Category: Joe Gresh

Dream Bike: Ducati 860GT

There are only a couple Ducatis that make my Dream Bike fantasy garage and the numero uno, top dog, ultimate Ducati is the springer 860. Unlike most Ducatis, this square-case, 90-degree, V-twin motorcycle eliminates the positive-closing desmodromic valve actuation system and in its place uses a conventional spring-return valve train. To some posers this change negates the whole reason for owning a Ducati. Not in my view: The ability to set valve lash with only a potato peeler on a motorcycle axle deep in cow manure plus the fact that I rarely run any motorcycle at valve floating RPMs means Desmo Ducks hold no advantage for me.

Is it wrong to love a motorcycle solely for its looks?  Giorgetto Giugiaro’s Jetson-cartoon styling speaks of optimism and a bold stepping-forth into the future. It looks fabulous and slabby and never ages in my eyes. This is one of those motorcycles you can stare at for hours. Why stop there? I’ve never ridden an 860GT so I’m just extrapolating from Ducati’s past performance but I’m sure the thing will handle street riding without issue.

The bikes were available with electric start for the kicking-impaired and after 1975 Ducati exchanged the perfect angular styling for the more traditional, rounded Desmo GT look. It was an error that I may never forgive them for. The springer 860 stayed in production a few more years but Ducati decided to go all in with desmodromic to give their advertising department some thing to boast about.

These 860GT Ducati’s are for riders. The seating position is humane, the gas tank big enough and I’ve read of some pretty astronomical miles racked up on the springer engine. A few years ago at an auction in Daytona I missed out on a beautiful red 860GT. The thing looked like new and sold for $5000. Damn cheap for such a rare (built only 2 years) and cool motorcycle.

Sausage Making

The China tour story I wrote took a long, winding road to publication. I like to pre-sell any feature-ish story and since we had recently done another big CSC story at That Other Magazine I pitched the China ride to Editor in Chief, Marc Cook. He liked the idea and suggested making the story less about the CSC motorcycle and more about the ride.

All went swimmingly on the tour but while I was in China That Other Magazine was going through upheaval on every level. I returned to a smoking, charred magazine landscape of fewer, thinner issues and a frequently changing vision for That Other Magazine. I ran the China story past each new editor (in quick succession) they all liked it but the reformatted book had many must-print stories and little space for a long feature on China.

That Other Magazine went through another major restyle opting for a spare, photo-heavy layout, a cut back to 6 issues a year and hired a platoon of fresh, new writers. I re-re-re-pitched the thing, refusing to believe it was over but like any failed love affair the day came when I realized my blue passion for That Other Magazine had faded to grey.

Whenever I do a free-riding junket for a motorcycle manufacturer there are no preconditions. I may love or hate their motorcycle but I will write honestly about it. The only thing I can offer in return for their hard-earned money is publicity. My job was to write a story and get it published: I had failed myself, CSC, Joe Berk, my fellow China Riders and Zongshen.

At this point I pretty much gave up on the China tour and shoved the thing into a dark, dusty corner of my hard drive. I couldn’t stand looking at the story, so much effort that came to naught. Newer challenges awaited writing and I wasn’t going to let the China story drag me down. I moved on.

Enter this blog and its demanding publishing schedule. While I’m no fountain of content I’ve never written as many words a month as I have since we started ExhaustNotes. The hectic pace and all-consuming need for content has changed my opinion of writing from an art form into a trade. I make stories like I pour concrete. Instead of a failure, the China tour became just another slab. I pitched the thing to Motorcycle.com and thankfully they bit. I rewrote the story to reflect the new realities regarding That Other Magazine and the result can be found here: Kung Fu Riding.  Sorry it took so long.

Free Bobber? That Beats The Heck Out of a Duffle Bag!

The paper magazine business has taken a beating in the last few years. One magazine that seems to have their stuff together is American Iron, a book that focuses on American-made motorcycles. Somehow these guys get away with charging subscribers what it costs to produce 13 issues a year. For those of you counting that is three more issues a year than Cycle World and Motorcyclist combined!

