More parts arrived today and more are on the way to get things moving on my build.  I got my rear Crusher Corners on but still need to wore up the lights.  I was hoping my fuel tank would ship but my shop hasn't received any tracking on it.  That doesn't mean it didn't ship so I'm hopeful it shows up next week as they shut down for the holidays and if it did not, then I won't see it until the second week of January probably.  

I just got home from picking up a drum set for Jayson's Christmas.  I expect him to be really surprised.  We won't see him until next week so we have to wait to give it to him.  

Well, as they say "The only constant is change".  We were looking at my rear strut towers and the right rear is going to create an issue with the track bar mount.  It became obvious quickly that when people go to outboarding their shocks that they wind up doing a triangulated 4 link in the rear.  So now a Genright 4 link crossmember is on it's way and so is DOM tubing a Ballistic joints for a double triangulated 4 link.  Now I'm 3 linking the front too.  It never ends.

I also picked up a new set of Motobilt fenders that are narrower so I can get more uptravel.  My Metalcloak sliders came yesterday and they will give me at least 2 inches of more clearance.  Now, I still await the ORI struts and the Kingpin 60.

 Jodi finished up her last editing session of the year today and is quite relieved to say the least.  To commemorate this event, she is making me take her to dinner tonight!  

I was able to get my new fenders ordered after finding them on ebay.  The rears will be here tomorrow and the fronts will be a week or so.  I'm hoping to start working on assembly of the 14 bolt axle this weekend and possibly starting installation of the crusher corners. 

I've been helping the last couple evenings with the U.S. Marines Toys for Tots campaign with our offroad club.  We are helping sort and package tens of thousands of toys over a two week period.  

 

 We had two sales sessions today and now just have 5 remaining on the year.  Jodi is on her second to last session to edit and we are looking forward to a break of several months.  I plan on offering some headshot sessions over the winter as I see that as a small source of income during those months so that it isn't bone dry.  I really hope the headshot sessions do not get super popular as I don't want to be busy in our offseason.

I'm getting ready to order some shirts for my offroad brand.  I really like my new logo and am looking forward to seeing it on some apparel.  I've had a number of people ask me about offering some so we will see how that goes I guess.

I'm anxiously awaiting the delivery of my front axle and struts.  Those are the big pieces I need to finish the entire project.  Supposedly my Genright fuel tank will ship in the next couple days, fingers crossed.  That might take a little time to get installed so it needs to get here.  

 I spent a big part of today grinding the remnants of brackets off the 14 bolt housing.  By the time I was finished, my hands were cramping and numb.  I'm glad that task is over and I can move on to something less laborious.  It still needs to be sandblasted and primed but that'll be a breeze compared to the grinding.

Jodi has two sessions left to edit and we have 7 sales sessions to do and then we are done for the year.  She is definitely ready for a break.  We may head to Scottsdale and Sedona after the first of the year for a little getaway.

 Jodi has been wanting a new vehicle for awhile now.  Although our Mercedes has been a great car for us, it sits very low to the ground.  It's easy for her to get into because she can kind of "fall in" to it but getting out is a struggle.  I have the same issue and wind up pushing myself off the b pilar to get out since I sit back further than her.  Our plan was to wait until after the first of the year but she started hunting and I knew once we found something she wanted, we would have to get it.  Her want list started out with the Mercedes GLC Coupe, which is hard to find and it carries a premium when you do find one.  We found a 2017 GLE 43 AMG coupe in Columbia but she didn't want to drive that far so we kept our search closer to home.  She liked the GLE 350 SUV also and she found a couple of those that she liked but they weren't very exciting vehicles.  The other day, she saw a Jaguar F Pace and really like it.  I have always liked the F Pace but I thought it would be out of our price range, which a new one is way more than I would want to spend.  If I'm spending that kind of money, a 2020 F-450 is going to be in the driveway!  

After doing some searching online, we found two Jag's nearby so yesterday we went and looked at both.  The white 2018 R Sport had some paint damage on the front air dam.  It only had 19K miles but I wasn't crazy about the damage or the look as it looked pretty basic.  So we went to the other dealer where we found the 2018 F Pace S waiting.  It had 35K miles and was a beautiful gray color.  Big 22' wheels on Scorpion tires ($3500) were glistening with Armorall.  This thing looked sexxxxxxxxy.  I could tell Jodi liked it and I sure did too.  The interior is two tone chocolate and black for a very rich look.  The only thing that could have been better would have been the red/black option.  Under the hood is a supercharged V6 pumping out almost 400HP.  Oh yeah, I have to drive this thing.  And it wasn;' long after we had the salesperson in the back seat and we were scooting down the road.  You better believe I got on it a few times.  The exhaust sound pretty good for a V6, it definitely rumbles which was kind of surprising.  

