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I purchased the Jeep when I was 17. Probably within 6 months the inline-6 had such a case of blow-by that I was adding oil more often than I was filling up with fuel. By this time I had become a regular at Wrights 4-Wheel Drive and he had just the engine replacement for me. His sales pitch was "it was driven by a little old lady and only on weekends." Then he told me the rest of the story. Although everything in his sales pitch was actuate, the kicker was there was this older couple that had His and Hers Jeeps that they would race on their rural property. This engine was an AMC 304 with a high-rise intake, Edelbrock 4-barel carburetor, a monster cam and headers. This engine was WAY more than I should have had at my disposal. Mr. Wright then informed me that I would have to have all of my axels milled for a keyway or else the enormous torque from the engine would spin the splines right off. I took his advice and about a week later I had, what was referred to by my friends as, Thor. It had such a deep bass rumble that standing next to it, you could barely hear it. However, from 2 blocks away you could hear it coming (my dog could hear it from probably a half mile away).

Anyway, lots of good times were had 2-tracking and just general four-wheeling. It did get me into some trouble though. I had chosen the lot next to a state park as one of my playgrounds. I still to this day don’t know if that parcel of land is part of the park or not, and I don’t really care. I was our four-wheeling in the sand and as a high-school student I got out of school a couple hours before the elementary schools. Apparently the sound of my engine/exhaust frightened some of the kids, the Patterson in particular. Mrs. Patterson had quite a reputation in the community of going on witch-hunts and I found myself locked in her cross-hares. I was issued a ticket for reckless driving (6 points in Michigan at that time) and would have to go to court. After being bounced between three useless court-appointed lawyers (one of them was disbarred a couple years later) I finally got to talk to one face to face just hours before I went before the judge. My father was killed the day before my court date but he had taught me that when I had obligations I must meet them. I went to the court house, talked to the lawyer who told me that the kids clamed that I had "tried to run them over". I explained to the lawyer that I was a very good driver and that had I "tried" to run the over, I would have in fact run them over. He suggested I not share that insight with the judge. A couple hours later I plead to a lesser charge just to make the ordeal go away (I was already having a bad week as you can guess). The points eventually came off and the Jeep went away a couple years later but I have never forgotten about the Patterson kids. Yeah, I guess I almost 20 years later I do still hold resentment and I hope that one of their children (even better if all of their children could) can suffer a lifetime of pain because of someone’s psychotic witch-hunt.

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