On The Rocks In Colorado - Moab in May ’07 Trip report
by Roy Lenhardt
Photos by many
This whole Moab ‘ordeal’ started for me on Thursday, the night before I was to leave for Moab, when my alternator (I think, as I replaced both my idler puller bearings recently) was squealing so loud I feared I would not be able make the trip unless I replaced it. Easier said than done.
The main Napa distributor in the area had one – but it didn’t pass the lifetime warranty machine test. Two others at another Napa store were boxed incorrectly from the factory. I fortunately happened to notice a different look to the alternator that turned out being for a Subaru something... But with a little help from Ryan, I found one at Auto Zone. Picked it up, and as I was driving home, the squealing disappeared on its own. Decided to take the chance and not replace it before heading to Moab, as I was planning to caravan out with Ryan. It is still working today – but it does get to whining pretty good when is gets hot.
Friday morning, the 18th, I had just hit the road for Moab when I received a call from Ryan who had a tire lock up on his trailer, meaning I was not going to be caravanning with him, which made me a bit nervous, but he did make the trip with a couple of hours delay. Little did we know that this was just the start of things to come!
We ran Moab Rim Friday evening. The lineup was Roy, Gary, Ryan, Tom on his virgin run with his newly lifted JK unlimited, Eric Sandoval in his newly lifted JK and his mother Rose and step dad Chris, on their first trail in their recently acquired stock Rubicon. Also tagging along were Eric’s sister Jennifer, husband Leonard, and their children.
The run went nicely. Everyone did well, with Chris parking his Rubi below the Z Turn. This was his first time out with their new Jeep, and Chris did a great job with a stock rig. So hats off to Chris… and Rose for being so patient and understanding. We all know how those first scrapes on the skid plate sound.
Tom also a great job for his first time out in his newly lifted rig as well.
Although I was very eager to get off the trail, we lamented on the evening’s events for just on the other side of too long, so as to cause a late arrival at the liquor store. Bummer. OK so now it’s really starting.
Well, Saturday’s plan was to meet up at City Market at 8:30am and run Poison Spider, Golden Spike and Gold Bar Rim, my favorite Moab trail set. We arrived at the trailhead at 9:00am. The day’s lineup was Roy, Eric, Gary, Tom, with Ryan bringing up the rear.
A shot of everyone lined up for the Wedgie on Poison Spider
OK – so now it really starts. Only a few minutes into the trail, at the first switch back turn with any type of obstacle, Eric’s lower rear track bar mount broke off the axle tube. This had recently been repaired by a friend of his, but it must have taken a bit too much stress the night before on Moab Rim.
So there we were, at the very beginning of the trail, air tools and welder out doing a major trail repair. To add insult to injury, a group of about 20 Land Rovers passed us by, among others.
Ryan hard-at-it performing his first weld job on Eric’s rig.
Pack it out! Leave nothing behind.
Ryan did a damn good job for a trail weld repair job – that lasted most of the way through the run. O yeah, it broke again. But wait, it does get better. Total repair time approximately 1-1/2 to 2 hours, in the sweltering Moab morning sun. We packed up got under way again, and enjoyed less than an hour of pleasurable wheelin’ when, low and behold…
The rear bolt of my front upper control arm had worked its way loose and ended up rubbing on my driveshaft. Not very cool thing if you only have one UCA. After disconnecting my front driveshaft, I tried my damnedest to get that little bugger back in, but it took me a little while to give in to Gary’s earlier timesaving suggestion of removing the control arm completely and reinstalling it, starting in the back. Total repair time: 90 minutes or so.
Repair job on Roy’s front UCA
We continued on and the run was going along fine until the Launching Pad on Golden Spike. Ryan was bringing up the rear when his Jeep stalled just as he started the climb. It was tentatively decided that he had vapor locked so we let him cool down a bit. After about 20 minutes or so, we got him started and continued on, without the A/C. OH yeah – I forgot to mention that it was mid in mid 90’s. Hotter’n a bastard. Was very nice to see the sun go behind the clouds.
