Write Up:
So the day started nice and early at the Flying J's truck stop where I met Ian Rogers and gas was $4.13 a gallon GOOD TIMES, Filled her up and loaded the rig with some snacks. Shahram in his white 80 rolled up shortly after, along with his brother Shahin in is 2 dr. Jeep Wrangerler (don't know models, but at _J I'm sure).
We headed out and up towards the trail. My ARB comp. decided to stop working and after 5 fuses and a an attempt at manually getting her turned said F-it, aired down, and began our accend. It wasn't more than 10min into the trail when Ian blew a rear PS bead on his tire at the first obstacle (if you can call it that). Took us about 10min to jack up the truck and pop it back on with the trusty CO2 and off we went.
I was amazed at how much the trail had erroded and been warn down since the last time I was out there (2years ago). The first 3/4 of the trail was just dirt driving with a few bumps, rocks, and trees to manuever. We stopped for lunch at the picnic tables and we had been sailing smoothly. No traffic that day and only ran into a few bikes/quads and one lone jeep.
After lunch we began our final series of hill climps when Ian's 40 decided to go limp and would NOT turn on. So after about 15min of trying to trouble shoot we moved Ian's truck over to the side of the trail and I pulled in front and strapped to his rig... a night rolling tug and I was off with an FJ40 in tow going up hill and over the obstacles. After some time I had to stop and let my 80 cool b/c my temps were hitting 215. When we tried to get going again I was at the next obstacle and the 40 was not having it. We bumped and pushed it over the obstacle and go rolling again but has to make a ver tight turn against some challenging obstacles. Needless to say I couldn't pull the 40 up and was burning my tires.
Shahram also gave it a try and made progress being able to lock his axles, but wasn't able to bump the 40 up the rocks. So I drove up to an opening turned around drove down and winched ian through the obstacles, then went back up turned around strapped him and started to pull him up through the trail when after a few obstacles the 40 started.
We treked up the final lengths of the trail and we stopped at the top to asses the trucks. i had a leaking front diff which was the result of some loose bolts on the back side and a need for a new gasket. Refilled on some fluid thanks to Ian and we all headed home. Great Day.
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Shahram, it was my pleasure to have you, your brother, so and the whole crew who came along for the ride. We are definitely going to get another trail run in August either John Bull or Silverwood, so GET THOSE SLIDERS FABBED. Keep workin on the gas and brake technique, you kicked ass.
I think I could have pulled Ian the whole way up if my lockers were working, but we prevailed at the end and everyone worked together. Plus I got to put that winch to work. Good times, do it again soon and bring Shahin and his Jeep along w/ you.
And for all the other SoCal80 guys, If you had spent as much money on a stripper as you have your rig, you KNOW you wouldn't be okay with merely looking at her from a distance, so get out there and wheel, stop chatting about it so much.
