Clayton Christmas Carnage '10 (Rooms and Rides Thread)

[davido]

Robbie which of the two studs did you pull out? I'm thinking I'm going to u-bolt mine or use u-bolts and studs to stop the problem before it happens.

We need to just make three of them at the same time. I need to replace my bolts also. Here's some info on it:

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showt...t=dana+60+stud

[mudtoy67]

Had a great time!

The drive up Friday was uneventful. It completely slipped my mind that my leave time would put us through Dallas during rush hour...that sucked. Still arrived at a decent time and had a few beers around the campfire.

As was mentioned Saturday I got lost with Karl, Flem, Jimmy, and Junior. We hit Backside Loop in the 3 direction. At one point we saw where a trail intersected the one we were on and didn't think anything about it. Kept going down the hill and found ourselves at the bottom with nowhere to go but Slim's Slope, V.A.J.in A. (which dead ends ), or back the way we came. Going down the mountain was easy, getting back up was a little more work. The Klogger did really well when it wasn't making sweet tree-love in the forest, I could tell Karl really enjoyed the low gearing of the doubler. As always, TTB was unstoppable. Flem's rover did really well also. Good control of the skinny pedal overcame the lack of lockers. Seemed like everytime I turned around to look he had another broken window. Finally made it to the top of the mountain well after dark just in time to hear JB (I think?) on the CB asking if we needed a rescue mission. It was nice to know we hadn't been left to freeze and eat Flem for survival.

Sunday we fixed the bus. There was a lot of head scratching and **** talking. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard while trying to fix something on the side of the road. [kopecki voice] Less talky, more worky. [/kopecki voice] After we got the bus going we scarfed down a gas station pizza and headed out. Junior with me, Seth with Kopecki, and DaveO with Karl. We traveled up Jeff's Ledges from the airstrip, continued on through Green Mamba and GM Extension. No problems on Jeff's Ledges. I hadn't run Green Mamba or the extension before so I was excited to give it a try. Made it halfway up the ledge on Green Mamba. I took the far left line but just couldn't get the XJ to swing to the right of the boulder at the top and ended up high centered. We pulled winch cable, then pulled the tree it was attached to down on Junior. Found a better tree and finally got on top. Popped a tire soon after that. Kopecki ran me back to town to get my spare and we swapped it on. Again Kopecki with the [kopecki voice] Less talky, more worky. [/kopecki voice] Continued up the extension. Made it up out of the hole on that big obstacle near the first exit but then got high centered just above it and had to pull cable. That place was a mess with all the recent logging. Got back to town, had a chicken fried at Che' Bulldog, bs'd around the campfire a bit and hit the sack.

Only carnage for me was the popped tire. This is the third cut sidewall in two trips to Clayton on this set of tires I got from Mike. I think he should offer road hazard. I had replaced my trans crossmember before the trip. It's toast again. I need to finish my hd crossmember and flat skid.

[mudtoy67]

Got a few pics







This is how you catch a Klogger


This is how you free a Klogger. You can kind of see the winch line in the first pic. The tree never cracked in the second pic. After the Klogger was free the tree just stood right back up.





Almost lost the fawking XJ on the way home. This is what was left of the front strap holding it to the trailer. I suspect it broke when we hit a big ass bump in the highway just north of Dallas. It had a nick in it from rubbing on the axle truss, I figured it was small enough to not be a problem. About 5 minutes after the bump some truck pulls up next to us and rolls his window down, motioning at the Jeep. I'm all thinking, "ya thanks, nice jeep I know!". I finally figured out he was saying "STRAP!". Pulled over and the XJ was about 12" from the back of the trailer. Thankfully Karl and Kopecki weren't far behind and Karl let me borrow one of his straps. I WILL be buying 4 new straps and 4 axle straps so I can secure this thing properly in the future. I also need to redo the floor on the trailer and I'll add floor mount d-rings like most car haulers use.