Ryan just after he vapor locked as he started to climb Launching Pad.
I know I wouldn’t want that to happen to me on the way up this obstacle.
A few more minutes down the trail had elapsed when Ryan vapor locked again. This time we pretty quickly attributed it to a very easy trail repair. Un-kink the tank vent line. Duh! This seems to have taken care of the problem for the remainder of the trail.
Susan baking in the shade, wondering “Alright already. When in the hell are we going to get going here?”
Yes Gary, I love you too!
I’m not sure on the timing of incidences, but somewhere along the way, Gary popped the bead on his left front. Easy fix. Jacked him up, cinched the tire up with a ratchet strap and gave him a 160 psi blast from my compressor to make an easy fix out of this one.
Gary’s blown bead. It was nice to have onboard air so we didn’t have to pull the wheel.
Ok – so what is that Quarter jug up to so far?
Eric correcting his steering problem.
Things were going along well for a while when Eric noticed that his ability to turn to the right was seriously hampered. We fiddled and fuddled with his steering shock for way too long, and after comparing with Tom’s rig, determined that his lower track bar mount had actually bent downward, causing a conflict with the steering shock travel. Total repair time approximately 60 minutes.
We had to do a little trail un-building before doing ‘the Crack’.
Here’s a statutory pic of everyone traversing the Golden Crack.
Alright! We’ve traversed the “Crack”. At this point I’m thinking “We made it past this obstacle, we ought to be good to go.” But, as fate would have it. Eric’s track bar mount ‘sheared’ off this time. Ryan’s weld job held up awesomely, but the stock bracket just ain’t all that stout, it would appear.
Once again, all the air tools are out, with Ryan on his back, burning his shirt, and skin again, doing another standup trail weld… Until, what? Out of wire? How could that be. We just installed a new 200’ spool on the last fix. How could we possibly have gone through that much wire? Well. We did! ANOTHER 90 MINUTE TRAIL REPAIR. Cool! Things are going to be better now. Or - NOT!
2nd repair on Eric’s track bar mount. Note the position of the sun.
Since we didn’t have as much wire feed as we had hoped, I, as trail leader, starting taking it real easy and slow, hoping Eric’s track bar mount would endure the remainder of the trail. The last weld job was performed shortly after Golden Crack, and at this point it was not about enjoyment, but rather the necessity to actually make if off the trail, this - not day, but night.
Have to get a nice shot of Tom’s new JK in here somewhere.
OK. So now were moving along again. It might have been at this point that, after cruising along cautiously, taking every easiest line and bypass possible, in 1st gear, that I commented over the radio that “We’re really making time now!” I bet it was the best time we’d made all day. Then wouldn’t ya know it…
Just as I’m rounding a bypass around an obstacle, Ryan decides to get tied up in a line and lays his rig over, ever so gently, on the passenger side. This was entertaining for everyone to see and about all he did was take out his passenger mirror. Oh yeah, his radio antenna broke off also. We quickly strapped him over, and after a 5 minute correction, we were on our way again.
Ryan laying his rig over and righting it.
Well, in perfect form for the day, after a short while, there was a call on the radio from Gary, who is hearing a “clunking” that sounds like it originates in the left rear hub area. I backtracked to find Ryan and Gary wondering what the hell is going on now. It appeared to me there was a problem in the gears.
– Figuring out what is going on with Gary’s rear end. Of his Jeep, that is….
None of us had tore into a Dana 44 before, let alone a Rubicon’s limited slip to locker. After a fair amount of talking things over, we decided to just tear into it and see what we’ve got. It was discovered that the limited slip helical or spider gears had taken a dump. We removed the diff but were unable to simply remove the guts and reinstall the carrier for a quick solution because we didn’t have the necessary bearing puller. We did a lot of head scratching at this point. How are we going to get off this trail, tonight?
– Getting it back together.
It’s getting pretty late at this point – I think around 10 or 11 pm and lunch was the last time we ate. We were all getting so darn hungry we discussed bringing emergency rations along in the future. We did have plenty of water however.
