Why is it when the time gets short, even when you make plans for as far away as a year, something always comes up to interfere? Last year, before Tierra Del Sol's (TDS) Desert Safari was over, I knew I was going this year. I waited and waited. Finally, the last weekend before Safari gets here. A weekend of taking care of whatever had to be done before the next BIG weekend! Along comes Monday and whoops, I broke my locker!
Tuesday found me negotiating with ARB and 4WPW for hardware and labor and things were looking up. On Wednesday, 4WPW had a locker but no gears. Won't be in till tomorrow. "But I'm leaving Thursday night!" 4WPW guarantees my Jeep will be ready by 3:00pm Thursday. Woohoo, I'm back on track!
Thursday 3:00pm, I'm standing at the 4WPW garage stall, looking at my pinion gear and otherwise empty differential housing and the mechanic is working on a YJ in the stall next to mine. "We're unexpectedly shorthanded." I fret for a bit, but now I can watch the entire installation and supervise. Well sorta if you know what I mean. Being helpful without pissing the guy off would be more like it. Well at 4:30pm I'm $7.00 lighter for a brand new ARB, ring, pinion, labor and fluids. Can ya believe it, the only charge 4WPW had to pick up on the whole thing was for express shipping of the ring & pinion from LA to SD and they passed it to me. Of course you believe it, it was 4WPW for Christ's sake!
Meanwhile at Truck Haven, Bill Duty arrives and realizes his trailer tongue is folding in half. Bud Boren is nowhere to be found, albeit he should have been there long ago, and Bill figures he'll just setup camp and weld it when Bud arrives. Bud arrives at the same time Bill and I am discussing his dilemma over the phone. Now I know they're there, but I know Bud has a certain spot he wants. I'm just hoping we don't wind up with two camps. Anyway, Bud informs Bill he ain't in the right spot, so a tack weld here and there compliments of Bud's linkarc, then Bill proceeds to cross the desert with his upright tent trailer. I'm sure there had to be some entertainment value in watching that stunt.
Back at the ranch, I race home in front of my new rear end, the whole time expecting to hear some dreadful noise. Nope, all sounds good. Hook up the camper, throw in the last of the gear and we're on our way. Long drive, plenty dark, lots of wind, yatta yatta yatta, we arrive at Truck Haven. Bill hears us on the radio, guides us in for our approach and Bud turns on the runway lights. Perfect three Jeep landing. Me, my wife in her Grand and Rob Caddel in his Dehesa SOA equipped YJ. The Mike "Cardiac Kid" Simpkons is there with his immaculate Bronco, Bill and his Ranger and Bud in good ol'Pokenomo. We arrived just in time to tip the Jeep scale before Bud needed to resort to killing anyone.
Friday morning started for me with Ms Vicky's pork chops and eggs. You know your day is gonna be good when it starts like that! This day brings Brad Kilby in next with his new two story (I'm not joking) motorhome, TJ in tow and a three wheeler on the back of the TJ. Brad is really into toys. Mark Alligood shows next and empties his wife, daughter and dog out of the Jeep. He throws a leash around one or two of them and gets to set'n up camp. Time comes to get the Jeeps in the line for inspection. Ms Vicky runs down to put my Jeep in the shortest line with Mark, Rob and Bill. Brad was way ahead by this time. Bud putts out of camp last and naturally they've just opened up a new line. Must have seen his cape. As we complete inspection we all make our way to the RTI ramp for a quick check. I don't remember all the scores, but I do remember the order if you're interested. Brad, Rob, Bud - all over 1000. Me with an 812! That's 10 over last year's 802. Want to know the amazing part? Mark got over 700! Last year's score was better with add-a-leaves and body lift than this year's with the 4" ProComp. But I'm sure anyone on this list who's seen Mark's Jeep on the trail can attest to the fact that Mark doing that well on the ramp is surprising. Seems we're always picking on Mark's articulation aren't we?
