Twin Cone 11/4 Trip Report

[SCAMPER ZJ]

Thanks first of all to Keith for checking trail status and setting up the run.

A total of 5 Grands met at The Fort restaurant around 8:30 Sunday morning, driven by Keith, Scott, Stan, Jim, and Josh. After checking out the setups on everyone's rigs for about an hour, we made our way onto Hwy 285 and headed towards the higher elevations.

A little bit of snow could be seen on some of the mountains along the way. Once we made it to the top of Kenosha Pass, we made the turn off for the campground entrance. We couldn't have asked for better weather - the skies were sunny, and there was a cool steady breeze at the trailhead. The trail was quite dry for the most part, and very dusty - with the occasional patch of snow and small amount of standing water.

After passing through the two gates bordering private property, we navigated several winding switchbacks and came upon the first series of small obstacles. Since most of the rigs were fairly built, it was mostly "point and shoot." Scott and Keith opted for the more difficult and off-camber approaches, while the less-modified rigs had to choose their lines more carefully. Stan's front locker chose to not cooperate once again, which in combination with the unusually dry and loose dirt, resulted in some almost embarassing slippage at an otherwise unremarkable obstacle.

Not too much further up, we came to the steep hill just below timberline. We all agreed that this was the most washed-out that we had ever seen it, and there were a couple of well-placed boulders which made it a bit too challenging for Jim's ZJ which is open front and rear. After several brave attempts, a loud crack heralded some breakage and a peek underneath revealed a broken CV drive shaft. We carefully backed his rig down the hill and parked it to work on later.

The remaining four Grands then headed up the hill. Josh wisely chose to take the bypass, which still required skillful driving and spotting as there were several large rocks mixed in with the occasional patch of snow. Not far from the top of the hill it seemed the land just opened up, and we were surrounded by boulder fields and tundra with majestic snowy peaks and rocky outcrops in the background. Without the protection of the trees, a chill wind now blew hard enough to almost lean against. Even though most of the "obstacles" had now been conquered, the remaining trail still presented some challenge. With one eye on the trail and one on the beautiful panoramic vistas, we made our way to the relay tower atop of North Twin Cone. We all enjoyed the view for a few minutes before scurrying back into our nice warm Grands and heading back down the mountain.

Once back at Jim's rig, Josh and Jim quickly set to work removing the broken front drive shaft, with the rest of us functioning as advisors and "tool gophers." There was even the obligatory "well, the reason you broke it was. . ." but Jim was very good-natured about it. Jim was a little concerned that the trip back down the trail with just rear-wheel drive would be difficult, but it really didn't slow him down, other than in a couple of twisty spots where we had to stand on the sliders and rock it back-and-forth to help regain traction.

We arrived back at the trailhead at a reasonable hour, with plenty of light left from the setting sun to connect, air up, and inspect our rigs before getting back on the highway. It ended up being a much longer day than any of us had expected, but fun was had by all, and we all made it back safely with rigs relatively unscathed.

[jfowlzj95]

Just need Jim to convert that CV style driveshaft to a u-joint style one and good to go.

Great pics!

[fpkites]

CV's in the back of the Heep still - haven't cleaned out my pig-sty yet since I had to watch the kid tonight while the wife was at school.

Right now, I have the invisible driveshaft...you wanna talk kick ass shit, that's it

Ted_Z shot me a PM asking me if I wanted his pinion yoke, so looks like I'll be nabbing that and getting an XJ shaft. I'll take what's left of that damn CV shaft and chuck it (or maybe I'll take it to the recyle place and get a buck for it? )

Stan, thanks very much for being my tool runner - we actually got that shaft pulled in good order. Really sucks being in 2WD though Also, thanks for use of your butchered funnel for my ATF top-off at the parking lot.

As I said in Keith's thread, I want to thank everybody for sticking around and exemplifying the "no rig left behind" attitude of this forum, and pretty much (most) Jeepers in general.

Hey Stan, where are the poser pics with my fawked up shaft?

[jsteves]

looks like fun...I ended up doing shiat around the house instead, should have gone wheeling

[zj95maxx]

mm..busted cv boot driveshafts

[SCAMPER ZJ]

Nice pics, Jim! I went through all 131 at http://www.fp-kites.com/images/Jeep/...7/All_Resized/ - I was of course quite pleased to see several pics of my ZJ (we're so dependent upon others since we can't really take pics of ourselves driving)!

Hey Stan, where are the poser pics with my fawked up shaft?

Alrighty then, here it is:

[dangerousdave]

looks like a hell of a good time.

[nierace]

Great pics

[sailingnut]

awesome pics I'm the guy that needs a CB lol (newbie)

[Colorado 5.9]

Hey guys thanks for the thoughts & prayers. Step Dad is stillin the HP. He did not hit his head though. We still don't know if he lost his footing & balance or passed out for sure.

He has been on a ventelater since but as of right now he is basically breathing on his own but they don't want to reintebate him if he needs it. At the ER they found out he had a collapsed lung which is still partially collapsed. There is also a bit of pneumonia in that lung too.

So he is better than he was but thing look like they will take awile to get better right now.

Anyway I had fun Sun. Here's my photos. http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v1...one%2011-4-07/

[SCAMPER ZJ]

awesome pics I'm the guy that needs a CB lol (newbie)

Welcome to Mallcrawlin, Josh! It was fun wheeling with you.

Here's my photos. http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v1...one%2011-4-07/

Great pics, Scott! Glad your stepdad is doing better. Did they extubate him yet?

[Colorado 5.9]

Nope! Been 8 days now. Tonight he was the most lusid I've seen him. He opens his eays & responds very well now to ?'s.

Tomarrow they are doing a trake & feeding tube in his stomach. He'll feel much better.

He can breath on his own but has trouble exhailing. They finally got a central line in him on thur.. He was getting to anncy & kept knocking the I-v's loose. The fluids were just filling up in his arm.

[fpkites]

We're all pulling for him to recover Scott - make sure you take care of yourself too, we all know how you can get preoccupied with helping others.

[fpkites]

I'm 4WD again everybody - thanks again to Stan for being a tool caddy, Scott for loaning us a ratchet, and Sailingnut for doing most of the wrenching when we were pulling the POS shaft, as well as cleaning up the new shaft at his shop.

...and more than anything, thanks everybody for helping to keep my little Tricia occupied every time my back was turned...or I was under my Heep

[Colorado 5.9]

Glad it's fixed. Did you end up putting a real yoke on or that other thing you were talking about?

[fpkites]

Real yoke - better chance of having a trail spare when I'm wheeling with others. Ted_Z had the yoke from his old LP30 - we installed it last Saturday, then went to Colorado AP and found a shaft. Josh cleaned up the junkyard shaft and I replaced the single cardan u-joint and slapped the sucker in there. CV section of the double-cardan looked good, so I left those u-joints in there, in lieu of rebuilding the whole thing.