Well, being unsure what to do next, we were fortunate enough to get a hold of Dan Kimball via cell phone. As he was offering possible solutions, one of which was some type of tubing to go over the two inner axels, Gary emerges from his Jeep with a 3’ stick of 1-1/2” galvanized pipe he happened to pick up a month or so earlier in a hardware store for like $4.36, just to have as a cheater bar.
So there’s Gary, holding the pipe in one hand staring at it with a cocked head, with this look of wonderment, or something on his face, thinking… “Are you kidding me?” The pipe fit nicely over the axle shafts, and due to its length, it ensured that it would not end up working its way off of one shaft or another in transit.
We buttoned things up and got rolling again, with Gary limited to front wheel drive. It must be about 12:30am by now.
Didn’t make it to the liquor store again! Hell, I hadn’t even had time to make to the grocery store yet and it’s already Sunday! We limped along slowly and made it down to the highway at about 2:00am, with Gary only having to take a strap once, I think. I don’t know, but there could be some more quarters involved here???
We, or (I) were worried about the low fluid level in Gary’s diff not lubing his outer bearings, so we took it real easy on the way back to the condo, arriving at about 2:30 am. Long day!
Back at the condo – finally!
Gary, Tom, Ryan and I had a few cocktails, courtesy of Gary’s stash, lamented on the day’s events until we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer, and hit the hay. That was after the sun started coming up for me and Gary.
It was up around noon on Sunday, as we moseyed into town to look for parts for Gary’s diff. We were picking up miscellaneous supplies at Car Quest, when, in a fortunate turn of events, Ryan picks up this dilapidated box with Dana 44 scribbled on it. It contained an open carrier that we could slap in that would allow Gary to flat tow his Jeep back home. Car Quest was cool enough to let us use their press to push the bearings on and we were off.
We spent the remainder of the day cleaning up parts and installing the open carrier in Gary’s rig, as Susan prepared a nice dinner for all. Thanks, Susan.
The next morning, Monday, Eric brought his rig over and Ryan did what he could to strengthen the track bar mount up for his drive home, just to be safe. That repair lasted, and Eric has since had it beefed up real good.
One last look around the premises and I could not ignore all the oil we had leaked in the driveway of the condo. There had to be 15 oil stains, some of them pretty big. So we ran into town for some degreaser and hosed the driveway down, thinking we may want to be invited back here again.
We left the condo about 11:00 am and headed in to the Moab Diner for some breakfast, when wouldn’t you know it, that damn wheel on Ryan’s trailer locked up again. We ate breakfast, and performed our last repair of the trip!!!
Whew hoooo! We ended up removing the brake components for that wheel which left him with 3 out of 4 wheels braking for the drive home.
It’s always fun in Moab, no matter what happens, but this trip was a heck of a lot of work. It was kind of nice to be back at work on Tuesday.
What made this trip special, and very memorable was all the challenges that were overcome by teamwork, knowledge and TOOLS! My OnBoard air got one hell of a workout as well as the On The Rocks’ trail wirefeed welder. It turned out that we had everything we needed to get the job(s) done.
Recap of the problems, carnage and repairs :
- Alternator problem for Roy the day before leaving
- Brake lock-up on Ryan’s trailer Friday morning when leaving for Moab
- Broken track bar mount on Eric’s JK – First one of the day
- Vapor lock on Ryan’s rig
- Another vapor lock on Ryan’s rig
- Steering problem due to bent front lower track bar mount on Eric’s JK
- Blown left front bead on Gary’s TJ
- Re-Broke track bar on Eric’s rig
- Laid on the side by Ryan
- Blown rear diff on Gary’s Rubicon
- Temp repair on Gary’s rig on Sunday
- Beef up Eric’s track bar mount on Monday before leaving town
- Degreasing and scrubbing down one long ass driveway
- And finally, the brake lock-up problem on Ryan’s trailer on the way out of town.
- Well, that’s all folks….
Can’t wait till next time!