JV 10-01-03 first run of the season

[Chris L]

Trail was brutal. We ran clawhammer and aftershock on thursday with no problems and lots of fun. Friday was a different story. We ran outer limits, one of the funest trails out there. Usually takes 4-6 hours to complete. The rains this year completely changed the trail. Took us 12 1/2 hours on friday {9am-9:30pm}. We plugged 3 tires and had to use a spare on one jeep. Had 4 beads blow and re-seated. I broke a CTM u-joint and was told sparks flew out when it happened. We ended up leaving 3 rigs on the trail overnight cause the last waterfall was just too hard in the dark. Here is a link to some pics.
http://www.fototime.com/inv/1DDD2E174DD168E

Scott Hill

Jeff {paradiddle}

Chris L

Darrell

Blaine

Joe Dillard

Sergey

Brian

Bruce


We were however disappointed. Solar Yellow never showed up

[Paradiddle]

Great pics Chris!

Jeff

[blkTJ]

agreed, great pics. thanks for postin' 'em.

Had a great time as always. thank you all.

[Chris L]

I PUT THE WRONG LINK INTO THE PICTURE THREAD
http://www.fototime.com/inv/634A1EA8E4CABE9

[David taylor]

Great pics. Might try it with a group xj's this weekend. Has the last waterfall changed much ?

[TObject]

Originally posted by David taylor
Has the last waterfall changed much ?

Yes.

The last waterfall on which trail were you asking about?

[David taylor]

Outer limits. The last one that has the hard left at the top.
The bottom used to be not very bus friendly.

[Paradiddle]

Originally posted by David taylor
Outer limits. The last one that has the hard left at the top.
The bottom used to be not very bus friendly.

It's worse now - as an ex Bus driver I wouldn't drive Outer Limits now if you paid me.

We all took body damage in a bunch of heavily armored TJs with no doors/mirrors/etc.

Stay awayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Take pictures of your carnage please.

Jeff

[Joe Dillard]

Thanks for sharing Chris! I had a BLAST. I posted a few pics on the BRC thread.

Hmm, let's see.....when are we scheduled to go back?

[TObject]

Wasn't Outer Limits historically easier for the long wheel base vehicles? Disregarding the end of last season [when we saw the fiasco of that monster contraption on Rockwell axles], just historically.

[Paradiddle]

Originally posted by TObject
Wasn't Outer Limits historically easier for the long wheel base vehicles? Disregarding the end of last season [when we saw the fiasco of that monster contraption on Rockwell axles], just historically.

Yes - but I doubt it very much now.

[David taylor]

I guess we need to run it for sure now. But we might need to run it faster to get back for the BBQ.

[Paradiddle]

Originally posted by David taylor
I guess we need to run it for sure now. But we might need to run it faster to get back for the BBQ.

Who is going out with you?

[Robert J. Yates]

Heh,
If you are looking at running OL while attending Fun in the Desert with the VV4Wheelers, you are going to be in for a long day on the trail if they don't keep the number of vehicles down. The entire trail has changed its personality - several previous obstacles are no longer doable with new ones taking their place.

I second Paradiddles request to please post crinkled bus pix afterwards

[Paul Sinclair]

Originally posted by Robert J. Yates
Heh,
If you are looking at running OL while attending Fun in the Desert with the VV4Wheelers, you are going to be in for a long day on the trail if they don't keep the number of vehicles down. The entire trail has changed its personality - several previous obstacles are no longer doable with new ones taking their place.

I second Paradiddles request to please post crinkled bus pix afterwards

F in the D cancelled O.L. for the reasons you noted, so we're just going to run it solo.
Look for a report Monday
Paul

[Chris L]

Good luck. Most of the sand has washed out with the rains making the obsticles harder to get on and over. 3 of us were on 37's and still had to do a lot of winching. All the lines have changed and the trail is unrecognizable. We usually run it in a few hours. This time it took 12 1/2 hrs.

[Robert J. Yates]

Hey Come on Chris - give those XJ guys a break - everybody knows that wheeling a bus is the shiznit.

[TObject]

Originally posted by Paradiddle
It's worse now - as an ex Bus driver I wouldn't drive Outer Limits now if you paid me.

We all took body damage in a bunch of heavily armored TJs with no doors/mirrors/etc.

Stay awayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Take pictures of your carnage please.

Jeff

Jeff,

You can't drive, and telling somebody who can drive that he shouldn't drive is inappropriate. I've read it somewhere.

Apologize to Dave immediately!

Also, looks like my response to you is also inappropriate, therefore, please accept my apologies.

[Darrell C]

Thought I toss some pics up also...no specific order.

[mrblaine]

Nice pictures Darrell. Thanks.

[Robert J. Yates]

Originally posted by TObject
Jeff,

You can't drive, and telling somebody who can drive that he shouldn't drive is inappropriate. I've read it somewhere.

its common knowledge that it takes no driver skill to wheel a tj and that if you wheel a bus, you are truely the master of your domain.

