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goldensd
10-27-2008, 11:54 PM
Well me and my buddy tried to squeeze in one last trip of the year.... Bad Idea!!

My buddy just recently finished building an old Scout on 35's w/ a 350 and coilover long-armed rear.

We planned on heading up the Barrett Lake trail this weekend. Plan was to head out on Friday night and get most of the way in (6 mile trail), so that we could spend most of Saturday relaxing and hanging out.

Well for starters, on the way in Friday night my power steering pump pretty much blew apart. I guess the "West Texas Offroads' modification" isn't such a good idea afterall. Luckily, it blew at about 7:00 and only about 1/2 hour from an Autozone, so I was able to replace it Friday night. We swapped the pump, and then proceeded to the trail and did some night wheeling for a while before finding a pretty nice camp spot and called it quites.

Saturday, we took our time getting going, and then hit the road with about 5 miles left to the lake. All went well for the next 3 miles except for some overheating issues on the Scout. We got the the rock garden and stopped to eat lunch at the bottom, and allowed another group of rigs to jump ahead. We then followed in my buddy first, and the things was awesome. We pretty well walked it through the hardest lines, that none of the other rigs were able to make. I then followed and made it most of the way up the same lines, but my front locker wasn't working, and I couldn't get out of a tight spot about half way up without slipping the wrong way. Ended up slightly bending my tie-rod and having to winch myself out.

From there everything went to shit!!!! We proceeded on through the tough stuff, and then as soon as it flattened out I stopped to do a once over for any other damage, and my buddy kept rolling. I got back in and headed up the trail only to see him walking back looking very defeated. I got to him and got the "I'm Fucked".

I get to him and proceed to his rig to find that the truss on the rear axle broke free from the axle, the axle spun and broke the shaft on the pinion gear, and snap one of the coilover shock shafts. OH SHIT!!!!!

Well, we were able to chain it all up enough to back it down to a flat spot of the trail, to get a better look. After a few attempts to lock the thing in place enough to get off the trail, we pretty well concede to have to pull the entire axle and go fix it. We pulled the axle, and loaded up my rig and headed for home. Running pretty well as fast as I could, it was a 5 1/2 hour one way, 2 on trail and 3 1/2 on road. Got it back to my place at 1 am, I showered and crashed for a few hours, and my buddy started tearing down the axle, and then went to his house where he had the originaly gear set to slap in. I got up in a few hours and proceeded to weld up the truss and the shaft on the coilover, he then got back, and we got another gearset put back in, grabbed another buddy and headed back.

We got back to his rig at 4:00 and got everything back together by 6:30, and started heading out w/ 4 miles to go. He did have have twin sticks on his transfer case so having was able to bounce between front and rear wheel drive to deal with different ratios. All went well for a while, and then he busted a fuel line. Wasn't major and got is fixed pretty quick. He still had some overheating issues that we had to stop and deal with every once in a while. We continued on until about 1 mile from the end and it really went bad. At some point a motor mount had snapped, and he got twisted and the fan went into the radiator and busted a bad hole in it. This happened at about 10:30 Sunday night, and he was already running very hot when he lost it all. So we decided to at least get him to the trail head. He just ran it to get off the obstacle he was on, and then I tied him on and started pulling him out. All went well, and we got him to the last obstacle that is about 100' from the gate, and he got a tire jammed that I couldn't pull him over. Went to start the rig to drive over it, and the battery was dead. So we through a rock in and moved the strap and I tried to pull again, and ended up popping a bead. We had to change the tire, and I turned around to give him a jump so he could just drive off the trail.

Also, in the middle of pulling him out, I hit a rock wrong, and bend the outer lip on my rim by about an inch. Luckily, I already had a 2 lb sledge out and laying on the floor and was able to get to it and beat it back in before it went completely flat.

So we got off the trail, I changed a tire and aired the rest up. We grabbed all of the stuff off of his rig, parked it and headed for home. We finally got back to my house at 3:00 in the morning, with his rig still at the trail head waiting for a truck trailer pickup. I had to be back up at 5:00 and drive the 1 1/2 hrs back to Sacramento for a 7:00 safety meeting. Needless to say I wasn't worth much at work today, but WOW what an expedition.

Best news of all, at the end of the weekend, the ZJ made 16 miles of trail, 700 miles of asphalt, and the only thing I know if is a balljoint out, a small bend in the tie-rod, a front locker that is not engaging (probably small electrical issue), and possibly a couple control arm bushings out.

WHAT A WEEKEND!!!!

ATL ZJ
10-28-2008, 12:10 AM
Ah yes.. The law of compounding carnage. Once the first breakage happens, a second failure is exponentially more likely to occur.

