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Little Blue Sky And A Little Gold


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9 hours ago, Steve Herschbach said:

That really is a very well written story and great photos - thanks for posting! My wife had a Jeep in Alaska and I hated every minute of it. They have a short wheel base and will go end for end on ice in an instant. Big tires just make it worse. Great dry country rigs but not for winter driving, I worried about her constantly. Luckily the "I am a gal who never leaves pavement but has to have a jeep to be cool" phase ended with nobody getting hurt. I am glad your incident proved to be a minor fender bender.

Thanks Steve, interesting about your jeep stories and some comfort in knowing they are all like that, if I needed to drive ice all the time I'd have to find a better set-up. It's been a little sketchy on gravel too if I let the speed creep up, I'm thinking when the lift was installed they might have set the tracking bars off a degree or two and possibly some other critical adjustments may be off for my lift and tire combo, but I'm going to take it to someone who knows what to do and tame this thing down a little.

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11 hours ago, klunker said:

  It's nice to see a little prospector patina on your jeep but I think we can add something a little more profound if you head up to this country this summer.

Depends on how profound we're talkin about...adding a one ounce nugget would also be profound and I'm more than happy to add one of those to my jeep:smile: Really, who am I kidding, I've already proven I'm willing to work long hours for next to almost nothing, so I guess as long as I'm having fun a bit more patina is unavoidable as I've no intention of keeping this thing parked in the garage. Interestingly enough, while having my hands full trying to keep my jeep in one piece I kept thinking and chuckling to myself while everything was in slow motion, I hope this is only "a little character."

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Thanks everyone for the great comments the words of encouragement are worth far more than the gold.

So...my luck held for another day, if it wasn't tempting fate I would head back to the placers. The morning Holden tournament aka; give the ice time to melt, scored win number two! But only two tables and 18 players as most people headed out earlier, so not much to brag about and the prize pool barely covered the room that night and my breakfast. All in all lots of little lucky streaks, so good start for 2017

my gold total was a paultry (kidding, I'm happy when I find a flake) 3.66g the largest coming in at slightly over 1.5g the next around 1.3 and .7g for the little one.

IMG_0823.JPG

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Whew!!!!:happy: Nice Driving! and Detecting! Ig

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 TOP SECRET FOR 1515Art ONLY.

1. Try a set of tires for the winter and a different set for the summer.

2. Studded tires would be worth it even for just a few wintertime trips in the snow.

3. Little old men (me) poking along in a little old Jeep are cool. Hansom fellas (you) all beat up standing by a banged up Jeep waiting for the tow service in a snow storm while receiving a citation are not.

4. Try to find a dirt road from near your house to your favorite mining area. If none is available simply move your house.

    Problem solved. Your welcome.

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4 hours ago, klunker said:

 TOP SECRET FOR 1515Art ONLY.

1. Try a set of tires for the winter and a different set for the summer.

2. Studded tires would be worth it even for just a few wintertime trips in the snow.

3. Little old men (me) poking along in a little old Jeep are cool. Hansom fellas (you) all beat up standing by a banged up Jeep waiting for the tow service in a snow storm while receiving a citation are not.

4. Try to find a dirt road from near your house to your favorite mining area. If none is available simply move your house.

    Problem solved. Your welcome.

A different set of tires would be considerably less expensive than an unlucky second trip into the guard rail, having no experience with studied tires just how much dry road can you get away with when using them for snow trips only? Could I drive from the Bay Area to snow country without tearing up the road and getting stopped all them time? I suppose I could get away with only 4 tires as long as they are the same relative size, although seeing how much different tire designs effect handling I'd need to be cautious mixing tires.

this being my first jeep im still finding the limits, most of the quirks it seems are normal, but I still think the suspension adjustments are slightly off. And although I grew up driving cars with manual trannys with no syncros...I've become fat and lazy with modern technology. I had a 1960 Austin Healy, the axel was located on top of the frame and when driving down the road you had to be careful about hanging your hand out or it might drag on the street, anyway they had a tendency to oversteer, I destroyed a couple of wire wheels on that thing. This jeep is in a whole new class of sketchy and perhaps it's the same for them all. I notice that on dirt roads in the 50mph range everything is rock solid, but if I push it to the 60's and we're talking straight road, the back end will start to come around from the way the suspension resonates with the road. I'm now finding the same things on certain slick pavement situations, but of course at much lower speeds.

and thank you, but I now know you are an excellent touch typeist, your writing is beyond elequent and I often marvel at the masterful use of the English language and now I'm even more impressed that you are able to do all of this and find incredible hordes of gold with the burden of very poor eye sight, my condolences. Having recently turned the ripe old age of 64, I've decided I now no longer have the burden of giving a (insert favorite additive here) about looks, it's too late...lm old and even if I didn't earn it I'm still hear and I find it very refreshing.

everytime I drive back into the Bay Area I wonder why...

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maybe tires are 2 wide '''so its  floating?  narrower puts more pressure in a smaller area:cool:

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Good point on narrower tires, it's got 11.5 right now and if I went 1 to 1.5 narrower it would also throw less mud all over the outside of the jeep. I like the look of wide tires but once I hit the first mud puddle the whole outside is covered in a inch layer of mud from top to bottom. I don't mind the clean-up that much, but I always have to find a place to wash the main layer off on my way home back to Cal, or Im afraid they'll stop at the agricultural inspection station, transporting mud and plant material you'd think would concern them.

im going to take it to a shop that specializes in setting up these lifts and make sure it's right and also ask about tires too.

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up here in Idaho - freind of mine owns an emergency tow yard and bigrig tow......for icy they like narrow tires as they can get  works better. that monster look you got is for Show or Soft mushy sandy ground....ck andsee where you detect . what the power companys use or even FEDEX uses on there offroad delivery rigs....will show ya what "real world.....Ive gota set of 235's goodyear wranglers on some vintage weld racing 'typhoon" wheels . i put together for my Xj ..Butmines5speed andit makes it a 3 speed on the street.$850 .   I reckon you need narrower rims to for real peacful travel offroad...cheers, jd

46 minutes ago, 1515Art said:

Good point on narrower tires, it's got 11.5 right now and if I went 1 to 1.5 narrower it would also throw less mud all over the outside of the jeep. I like the look of wide tires but once I hit the first mud puddle the whole outside is covered in a inch layer of mud from top to bottom. I don't mind the clean-up that much, but I always have to find a place to wash the main layer off on my way home back to Cal, or Im afraid they'll stop at the agricultural inspection station, transporting mud and plant material you'd think would concern them.

im going to take it to a shop that specializes in setting up these lifts and make sure it's right and also ask about tires too.

 

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  Idago is quite right. Wider tires = lower ground pressure. That's why they work better in sand. Studded tires can be used any where  but only from Oct. to April (double check the dates, I could be wrong). They are a bit noisy.

 Lifting a Jeep tends to make it ride "stiffer" and the suspension losses some of it's ability to absorb disruptions in the road surface so the entire vehicle gets bounced around instead of just one wheel.

 I wanted to see just how fast my jeep would go one time so I put the accelerator to the floor. It absolutely terrorized me when I reached 38 MPH.

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