Here's how my weekend went-We headed for our favorite swimming spot which is a 10 mile drive through the sand dunes. My wife in the Grand Cherokee and me in the 4runner. On the way back out she drove down into a spot where she shouldn't of went and couldn't get it out. I drove back to the shop and grabbed my Jeep with a winch and had my son hook up the tow strap-first mistake- he put it around the tie rod-you can guess what happened there... While winching it up, I had my hand throttle locked on since even with dual optimas this was an almost vertical pull, I somehow broke a motor mount and the fan chopped the radiator up. Now two rigs down. Limped that back to the shop and grabbed the 4runner and a bunch of tools and the tie rod off my Jeep. Went to the house to drop the kids and dogs off. Came back out and my bad starting problems returned-4runner wouldn't start. Transferred all parts and tools to pickup. Head for dunes. Now midnight. Got out there and found tierod was about a fooot too short. Left wife there to hold down the fort and headed back home to get some sleep and keep an eye on the kids. Got up and returned to the dunes around 5am with a ghetto fabbed tie rod with a drag link end screwed into it that was about 4 inches shorter than the one we broke. 4 inches is a lot!!!! That thing was toed (sp??) in so much I had to drag that thing all the way out to the road so we could load it on my trailer. The 4 runner just started but now the back window won't roll up. I'm selling everything and buying some good walking shoes.
