As we made our way up, I noticed a strange noise/vibration coming out of my truck. At first it felt like the steering was going out. We got out and couldn't see anything. We checked the ball joints, cvs, and steering rack, and it all seemed fine. We continued driving, then felt it immediately after. Steering input didn't affect it, so we ruled that out. Kyle and I could feel it vibrating through the floor. It was definitely related to the drivetrain. When we got to a spot where there wasn't water rushing down the trail, we pulled over to check it out. I told the rest of the group to go on ahead without us and we'd catch up, but they said "we came as a group, we're leaving as a group." Which was really cool.
After more poking around, shining flashlights, and turning the steering wheel over and over, I saw something. My front driveline bolts had some fresh cut/grind marks in the head of the bolt. It clicked and made sense that every time the driveline turned, it was rubbing on those bolts. We thought that maybe the dual adapter had shifted, or the duals were causing too much torque and broke a motor mount, but all that checked out. We kept looking but couldn't see what they were rubbing on.
Then Brian starts laughing. He found a pair of wire cutters in there. Apparently I had dropped them in the engine bay who knows how long ago, and they somehow worked their way down to the front driveline. We removed two bolts quickly, pulled out the wire cutters (which still work) and were on our way. I imagine I dropped them in there on thursday, while I was wiring up my radio. After a few good laughs, we were on our way.
Next we came up to another bypassable obstacle, with some big rocks in it. Kristy got stuck on a rock and every time she backed up it would just lift the jeep. It was right under the belly. Kyle directed her out of trouble and we continued on. Kevin got through with some slight rock stacking. Up after that, Dempsey radioed in that he couldn't climb the next rock face, and he thought we should turn around. We all hiked up to look at it, and we agreed that we had enough fun that night, so we turned back and headed down. If it had been dry, it would have been a non-issue. But with the weather, it was a slippery, tough obstacle.
