What a few days we had... If you follow me on Instagram or FB you've already seen some of this I'm sure but this has more story to go with it.
Myself, Ryan (skippy), his dad in his XJ, my BIL in his XJ, another friend in an XJ all headed down Tuesday afternoon/night. I was really shocked by how many people were down there, especially considering it was so early in the week. I haven't seen it so busy for about a decade.
Wednesday we ran Rusty Nail. Driving to the trail-head. Excited to be in MOAB!
This was the first run for Ryan in his beeeeeautiful 1ton WJ that we were still working on just a couple days before. I did quite a bit of trimming on it at full bump but we knew it would take more in flexy situations because that's just how it goes. Man she's a sexy rig!
Lining up at the first obstacle-
Rusty Nail was a cake walk, we're all experienced so we were ready for whatever came our way.
Mike on Double Whammy-
Ryan's dad's XJ starting making noises and intermittently powering the front end... UH OH. We originally thought it was the chain slipping in the t-case but it later became obvious it was the front diff letting go. That sucks but oh well, keep on keepin' on, right? We were just moroting along and I decided to hit a GIANT rock on the side of the trail with my passenger front tire. It was awful, it just about stopped us dead in our tracks and I could tell something was jacked from it. My steering was loose and the motor was knocking like crazy. Turns out I broke my axle-side tracbar mount clean off and it dented the oil pan which broke the oil pump. We of course didn't find this out until later that night after towing it off the trail.
Awesome strap job-
We replaced the oil pump in the Marriott parking lot and welded up the tracbar bracket thanks to the amazing owners of Aussie Locker. I'd never met them before but I have their lockers f/r and they followed me on IG. This led to using their welder and getting some free swag from them. Awesome! We couldn't get it to build oil pressure when we threw in the towel at 2:30 AM and would work on it the next day.
We rolled out of bed around 10, beat from working on the Jeep so much the night before. Tried building oil pressure again but couldn't so we decided to pursue the old-fashioned way. We pulled the distributor, broke a long screwdriver, ran a couple extension cords from the hotel and used a drill to turn the oil pump. Bam, oil pressure. Got it all back together and were ready to go! At this point my BIL found out he had to go home so he could fly to PA for work. Crappy! So he left but we pushed on without him and headed to Hell's Revenge.
I was thrilled to be on the trail again and Hell's never disappoints me. We ran through Hell's Gate and headed to the hot tubs. I've been wanting to take another run at Devil's Highway (the big hot tub) because I had a good run at it when it was a little wet the last time and I heard it was dry. So I pull in and after a handful of attempts with a couple of them being pretty exciting I finally stick it and make it up! I was thrilled! I'm working on uploading the videos to YT but I posted them on FB on the RR4W Page as well as on IG under @4lowapparel. I'll get them on YT so I can put them in here. EDIT: Devil's Highway video added below. I was the only one to try the big tub so then we moved on and went to Mickey's. It was also dry and I was able to crawl out of it, no throttle for the first time ever. Here's a shot of Ryan in there.
Next up was The Escalator of course. I went up and back down and Ryan was doing the same. His steering was terrible without hydro assist in certain situations and this was one of them.
We had to strap him from above and pull him backwards, it sucked... It was smoking so bad from being on that angle!
We got that resolved, cruised out and headed to dinner. Thursday = Complete.
Friday was Pritchett day. We met Colton at the trail-head but didn't see Shane or Bart who were also going to meet us. We didn't get far before realizing there were a lot of people on the trail ahead of us. Oh well, we had a whole day ahead of us.
Colton's rig being awesome on Rocker Knocker.
Our experience with Pritchett was paying off and we were embarrassing the group in front of us. I was told by one guy that he couldn't believe how fast I made it up Chewy (1:36 to be exact, according to the video) and another guy told me he hated me for making him look stupid. Fair enough.
The group coming up the part after RK with my nephew driving my rig.
Myself, Ryan (skippy), his dad in his XJ, my BIL in his XJ, another friend in an XJ all headed down Tuesday afternoon/night. I was really shocked by how many people were down there, especially considering it was so early in the week. I haven't seen it so busy for about a decade.
Wednesday we ran Rusty Nail. Driving to the trail-head. Excited to be in MOAB!
This was the first run for Ryan in his beeeeeautiful 1ton WJ that we were still working on just a couple days before. I did quite a bit of trimming on it at full bump but we knew it would take more in flexy situations because that's just how it goes. Man she's a sexy rig!
Lining up at the first obstacle-
Rusty Nail was a cake walk, we're all experienced so we were ready for whatever came our way.
Mike on Double Whammy-
Ryan's dad's XJ starting making noises and intermittently powering the front end... UH OH. We originally thought it was the chain slipping in the t-case but it later became obvious it was the front diff letting go. That sucks but oh well, keep on keepin' on, right? We were just moroting along and I decided to hit a GIANT rock on the side of the trail with my passenger front tire. It was awful, it just about stopped us dead in our tracks and I could tell something was jacked from it. My steering was loose and the motor was knocking like crazy. Turns out I broke my axle-side tracbar mount clean off and it dented the oil pan which broke the oil pump. We of course didn't find this out until later that night after towing it off the trail.
Awesome strap job-
We replaced the oil pump in the Marriott parking lot and welded up the tracbar bracket thanks to the amazing owners of Aussie Locker. I'd never met them before but I have their lockers f/r and they followed me on IG. This led to using their welder and getting some free swag from them. Awesome! We couldn't get it to build oil pressure when we threw in the towel at 2:30 AM and would work on it the next day.
We rolled out of bed around 10, beat from working on the Jeep so much the night before. Tried building oil pressure again but couldn't so we decided to pursue the old-fashioned way. We pulled the distributor, broke a long screwdriver, ran a couple extension cords from the hotel and used a drill to turn the oil pump. Bam, oil pressure. Got it all back together and were ready to go! At this point my BIL found out he had to go home so he could fly to PA for work. Crappy! So he left but we pushed on without him and headed to Hell's Revenge.
I was thrilled to be on the trail again and Hell's never disappoints me. We ran through Hell's Gate and headed to the hot tubs. I've been wanting to take another run at Devil's Highway (the big hot tub) because I had a good run at it when it was a little wet the last time and I heard it was dry. So I pull in and after a handful of attempts with a couple of them being pretty exciting I finally stick it and make it up! I was thrilled! I'm working on uploading the videos to YT but I posted them on FB on the RR4W Page as well as on IG under @4lowapparel. I'll get them on YT so I can put them in here. EDIT: Devil's Highway video added below. I was the only one to try the big tub so then we moved on and went to Mickey's. It was also dry and I was able to crawl out of it, no throttle for the first time ever. Here's a shot of Ryan in there.
Next up was The Escalator of course. I went up and back down and Ryan was doing the same. His steering was terrible without hydro assist in certain situations and this was one of them.
We had to strap him from above and pull him backwards, it sucked... It was smoking so bad from being on that angle!
We got that resolved, cruised out and headed to dinner. Thursday = Complete.
Friday was Pritchett day. We met Colton at the trail-head but didn't see Shane or Bart who were also going to meet us. We didn't get far before realizing there were a lot of people on the trail ahead of us. Oh well, we had a whole day ahead of us.
Colton's rig being awesome on Rocker Knocker.
Our experience with Pritchett was paying off and we were embarrassing the group in front of us. I was told by one guy that he couldn't believe how fast I made it up Chewy (1:36 to be exact, according to the video) and another guy told me he hated me for making him look stupid. Fair enough.
The group coming up the part after RK with my nephew driving my rig.
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