Back at the dealership, I laid out my dal and they had to get the Sales manager involved to get the deal done but we did it and drove it home after saying goodbye to the Mercedes.  We left the dealership and went to pick up Jayson from JD and Megan's as he was to spend the night with us as they had plans.  He loved the new car and I took him to school in it this morning.

After my sales session this afternoon, I took it out and grabbed a few quick shots of it.  It is one sexy cat.  Click on the pics to see them big. 

 Work has begun on the new suspension setup on my Jeep.  The front long arm installed on the current Dana 44 axle as I await the arrival of my Kingpin 60.  The fenders and inner fenders are off as those are being replaced as well.  I removed the rear tub trim and carpet, including the Rock Hard C pillar cage supports to make room for the strut towers that will be fabbed in.  This weekend, we may install the Poison Spyder Crusher Corners and start the rear strut tower install.  A late change to the build is installing a Genright fuel tank as I am pretty confident I am going to have clearance issues with the factory fuel tank.

 I had a great trip to SMORR with quite a few of our club members.  I led a group of 18 rigs out on the trails Friday and more showed up on Saturday so it was a great turnout for Turkey Day weekend.  We got some new folks out on the trails and built their confidence levels up which is always a rewarding experience for me.

On Saturday, I wound up leading the advanced group while a couple others took smaller groups of the beginner/intermediate people.  We headed straight to one of my favorite trails there, Rocky Road.  It's a tough trail if you don't have experience on it.  The trail changes pretty frequently because large boulders get moved around making navigation more difficult sometimes.  Here are a few pics from the trail. 

 Here's a couple other pics from Rocker Knocker.  

Parts keep arriving for my build which begins this week.  I'll be removing skid plates, the air compressor, sliders and more in prep for this weekend where we plan to mount the long arm brackets and maybe the brake upgrades.

  

 Tons of parts arrived yesterday for my build and more are in transit as I accumulate all of the goodies for my build.  I'm ready to get the project going and it all starts next week after I return from SMORR.  Speaking of SMORR, I'll be heading there in about 5 hours after having some BBQ lunch with a friend and his Dad.  I'm all loaded and ready to go.

Jodi went to St. Louis this morning for a weekend with her family and a break from her computer.  I'm sure she will get in some shopping while there.  

On Friday,  I got up at 4:30am and heading out to meet up with a friend so we could drive to Oklahoma City so he could purchase a 3.6 engine with a RIPP supercharger like mine on it.  We had a good drive and made it down there in about 4 1/2 hours.  The engine was at an offroad shop who had pulled it and installed the 392 Hemi for the owner.  The shop was huge, about 20,000 sq ft and most of the rigs they build are on ORI struts.  We were able to look over a few they had done and got some info and ideas for my build from the shop owner.  We spent a couple hours there and it was a good time.  After loading the engine, we drove back to KC and got it on an engine stand in my friends garage.  I made it home about 7:30pm.  Long day.

Saturday morning, I had two sales sessions while Jodi continued her work on editing.  Afterward, a buddy came over and we hung out for awhile before meeting up with a guy whop bought my PSC steering box.  We wound up going to our favorite Italian joint afterward for some good eats.

Today we planned to go out and look for a new vehicle for Jodi.  She would like a Mercedes SUV of some sort or a Range Rover.  When we got to the dealerships, they were closed.  I was under the impression all Kansas dealers were open on Sunday.  That wasn't the case at least at this dealer.  We wound up shopping for new hardwood floors to replace the defective one we have.  It seems supplies are hard to come by right now so it will likely be after the first of the year before we do anything.

I think I'm going to go ahead and drop a Genright fuel tank in my Jeep as I'm growing more confident that I am going to have clearance issues with the factory tank.  Hoping for a good Black Friday sale from them as they are a bit pricey.

Parts ordering kicks into high gear

I've been busy ordering parts for my winter project the last couple days, the biggest being my Elite Kingpin 60.  Serious beef for the front end of Nemesis.  I hope to see it in about 6 weeks.  I also ordered my ORI struts, Motobilt inner fenders for the rear and RPM Steering ORI strut towers.  This is going to be fun.

Today is my last photo shoot of the year for senior portraits.  It's been a great year, all things considered.  We wound up photographing 66 clients along with a few headshot sessions.  Next year is shaping up well too already.

