There are many mounts available to secure a Jerry can (to a Jeep Wrangler) alongside the rear mounted spare, or by the driver’s door.
Here’s one example, there are dozens of other options.
I haven’t been in many years but it’s still there. Not quite as anything goes as the old days. When did you leave?
The Wrangler is a different beast than my Cherokee. Without looking at any specific options, it’s easy to image ways in which objects like a jerry can could be safely mounted to the outside of a Wrangler.
The Wrangler is pretty close to a much, much more modern, civilianized version of the original Willys MB4/FordGPW. Oddly, it was Ford’s version of the original vehicle that had the designation “GPW” which gave rise to the slang nickname “Jeep”, whereupon Willys pounced on trademarking that name so that only Willys’ version could be officially called by that name.
The Cherokee, which is what I have, is more in the model of a common, modern, SUV-type vehicle. It’s a lot more difficult to imagine reasonable ways to attach jerry-can-sized objects to the outside of it.
Oh wow, that looks like a Compass.
Not sure of your location, but here in RI there are periodic ‘Eco-Depot’ events where homeowners can show up with almost anything hazardous, toxic, OR UNIDENTIFIABLE and have it taken care of by official hazardous waste contractors. I found 4 open five gallon pails of household heating oil tank sludge in the basement of a house I bought - I found some lids so I could move them, and the good folks at our Eco-Depot said all such flammable solvents, waste fuels and similar would be filtered and burnt at local asphalt processing plant. I have certain doubts about the efficacy of incineration for dealing with contaminants, but I’m not aware any real-world alternative.
Most municipal recycling operations have a similar set-up where local residents can drop of darn near anything to be dealt with by the pros.
I’ve lived in many different cities & 'burbs in various states and they all have had something like that. Some places you can drop off stuff any Mon-Fri and some place only do “household waste drives” every few months.
Easy enough for the OP or anyone else with similar problem(s) to check their local city & county waste management websites for info.
This. look for “household hazardous waste” disposal in your area. I’ve gotten rid of various solvents and chemicals this way over the years. My lawn equipment is all battery powered these days, and there’s no way I’m putting five gallons of mystery liquid in any of my vehicles.
It’s very much like a Compass, but a bit bigger. Jeep discontinued it last year. They have several different variations on the same theme, over a range of sizes, ranging from the Renegade, which is the smallest, up to the Grand Wagoneer, which is the biggest.
The Cherokee, as of recently, was between the Compass and the Grand Cherokee (actually a different model than the “not-Grand” Cherokee). I guess Stellantis recently decided they didn’t need so many models in this general line, so they discontinued the “not-Grand” Cherokee.
A few years ago, @Seanette and I rented a Compass for about a month. We rather liked it. When the remainder of my inheritance was known to be imminent, she did some searches for suitable vehicles on which to spend some of it; mostly thinking of a Compass. I’d decided to hold out for the Trailhawk trim. She came across this listing for a Cherokee Trailhawk; which would have been an upgrade from the Compass that we thought we were looking for, and my take was that if it was not yet sold before my inheritance came in, we’d make a run to Fremont to look it over, and likely buy it. My inheritance came in a few days later, and this Cherokee was still there, so the very next weekday, we went there, checked it out, decided we liked it, and bought it.
And, of course, that’s what we were in, out in the middle of nowhere, when we found this can of gasoline.
This is what a Jeep is for—going into places that most people cannot go; even if the only reason to go there is that you can, and most people cannot.
The location is obviously still there but it’s been closed for a good long while. An accidental fatal teen shooting followed by years of fire concerns compounded with hazardous waste issues got us here.
Back on topic: As nice as free gas sounds, I just wouldn’t bother. A few gallons of gas wouldn’t offset the cost of vehicle damage, even something as simple as a clogged fuel filter. Others here have proposed ways to test the fuel, but even that’s more of my time sunk than the fuel would be worth.
Maybe the can is worth something, but unless I was specifically interested in such a can already, the risk of transporting a can of questionable integrity filled with no one knows exactly what just seems to be something I’d pass on. I’d leave it in place.
It seems like we live in the same general region – I live maybe a little over an hour from the general area where you found the gas. In my city you can schedule a household hazardous waste collection – you go online or call the city and schedule a day for them to pick up stuff like used motor oil, paint, etc. They you just leave it at the end of your driveway on the designated day. So first thing, check if your city has such a program.
If your city doesn’t do that (or if you’re a rural dweller), your county almost certainly has a collection site for such material.
