Eric and Whitney were nice enough to bring Don and the kids along, based on the forecast for rain. We met up with Kevin and Wayne, and picked up a couple mini trucks in the parking lot which Wayne had invited along. All was going smooth until Eric freshly dented the rear door that he just replaced on Pat’s Trail. Don was sitting next to that door so he gets to keep the spotter cow bell. All was still well until we went up Expressway. Eric made short work of the upper half of the rock face, without needing a winch. Wayne decided to tackle the entire obstacle, and after many attempts got through the bottom half only to roll his truck on it’s lid before getting to the upper half. We used Eric’s rear winch with a snatch block to pull him upright and Wayne’s winch to pull it forward to stable ground to pull the plugs. Wayne was fine but his driver’s door is toast. When we all reached the top, someone noticed the the rear pinion angle was high on one of the mini’s driven by Larry AKA Flip. At that time it was noted that all the link arms were loose. After spending some time adjusting and tightening those we were off again.
After lunch on the way to the new section at the top of Upper Mainline, Larry’s front output flange fell out of the transfer case, puking 90 weight all over the road. We cleaned up the oil while the flange was bolted back in place, then we were off again. Larry decided to tackle the extreme obstacle on the new section of trail. I don’t know if it has a name, but “Butt Crack Rock” would be appropriate. He was doing quite well, to the point that all of thought he was going to make when we heard a pop and the truck shifted. This was caused by one of the rear links breaking at a bad weld. Fortunately, Eric saved the day again by using his ready welder to repair the link. After the link was repaired the the truck pulled back off the rock, we found that there was no power to the ground. After fiddling with this for some time we determined that the only way this rig was getting out was to be towed. Eric made several attempts to pull him out but the combination of turns and soft soil made this impossible. Luckily with the truck engine still running, we used the winch to make several winch runs to get back to the upper trail, and the running motor also helped with power breaks and steering for thr rest of the tow. Luckily the Cavanaugh Gate was open, so it was basically a long tow out the the road where the truck would be put back in the trailer. Larry has posted on the forum that he has confirm the the front transfer case output shaft sheared off and the the frame was starting to break in two places.
All in all, a very bad day for some that was made better by pulling together as a group, and a good educational experience for trail repairs and vehicle recovery.