Nestled among the beauty, health, gun and celebrity gossip periodicals, American Iron is the only motorcycle magazine still sold in supermarkets and drug stores. Start looking around; you’ll see AIM everywhere. I don’t fully understand what happened to the other guys but they made a half-hearted grab at the Internet while letting go of the fun and exclusive part: the monthly magazine.

I subscribe to a legacy magazine and I open my mailbox expecting to see nothing and at ever-diminishing intervals I get it. No matter how good they may be, four or six issues a year cannot keep the pot on boil. I don’t even know if I have time left on my subscription. I’ve gone from anticipating a new issue to being surprised by a new issue.

American Iron’s content is not exactly in my wheelhouse: when no one is looking I’m a dirt rider. But if you throw in a free Indian Bobber I could see myself getting into asphalt. Heck, promise me a one-cent decal and I’ll bite the head off of a pigeon. Offer me a T-shirt and I’ll rob a bank for you, just do something, anything, for readers other than shrink the product to reflect the subsidized pricing subscribers have been trained to expect.

So here’s the deal: Subscribe to American Iron and ride that Indian Scout Bobber home. It’s more costly than the lose-money-on-subs-make-it-up-in-advertising books but those guys aren’t giving away a Bobber and we need paper magazines to survive in America. When you subscribe do me a favor, tell them Joe sent you, I need a place to flog content!

The Fix Is In

In an oddly satisfying way, climate change activists and good old fashioned mechanics have found an issue they can both agree on. The BBC News recently published a story on the Right to Repair.

Manufacturers, in an effort to comply with government rules and plain old greed, have been locking out consumers’ ability to repair the trinkets of modern life. Using proprietary software, draconian warranty rules that prohibit anyone else from opening their widgets, and glue, builders have stifled our repair and reuse ethos. Throwing the damn thing out has become easier than fixing the damn thing.

I’ve been gravitating to older motorcycles mostly because they are so fixable. There’s nothing sealed or secret on a 1975 Kawasaki. Performance wise, if you ride anywhere near the legal limits any old Japanese bike from the 1970s and 1980s will exceed your riding skills. Not many modern cars can run with a 1000cc 4-cylinder bike and you’ll never have to go to the dealer again because they don’t work on your bike or stock parts to fit it.

YouTube has been on the forefront of cracking open the cradle-to-grave marketing machine. The video giant’s users have filled its files with how-to instructional vids on locked-out products. Recently, I replaced the battery in my iPhone for $6 and then replaced the front-facing camera I broke replacing the battery for $7. With new phones running $600 I’ll be nursing this old iPhone for as long as I can. It’s rare I do anything without checking YouTube for a how-to video. Even If I know how to do a job I like to see other people’s ideas.  They may have a better way.

Here’s hoping the environmentalists and the wrench-spinners can convince the powers-that-be we need the Right to Repair. Yeah, it could be looked at as more Nanny-State intervention in business but once you buy a product why does the builder have any say in what happens to their widget? Who gets to say what you can do with it?   You, or the manufacturer?

Dream Garage

If I had all the money, I’d be one of those crazy collector types, like Jay Leno or Anthony Hopkins, the Silence Of The Lambs guy. You know, the kind that has 177 motorcycles, their Great Paw-Paw’s washing machine motor and 42 washed-up old cars stored in three aircraft hangers. All of my bikes would be in neat rows, I’d have every color of every year of each model and they would all sit in my gigantic storage shed and slowly seize up. And when I die there’d be an auction where the stuff would sell for pennies on the dollar to a bunch of soulless flippers intent on making old motorcycles as expensive and annoying as the collector car scene is today.

Maybe I’d organize both cars and bikes by engine type. There would be a Kawasaki 750 triple, a Saab 93 triple, a Suzuki 750 triple next to a crisp, modern Honda NS400. Flathead Row would have a Melroe Bobcat with the air-cooled Wisconsin V-4, and all three Harley flatties: The 45- incher, the Sportster KH and that big block they made (74-inch?). You’d have to have an 80-inch Indian and the Scout along with most of the mini bikes built in the 1970s.

