Well saturday saw some pretty good wheeling action. Jon started drining the
pit before the SCORE club showed up - and was still drining when they arrived.
Jon could have kept drainig the pit for another hour after as well. The Pit
had the most water in it I have ever seen. The Jeeps were the first in, and as
usual the "jeep guys stand with jeep guys and Dodge guys stand with Dodge guys"
happened.
A virtually stock Wrangler Sahara dove in pretty fast and ended up sucking
water into his 4.0L straight six. He was able to get it restarted after
draining number six cyl. How long that engine lasts is another question. The
red jeep (mentioned below) came to the rescue of the little green Sahara. The
driver obviously had very little experiance with his winch. He hooked up, free
spoold waaay too much line and backed up way too far. The line dug into the
dirt. Instead of simply winching the Sahara out, he was trying to pull him out
as if he was using a tow strap. This was dengerous because winch cables are
not designed to stretch in situations like that. Winches are to be used for
line pulling, USING the winch itself! Then he pulled forward - winching
himself TWARD the stuck Jeep. Walt finally went over and yelled at him and
instructed him how to properly recover the Jeep. They eventually ended up
using a tow strap to finish the extraction. Sad.
No Dodge's went in The Pit saturday at all. The ONLY Dodge to do so was Mike
in the Ram CHARGER a few days earlier. After the Jeeps tired of The Pit - they
saddled up and hit the trails. I followed and Mike followed me, missing a
front drive shaft did not keep him from wheeling!
We got down on mud lane behind the Jeeps, I throttled the Ram pretty good. The
trails were harsh. I must have hit a root or something under the mud because
the ram slammed into something solid, knocked me all over the place, hit my
head on teh roof, and blew a bead on the front right wheel, with 20 PSI in the
tire!
Chris with his newley restored Willys helped me fetch a spare from the Barn and
the Ram was rolling again with no apperant damage.
We continued on to the waterfall (I cant remember right now which one it is -
its the one everyone climbs and breaks shit every year), where Adam was the
only successful rock crawler again. The red Wrangler that blew a stub shaft in
The Pit last year tried - didnt make any progress. He had some issue with his 4
banger engine that caused it to bog down when he throttled it. The jeep that
got water in the engine tried next, almost rolled, and backed down. The poor
guys leg was visibly shaking as he woked the clutch.
Adam was next, but didn't make it up with as much grace as he has done in the
past. He floored the throttle early on and almost made it up. He got off
kilter and his lack of locked axle diffs caused him to have less than ideal
traction. Had his axles been locked, he would have been up in no time.
Red Jeep was up a 2nd time. He came close but almost rolled himself. He
tweaked a spring shackle on the passenger right side, bent a shock tube, and
apperantly had lockers that had failed, as only one wheel per axle was
spinning.
After that we headed back - it was interesting getting Mike and his Ram CHARGER
up and out with only 2wd. Mike backed into a pile of brush at full tilt - and
Walt pulled him up the erroded shoreline. THe trip back to the barn was
otherwise uneventful. We BBQ'ed and ate and ate. Burgers, dawgs, meatballs,
several kinds of potato salads, brownies, rice krispie treats, cake! SCORE
came through in the food department, bringing some very tasty morcels.
They rolled out shortly after, opting not to join us at the ice cram shop. The
ride into town is my favorite part. A long convoy of muddy trucks getting
stared at, pointed at and cheered at. Walt was going to take his 88 Dakota with
us but he had mangled the control arm brackets wheeling, and the alignment of
the wheels was seriously seriously altered. As we rolled in, some folks at the
ice cream shop gave horrified looks to us, as we took up most of the parking
lot. If the looks could have been translated into words, it would be "OMG Who
are these people, we're surrounded!!"
Eating of ice cream desserts took place. We returned to the BBQ to play many
rounds of Lawn Jenga, consume many alcoholic beverages, and make fireballs and
melt beer cans. We have video.
Sunday saw people hanging around more than previous years. Most everyone woke
up, showered, ate some food and coffee, and leisurely packed up and left. I
rolled out about 1 pm. I must admit I actually got a little choaked up upon
driving away from the barn. The members of the DML are like my extended family
spread out across the country. I'm very sad that we all live so far apart from
each other, as I would really like to spend more time with all of you.
I discovered a shudder in the steering wheel of my Ram, between 50-60 MPH. She
is driveable, the tires wear fine, and I have no reservations about driving it
around. I think I have bad tierods or perhaps a stickign caliper. Either way,
I do not regret taking the truck offroad. I think I would have regretted it
more had I not done it.
I am currently in Ohio visiting with friends, I may take another day off work
and stick around. I will keep the list posted when I get home.
Jon thanks again for having us over and thanks to your parents for once again
allowing their home to be invaded! Ingrid I own you an apology for not
personally saying goodbye to you. Norah cought me before I left without saying
good bye to her and as I got on the highway I realized I didnt say goodbye to
you. As everyone probably knows by now I dont have the greatest attention span
LOL.
I already miss all of you :)
TerribleTom in Ohio for the moment.
P.S. So Jon? Got the date set for DML BBQ 2005? LOL When is Daktoberfest??
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Aug 01 2004 - 00:46:15 EDT