I don't know if it could be scientifically proven, but in my eight years of wheeling it has shown itself again and again. Sounds like you guys had a dose of the less fun part of wheeling, but at least a good story came of it. The "fix it" attitude that you had makes breakage so much more bearable.

paulkeith
10-28-2008, 08:21 AM
sounds like you guys need to learn how to weld better :flipoff2:

sounds like a brutal weekend. at least you got it all put back together and off the trail. good job.

nierace
10-28-2008, 09:34 AM
I read that whole story and theres not even any pics wtf ? :D

goldensd
10-28-2008, 10:42 AM
sounds like you guys need to learn how to weld better :flipoff2:

sounds like a brutal weekend. at least you got it all put back together and off the trail. good job.

And that is why we went to my house and why I welded it all back together. Let's just say, he learned a valuable lesson about paying more attention to his welding, as it did look like a bad weld started this whole chain of events.

goldensd
10-28-2008, 11:05 AM
Didn't get too many good pics, but here are a few:


Here is the rearend before carnage, and after:

http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p8/goldensd/DSC03980.jpg
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p8/goldensd/DSC04014.jpg
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p8/goldensd/DSC04017.jpg

Here's a few trail pics of the two of us:

http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p8/goldensd/DSC04003.jpg
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p8/goldensd/DSC04005.jpg
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p8/goldensd/DSC04006.jpg
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p8/goldensd/DSC04010.jpg
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p8/goldensd/DSC04011.jpg
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p8/goldensd/DSC04012.jpg

indy242003
10-28-2008, 11:13 AM
Sorry to hear about your trip. I've had several long nights under a rig stuck on the trail. It's just a fact of the sport. It will break. The bright side is that, it sounds like your recovery skills are top notch. The bad wheeling trips are always the ones you tell stories about. No one ever tells the story " Yep, ran the trail, nothing broke, and we went home". Not much of a story. More like a statement, and not very interesting. The fact of the matter is that the "bad" trips always get repeated. If we think about it, those are the stories we all tell.

mike007
10-28-2008, 02:18 PM
Curious, what kind of rockers are those? Iceland Offroad? They look great.

goldensd
10-28-2008, 02:52 PM
Curious, what kind of rockers are those? Iceland Offroad? They look great.

Not for Sale!!!! I built those.

Cody
10-28-2008, 04:01 PM
holy inboarded coilovers batman!

goldensd
10-28-2008, 04:14 PM
holy inboarded coilovers batman!

Yeah, it is a little bit different setup, but the flex and droop out of it is insane, and you wouldn't believe how well the axles actually stay planted to the ground.

On the road, it was very floppy until he hooked up my front swaybar to the rear, now it actually rolls down the highway very well at freeway speeds.

Cody
10-28-2008, 04:39 PM
Flex!!! Yesssss!!!!

It can't be very stable like that.


bummer about your trip though man. I've had some of those myself, but I always figure I'd rather be out there on the trail fixing something than sitting at home doing yard work.

nate
10-28-2008, 09:38 PM
I bet you guys were wishing for a Ready Welder out there! I have only used mine on the trail a few times, but it's been worth it's weight in gold.

goldensd
10-29-2008, 12:01 AM
Flex!!! Yesssss!!!!

It can't be very stable like that.


bummer about your trip though man. I've had some of those myself, but I always figure I'd rather be out there on the trail fixing something than sitting at home doing yard work.


I figured the same thing when he built it, and I can't totally explain it but it is surprisingly stable. I can only guess that it is a combination of running a pretty stiff spring as one of the coilover springs, and the leaf springs up front, but the thing stays planted on the ground quite well.

And I agree as miserable as it was, it was still a weekend in the mountain and not at home, so I won't complain and can't wait to get out again!

goldensd
10-29-2008, 12:06 AM
I bet you guys were wishing for a Ready Welder out there! I have only used mine on the trail a few times, but it's been worth it's weight in gold.

Yeah, I've already suggested that one of those should be high on his list of things to add this winter. Still wouldn't have been easy, but I do think we could have gotten it off the trail without the trip home if we had a welder around.

wheelnzj
11-14-2008, 05:52 PM
Hi Shawn, Sounds like quit the weekend, sorry I missed it! We will have to do Barrett Lake next year, hopefully with a better out come.

AgitatedPancake
11-15-2008, 04:36 AM
yeah I don't know how I missed this one either! I ran Barrett lake in the WJ for the first time a few months ago, its an AWESOME trail. My group needed the ready welder for a couple of things also, we had a dented driveshaft that was starting to twist, got some angle iron welded to it. And we had a yota steering box break the top mount, shear one of the other bolts and start breaking the other mounts on the trail also. That first obstacle is a nice mini-gatekeeper haha. Did either of you get the gate coming in or out? I clipped it on teh driver side heading out, rear right popped up on a rock i wasnt expecting it to and leaned me into it =P