I love a disc-valve two stroke but I’ve never owned one. First bikes in that section will be a bunch of Kawasaki twins (350cc and 250cc). I’d have a CanAm because with their carb tucked behind the cylinder instead of jutting out the side they don’t look like disc bikes should. A Bridgestone 350 twin without an air filter element would be parked next to a ferocious Suzuki 125cc square-four road racer, year to be determined.

Besides the two-stroke Saab I’d have a two-stroke Suzuki LJ 360cc 4X4 with the generator that turns into the starter motor like an old Yamaha AT1-125. I’d need a metalflake orange Myers Manx dune buggy. It would be that real thick kind of metalflake that looks like some kind of novelty candy served only on Easter or found in table centerpieces at wedding receptions. A few Chevy trucks from the 1960’s would make it into the collection also. A mid-60’s Chevy van, the swoopy one, would be a must-have to go with one of those giant steam tractors, the ones with the steel wheels and the chain wrapped around the steering shaft and then to the center pivot front axle to make the beast turn hard.

To complement the Bobcat I’d have a gas-engined backhoe, something from the 1950’s with all new hoses and tires. I’ll paint it yellow with a roller and then hand paint “The Jewel” in red on both sides of the hood with the tiny artist’s brush from a child’s watercolor set. The backhoe would be a smooth running liquid-cooled flathead with an updraft carburetor and it would reek of unburnt fuel whenever you lifted a heavy load in the front bucket.

No one would be as into my junk as me, so I’d have to hire a guy to feign interest in the stuff. I think $10 an hour should get me a sidekick who would always be amazed at what I had found. We’d both marvel at how little work or parts the item would need to get it running and then we’d push it into an empty space. After a cold beer from a refrigerator plastered with Klotz decals he’d run his card through the time clock with a resounding clunk, leaving me and the shop cat sitting in my beat-up brown vinyl recliner to stare at my collection and wonder if I really had all the money.

Mr. Bray

I didn’t start out working for Mr. Bray. He was a deep red construction foreman who had been baking in the Florida sun all his life. His nose looked like Bob Hope’s except God had pressed his thumb into Mr. Bray’s right nostril and kind of smooshed the thing to the side. Mr. Bray ran projects all around Miami. I was a laborer helping my dad who was an equipment operator. The main job of labor for an equipment operator is to never let the operator get off the machine. Anything that needed to be done in order to keep him in his seat was my responsibility.

Mr. Bray had hired my dad to do the earthwork on a shopping center he was building in North Miami. I was a hard worker because I wanted to make some seed money and go back to California. I was taking growth hormones and steroids at the time. It was all I could do not to tear the footings out of the ground with my bare hands. The meds were prescription: Starting with a 5-foot tall, 98-pound body the pills added 6 inches in height and 27 pounds in acne over 3 years. I had abundance of energy, man. I tore around the construction site like a banshee. Mr. Bray liked a hard worker, drug-induced or not, so he hired me away from my dad just by offering twice the money.

The job was Union, which meant I had to join one. Mr. Bray had connections at the carpenter’s local so he arraigned for my union card. This was a big deal because normally you’d have to wait in line to join and then you’d have to wait in line until the Union sent you out on a job. It might take several years to clear the backlog. I was a First Period Apprentice without missing a paycheck.

When I got that paycheck it was a disappointment. The Union dues sapped a lot, then the federal and state deductions sapped some more. My dad paid cash, you know? I ended up making less money than before. Mr. Bray had pulled strings to get me in but I showed him my pay stub anyway. “That’s not so good, is it?” Mr. Bray said. I told him that it wasn’t but that I would carry on. I mean I had taken the deal; I felt obligated. “Lemme see what I can do about it,” Mr. Bray told me.

The next paycheck I received my rating was Third Period Apprentice (equivalent to 1-1/2 years of experience and passing several written tests) and I was making 8 dollars an hour. This was more money than I had ever made in my lifetime. From then on my loyalties were clear. I was Mr. Bray’s boy. If he needed a body buried on the site I would do faster it and better than anyone else.