Before dark Brad came back to camp to round up some help with one of his friends from the Toyota camp. We piled in our Jeeps and off we went, well everyone but me. The moment I started working my steering wheel the loud "squeeeeeeel" of a belt rang out. Damn air system! So, off the rest of the bunch went to help and I stayed back and tightened my belt. The rig everyone went to help is on one of the most beautiful CJ-8s you'll ever see. It is owned by Kurt "Duffy" Ladd and painted pretty much like Steve Friend's Ferrari red CJ and looks like it's sorta setup in a prerunner fashion, which I would normally object to, but this looks sweet. The one shortcoming for sure, a Dana 30 up front. Bud's welder went into action.
Come evening time, the Raison Brothers (Charles and Jim (CJ get it?)) show in their CJs. These are a couple of fellows Bud has been telling me about since I met him and now finally in the flesh. There's no need to go into the stories Bud has told me about them, since everything Bud said about them holds true and winds up in this report. Round about dinnertime, John Stewart shows up in camp again during one of his breaks. Seems he made it to our camp right about dinnertime last year too, didn't he? This was game night and there was plenty of pheasant, chukar and dove to go around.
After dinner, Donald Clark in his white SOA YJ and Shane in his beige YJ showed. Brad invites us to wheel with his "Toyota Buddies" from 4 x Doctor. We accept and wind up following some of the hill hungriest 4x4s I've ever seen. I remember one of them saying, "Let's pass on that, it's only Friday and we don't want to get too crazy on the first night." Ms Vicky turns to me and says, "it's a little late, don't ya think?" No doubt these Toyotas could climb the really tough long soft hills.
Saturday morning revealed Dennis in his black YJ and Will "Danger" Robinson in his red YJ have shown sometime during the night. Will was back there fixing breakfast and had the usual "I'm on vacation" look in his eye. I can't remember the maker of all that diamond plate Will has, but his Jeep is in almost every 4x4 magazine on the rack as their add. A few of us went down to the wash just in time to watch as the line pulled out of camp. It's hard to describe the Saturday morning line up at Desert Safari. But just about every off-road vehicle known to man is there. There was even one RAV4 in the lineup that still had the cardboard dealer plates on it. Must have been 700-800 vehicles before that last Jeep in line went out of camp.
Sometime later we all gathered our senses and piled in our rigs and headed out of camp. We really had just barely gotten started and stopped at the top of a mesa to watch as Charles (one of the Raison Brothers) was busting a brand new trail down. Just as we got back into our rigs to head out again, a white CJ7 appears coming up one of the fingers leading to the top of the mesa. And in a flash we all watched as it rolled 360 degrees and back onto its wheels. This was a really clean CJ7. The amazing part was the roll bar did not tweak even one eyeota. The rear section of the roll bar was just a YJ/TJ "Sport Bar". From the main hoop forward top to bottom was not your standard sport bar though. The good thing about Ms Vicky seeing this is I can count on her support now for some roll bar modifications. The bad thing is, it made her a little squeamish the rest of the day. The CJ7 did pop the front right and left rear tires off the bead. Looked like his spring hangers may have been tweaked. The steering wheel was bent and there was a very small amount of body damage. The windshield and frame were history. I was surprised the CJ7 never stopped running.
After getting the CJ up the hill and airing up the tires, we headed off to check on a full size crew cab Chevy pickup in the distance, which looked to be high centered and no one around. From behind, that was all that was apparently wrong. From the front the truck was badly pigeon toed and had apparently broken a tie rod end. We did see this truck the next day shortly after repairing another broken tie rod end. Luckily when they went to town to buy the first one, they picked up a spare.
