Took my XJ out this past weekend for some stress relief. Had full intentions of wheeling it hard and expected the possibility of trailering home with a broken axle or busted driveshaft. Nope, she drove out of the woods under her own power with just a little....... well uh, a nasty bit of body damage.

I had my hi-lift mounted to the side of the rack and it got into a fight with a cedar tree.

How it looked in the morning when we left the house.


While climbing a hill the right front tire caught a rock and the Jeep lunged to the left where this tree was leaning over the trail.



Now the tree has a battle scar but it definitely won the war.



The roof rack was ripped off of the rails and came down on the passenger side rear quarter window breaking it.

 

The driver side of the rack came off of the rail on the front taking the rail trim with it.



The rear rack mount didn't have the chance to come off of the rail. Instead the tree forced in into the edge of the roof and sliding backward.



After removing the rack when we were ready to load back on the trailer did I come to relaize the full extent of the damage to the roof. Dented all to hell and ripped open. I now have a lot of sheet metal to hammer out so I can somehow weld a patch over the hole to keep the Jeep from flooding when it rains.

 

At 56 seconds in the vid you can hear the nasty crunch.

http://s360.photobucket.com/albums/o...pse0dbae99.mp4

 

Ouch. That'll buff out.

 

Part of reason I took my rack off

 

Man, you really had that jack bolted on...
That sucks, guess I'll use 1/4" bolts on mine now.

 

My rain gutters are pretty hurt to. Think it's time to add pipe up there to act as a tree slider.

 

never heard of a tree slider....awesome!

 

Maybe your barking up the wrong tree.

 

I see what you did there,

 

Thanks for the idea Dan.

 

Yes, yes, I guess 2" water pipe should work. And have it bend around at the corners of the roof for approach.
On mine I'm prolly gonna have it stick out a little.
I've used trees to prevent my xj from flipping but the roof did not hold up to good lol

 

That sucks man... the part that would have me the most pissed off if this happened to my Jeep is the screwed up roof in the rear.

 

I may go with 1 1/2" DOM for the halo ring around the roof. Run it trhough the roof and tie into the floor for added unibody strength. This would also give me a base frame to add extra bracing for a cage later.

Started removing interior panels in the back last night to replace the window and to gain access to the damaged area. Will have to drill holes in the bracing at the corner of the roof inside to access the dent and hammer it out. I'll take plenty of pics for that and build a thread for the repair.

 

Winston,

I saw this over on TNJeeps... Sorry to see that happened man. Hope you get it all patched up.

You gunna make it out to WITC for Halloween?