June Hurricane Creek Trip

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What a great trip and good company, I look forward to doing this again. As I was driving home through Orangeburg SC, my truck started overheating and as I was attempting to pull off of the interstate, the radiator blew the top off sending coolant out and back to my windshield. I had a broken drive belt causing the water pump quick working. The culprit was a 12" piece of truck tire the came up threw the engine bay. The engine was still running when I cut it off, so I'm hoping there's no engine damage...hoping. One in a million.

The next problem was how do I get home (1.5 hrs away) at 6:00 PM Sunday. After a couple of phone calls, no rental cars companies were open and I hate to ask someone to make a 3 hr round trip. Just then one of my hunting buddies who live a half hour away pulled over when he recognized my dogs. Without question he took us all home, 3 hrs round trip for him. Another one in a million. Now I get to sleep on pins and needles until the diagnosis comes in.

@GarnerFJ40, I hope you had better luck getting home than I did.
 
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Beautiful, hope we are able to go in July
 
What a great trip and good company, I look forward to doing this again. As I was driving home through Orangeburg SC, my truck started overheating and as I was attempting to pull off of the interstate, the radiator blew the top off sending coolant out and back to my windshield. I had a broken drive belt causing the water pump quick working. The culprit was a 12" piece of truck tire the came up threw the engine bay. The engine was still running when I cut it off, so I'm hoping there's no engine damage...hoping. One in a million.

The next problem was how do I get home (1.5 hrs away) at 6:00 PM Sunday. After a couple of phone calls, no rental cars companies were open and I hate to ask someone to make a 3 hr round trip. Just then one of my hunting buddies who live a half hour away pulled over when he recognized my dogs. Without question he took us all home, 3 hrs round trip for him. Another one in a million. Now I get to sleep on pins and needles until the diagnosis comes in.

@GarnerFJ40, I hope you had better luck getting home than I did.

Holy crap Tim!! How did you get your truck home?

From 45miles west of Asheville to my exit in Durham, everything was good with @GarnerFJ40, so I trust he got the rest of the way home OK as well.
 
Tim, we got in last night at about 11 or so. No issues with the front axle on the way home. There were a few driveshaft bolts that were fused into the flange that was having issues when you came up, but they eventually came off.

For those just tuning in, my front axle started making an awful grinding sound when Heather dropped into a rut on one of the trails, and engaging the center diff got rid of it. Drove around the rest of the weekend with the center locked, but decided removing the front driveshaft was best for highway driving. The pinion had a lot of play in it. After removing the front driveshaft some of the chatter and vibration I came to accept as being just the normal feel of my 80, went away. So, whatever finally failed, had been slowly going south for a while.

So, a front axle rebuild had been in the cards for a while sine my last one when I fist bought my 80, about 74K ago. And if it's a bad ring/pinion then it' an upgrade to 4.88's...
 
What a great trip and good company, I look forward to doing this again. As I was driving home through Orangeburg SC, my truck started overheating and as I was attempting to pull off of the interstate, the radiator blew the top off sending coolant out and back to my windshield. I had a broken drive belt causing the water pump quick working. The culprit was a 12" piece of truck tire the came up threw the engine bay. The engine was still running when I cut it off, so I'm hoping there's no engine damage...hoping. One in a million.

The next problem was how do I get home (1.5 hrs away) at 6:00 PM Sunday. After a couple of phone calls, no rental cars companies were open and I hate to ask someone to make a 3 hr round trip. Just then one of my hunting buddies who live a half hour away pulled over when he recognized my dogs. Without question he took us all home, 3 hrs round trip for him. Another one in a million. Now I get to sleep on pins and needles until the diagnosis comes in.

@GarnerFJ40, I hope you had better luck getting home than I did.

I'm sorry to hear about this Tim. It really is a helpless feeling being stranded that far from home. It's good to hear that a friend saw you and gave you a lift home though. I hope everything turned out (or turns out) okay with the engine. And if the engine does end up being completely fried, maybe you can get that diesel swap even sooner. ;)

Keep us posted on what happens.
 