Alas, there seems to be a dearth of good places very near Sacramento to take a Jeep. A fair amount of trails, as listed by OnX, outside of a range of an hour or two of driving to get to them, but not much closer than that. Best we’ve found, anywhere nearby, not apparently listed on OnX or any similar services, is a section of Latrobe/South Shingle Roads, the west end of which can be found by searching Google Maps or Waze for “Deer Creek Hills Access Road”, and going east from there. We found that a couple of year ago, when we were renting the Compass.
We also found, closer, a short run of a road where all the various resources are inconsistent as to what parts of it are called “Eagle’s Nest” and what parts are called “Zinfandel”. Unfortunately, in the two years between when we had the rented Compass, and when we got our Cherokee, some asshole has apparently been over that section with a road grader, and ruined it.
I did recently find a short section of Kiefer Boulevard, very much like that section of Zinfandel/Eagle’s Nest was before being ruined by some asshole with a road grader. It even has signs at each end warning that it is impassable.
Makes me think of the song The Impossible Dream from the musical play Man of La Mancha, and to think that they left out “To pass the impassible road”; which I have now done several times. And now, I can “Run where the Dart dares not go”, the Dart being @Seanette’s and my other car, a 2016 Dodge Dart, the least off-road-capable car that either of us have ever owned, and the car that we had at the time my career turned in a direction that routinely has had me needing to go in and out of very rough construction sites. My main excuse for the Jeep is to have something I can drive into the sorts of environments where my profession takes me, without having to be afraid of breaking it.
Much closer to where I live, is a road that seems now to need mention, just because it fits in with a theme that I have brought up.
I had forgotten about that incident with the teen which is ridiculous because he was a good friend’s grandson. I blame old age and appreciate the correction.
@Seanette and I left the Santa Barbara area in 2004. We’d moves from Santa Barbara to Lompoc several years before that, but left Lompoc on 30 June 2004, and arrived in Sacramento the next day, 01 July 2004.
I was just recently looking over some of the old dirt roads in the mountains above Santa Barbara, on Google Maps. Roads that I used to like to explore in my first car, a 1969 Falcon station wagon. That wasn’t a vehicle with any pretense of being any kind of off-road vehicle; just a common, basic, 1960s-vintage family station wagon. I’d been lately thinking that I miss those mountains and those roads, and wish they were close enough to take my Jeep there. But I see that in the years since I was last there, some asshole ruined them by not only grading them, but even paving them as well. So now, they’re no better places to take my Jeep than most of the roads right here in Sacramento.
[Here, I was going to put in a snark about the condition of roads in California in general, and give sarcastic thanks to the circumstances that I blame for it, for making even normal drives over what are supposed to be normal roads, more Jeep-worthy than they otherwise would be, but that gets into politics which I think may not be allowed in this subforum. Instead, I’ll just blame the donkey for the road conditions, and say that it’s the аѕѕ’ fault.]
I wonder how many others on this forum live within a reasonable range of Sacramento. I wonder if it might be worthwhile for @Seanette, myself, and some other members of this forum to have some sort of in-person meet.
Funny story: my husband and I live in New Mexico, but his three business partners and their families weren’t willing to move here when they started the business, so our little company has an Albuquerque branch that’s just our house. Next time we’re out that way, I’ll definitely give you a heads-up!
@Seanette Amazoned this very shortly after you recommended it (and also someone else on a Facebook post recommended the same thing).
Just now, I got around to giving it a try. The results that it returned indicate that there is water present, but that the fuel is otherwise fresh and good.
I still am not sure that I want to risk either of our vehicles on it. Separating any water out of this fuel ought to be easy enough, though.
So, OP, what did you do?
Ruined them? That makes them better.
From the point of view of a new Jeep owner, itching for places to take his Jeep that normal cars cannot go, grading and paving what was once such a road, ruins it.
I just remembered something that is probably relevant.
Hey, @Seanette, do you remember that AMC Hornet that you had, when we met? After we decided we were engaged, we went back to Oregon to retrieve it; and found that your grandfather had helpfully drilled a hole in the trunk, to let water drain out of it. So helpfully that he had drilled all the way into the fuel tank below, and drained the water into the fuel.
I now remember that we siphoned as much as we could out of the tank, and removed the tank so that I could patch the hole on the top of it with epoxy.
We then devised a crude method of mostly separating the gasoline from the water, and returning the gasoline to the fuel tank. This car ran just fine after that, on the gasoline that was probably still somewhat contaminated; probably not any better than what we still have, still not having figured out what to do with it, in the Jerrycan on our patio.
That, of course, was an old-school, carbureted engine, contemporary with my Falcon. If we still had your Hornet or my Falcon, I am sure either one would be happy to run on this gasoline.