We continued on blazing new trails behind the Raison Brothers until Donald slammed his driveshaft down on a large step and it busted out the u-joint straps. During the intermission the Raison Brothers did some adjusting on Jim's carburetor since it continually stalled on him at the most inopportune times. We all had some lunch and the Cardiac Kid made a quick bee line back to camp to restock his diapers. He made it back before all the work was done. Once we were back on the trail again and pretty spread out, we hear Dennis has lost a brake line over the radio. We maneuver to get back to the rear of the line and for some reason I just can't seem to turn my rig. Ms Vicky informs me I've popped a bead on the front right, so again, I'm not in the rescue plan because I've got to fix my own problem. A hi-lift and air does the trick and we catch up with the gang. For now, they've crimped off the brake line with vise-grips and the show is back on the road. That is until Charles is seen ahead standing high taking pictures of his rig. He's taking pictures of the bottom of his rig that is. He just kinda drove it to that spot. Once we get up there, Bud asked him exactly where he was intending on going since it certainly wasn't apparent. There wasn't a trail out of there. He pointed in the direction of what looked to me to be the worst choice and got back in his Jeep, starts it and drives it off of its side. Then attempts to go in the direction he pointed. Unfortunately only the two left tires where working. The front turned out to be the hub in the wrong position somehow but the rear's problem was a mystery. Charles moved to the side and let the group go by. It was a fairly tough section but not too bad for the locked. When Shane came up to bat, he decided since he was open, he needed momentum. Problem is this section begins with one of those dips that catch the rear as you go up the other side of the dip. I believe he may have attempted to fly over that dip. He didn't fly and when he hit the opposite side of the dip, he launched his cooler from his rear-mounted rack. Once he reached the peak of the climb he stopped and he and his passenger celebrated high fives and all. Then he attempted to continue forward but he was high centered. He requested a strap but we very politely told him to work for it first. Once he got back a little ways he managed to easily clear the crest.
From there we all headed back to camp to try and get dinner over with before the raffle started. Ms Vicky and I stopped off at the sponsor area and I parked right next to the Canyon City 4x4 Jeeps to make sure I'd get a chance to talk to them. I went to the Dunlop booth and proceeded to whine about the street performance of these Mud Rovers you all have heard me complain about. The Dunlop reps walked back with me to look over the tires and give me the same tire lesson all tire reps spew forth. They promised to fix me up and gave me their card. While I was next to my Jeep talking with them the Canyon City fellows all showed up and came over to say hi. While I had them there <G>, I know a few of you have heard me complain about the trouble I've had with my rack. They took a good close look and insist I bring my Jeep up to them on some Saturday so they can fix it.
Once I got back to camp I learned that Donald's SOA did much worse on the ramp than Rob's SOA. So, Donald put up $2 and insisted Rob put his YJ back on the ramp and try again. Rob lost around 100 pts from the previous day's score. Still over 1000 but much less. It still beat Donald's score, so Donald aired down and put his back on the ramp. They let him run his Jeep up the ramp three times in an attempt to improve the score. But each time the score got worse! Perry, who showed up in camp after we got back from our run decided to run his TJ up the ramp. Perry is a different sort I must say. He went on the Rubicon with us last year and wouldn't disconnect his swaybar and we had to practically beat his ass to get him to air down to 20psi. Anyway, he ran his TJ up the ramp, swaybar connected, 28psi and scored a 530 something. But in the process of attempting to get up the ramp he spun two tires and dug nice little holes. They promptly kicked the dirt back in, but it explains the previous days scores appearing to be more generous. The ground around the ramp gets lower and lower as more and more tires spin their way up. So, a little advice to those who want to run an RTI ramp that's setup in the dirt, get on it early!
