We had a great time yesterday on the SwiftRapids ride. I must say, I'm
really proud of how well the '95 Dak did. There was a stock Pathfinder
there on all-season tires. No surprise that we put him to shame. The
surprise was that we out-did an experienced driver in a Cherokee that
was lifted 2" running 235/75R15 Goodyear Wrangler MTs, which are
supposed to be a fairly competent mud tire (his excuse was that he's
used to his Samurai, he was driving his wife's car this time :-). Our
Dak is stock height running 31x9.50R15 Super Swamper radials. This was
the break-in run for the Swampers, and I must say I love these tires.
Although there is one problem with narrow tires: they don't splash mud
up on the sides of the truck, so you don't have evidence of what you've
been doing. We have a high water mark on the side, but no rooster tail
patterns. Oh, well.
I re-discovered one long lost friend: low range first gear (especially
good with the 3.9 final drive ratio). It's been a while since I've had
a chance to really exercise this gear. I guess I had forgotten just how
good it is, because before we went I was a bit worried about stalling or
burning up the clutch feathering it. I found that 1st gear is low
enough that I just leave my foot completely off the clutch and let it
walk right through. It's low enough that I felt like we were actually
stopped several times for about half a second with it still in gear,
then when I gave it some gas, it just kept going. There was a fairly
steep hill climb with some nice rock steps, and I just walked right up
it and didn't even touch the brakes on the way back down. Did I mention
I like super low gear?
We did manage to get stuck twice though. Once was in the same spot as
last year, but I don't know of anyone who made it through that spot in
that direction (steep bank coming up out of a mud hole). Lots of people
also got stuck in that spot in the other direction (high centered on the
bank going into the hole). I just built up a bit of momentum and slid
right over the bank. Smacked some rocks or something off the frame,
because we got some really nice banging noises. Nothing serious, but it
got my attention.
The other stuck was because the trail leader sent a couple of us down
the wrong branch of the trail, and we had to turn around and come back
out. We still didn't have to get pulled as much as some of the
Cherokees or other vehicles.
We did have a small bit of damage. I smacked the driver's side mirror
on a tree. I just have the solid sport mirrors, which don't fold in (at
least not by design). I was hoping that it would have given me an
excuse to get some 6x9 folding mirrors, but I managed to push it back
into position (more or less). I do think it illustrates the need for
folding mirrors, though.
We also got a dent in the passenger's side of the bed in front of the
wheel well. That one wasn't too serious. I reached up behind the body
panel and popped most of it back into place. There's still one spot
that I couldn't reach, I'll have to figure out what to do about it. I
think it'll pop back out if I can reach behind it.
There's also the concern about the transmission (see last post).
Hopefully it's nothing, but I decided not to try the Launch Pad because
of it.
The only other casualty was a roll of 35mm film full of pictures. The
film release mechanism jammed, causing the film to break before it was
wound back into the cartridge. So we lost some pretty cool shots, some
of which might have been pretty good calendar contenders. Oh well.
Other vehicles there included an '82 Ram Charger on 35" Swampers
belonging to Tim Ross (he saw our DML sticker and mentioned that someone
on this list was also on the Ram Charger list asking him lots of
questions -- small Internet :-). There were two Cherokees, a lifted TJ,
a lifted YJ (who got some mud in his clutch, froze up the bearings, and
had to get towed off the trail), an older 4Runner on 32s, a Tacoma on
33s, a jacked-up long wheelbase Samurai on 33s, another Unimog, and a
super built YJ on 35s who put the rest of us to shame. Nice vehicle. I
wish I had the money he must have spent on it.
Anyway, we got some digital camera pics that can be seen at:
ftp://24.64.160.89/pub/sheridan/pics/SwiftRapids%2000
We'll figure out how to post the 35mm pictures that we did get
shortly.
Had a great day, can't wait to get back out on the trail.
---------------------------------------------------------
Jason Bleazard http://www.bleazard.net Toronto, Ontario
his: '95 Dakota Sport 4x4, 239 V6, 5spd, Reg. Cab, white
hers: '98 Dakota Sport 4x4, 318 V8, Auto, Club Cab, black
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