Like any group meeting a good place to start is with beer.
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The food was great too!
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But soon it was time to head to camp, and into the rain.
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Hurricane Creek Rd. was a little muddy...
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But we all made it to the primitive camp at Round Mountain, TN. No more pictures today, we set up camp in the near darkness and rain, tried to make cover and cook dinner. The plan was a bring your own meat and pot luck sides. Deb worked hard to keep a fire going long enough to cook and we all headed to bed.
 
Day three was perfect!
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We had as many dogs as trucks, my dog (black one) and the Keefer's Porter played like puppies. Which was nice since neither of use let them off leash very often.

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Then we visited Max Patch

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Marie thought the Hills were alive with music....

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And Johnny got to see what it was like not working on his truck on the trail for a change.

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Final picture, just light painting with a flashlight of my truck and Flippac.
 
My final thought. What a great club and group of friends, very few of us had met each other in person before the trip, despite the rain, delays, etc. No one complained (even when Mike and Marie's tent was soaked/flooded) no one left when the weather continued to challenge us. Brian and Heather did a great job leading us around the trails, while not challenging, I always enjoy just riding around this part of the country.
 
Holy crap Tim!! How did you get your truck home?
The truck is still at Firestone in Orangeburg SC. I'm working on getting back so I can replace the radiator I just replaced 14 months ago (12 month warranty of course). Yeah, this is how I feel, like a kid just trying to hop a fence.

wedgie.webp
 
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I have to add, Heather and I did minimal planning for this trip. As long as we have a place to stay and a loose plan for food, our groups seem to take care of themselves regardless of delays (usually on our part!), weather, and so forth. I do like the flexibility of everyone in ONSC, and everyone understands we're on vacation and they're out to have fun and see parts of the state a lot of the general population doesn't experience!
Schedules are always hard to manage when you have a lot of people coming from many different areas, and I'm always concerned about how to keep the canine members of the group comfortable when we visit "upscale" establishments! :)

The Keefers will eventually upload some pictures, but they won't be worthy of the Photo Professor, Jay!
 
Jumping in here due to how close two meteors missed each other......

Todd Kaderabek was driving my family up to Max Patch when we passed your crew coming down.

I was only quick enough to get @GLTHFJ60 's truck with my iPhone as y'all passed.

A quick post in the 60 section put a name with the faces.

Something was really pulling for me to chase y'all down and say hello but Todd was on a mission and it was just a hunch anyway.

Turns out, @Beau Diddly /Tim Long and I were in Ole Miss ROTC together back in the late 80's. Although he works with my wife and I keep up with him on the book of faces, a chance encounter on the side of a mountain would have just been insane.

I guess those two meteors will keep going.

Beautiful pictures. I too have a great local club Cottonland Cruisers that I enjoy. Y'all come see us at The Crawl this year in October.

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Max Patch was unreal.

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When we were up there some jackass from PA angrily asked us if "this was it?" At the top of Max Patch. We stared at him dumbfounded as he dragged his poor wife off in a huff.

We later got behind him on our decent to I-40 as he used his flashers and stopped at every pothole in his Subaru.

When he turned off where you guys had stopped, we took the opportunity to blast around him.

I'm sure I could have stopped Todd then had the asshat Yankee in the Subaru not blown out minds by not letting us pass.

Happy Trails. Colonel Long.......good luck with your truck. Try not to be "that guy" whydoncha......
 
Jumping in here due to how close two meteors missed each other......

Todd Kaderabek was driving my family up to Max Patch when we passed your crew coming down.
Next time bring your 60 and wheel with us for the weekend. Even your pet pig is welcome.
 
We've tried to get 'ol Todd to join us on a few trips, but the timing has never lined up! Totally forgot to check in with him to see if he wanted to join along on this one...
 
Just wanted to chime in here that Marie and I had a blast with all of you guys... wet tent and all! Tim, thanks again for letting us borrow a tarp for night #2. BTW - any wheeling trip that starts out a brewery only supports the claim that we are "a drinking club with a Toyota problem!"

Jay, your pictures turned out way better than mine, maybe there is something to being a "professional" photographer. Thanks for posting, I couldn't get mine to upload to Mud but most of them are on the Book of Faces.

Look forward to seeing everyone real soon. Unfortunately we will miss this year's Logan's Run event due to a family wedding but look forward to another Portsmouth trip in November.

We plan on attending the Overland Expo again this year on Oct 2-4 if anyone is interested.
 
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