The love of my life is starting to get a bit old in the tooth, crotchety and sagging in the middle. I took her out the other day and she just doesn’t move like she used to. The problem is she has always been too short to climb anything worth climbing, and that feeling of helplessness when your buddies can get theirs up and you can’t gets you to start wondering whether it’s time to send her on.
There comes a time when you start thinking about trading in the old girl for a nice new, younger model. Keeping the old girl around has its advantages, the upkeep isn’t that bad compared to the initial cost of breaking in a new model. You don’t have to say a lot to her to keep her happy so long as once in a while you treat her right and take her somewhere nice. You know what you have, the bad and the good and who knows what aggravation a younger model might bring.
A self inflicted fenderectomy hasn’t done her a lot of good over the years so I figured it was time to get the experts in to get her Utah-rized. Doctor Toumbs put her on the rack and gave her 5 more inches and that should have made her happy. I didn’t notice much difference in the ride but in fairness we weren’t at it for that long. Typical old age problem, when you have the time you don’t have the energy and when you have the energy it’s bloody well raining.
I made her a little taller and now she doesn’t look quite so wide but its getting tougher to swing the old leg up and over to climb aboard. Now all I have to worry about is tipping over and landing on my head and then I will have to change my name to Dave.
I’m getting old as well and I am damn tired of giving her a bath. I have started to hate mud and have fallen in love with traipsing around the west especially Utah, hence the idea of getting her Utah-rized. It will be easier on us both when we take to the highways more which will be necessary in the Canyonlands just getting to the good stuff. I’m hoping the extra five inches will help us up the slickrock which can be mighty steep in places. I put the Boggers in the shed and gave her a nice new set of radial BFG Krawlers on street wheels so let’s hope what she lacks in length will be made up in gription. She’s still a little tail heavy but then I contribute greatly to that problem. I have thought about adding a little extra mass up front but I am sure that will just lead to more trouble. I keep saying a little more up front and we would be able to get it up a lot easier but more length is the answer so we are at a stalemate. What I think I will do is hop in the saddle and ride around some more, maybe even learn to drive and quit blaming the old girl. I will make sure she doesn’t overheat and break her in all over again. Could be fun!
The new younger models sure do look good but what would I do with the old girl? I couldn’t get rid of her – or could I?
No fracking way will this old gal leave my possession. I plan to take her to Moab so a new set of road friendly treads are in order.
37” BFG Crawlers
I ended not going to Moab and bought a new Jeep JK Unlimited instead. I sold the wheels and tires as I didn’t have the storage space but I have to say I dd like the combination.