Next week, I'm heading to SMORR for some Turkey Day weekend wheeling with the club while Jodi heads to St. Louis to hang with her family.  When I return from SMORR, my rig starts getting stripped down to make room for the new additions.  

 Yesterday, our club held a makeup event for a summer event that got rained out.  I was on the road at 6:15am, headed to Kansas Rocks.  Jodi got to sleep in as she needed to stay home and work on editing sessions.  I met up with a couple others and we made the two hour drive down to Mapleton, KS.  It was a cool and breezy morning after a little rain in the area but the trails were pretty dry and it was going to be a good day.

Costco diesel is still $1.63 a gallon but the big savings these days in premium gas.  50 cents a gallon cheaper at Costco.  DId a double fuel up before heading out.

I led a group of ladies out on the trails and helped them navigate some obstacles, learning more about their vehicle capability and show them how to properly traverse them.  There were a couple other groups led by my friends and we had about 15 vehicles total.  We spent about 5 hours out on the trails and we had a pretty good time.  The ladies really enjoyed themselves and I expect a few will be making upgrades to their Jeeps soon.

Today, we rose early and headed out to Topeka for a customer appreciation day and swap meet at my friend's offroad shop.  There was quite a crowd already when Jodi and I arrived along with my friend Chris who rode with us.  I sold some stainless exhaust pieces I had left over and Jodi won a nice raffle prize.  My truck got close to 16mpg on the highway at 80mph on the trip.  Pretty happy with that.

I have one more photo shoot remaining to do this year and it is on Wednesday.  On Friday, my friend and I are driving down to Oklahoma City to pick up a 3.6 with a RIPP supercharger on it for him to install in his Jeep.  I'll also be working on cutting more brackets off my 14 bolt housing and doing a lot of grinding to get it ready to weld on new suspension brackets and a truss.  

 It's been a minute since I posted!  We've been busy finishing up our busy season and that has been keeping Jodi and I both busy.  We have one more photo shoot to do next week as we stopped taking reservations for shoots to allow Jodi to get caught up.  Our Spring season is already 1/3 full though and I expect us to see a record number of sessions in March, April and May next year.

I've been ordering parts for my one ton build as I'm anxious to get that started.  The gears, locker, and other parts for the 14 bolt have been ordered.  My upgraded master cylinder, booster and reservoir are on the way too.  Today, I ordered my ORI struts.  Can you feel the sucking sound of money right now?  LOL

Winter is going to be busy trying to get all of this work done so that I can take my Jeep to Sedona.   

 We had a great time at Hot Springs ORV a couple weekends ago.  We had about 30 vehicles from our club make the trip and we had two great days of offroading.  We did the tough trails and Jodi had to get out a few times to keep her anxiety in check and I managed to keep the rig in one piece while doing the "crazy stuff" as she calls it.

I just picked up a welder and am looking forward to building my 14 bolt axle this winter.  My long arm kit is here and I'll be ordering my Kingpin Elite 60 very soon.  Can't wait to get all of my winter projects completed.  

I'm running unopposed for President of our club for next year.  Elections are next month so I guess our 500+ members feel I am doing a good job since no one wanted to run against me.  

 The streak continued with a $900 win at the Blackjack table last night.  JD got to see me color up and cash out.  Yep, going back again tonight and will every night until the streak ends.  I had a hot streak last year prior to going to Vegas which gave me about $2500 for the trip.  Hope this one keeps going for awhile.  

Today I need to start trip prep so I'll be climbing under the rig and checking bolts for torque and inspection of parts.  We drove around in the cool Fall air yesterday and all seemed good.  Jodi was a little cold as it was 59 degrees but it felt great to me.  

We are into the first week of October with 20 photo sessions scheduled for the balance of the year.  If I want to get greedy, I could probably book two more but Jodi is behind as it is and we are keeping clients waiting longer than usual to see their images.  Plus, we leave for Hot Springs in just a few days and that's editing time she is losing.  She is doing well though and that's the best news of all.

My Rock Krawler long arm and three link kit arrived yesterday.  We are still looking for a 14 bolt axle to build but the parts are piling up for the newest version of Nemesis.  It's going to be a fun winter with all of the projects planned.

I've been really happy with the performance of my truck.  I wound up doing a 4" straight pipe all of the way back with a race resonator just to keep the drone out of it when towing.  My friend had that issue so I went ahead and took care of it prior to experiencing it.  I'll get a good idea as to what kind of mileage it is getting while towing on our upcoming trip.  

