Catastrophic clusterfuck
Thought I had gotten a warped rotor, so tonight I picked up the Sploder and discovered that the left front wheel bearing was only attached to the rest of the vehicle with the gossamer fabric of fantasy. So I went to get a new one, the THIRD i have installed on this vehicle. (Two lefts, one right) I bitched at the Autozone guy, who looked it up and said “You know, you changed that last four years ago” which means about 170,000 miles. Guess I got my money’s worth.
Pathetic, really, that I have done this so often that I was able to do the replacement without even putting my reading glasses on; it’s a 32mm socket for the hub nut, a 10mm wrench for the t brake caliper, a 15mm wrench for the brake frame and the bearing housing, and I put in the ABS line strictly by feel.
I been doing this shit too long.
3 comments Og | Shadetree Mechanic, Uncategorized
No, you been driving a ‘sploder too long. Trade that turkey for a Jeep Cherokee. You can get a decent Cherokee used for $5-7K.
I like jeeps, but there are a couple probloems with that.
The seating position in a jeep is miserable to me. I can sit in the Exploder for 8 hours, but after an hour in a jeep I’m in pain.
The engine in a jeep would have to have been rebuilt about seven times by the time it had as many miles as my Ford 302, unless I could find one with an inline 6, and the inline 6 doesn’t have the ponies to haul a trailer full of tools, which I need to do on a fairly regular basis.
The jeep is miserable on electronics. Every one I’ve ever seen has had instrument cluster issues and worse.
If i was going to do hardcore offroading, I would buy a jeep in a second- though it would be something like a Rubicon. a Cherokee is a compromise between a good offroad vehicle and a good road vehicle, and it does neither well, for me.
As a matter of fact, the Exploder suits my purposes so well, and holds together so well, IMO, that my intention is to eventually find another as close to it as this one as I can find.