trip report
Dirtgypsy attended the Mcgrew trail ride in southern OR and invited us to camp after the event. We packed up Dora and took the kids on their first camping trip. It was a decent drive (~5 hrs) and we met in O'brien OR to follow him in. It was 18 miles in on a hot, dusty road. Of course this week ends up being a record breaking heat wave here in oregon so combined with the dust they weren't the most enjoyable conditions but the company was good and the nearby river had several good swimming spots. We did a very short hike with the oldest kids and found a great spot where the water was as warm as a swimming pool! Besides that we just hung around enjoying the downtime from life. My family stayed two nights and we all left on tuesday morning. Dora was running pretty warm on the way in and out of the hills to the road. I found the TC lock-up not working and once I got to the pavement I found a wire had jiggled off. Slipping the TC just generated more heat so I saw a peak of 225F engine and 210 tranny on the climbs but it would cool down on the decents. Once back on pavement I reconnected the wire and lock-up was restored. With an expected 105F travel day Dora stuck around 210F engine temp and 185F tranny temp on the hwy all with one little fan pulling through the radiator. Yup, still haven't hooked up the other fan. I have also found another spot where I'm loosing coolant at the block intake piece that bolts on. I might make one and size it to my lower radiator port but for now I just keep adding fluid to my overflow tank. It's pretty much all water now. We ended up going ahead of Dirtgypsy and aimed for 70mph.
The heat was crazy and we refilled our squirt bottle 5 times to help keep us and the kids cooler durning the trip. We'd soak our clothes at the rest stops too. We switched drivers and

was driving. She had just passed a couple of cars and a semi, we were going straight with no one around, I was just entering a vegitative state in the passenger seat and then we heard a loud bang like a gun was triggered in the cab. The driver side immediately dropped 8 inches and immediately we knew the driver front tire had just blown. My

calmly let off the throttle and guided us to the side of the road. She did a fantastic job and kept her cool, I was very proud of her. I asked her what it felt like afterwards and she said it was just a slight tug at the wheel but that it was easy to control. Hydroassist definitely paid for itself here because that ram probably dampened the blow and kept things straight. 38's on 15" rims is a long way down.
We had to unpack a few things to get to the highlift that I forgot to give back to brokenparts and fish out the spare. When I looked at the blown tire the sidewall had about a 1-2' tear where it blew. I'll get pics tomorrow but it was a massive failure. I got the tire replaced and can cross that off my list of things I want to do again in 105F heat especially with no vehicle AC. At that time Dirtgypsy caught up to us and pulled over to help. With everything packed back up we merged back on the hwy. I drove to test out the tire to see how it behaved. This is a spare 38 bogger and those things are LOUD. I don't care what kind of engine you are running those tires are going to hum louder. Handling felt good so we switched drivers again and made it home without anymore drama. Dora is going to sit for the week.
Ironically I've previously been doing some tire/wheel research on what I'd want to run next. I know I still have 3 other good tires but it's a good time to make a change plus I can sell those. What I want to run are H1 12bolts recentered and rock ringed so I'm in the process of tracking some down and have worked out my costs already. For tires, it looks like the budget will determine those and I may end up running some 37" military goodyears. I can groove and sipe those to get better performance. What I'd like to run are some pitbulls but I'll have to save to get those. Overall Dora held up in some harsh conditions.