Mr. Bray’s crew consisted of a journeyman carpenter, a mid-level carpenter, a laborer and me. In practice, we weren’t tied to a trade. I might have to do a little wiring, relocate pipe or dig a foundation. We formed all the foundations, then the steel workers would tie the steel and we would pour the concrete. These were non-cosmetic jobs. For slabs we hired a crew of finishers.

It didn’t set well with the other guys when Mr. Bray made me the foreman the few times he had to go off site. I only had like two months of construction experience but had absorbed a lot more knowledge just by being around my dad. The journeyman carpenter got sulky taking orders from a third period apprentice.

I have never been a leader of men. My approach to management is to tell everyone to stay the hell out of my way and I’ll do it myself. Surprisingly it worked in this instance because these guys still had remnants of a conscience. We usually got more done when Mr. Bray was gone.

Mr. Bray used my size to motivate the crew. Whenever there was something heavy to move the guys would bitch and want a crane. “Gresh, put that plank on the roof.”  That was all I needed to hear. I was a greyhound shot out of a gate. I’d shoulder the 10-inch wide, 20-footer, run full tilt at the building, spear the end of the board into the ground like a pole vaulter and walk the board vertical onto the wall. While the rest of the crew shook their heads in pity I’d run up the ladder and grab the board, hand-over-handing the thing until I could rest it onto my shoulder. Putting the wood onto the roof took about 45 seconds.

The whole thing had a creepy, Cool-Hand-Luke-when-he-was-acting-broken vibe but I wasn’t acting. It was more an act of unreasonable anger. I wanted to get stuff done. It was all that mattered to me. Mr. Bray would turn to the guys and say “Look at Gresh, he did it easy. You don’t need a crane. Now put the rest of those damn boards up there.” Picturing the guys pole-vaulting the boards up one by one I’ll never understand why they didn’t beat the crap out of me when Mr. Bray turned his back.

Another Union trade on a construction job are the bricklayers. They would put up walls on the foundations we poured.  The floors were left dirt to allow new tenants to choose the interior layout.  After they put up the walls we would tie the steel and form the gaps between sections of wall then pour them full of concrete. The poured columns made a sturdy wall. Unfortunately, being only 8 inches wide, the wall is very fragile until the concrete columns are in.

Mr. Bray was always looking for ways to save the company money and as my dad’s equipment was still on site he would have me do small operator jobs rather than have my dad drive to the site and charge him. We needed a trench for something, I can’t remember what but since we only had a 14-inch bucket it didn’t matter. I was digging inches away from a wall with the backhoe at 45 degrees to allow the bucket to dump the spoil. I could only put one outrigger down because the wall was too close. The whole setup was wobbly and when a return swing ran a bit wide the boom tapped the wall. Not hard, it didn’t even chip the blocks.

It happened so slowly. The wall teetered. I pulled the boom away. I was wishing it to settle down. The wall tottered. More thoughts and prayers were directed at the wall. Slowly the wall went over and smashed into pieces. After checking to see that I didn’t kill anyone I went to Mr. Bray. “Um…we have a problem, Mr. Bray.”

He was marking stuff on his critical path chart. “What is it, Gresh?”

“You better come take a look.”

We walked over to the crushed wall. I explained everything like I just did. Mr. Bray was fighting some inner demons for sure. Finally his face relaxed and he said, “Don’t worry about it, we’ll tell the bricklayers the wind blew it over.” Man, I loved that guy.

From my dad I learned a perfectionism that I have rarely been able to equal. From Mr. Bray I learned that perfection is a great goal but the job needs to get done because another trade is waiting on you. Mr. Bray would let a lot of things slide that my dad would obsess over. Working for Mr. Bray was much less stressful and customers inside the finished shoe store could not tell the difference.

The shopping center was nearly done. I had worked for Mr. Bray 6 months. I had a couple thousand dollars saved and told him I was going back to California. “Why don’t you stay on? I’ll train you in construction management, you’ll be a journeyman carpenter in 5 years and you’ll be running jobs like this.”

Mr. Bray was offering me his most valuable gift. He was offering me everything he had: To pass his lifetime of knowledge on to me. I had to go back to California though and I left feeling like I had let Mr. Bray down in the end. And even today I’m not settled. I’m still trying to finish the damn job.

