jpmagazine.com NOVEMBER 2019TRAIL HEAD
The other day I was
prepping for an expedition,
as all Jeepers should
occasionally do. One of my new mates was
a bit green in the art of fixing up our junk in
the outback. After installing a particularly
complex addition to his Jeep, he was left
with a pile of miscellaneous bolts, nuts,
washers, wires, and doodads. He gazed at
the scattered parts and wondered out loud
what to do with the debris. My first thought
was, Why in the world would he even ask
such a thing? T hen I realized that he had
never been on the underside of a Jeep in
the deepest, darkest jungle, needing that
ver y washer or doodad to f ix the Jeep and
esc ape from the alligator s in the swamp.
I quickly reconsidered my response and
gleefully scooped the golden objects into a
bag and whispered, “Bring ’em.”
Of course, you can’t bring everything
and the kitchen sink, although some
Jeepers do. There is a time and a place
for everything, whether you’re on a short
trip or an expedition. Weight and spac e
play a big part in preparing for your trip.
Excessive weight hurts the performance,
handling, fuel economy, and four-wheeling
ability of any Jeep. Light is might as they
say, and it has b een proven many times.
Deciding the worth and value of any
particular item you carry can also be
mission-specific. For instance, your daily
driver going to work shouldn’t need the
long-range fuel tanks or jerrycans full or
attached, or the rooftop tent (unless that’s
the storage area). But it still amazes me
why people refuse to carry a spare tire
when wheeling past the point where they
can walk back to get one. The excuses forthis are as weak as damaged winch rope.
“My buddy has one.” Except when your
buddy slices a tire—then where is his
spare? “I have a plug kit and a compres-
sor.” That’s fine until you realize that slice
in the tire has 14 plugs in the sidewall and
the wire stitching isn’t holding. After 25
feet of driving you can shove in every
piece of clothing you have (you did bring
a blanket and jacket, right?), but the likeli-
hood of mak ing it bac k to civilization
is slim if you’re on a tough trail. O ther
common beginner’s blather: “It won’t fit
my tire carrier; it looks ugly; I don’t have a
place for it.” Just bring ’em.
And tools? I’m overkill in the tool depart-
ment, as I usually carry everything needed
to c omple tely rebuild any thing on my
Jeep. Of course, that varies depending on
which Jeep I am driving, so I even have
roving tool bags with the basics for most
any Jeep I end up with. If it’s a late-model
JK, then I won’t bring a hub socket, but
I will carry the 12-point^5 ⁄^16 socket for the
U-joint straps.
On the other hand, I once borrowed a
brand-new Ram 3500 dualie and towed
a buddy’s trailer with a Jeep on it. I didn’t
even think of throwing in a toolkit because
I was late and tired—and heck, what could
pos sibly go wrong? For that mat ter, what
could I fix on a brand-new truck anyway—
maybe a fuse? And then on a lonely stretch
of desert asphalt a trailer wheel started to
seize up. Luckily, I felt the pull and pulled
over to the side of the road to check the
wheel-cap temperature. Sure enough, one
was almost smoking hot. And I didn’t have
any tools. Or a jack. Or a ratchet strap.
Just bring ’em.
—Rick Péwé
[email protected]Bring ’em!
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