There And Back Again: A Pig Runners Odyssey (1 Viewer)

[RUSH55]

Learned quite a bit about wheeling from the Martinez Canyon Trail. I also realized that if I was going to do more, I was gonna have to get power steering and a lower geared drivetrain. This trip was also another of those exercises in tolerance. This spot is probably a 100 miles or more from where I live, so it needed to get me home. During the course of the weekend, while experimenting with going back to a stock Aisin carburetor, a makeshift cap fell off of the large vacuum port (1/2" ID?) and my timing was at least 20 degrees advanced ("Keep advancing until it's hard to start, then back it off a little", they said). I drove it at least 60 mph the whole way home this way.
Later, when a mechanical mentor of mine helped me set the timing, we had to rotate the distributor nearly a quarter turn before the BB appeared in the sight window!

 

[RUSH55]

A few months prior or after (can't remember which) we hit a wheeling area north of Phoenix called Table Mesa and ran a couple of mild trails.

 

[RUSH55]

This was a trip thru the Bradshaws with a few people from the Copperstate Cruisers. The day before, we had come up the back road to Crown King, being followed by a tropical storm coming up thru Baja. Some of us had planned on camping some had decided to leave. That night it rained 4 inches in the Crown King area. The couple in the 40 slept (if you can call it that) in a tent, while I stayed in the back of the Pig on an air mattress. The guy (Seth) said he'd have to keep getting up and pushing the water off of the tarp they had strung over their tent. He said at one point he fell totally asleep, but had a weird feeling come over him and woke up. The ceiling of the tent was inches from his face!
The next day on our way out, every wash and drainage was flowing.
Almost forgot to mention that this was the inaugural run for the Scout Saginaw PS, which was an absolute pleasure to have on the tight twisty Senator Highway.

 

[RUSH55]

Here we are at one of the early Copperstate Cruiser "Cruise In's" down in Phoenix.

 

[RUSH55]

Getting my chronology a little out of whack here. This was the second annual AZ Pig Run in August of 04. The place was the Cinders north of Flagstaff.
The previous set of pics from the Crown King run were a month later in September.

 

[RUSH55]

Fast forward to January of 05, the following "Man Weekend" event.
Between September and January I had managed to swap in an SM420 with a 3 spd case using a John Pardi adapter plate, and went ahead with getting some 35" ProComp Xterrains. Everything had finally come together and this wheeling machine was everything I had hoped it could be.

This is pretty much how my Cruiser looks these days. Not much in the way of mods or changes have occurred since this time.
Shortly after this I got into kids, and debt, a new job, a recession, and all kinds of other things, so money directed towards the Pig more or less dried up.

These are a taste of the 35mm pics I have. The next block of pics and tales will be coming from discs and my laptop hard drive.

 

[scrapdaddy]

Thank you, great pictures!

 

[RHINO]

AWESOME!! been a long time coming for your story,, and a good one it is.

 

[SKULLYOTA]

great pics, love the camo one!

 

[PabloCruise]

Man, that is great! I am envious of how much you have gotten to use your Pig!
When I got my Pig, my kid was already walking, so time and $ were scarce. Then the first outing was such a cluster that I spent all my time after chasing ghosts in the engine swap. Then the body needed attention...
Sounds like you just started making Pig friends and wheeling - awesome!

 

[RUSH55]

Yeah, it's been an evolution. There have been many issues this rig has had from the day I first drove it up until this day, just because I'd rather pour time and money into mods that will work on the trail. Passenger side rear door latch still inop. For years and years, my back window was a piece of plexiglass propped up with a stick. The driver door has one of those custom, vise-grip window cranks.
The next 20 years will focus on taking care of a bunch of those loose ends, and engineering a drivetrain that will last for 20 years after. You know, general nicening up of the entire vehicle.

 

[scrapdaddy]

Man, I'm just shooting for 10 more years and I'm not talking about the wagons. What's wrong with the door latch, that's kinda important.

You've done a good job documenting the fun. Wish I'd of done the same.

 

[RUSH55]

Well, you never know what could happen!

This block of pics comes from a trip me and Clay took in 2006 around the Bloody Basin area. The first day was spent checking out some ruins, and old mining roads and camps. Later in the day we continued on down to Sheep's Bridge where we found my old pal, Bobbo Young in his FJ 62, and a buried flat-fender Jeep. We worked for a couple hours in the dark trying to yank the Jeep free, to no avail. We decided to call it a night, and got the Jeep out the next morning.

 

[RHINO]

i remember that,,,, i even remember i had a nice salad, new york strip and baked potato

 

[bobm]

LIKE PICTURES.

 

[Walkerm916]

Awesome pigs pictures.

 

[fj55tlc]

That is an awesome story! Your cruiser and mine have had a very similar life. It is neat to hear and thanks for sharing. If you want to drive up to Colorado for a wheeling trip, let me know. I would like to wheel in Arizona some day too.

 

[RUSH55]

Fast forward 2-1/2 years...

The Pig’s been down awhile waiting for me to reseal the calipers, which I just finished.

 

[RUSH55]

Back with the blingy wheels

 

[SirBarton]

I love these pics! Keep em coming!

This thread like a lot of others reminds me not to be so precious with my pig trying to fix every little thing. Just get out there and drive it.