We got a bit of a night run at CTW this year after all.
After getting back to camp at the end of the Friday Run I found out that one of the guys rigs was left in the woods on the Rocky Uphill trail due to a steering issue. And not a minor one at that. The sector shaft (thats the one inside the steering box that the pitman arm is attached to) had broken off so there was no way to steer the rig.
Just after I got back, Brian, the owner of the rig came back from town with welding rod and other stuff to make a repair so I brought up the fact my Ready Welder was in my rig and might come in handy. So into the woods we went, 3 rigs plus Brians Tow rig with his trailer.
Now mind you it was late in the afternoon and we were camped about 10 miles from the broken rig so time was of the essence. We got back to the broken rig at about 6:30 but also got a sense of how long we would be there.
The shaft was broken just below the steering box and most of us agreed that welding would probably be a waste of time. So after some head scratching a plan was hatched.
Brian has bead lock rims and we had a couple of high lifts so I thought we may be able to lever his wheels the direction we wanted to go. It somewhat worked but took a lot of effort. Then Chad H had the idea to just let her roll and see what happened. Now he didn’t mean actually turn her loose but have Brian in the rig with it running so we had brakes and the transmission working. I have to admit it was somewhat funny watching Brian turn the useless steering wheel… And even he laughed after awhile about it.
We did find that the rig would steer a little to the left by stepping on the brakes but we had no movement to the right. And even his lockers were not much use in holding the wheels straight.
Then I thought of what happens when your rig hits a rock, the wheels get kicked over in the direction of the rock that the wheel hits! So we now had someway to get the wheels pointed in the right direction. The other thing we had was feet and lots of kicking on the front rubber also was quite helpful on occasion.
The fun part I didn’t tell you about this adventure was just how far up Rocky Uphill trail we were when we started. We had to fight about a quarter mile of trail to get down to the logging road where Brians tow rig was located!
But all things considered, it went quite well. There were stretches when Chad could get quite a bit of progress before the rig veered off and we would have to adjust things to keep going.
In the end it didn’t take all that long, about 2 hours to get off the trail and loaded onto the trailer and was actually quite the adventure and a lot of fun to boot. Everyone had the right attitude and this helps immensely when you get stuck in a tight spot.
Thanks to everyone that helped move rocks, took turns kicking tires, watched the smaller kids who came with us and finally tie the rig on the trailer. And especially to Chad’s spotting and directing while Brian “drove”! This was one night run for the record books…
And just so you can see just where we had to go I do have video of this section of the trail when we drove down it the next day. And here is the link to the daytime run down Rocky Uphill. It starts right where Brian’s rig was broken, my wagon is sitting about where his was. http://youtu.be/laIjYKV5q-M