[baconinthesun]

Awesome pics everybody. It was good to see the familiar faces and meet some new ones. Blaine, your beer can trick worked like a charm, according to Rick.

[mrblaine]

Originally posted by baconinthesun
Awesome pics everybody. It was good to see the familiar faces and meet some new ones. Blaine, your beer can trick worked like a charm, according to Rick.

Cool, glad it worked.

[David taylor]

Originally posted by Robert J. Yates
its common knowledge that it takes no driver skill to wheel a tj and that if you wheel a bus, you are truely the master of your domain.

I guess we will just have to wait and see.

It sounds like the trail pretty much destroyed the last group.

[mrblaine]

Originally posted by David taylor
I guess we will just have to wait and see.

It sounds like the trail pretty much destroyed the last group.

We weren't destroyed. It was just a long day. I'm not used to doing that much winching and when it got dark, I was afraid that exhaustion, dehydration, and the lack of good visibility would combine to get someone hurt.

Given the hour, the fact that no-one else was likely to hit the trail before we got back out there, when the choice was offered up to leave rigs and go back and get them, it seemed like a good decision and was proven to be so the next morning.

I took the most body damage, but I'm used to it. In reality, most of the other stuff was minor, but unavoidable. The small rocks and sand that usually tip you away from stuff are gone and little but the points of the bigger stuff sticking out of the ground.

We shovelled some sand back into the big hole at the base of the last fall. When I drove up to it, the pair of rocks you put your front tires on to get up on it, well, the bottom of them was 2" over the tops of my tires with big undercuts. I tried the left side, up the middle and way over on the right. Wasn't happening.

Interestingly, stuff that used to give me fits I walked right up and stuff I used to walk right through is almost undoable.

The best part is the 300 yards of new obstacles in the wash before you get to the trail.

[Robert J. Yates]

Paul Sinclair - you have mail.

[NAILER341]

wow! thos are some fantastic pictures!

i am sure sorry i missed this one, but i had my jeep ripped apart all over the garage floor preparing t=for the rookie run.

it looks like a good time was had by all. i'm looking forward to this upcoming rookie run. see you all on the trail!

[David taylor]

Originally posted by Robert J. Yates


I second Paradiddles request to please post crinkled bus pix afterwards

Well I hate to disappoint you guy's. But there was no bus crinkling going on. Unless you consider a scratch on the rear quarter panel guards body damage. You need to use the whole link to see the pics

http://www.ofoto.com/BrowsePhotos.js...1&sort_order=0

They decided to keep the run open so we went with the organized
run. We started with 10 rigs but only 9 finished. There was only 2 Cherokees in the group. Richard G and myself. It took the group about 11 hours to the trail. Thankfully we made it back in time for the tri-tip

I thought the overall difficulty of the trail was about the same. Some places harder but others less so. The trail leader drove the whole trail in a cj5 without winching. I think he was the only one. I had to winch on one of waterfalls just before the half way point.
I also drove the last one witch I haven't done before.


Carnage on the trail:

1 D30 warn inner axle broken at the splines. At the very start of the trail. We were down about hour and a half trying to get the piece out of the ARB. No luck so he turned around.

Richard broke a piece of all thread on the steering after hitting a rock. He had another piece so we were only down about 20 min there.

The big break of the day. One of the guy's from AZ bent his tie rod
up into the oil pan. The rod then put a hole in the pan. We were down a long time with this one. We thought we might need to pull the pan to weld the hole up. But, some JB weld came to the rescue.

[Paradiddle]

Glad you had fun.

[mrblaine]

Originally posted by David taylor
Well I hate to disappoint you guy's. But there was no bus crinkling going on. Unless you consider a scratch on the rear quarter panel guards body damage. You need to use the whole link to see the pics

http://www.ofoto.com/BrowsePhotos.js...1&sort_order=0

They decided to keep the run open so we went with the organized
run. We started with 10 rigs but only 9 finished. There was only 2 Cherokees in the group. Richard G and myself. It took the group about 11 hours to the trail. Thankfully we made it back in time for the tri-tip

I thought the overall difficulty of the trail was about the same. Some places harder but others less so. The trail leader drove the whole trail in a cj5 without winching. I think he was the only one. I had to winch on one of waterfalls just before the half way point.
I also drove the last one witch I haven't done before.


Carnage on the trail:

1 D30 warn inner axle broken at the splines. At the very start of the trail. We were down about hour and a half trying to get the piece out of the ARB. No luck so he turned around.

Richard broke a piece of all thread on the steering after hitting a rock. He had another piece so we were only down about 20 min there.

The big break of the day. One of the guy's from AZ bent his tie rod
up into the oil pan. The rod then put a hole in the pan. We were down a long time with this one. We thought we might need to pull the pan to weld the hole up. But, some JB weld came to the rescue.

Well, I know we saved you guys at least an hour by filling in the giant hole at the base of the last fall with some of the sand that had been moved by the rain.

BTW- I don't wish crinkling on anyone. Glad you made it in only eleven hours. Typically, that many rigs would take about 6 hours, so in my mind the difficulty did come up some.