thewestwon

Finally took my new-ish to me '11 Rubi (35", 2.5 lift - only 18k miles :-) ) out a few weeks back to Creekside over in Splendora. It was all fun and games - shallow holes, mostly playing around, until I got into a big hole. I went in slow and all seemed good, so i got on it a little bit. Then it dropped off and I high centered. I was angled to the passenger side and the water was above the door line and coming into the passenger side. All good. Hopped out to hook up the winch, which tensioned up and then promptly failed. Luckily another Jeep came along and helped me out. Lesson learned - stop wheeling alone. Anybody in the Conroe area that wheels a lot?

Anyways, limped home while overheating (fan died) and started clean up. I figured I'd make my first post a summation of all the stuff I tore up since I had to spend quite a bit of time researching and diagnosing - may help some newcomers in the future. I was formally a K5 Blazer guy that got into Porsche racing. Got my JK back in November after getting the 4x4 itch again.

1. Electric Fan - it was running in the hole for a while and then eventually died. I wasn't up to the intake so I left it running while I got out. I blasted the heat once I got out and kept it cool enough to get back to the house (~30 miles highway). Did my homework after the fact and saw all the posts on a Spal fan. I bought a Spal 30102082 16" puller. Then, I pulled apart the stock assembly and cut out the opening. Then, I drilled the four bolt holes and mounted the Spal. Finally, I taped off the radiator side and sprayed black great stuff in the gap; then I trimmed the motor side and sanded. The spal wired up green to red, black to black on the resistor/wiring harness thingy. Once I got the jeep fired up, I found that the fan was running on high in 15 seconds bursts and then shutting down. There was some mention of this in other threads but responses and thoughts were buried pretty deep in the thread. Turns out the resister/wiring harness thingy was shot. It sounds like letting the spal continue on with the bad resistor was causing some to fail, so I definitely wanted to replace that. I went through a ton of drama getting that (Mopar 55056789AC). I ordered it from quadratec and it was backordered, so I cancelled and called a dealer. They said it would be here next day. Followed up daily for four days consistently being told they were helpless and it kept getting backordered. Finally got a refund from the dealer and overnighted it from quadratec, who now had it back in stock. Once it showed up, I wired it in and everything worked as expected.

2. Flooded interior - No big deal - been there before. Pulled the carpet and seats and pressure washed everything. Set it out to dry in the Houston humidity, which was a futile effort. It took days to dry, but luckily no mildew. Once it dried, I used a Bissel Spotclean 5207F to shampoo everything. I love that thing - great for the house and car. Then, I hosed out the interior with the drain plugs pulled and removed the wiring looms and sprayed the mud out of them. I cleaned all of the seat connectors/harnesses and applied a healthy amount of dielectric grease. Then, I washed all of the trim and used some Mother's back to black. Finally, I pulled the weatherstripping around the doors and got the mud out of them.

3. Winch fail - Jeep had a Smittybilt Gen 1 XRC 10 Comp on it when I bought it. I tested it before going out and it pulled, but that was the extent of my experimentation. Obviously the winch submerged in water didn't bode well for success. It tensioned up so I was hopeful, but that was about all I got. I tied up all the cable I spooled to the bumper and got home. I figured it was the solenoid so I ordered a replacement solenoid/top assembly - since it was gen 1, parts are hard to come by so I snatched up the first one I found. I ended up disassembling the winch to figure clean it up and found all sorts of mud packed in the motor, but the gears on the other end were clean. I tore down everything and cleaned it thoroughly. After drying and re-lubing, I re-assembled and tested. Worked perfectly. Aside from being packed with mud, the brakes that hit on the far end (passenger side) of the motor windings were bound up and stuck all the way back with grit. Ironically, the control unit/solenoid I bought showed up with a cracked plastic housing, so I filed for a return. They refunded me but said that they didn't need it back, which is great for a spare.

4. Starter - After I had done all of my main work, I had the jeep sitting for a while - had been driving my 987 while I got the jeep back in order. I went to fire it up and pull it into the garage and it was super slow to turn over. The battery was reading 14v on my traildash 2, so I pulled the key and tried again. It fired right up, and I pulled it inside. Then, I tried to start it again and got nothing. Got pissed and went to bed. Next day I pulled the starter and (no shock here) found it full of mud. I gave it a good superficial clean and bench tested it. Nothing. So I disassembled everything. The motor was full of mud, much like my winch (also the electric motor's brakes were seized up with grit). So I got the cleaned up and gave the solenoid quite a few healthy taps for good measure. Reassembled everything and bench tested again - worked perfectly. I reinstalled the starter and it's firing up very reliably, now.

5. Differentials/Fluids - Being of above average intelligence, I went wheeling with stock breathers on my differentials, t-case, and tranny. After burying it, I wanted to check everything. Found a tiny amount of water in the front diff, but everything else was good. I went ahead a flushed all the fluids since I hadn't changed any of them besides oil. Then, I used some 1/4" fuel line and ran breathers up to the air box for everything. It was definitely a poor decision not doing this beforehand, but it didn't seem to cause any lasting issues.

6. Angry Sparrows! Had a pretty serious case of angry sparrows after the whole ordeal. I've got a pair of Adams 3410 shafts on the way to clear that up. Break it and upgrade it.

7. Lessons learned - Don't wheel alone. Don't treat a relatively stock jeep like a boat. I got some rugged ridge floor liners to help with the mess going forward. I'd really like to raptor line the floorboards soon. I definitely need to upgrade to a snorkel. The jeep had a K&N intake on it when I bought it, which made me super nervous wheeling it (yet not nervous enough to do anything about it - hmmm). I'd like to go with an AEV hood and snorkel combo....if only the 987 didn't consume most of my free cash.

Anyways....all good now. Realistically, I didn't have to spend a whole lot to get everything fixed up, it just took some time. Sorry for being long winded, but after all my searching I figured it would be worthwhile to post this up to help out some other newbie in the future.

Here's some pictures of my dumbass moment and a nice shot of the rig