The last two nights I've been a little bored so I went to the casino that JD works at.  The first night I walked out with $285 and last night I walked out with $525.  I'm going to hopefully continue the streak tonight.  Going to ride it out as long as I'm hot.  

We've been staying busy with photo shoots and getting people in for their ordering appointments.  We are probably a few sessions overbooked but I'm not turning down people who want to hand over money to me.  We may even start doing some morning sessions to continue to meet demand.

The other day I did a delete and tune on my truck.  WOW!  What a difference that makes.  My MPG has gone from about 12 on the highway to 18!  That of course is on the milder tunes but when you want to raise holy hell, dial it up to the 250HP tune and you will be pinned back in the seat as you quickly hit 100mph.  It's no wonder the diesel trucks are eating Mustangs and Camaros for lunch.  

I had a new logo made for my offroad brand and am really happy with it.  Looking forward to getting some tshirts made up.  I had 100 hats made with the name on them and have started selling those.

 Jodi is doing well and her followup appointment with the doctor was good. She goes back later this week for some followup tests but she has made significant improvement.

The struggle for us right now is her getting caught up on all of our sessions.  We are about 7 sessions behind right now and shooting 4 more this week.  We have brought in our former intern who is working about 4 hours per day to help Jodi in that regard.  Hopefully we can get her caught up soon.  

I'm leading a trip to Tuttle to go wheeling on Sunday with my club.  We will have about 20 people going and it should be a fun day of rock crawling on the ledges.  Our Hot Springs trip is coming up in just a few weeks and I am really looking forward to going back and wheeling there.  That will be out last big trip of the year.  I'm thinking about heading to Scottsdale/Sedona this winter for a couple weeks to play in the red rock and desert a bit.

I'm close to ordering my new Fusion Kingpin 60.  Current lead time is around 6 weeks and I could get thew 14 bolt built in that time.  I'm also considering doing a full Genright cage with a B pillar chop and a Motobilt backhalf kit so I can outboard the ORI struts I want to get.  The long arm and three link is in the works right now.  

 Jodi seems to be doing much better and has a followup doctor appointment tomorrow.  We will see if they make any changes to her meds or recommend anything else.

We spent this past weekend at SMORR in the Sprigfield area.  Jodi stayed at camp most of the time, only venturing out on an easy trail with a lady friend of ours.  I led a couple groups around, went up the waterfall, lost all my power steering fluid when a hydraulic line on my ram came loose during a tough battle on a hill and trailered home a club member whose transmission shot craps.  Fun times.

Our next wheeling trip is to Tuttle on the 20th followed by a trip to Hot Springs, Arkansas for a wheeling trip the second weekend in October.   

I bought a set of Spyderlock beadlocks for a one ton build while in Tennessee.  It was too good of a deal to pass up, nearly half price.  That made me go buy another set of Mickey Thompson Baja Boss tires to put on them so I can roll out on new meats next year.  Mickey's are on a national backorder, at least in 40's, so when a shop here got a small shipment in, I snagged them.  Looking to start a shaved 14 bolt build in the next couple months.

Jayson had a baseball game yesterday and I got to see his first walkoff game winning RBI.  It's funny watching JD watch Jayson play.  Jayson is so much like he was when small.  I kept mentioning to JD, "You did the same when you were his age".  

 

 Trail 16 wound up being a crazy adventure.  It didn't take long to have a "situation".  AFter being unable to go through a deeply rutted section of the trail due to my long wheel base, I chose to try to go around it.  That was a bad idea as the trail was muddy and we started to slide off the trail, which was on a hillside.  While attempting to back up, we continued to slide off the trail and we were now in a pretty precarious position on the hillside.  At that point, we had no choice but to get out of the vehicle before it rolled down the hill.  I quickly attached my winch line to a tree and assessed the situation.  I was about to try to just floor it backwards to see if I could get back up on the trail but in hindsight, that probably would have been a bad idea.  The good news is, I probably wouldn't have gone down the hill very far with the winch line attached.  LOL  Luckily, a few Cherokees showed up and one of them wound up using his winch and a snatchblock to work with me and my winch to get me back on the trail.  

 I started this post a number of days ago but didn't finish it as much got in the way this past week. The biggest and most important issue was Jodi having a minor stroke.  I'm not going to go into a lot of detail but she is home and resting after a brief hospital stay.  She should fully recover as it was a very minor one but will need to be on meds for the foreseeable future.  

Here's the post I started and I will add a new post soon to finish it out.  