Zed’s Not Dead: Part 14

Zed’s electrical system was in sad shape. There were a bunch of melted wires and saving the harness seemed like more trouble than it was worth. The $139 Z1 Enterprises harness came with the small 4-plug harness for all the various circuits under the right-hand side cover. I was surprised at how complete the Z1E harnesses was, and highly recommend it for any Z1 project with an iffy harness. It will save you many hours of half-assing an old corroded harness.

The positive battery cable was swollen like a snake swallowing a pack rat. I cut the jacket away to reveal a green, copper powder. This is never a good sign and even though the cable will still read ok on an ohmmeter, under high current the flow of electricity will be restricted.

I de-soldered the original battery lugs and re-crimped and soldered a new 6-gauge positive lead. The original battery terminals are shaped to lay flat alongside the battery and you won’t find anything to match them at your local Home Depot. The terminals are solid copper so they clean up and take solder nicely. I also added a new 30-amp, inline fuse holder to replace the melted original.

This 3-way connection is the heart of Zed’s power supply. One lead is to the 20-amp fuse from the battery positive. One lead is charging current from the rectifier and the last lead supplies power to everything on the motorcycle (except the starter). This connection takes a beating and Zed’s was discolored, and overheating had taken the spring out of the female bullet connectors.

I decided to go off-script here because the three-way connection is one of the few bad design choices Kawasaki made on the Z1. Instead I used 3 soldered ring terminals and bolted the connection together. Then I insulated the connection with electrical tape and thick red heat shrink tubing (not shrunk).

With the new fuse holder, jumper harness, battery cable, grounds to the block, blinker relay, brake light switch and tail harness everything under the right-side cover is complete. It’s not the prettiest wiring and may not faithfully follow original Kawasaki wiring practices but it should work and hopefully not melt down.

Hardcore Zed’s Not Dead fans will recall the hokey swing arm zerk fitting that was gnawing into my Zen. The main issue is the swing arm is metric thread and I’m too lazy to find a stock metric grease fitting. I pulled the offending fitting and cut the entire top off of the thing then drilled and tapped the part that fits into the swing arm for a ¼-28 zerk fitting.

The new set up is much cleaner looking and even though no one will ever see it I’ll sleep better at night knowing it’s there. Oooooommmmmm…

The left handlebar switch cluster was a cluster. The blinker switch was stuck and no amount of WD40 would free the lever so I dismantled the switch and cleaned all the tiny, rusted parts.

The switch now moves in all the right places. It remains to be seen if it actually directs the electrons where they are supposed to go. The last major electrical challenge on Zed is the instruments and the connections inside the headlight shell. I’ll tackle those in Zed 15.

Catch up with Joe’s Z1 resurrection…read the rest of the story here!

Motorcycle Classics, Sandy Hook, and more…

Battery Potter, with steam-powered retractable hidden cannons. Sandy Hook was an early Army proving ground, and the advanced coastal artillery pieces hidden underground behind these walls were tested here. Boom boom!

Hey, check this out…that blog I did a few months ago on Sandy Hook, New Jersey, made it into print in Motorcycle Classics magazine!  It’s always cool getting something published, especially in a premier mag like Motorcycle Classics.   Your good buddies Joe Gresh and yours truly, being the vain dudes we are, each have a page on the ExhaustNotes site listing our magazine articles.   Just click on the Gresh or Berk links to take a gander.

But enough about us.  How about you?  Are you signed up for our automatic email notifications list?   There’s a widget on the right where you can add your name, and you’ll get a short email each time we publish a new blog.   Add your email address and you’ll automatically be entered in our moto adventure book giveaway.  You’ll find out on 1 January who won!

Okay, back to us: Here’s more good stuff…good buddy Dan notified us about two things we want to explore more…a moto video series on South America, and an article about another good buddy named Dan featured on ADVRider.   Gresh knew about the video series (he gets around way more than me), but I didn’t and I’m looking forward to viewing it.  Those are both coming up in a future blog.   And I found that Spencer Conway did another video series on Africa.  I’ll be getting into those later today, too.

