Three Dudes, One Truck - Rubicon or Bust

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Climbing up away from Buck...

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I managed to sneak in near the front of the pack. I'm glad I did because I get the services of Tom, who is Cruiserdrew's co-pilot and the official spotter in the front. I'm very thankful, because you often can't see what's in front of you when you crest a hill, and often too technical to memorize your line and try it blind.

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FJ60Cam said:
My dad cooks breakfast on our rock. The menu consisted of bacon and scrambled eggs with bits of melted plastic spatula hiding in with the bacon scrapings.
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LOL-Your dad was a totally great sport during the whole trip. I never once heard him complain about anything, even the warm beer. Funny-I did not know your fridge had died. You could have put some stuff in mine as it was only half full and you were parked right next door.
 
Sadly, we didn't get any more pics of the trail that day after we got through the easy stuff. Imagine lining up all the hard, technical parts of all the level three and four trails at Superlift into one long run, with no break in the action. It was awesome.

Here's a video of the Wagon Run that I lifted from rmirandayopo over in the Official Rubithon Thread. Fast forward to 4:32, that's the best part;)

 
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Cruiserdrew said:
LOL-Your dad was a totally great sport during the whole trip. I never once heard him complain about anything, even the warm beer. Funny-I did not know your fridge had died. You could have put some stuff in mine as it was only half full and you were parked right next door.
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He had nothing to complain about, he was having a blast! And, the beer got cold enough at night that as long as we moved it to the shade during the day that it was still plenty cold enough to drink. We had enough frozen food stuff in there that all the food was perfectly usable the whole time.

I was going to save this til the end, but now's a good time...

I got the fridge at the last minute, so I didn't have time to run direct power to the back of the truck. My plan was to run it off the cigarette lighter (duh, 'cuz it came with a lighter plug) during the day and leave the key on accessory at night while traveling. At camp, I was going to plug it directly to the battery with an alligator clip to cigarette plug adapter. I tested it overnight at home with the alligator clips and it ran all night just fine. I also tested it on AC for several days at home.

When we thought it died, it turns out that the cigarette lighter in the truck just doesn't put out enough juice to turn the compressor on. If you start it up on AC and then switch it over, it will stay running, but it won't kick back on. If you hook it directly to the battery with the alligator clips it will fire up no problem.

I hadn't tried all the different ways of running it beforehand to discover this prior to leaving. So, when it didn't work off the lighter or on AC from the inverter, we just assumed we killed it because we could really feel the heat buildup around the compressor vents. When we pulled out of the driveway, we had just switched it from an extension cord to DC power, so it did keep running for a while.

Imagine our surprise (and feelings of dumbassedness) when we got to the first motel room and plugged it in on a whim and found out that it worked :o. We could have had ice cold beers all week as opposed to just 'cold enough'.

The next mod will be running direct power to the back!

:beer:
 
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Finally we make it to the Springs, where we drive across the iconic Rubicon Springs Bridge.

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wngrog said:
Awesome story so far.


Does your 60 have stock gearing and 35's?
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Thanks, I hope its not too long winded. But I gotta milk it for all its worth:grinpimp: (And so I don't forget all the details later!)

It has 4.11s from a 62, and 285s (33s). It works out to stock gearing, with a lower first gear from the 5 spd.
 
FJ60Cam said:
Thanks, I hope its not too long winded. But I gotta milk it for all its worth:grinpimp: (And so I don't forget all the details later!)

It has 4.11s from a 62, and 285s (33s). It works out to stock gearing, with a lower first gear from the 5 spd.
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I did not realize you had a Toyota 5 speed in it. That helps a lot with the gearing for sure.

Still, I bet you were working that clutch in the tight spots headed down to the river.
 
Definitely workin' the clutch! I may have stalled it a time or two. Or twenty.

At sea level, I don't seem to have that problem. There seems to be enough power for idle to pull you through stuff. After adding the fuel injection it got even better - it just keeps pouring on the fuel to keep the engine from dying and maintains idle.

But at altitude, all of that went out the window. So I stalled it several times when I was trying to finesse my way through. I got mad hand brake start skillz though:grinpimp:
 
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I wanted to do something special for Andrew on his birthday. Well, as special as possible for a birthday on the trail 2200 miles from home. I didn't think a birthday cake would survive the trip, so we managed to smuggle several boxes of Little Debbie Chocolate Cupcakes and a big number 7 candle in without him noticing. You know the ones - they say Stephanie in cursive on the top in white icing (so claims my wife!)

I told Andy what I had brought, and hoped we could serve up "birthday cupcakes" and sing happy birthday sometime before we all got split up in camp. He said he had the perfect place, and pulled us over to a wide spot in the trail after the bridge.

We wait for most of the group to catch up and then sing him happy birthday. I didn't do much singing because I was getting all teary eyed:)

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Man Andrew will never forget this trip! Nice job Dad!
 
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