We had a super busy week with 4 photo shoots and other madness so it's taken me awhile to find some time to get to posting a post-Tennessee update here, but we are back.  We cut the trip a day short because we felt we had taken in all of the Jeep Invasion and the offroad park was pretty wet with all of the rain that came late in the day on our visit.

We hit the park on Thursday as planned but we were there by ourselves as the group would arrive later that day to wheel the following day.  I told Jodi we would just knock out the three badge trails in 3-4 hours and then head into town.  Well, that was not what happened at all.  This offroad park is massive, to the tune of 73.000 acres.  What we found out was that you have to drive 5-7 miles on rutted, rocky service road to even get to the trailheads.  That takes awhile at 5-10mph.  Then, the trails are really long too, like miles.  So, 4 hours later, we only have two trails done with the toughest one yet to do.  That turned out to be quite the adventure.

 Here's the video we were featured in.  Turned out pretty cool.  My friends are calling me "Rock Star" now.  LOL  Best to watch it on Youtube full size.  

 We had a blast at SMORR this past weekend as we got to meet up with some people we've watched for awhile on Youtube and Instagram and wheel with them for the first time.  We did some new trails and all of them had some tough obstacles on them.  

It's not often we are one of the smaller Jeeps but that was the case this time as many were on 42's and 43's and the biggest rig was on 46's.  My Jeep did great and there were times that I made it up obstacles easier than the bigger rigs.  

The media crew shooting the event picked us to feature in an upcoming video and they mounted cameras in my Jeep as well as rode with us, filming and shooting as we went.  That video should be released pretty soon and I'll post it here when it is.

Here are some of the images taken by the media crew that they shared with us.  

Here are a few shots of my favorite rigs at the event.

 Since I've been remiss in posting, here's a video for you to watch that we are featured in a couple times doing what we do.  Another vid and lots more pics coming shortly.  

We had Jayson with us this weekend and we spent some of it going shopping for some new shoes and clothes for him.  After ward, we stopped by Rogers Sporting Goods and he got to shoot an archery bow.  He liked doing it so Papa bought him a bow and it will be here in two weeks.  Maybe that will help get him off the video games and Youtube a little bit.  

We have 3 photo shoots, 5 consultations and two ordering appointments in the next four days before we head to SMORR and wheel with some of the famous folk.  I cleaned up my Jeep a bit, painted some parts and it's ready to go.  

Today I had a client consultation followed by a Sportraits photo shoot.  I have a session scheduled for tomorrow but they are predicting about 3 1/2" of rain here so it isn't looking good for that one.  Jodi has been tied to her desk chair this week and will be for some time as we have tons of sessions ahead and she is trying to keep pace. Here is a recent favorite pic of mine.

We will have Jayson spending the upcoming weekend with us as JD and Megan are heading to a friend's wedding in Green Bay.  It will be fun to have him for the extended time. 

See, I already forgot about updating my blog.  A busy life is getting in the way, well, at least I'm going to blame it on that.  We had 4 photo shoots this past week and I have five this week.  We have many more scheduled through August and into the Fall so things are looking pretty good business wise.

Today I slept in until about 8:30am as Jodi and I didn't get to sleep until close to 1am after going out to dinner with friends followed by an evening at Knucklehead's to see our favorite classic rock band.  I slept pretty good thanks to the Bud Light.  I wound up going to a friend's this afternoon and while he worked on his rear axle and locker, I installed a 1" body lift on my Jeep and then trimmed up my rear pinch seams some more for more clearance.  All told, I probably gained 1 3/4" of clearance.  Fortunately, it barely clears our garage door but it won;t with any top on.

Speaking of tops, I picked up a like new MOPAR premium twill top today for $100.  A club member who just got rid of his Jeep put it up for sale and I was first on the post to snag it.  Didn't know it was a premium top until I picked it up.  It did not have the surrounds with it but I already have an extra set.  What a deal.

I'm looking forward to an upcoming trip to SMORR where I'm going to get to wheel with some of the bigger name Jeepers who are well known from Youtube and Instagram.  Hope I can keep up with those that are running 43's and 46's!

Back to the Colorado adventure.  So here is a pic of the closest I've come to rolling over.  The left rear tire was off the ground and we were maybe teetering a little.  Jodi was on the verge of freaking out a little.  I backed down due to that but later discussion amongst the boys felt that I could have made it as my right front tire was ready to go up and level me out.

Photo evidence that I was three wheeling, maybe two wheeling for a tad bit.  Screen shot froma  video.  Sorry for the bad quality.

And lastly, us making it up the obstacle.  

More pics from our adventure.