MallCrawlin's Fall 2008 Moab Trip

[SCAMPER ZJ]

Great to hear, Jim! Glad you got to do a trail with your rebuilt t-case before leaving Moab.

We made it back safely - I spent about an hour or so in Grand Junction with my wife's family before we gathered up the boys and headed back over the mountain. It rained much of the way, with some snow (no accumulations) on the passes. Quite a few bad accidents, including a roll-over and a mini pile-up in the westbound lanes at the east end of Eisenhower Tunnel and a semi that went off the road down into that huge dropoff between the highway between the top of Vail Pass and Copper. The cab was completely destroyed, I'd be surprised if the driver survived.

Truck and ZJ both did well this trip. Phew!!

[BigDaveZJ]

Kane Creek

Tyler going up a wall


Tippy spot near a washout




me going up some ledges



The group on the trail


Stan lifting a tire


cool rock in the creek


the group


cool rock outcropping


really liked the scenery on Kane


coming up the ledges on the way out


Putz driving my rig for a bit


Stan perched on a rock over the water falls


more falls

[ELLLLLIOTTTTT]

I wish i didnt live on the east coast.

I used to say that.

[CrawlerReady]

Glad to hear you guys got Jim's t-case figured out and it wasn't anything else needing repair!

I got back about 3:30 today, and just in time for dinner at The Cheesecake Factory with the family!

It was a fun trip for sure even with the rain! Can't wait for GSW!!!

[Z]

Stan - what time did you go though Vail Pass? That wreck was nasty - driver basically took a header off the road. When I rolled through they had two tractor wreckers hooked up to the trailer and two front end loaders doing something.



Took me an hour to get through that spot. I didn't see any other wrecks on the way, luckily. I'm glad I left Moab before noon - it was not a good night to be driving in the mountains.

[Colorado 5.9]

News said after they got the driver cut out he walked away from it.

[Cody]

nice pictures guys. Too bad the weather didn't work out very well for you.

[SCAMPER ZJ]

Stan - what time did you go though Vail Pass? That wreck was nasty. . .

I'm guessing around 2-ish. It took us about an hour too.

What Scott said - surprising to hear that the driver was fine - the news said she didn't actually suffer any injuries. Amazing!!

[ELLLLLIOTTTTT]

Why is it that every MC Moab trip always ends up with someone ELSE getting seriously injured?!

[Z]

Wow, that's good to hear (the driver walked away from it). I was listening to the truckers on the CB - they were sure the driver died. There was also a troll on the CB ruffling everyone's feathers and the truckers just kept getting more and more pissed off. Kinda funny actually.

[fpkites]

Been home about 45 minutes, and Bridget and Tricia are getting the dogs from the in-laws. Thanks again to everybody for all the help on the TC issue, as well as some great trail runs.

I should be able to get pics off the camera tonight, and I'll post up what I can.

[BigDaveZJ]

Just pulled in, right in time to watch the Vikes on MNF tonight. Drive back went very well. Great trip! I'll probably work on the rest of our pics during the game. I must say it is nice to have a decent net connection back!

[BigDaveZJ]

Poison Spider Mesa

Pam going up some ledges


Clark Griswald coming up the ledges


Wedgie


Pam in the Wedgie


The Griswalds coming through


GREAT weather out there yesterday afternoon










These ledges were pretty tough




Dropping into the Wedgie on the way back


The back right tire lifted waaaaay up for a quick second, thought for sure it was going over but it settled back down. No pics of the tire in the air though.




Pam coming back down the Wedgie

[dangerousdave]

wow dave there are some really good pictures in there. im thinking some would be sweet in the calander.

[SCAMPER ZJ]

Looks like the weather was quite nice for PSM! Wish I could have stuck around for it, but we needed to get back. Glad there wasn't a roll on the wedgie.

Still working on pics for Hell's Revenge. Might have them up by tomorrow if not later tonight.

[fpkites]

Resizing pics now - ~569 in total, so it'll take some time. I intend to start uploading resized and full-res tonight, so should be there by morning and I'll be able to post up links, and hotlink some choice ones.

[SCAMPER ZJ]

My Hell's Revenge Pics:

[ArloGuthroJeep]

So Dave was working on Jim's rig more then Jim was?

[Matt]

Great pics guys

[CrawlerReady]

Stan those pictures turned out sweet! I may have to have you email me some that are full size

[fpkites]

Hell's Revenge pics start here: http://www.fp-kites.com/images/Jeep/...x.php?start=17

Poison Spider: http://www.fp-kites.com/images/Jeep/....php?start=365

They shoot horses, don't they?


A few from the trip home: http://www.fp-kites.com/images/Jeep/....php?start=504

[ArloGuthroJeep]

So Jim what were the symptoms of your TC going belly up? What trail did it happen on? Did you get pulled out?

[2jeepsforus]

Dave I enjoyed the Griswald's comments haha...

[fpkites]

So Jim what were the symptoms of your TC going belly up? What trail did it happen on? Did you get pulled out?

I made it to the parking lot at the end of Hell's Revenge, went to put it back into full-time for the drive home, and it was like the linkage hit a wall. I had neutral and low range, and low range had a pretty ugly clunk about every wheel rotation. It went up onto Stan's trailer under it's own power, and sat there until Saturday night, when we had to roll it off so that Stan could leave Sunday morning.

Dropped the case Friday night/Saturday morning, brought it to Moab 4x4 Outpost Saturday. They cracked the case and tore everything down, and discovered that the little cap bearing that rides on the end of the input shaft had asploded from the inside. Apparently that's a very common failure in NP/NV cases, and many times it thrashes the input shaft. I was lucky, perhaps because we caught it pretty quick. They were able to pillage a bearing from a junk 231 they had in the yard, installed it in mine and closed it up (fawkers did put the speedo drive gear in backwards, making it impossible to install the rear driveshaft, but we figured that out Sunday morning).

We had a nervous point on Sunday morning after buttoning up and filling with fluid - a click that was not quite as bad as the clunk, but still there. Luckily it cleared up after going back and forth a few times in the lot. We're thinking ATF just hadn't gotten to all the nooks and crannies.

It ran great on Poison Spider, and did good on the way home.

[Texas ZJ1]

I bet Jim was secretly so proud that his ZJ was finally up on a trailer.


H