoring this and doing everything with seat of the pants mileage calcs)

Update

I still wasn't convinced that the tranny pan was the cause of the fluid leak so I put the jeep up on ramps today and crawled under the pan while it was idling. With a flashlight and an inspection mirror, I was able to tell the pan was okay but the tranny cooler return line was leaking. Most of my other work has been in the evening and the light of day really helped to see what was going on. I tightened the fitting hoping the leak would stop, but it only tore the hardline more and started to gush fluid. The fitting was in pretty bad shape (looked much like the power steering did) and was leaking where the tubing and nut joined. No hope getting a replacement on a Sunday so I'll swing by the local Parker Hannifin hose dealer and pick up a fitting tomorrow. The oem fitting has a hard line that follows the contours of the tranny, but rubber hose will be more than adequate for our purposes. I found a pic of the tranny online pre labeled by someone having a problem troubleshooting leaks of their own. They labeled the diagram, so don't blame me for the spelling error. The fitting in question is all the way to the right towards the rear of the tranny.Since I couldn't run the truck with the return line removed, I started to tackle the rear window. My dad came over and helped repair / rebuild the bottom track of the window with some high performance Belzona elastomers and supermetal. The window looks much better and is much stronger but I haven't bonded the guide pieces on yet. Hopefully that will happen tomorrow and the window will finally be checked off as done.

After that, I ripped out the glove box and stock radio and installed a Sony CD/MP3 head unit. I was lazy and didn't want to hack saw out the stock radio location, so the Sony sits in the glove box area pop riveted to the bottom of the stock radio. Looks pretty awful but it works great. Had to remove the glove box door but it will all go back together when we remove the headunit at the end of the rally. Also installed the rear 6x9 speakers on top of the rear wheel wells. Amazing what a difference four decent speakers and a digital tuner make! No speaker boxes, just sheet metal screwed into the body. Actually sounds pretty good. More pics tomorrow.

New Speakers

Replaced the awful OEM front speakers with new ones tonight. My boss volunteered his '99 Mustang speakers to our cause because the speakers (tweeters, 4" and 6x9s) were gathering dust on the shelf after upgrading his sound system. Thanks Joe!

Install was pretty straightforward - remove door skin, remove old speaker and install new speaker with sheet metal screws. Managed to tuck the speaker in a corner and get three screws in. Here's a shot with the Ford speaker installed:
Not exactly a Unique Whips caliber install, but the door skin tucks over the speaker and it looks pretty good. Sounds significantly better too! To add to the weirdness of mustang speakers in a $250 car - I reused the mustang torx fasteners. Never would have guessed they would have used torx for speakers! I'll be adding 6x9s in the back cargo area and a Sony CD/MP3 headunit, but those items are pretty low on the priority list and will wait for last. Here's the completed install:After the speaker install, I started to investigate the faulty dash lights and have determined that the instrument cluster is the first thing installed on a Wagoneer at the factory. The back of the gauge cluster is one big printed circuit board and the dash lights sit on the board. All of the bulbs (that I could reach) were fine so I presume the circuit board is old and has an open somewhere in the circuit. It's not worth fixing for our purposes but I would like to be able to see the temp gauge, oil pressure and speedo at night. My current plan is to take the mysteriously "always on" seatbelt light, add a toggle switch and move the lamp it to the center of the cluster and make that the dash light.

New Tranny Pan

Installed the "new" tranny pan in the Jeep tonight. Well, new to us anyway - don't want the jeep thinking that we're adding all sorts of bling for no reason! I ordered a used tranny pan, gasket and filter from Drivetrain.com and saved a couple bucks compared to a new shiny one from Summit Racing. After crawling under the jeep and holding up the replacement pan, I also confirmed that I guessed right and we've got a Torque Flite 999 transmission.

Here's the start of the adventure:
Couple of minutes later, the old pan is out and put next the the "new" one:
Can you tell which one is which? (The bottom one is the old one and in person looks much worse than the picture). In the course of reinstalling the new pan I learned one of the bolts is stripped and can only be hand tightenened and that was likely the cause of the leak. Putting a new pan, filter and gasket were probably overkill but you never know what's wrong until you get into these things. I buttoned everything up, put the stripped bolt in hand tight, topped it off with fresh ATF and fired up the jeep. As expected, within a few minutes the pan started to weep where the loose bolt was but a lot less than the flow it had before. Luckily, I can put a throughbolt and nut in that location and we'll be all set.

Pulled the jeep off the ramps, changed the air filter and ran some gumout through the carb and the throttle response is much better now. Took a quick lap around the block and parked the jeep for the night. The tranny pan leaked a good bit more after it warmed up but it's only from the corner of the loose bolt and that will be fixed tomorrow.