The CSC San Gabriel…wow, is that bike ever taking the market by storm.  Revzilla and my good buddy Spurgeon Dunbar have a San Gabriel, and there are at least two great videos on that bike floating around on YouTube (I did one of them).  We’ll be doing a blog on that awesome motorcycle in the near future.   One of the best parts of the story is how the bike got its San Gabriel name.  The honors for that go to my good buddy Mike, and we’ll tell you the story behind it.

As you know, the ExhaustNotes layout is a series of index pages with links to our blogs, which is where most of the ExNotes content resides.  We have pages on Baja and our Baja adventures (watch for lots more coming up on that page), Gresh’s Z1 resurrection, Gresh’s articles, our books, Berk’s articles, Tales of the Gun, the CSC RX4 (and how it compares to the RX3 and the KLR 650), and our videos.   We’ll be adding another page in the near future (along with a bunch of content) on military and police motorcycles.  That’s a fascinating and most interesting topic.  And another on minimalist motorcycles.  The idea behind the minimalist moto page is to consolidate a listing of (and add to) our blogs on small bikes.  The CSC RX3, the TT250, the Janus Gryffin and Halcyon models, the GMW G310 GS, the Kawi Versys 300, the Kawasaki KLR 650, and few more we have coming down the pike.   And another on electric bikes.  And here’s a heads up on a future blog: Dealer, or no dealer?  It’s a new world out there, folks, and at least two manufacturers (CSC and Janus) have blown off the traditional path to market by selling direct.  It’s a fascinating story.

Stay tuned!

Zed’s Not Dead: Part 13

I’m not superstitious but the 13th installment of Zed’s Not Dead ran into a few problems. I’ve been having good luck misting a light coat of Krylon black spray paint onto bare metal sections of Zed. It really freshened the frame without looking like the frame had been completely repainted.

Until I misted the swing arm, for some reason the transition zone between bare metal and original paint bubbled up making a mess out of the thing. I don’t know what the difference was but after trying to remedy the situation four times I gave up, sanded the swing arm and shot it with primer. The black paint laid down nicely after that but so much for keeping it original-ish.

I started on the front brake system and noticed this cool little eccentric bolt that adjusts the free play on the master cylinder. There are so many nice touches like this on the Z1. Kawasaki tried to build the best motorcycle they could. The master cylinder was in good shape. These things are a bear to reassemble but after five tries I managed to get the plunger in the bore along with the c-shaped travel stopper and the snap ring. The only complaint I have against the Z1 Enterprises master cylinder kit is that it didn’t come with the rubber bellows (the part that keeps brake fluid from sloshing in the reservoir) so I’ll have to order that bit.

The metal brake line to the caliper was stuck mightily. I tried heat and penetrating oil and even bought a set of metric line wrenches but in the end it took a vise and brute force to remove the line. It’s not destroyed but I’ll be buying a new metal line along with both flexible hoses and the little bracket that holds the line away from the front fender.

Once apart, the caliper was in excellent condition. I sanded the bore to remove corrosion and the Z1 Enterprises rebuild kit had everything I needed to reassemble what I hope is a good slave cylinder.

The previous owner had the rear axle assembled wrong and my book was illustrated with the spacers reversed so a quick message to Skip Duke and I had the spacer order correct.

The sprocket side gets only the seal spacer while the drum brake side gets the long, necked-down spacer. The thick washer-spacer (that was jammed into the drum brake side) is actually a washer. It spaces the castle nut the correct distance for the cotter pin or hitch pin hole.

The stock swing arm grease nipple would not accept my grease gun fitting resulting in grease all over the place. In this photo you can see the differences. Rather than get the correct tool I tapped the fitting for a standard nipple and screwed the mess together.

I’m not happy with the grease nipple set up although it did allow me to grease the swing arm. I’m going to remove the fitting and have another go at making it look better.

Zed’s rear end is coming along nicely. I think the 4.10X18 tire looks a little puny on the bike so you may get a Smokey burn out video after all. Next tire I get will be a 4.50X18.

I’m making a list for my next Z1 Enterprises order and this list should cover most everything I need to get the bike rideable. Those new bodywork sets they sell sure look nice and only $1300 for a tank, tail and side covers, all beautifully painted in stock striping. You can’t get your original stuff painted for $1300!