Well time came to head for the raffle and we seated ourselves in the very back with Brad and his Toyota buddies. Bud and I made our way over to the Dynatrac booth. Man, the Dana 60 is beefy! The fellow at the booth showed us a Dana 35 u-joint, and then the little bit bigger Dana 44 u-joint. Finally he broke out the Dana 60 u-joint, WOW! I think Dana 60s are in Bud's sorta near future. The MIT Dana 44 came up on the raffle block and who goes up to pick it up, a young girl who came into our camp with the Raison Brothers. Looks like Charles breaks his rear end on the trail then wins a better one the same day! It just doesn't get any better. Not long afterwards John Stewart went up to pick up the throttle body fuel injection system for his annual win. He came back and hung out with us to rub it in of course. Although, he did mention he's been fighting fuel system problems forever. He said he just got it working perfectly. Looks like a good time for an upgrade John! One of the fellows in our camp needed some air so he could get on the road home. Duty calls. As we made our way out of the raffle area I ran into Bob Bills, briefly chatted and pointed him in Bud's direction. When I returned, John introduced Bud and I to Ron Holland. Ron, if either of us would have had a lick of sense, we would have found out what was going on the next day and hook up! Too bad we met so late in the event. We'll definitely have to get together for a run sometime. On my way back to camp I passed by Frank Currie as he was packing up to leave. I introduced myself and asked how he kept the lift in his Jeeps. He said previously they used the Superlift and changed the springs every six months. Now they're running their own springs. He said they'd like to sell them but they have a quality control problem and can't get 10 springs to come out the same. I mentioned my problem getting lift out of production springs and that I was considering an SOA. He said he's tried them and can't get them to work without wheel hop. I asked if he'd tried any sort of trac bar and he said yes but they limit articulation too much. I'm still considering the SOA though because we put Rob's into a couple of situations that would normally produce wheel hop on the SOAs and his didn't so much as hint of any hop. We used the Rancho 2" add-a-leaves in his. These leaves are long and run the length of the main spring. I'm still thinking about it, but Frank Currie sure didn't boost my confidence in the SOA.
Sunday morning round about noon (or maybe ten, I dunno, seemed like noon) we made our way out of camp for our last run of the weekend. Charles, feeling he just hadn't driven his Jeep on its side enough, decided to blaze a new trail and drew quite an audience. His brother Jim strapped him out. Jim only got him out of the way so he could attempt the same stunt. Jim managed to get all the way through and into the clear. But he did it by laying it on the passenger side and just driving it on through. And to think he just got it back from Earl Shibe/Shive/whatever! We continued on through the twistiest stuff we could find. Pretty cool stuff but nobody did anything noteworthy. At least until we headed into one canyon and Brad asked over the radio "is it normal for the 231 to make a clicking noise?" Of course he knew it wasn't normal and we pulled over to check it out. The noise only occurred while it was moving about 10 mph. So we lined up and as he drove past us, we attempted to locate the noise. Definitely front end! We decided to continue the trail we were on, but turn in the direction of camp as the opportunities arose. We found some more neat stuff to mess around in and were just having a grand ol'time until over the radio Bud says "well there went my super duper double throw me down bitch'n MIT driveshaft." Considering how mild things had been we can only assume the straps just weren't tightened down. Nothing really broke, it just kinda, came apart! Bud removed his front driveshaft and we took an even more direct route back to camp. In route, Mark's fuel lines decide to go…again! Mark has a rough time with the smell of gas. We won't go into the gory details, but I have a rough time with some smells myself, but gas ain't one of them. So I get underneath, cut the line, reattach it, clamp it and we're on our way. We made it back to camp with no other problems.
Once we got back everyone proceeded to pack while Brad opened up his front end. The clicking noise was three missing ring gear teeth. That turned out to be the worst damage of the weekend as far as I can tell. Looks like Brad is up for a new axle now. Now I wonder, is it really bad to break things?
If you remember my last trip report, I'd have to say I really would like to end it in the same manner. I had a great time in my Jeep, and the friends it has led me to. Tierra Del Sol's Desert Safari has to be one of the best off road get togethers there is today. The varieties of terrain at Truck Haven suites just about any level of wheeling. There's enough alternate routes that you can bring newbies along and still do some tough stuff and let them go around if they like. The vendors really put out at this event and you can get up close and personal with them. As Bud said one evening, "This place will humble you no matter how cool your setup is, someone will have something better."
Having way too much fun.