About three weeks ago, I bought a '68 Jeepster from someone close to the JP mag family that spent some time under the knife at Cappa's dirt ranch and subsequently Pewe's squatting plot.
Long story short, before two weeks ago, it hadn't been on the road in 5 years, as near as all of us can figure. Sure, it had a nice view of the Pacific Ocean from the cliffs of Malibu, but it hadn't been driven.
I like to use TDS as a shakedown run for Moab EJS and this year was no different. So, I thrashed for a couple weeks (I didn't die, I was just under the Jeepster) to get the Jeepster driving, registered it, insured it, cut the rear fender flares off, bolted up some 32-inch Goodyear MT/Rs and took it to TDS.
It was a blast.
Everyone made fun of me for my trying to take curves in washes with manual steering at the speed I would with a power steering Jeep (picture a monkey on meth with a Fischer Price plastic steering wheel), but it was a good time. The Jeep was basically point-and-shoot at whatever I wanted to go up and over and thanks to just bringing it back from the dead I didn't worry much about hurting it... I mean, the Jeep sat for 5 years... surely a weekend in the dirt is better treatment than it had before, right?
So, I ripped a rear crossmember, found out my rear axle is not square to the frame, think I need to add a roll bar to straighten the body, and all other millions of things to do before Easter Jeep. But, the Jeepster wheeled, and wheeled well. Look for me out at EJS just loving wheeling this old and recently ressurected Jeep.