Want to see the rest of the Z1 resurrection?  Just click here!

The Short List: 5 Reasons You Should Buy a Jeep YJ

Reason 1: Leaf Springs

The YJ, built from 1987 until a somewhat vague date in either 1994 or 1995, came with leaf springs. Next to no suspension at all, leaf springs are the simplest way to attach four wheels to a frame. The addition of a hydraulically dampened shock absorber is the only thing separating the Jeep YJ from a Conestoga wagon.

In 1987 Tort Lawyers at American Motors Corporation wrested control of Jeep’s design offices from the guys that actually knew what they were doing. In an attempt to cut back the number of Jeeps rolling over on America’s roadways, the Sons, Sons and Sons-a-Bitches law firm decided that restricting the Jeep’s already stiff wheel travel to no travel was the answer.

AMC-Law’s track bars and sway bars were configured in such a way that the various components were in constant mechanical opposition to each other, eliminating wheel movement. Naturally this bind produced extreme loads on the hot attachment points causing the rod and linkage connections built into the Jeep YJ’s frame to self-destruct. Oddly, the more things broke on the frame, the better the YJ rode. How many cars can you say improve dramatically by removing 50% of the suspension parts?

Reason 2: Square Headlights

If ever a vehicle cries out for square headlights it’s the Jeep. The whole car is a box with a slightly smaller box set on top of the first box. With square fenders, square gauges and square tail lights it’s only fitting that square owners dig the headlights. Less hard-core Jeepers (anyone who dislikes square headlights, really) complain about the YJ’s face but never bother to spend the extra effort on their own face. A little concealer, maybe a dash of rouge and a finely cut-in set of lips would go a long way towards making themselves more presentable down at the Mall. And they’re always at the Mall.

Reason 3: We Still Wave

Jeep YJ owners are the last generation of Jeep drivers to wave at each other. There has been a long-standing tradition of Jeep people waving which indicates to other Jeeps passing in the opposite direction that they have bits of their bodywork falling off. Or that the Jeep is on fire. Newer Jeep owners, coddled in their climate-controlled interiors and bedazzled by multi-color dashboard displays going haywire have lost the ability to see other Jeeps. With automatic transmissions and soft, coil-sprung axles their bodies and especially their arms have atrophied from disuse. And the newer the model, the worse the prognosis: buyers of Jeep’s latest model, the JL, are kept alive in a nutrient-rich petri dish until a help-mate smears their gelatinous bodies onto the JL’s driver seat. They aren’t even sentient; how could they wave?

Reason 4: The 2.5-Liter 4-Cylinder

Many YJ’s came with a 6-cylinder engine and that’s fine if you like that sort of stuff. YJ connoisseurs know that the 2.5-liter, 4-cylinder is AMC’s gift to off-roading. Weighing 100 pounds less than the 6 it produces 25% of the power while consuming the same amount of fuel. The extra power of the 6 is futile because with its boxy shape top speed on a Jeep is limited by wind resistance. Under ideal conditions, dropping a YJ out of a cargo plane will see the thing reach 80 miles per hour as long as it doesn’t start to flutter or break up.

Reason 5: The AX5 Transmission

This transmission gets a bad rap from Jeep haters because it disintegrates from time to time. What they are too dense to grasp is that Jeep engineers planned the AX5 to act as a fuse between the 35-horse 2.5 engine and the Dana 35 rear axle. The combination of a weak engine, weak transmission and a weak rear axle, like the trinity, is an economical mixture that transcends the sum of the components. The Internet is full of stories about YJ’s that have gone off-road and survived. I’ve only broken my transmission once and the rear axle once. It’s that good.

The Jeep YJ is the last of the real Jeeps, the hard-core Jeeps that keep you awake at night wondering what that sound was. YJ’s can draw a direct line to Jeep’s military past and have a sort of Stolen Valor way of conking out when least expected. That’s all part of the fun. Sure, modern jeeps may be smoother off road but if smoothness is what you are looking for, stay on the pavement. And get some exercise because you really should start waving.