After meeting up with
Alan, his Cherokee nearly shuddered us off the 101 as his axle end
track bar mount tore 75% off at the weld. Yellowsub received the
package soon after leaving Alan and his Cherokee's last run in
shambles. 40 minutes later into the hills, FatBob would take the pass
since he had a covered seat to offer in his tow rig. Around that same
time, Sy's group started loosing trailer tires.
I'll let his words take it
from here:
On the way up to Payson I
lost 2 trailer tires and James needed my other spare because he lost
the tread off one of his trailer tires. We go 10 miles and I lose the
spare tire off the trailer again. James takes off to Payson to look or
a tire shop while Brad and I put James tire without the tread back on
my trailer and we'll see how far we can get..... lasted me to Rye
where I stopped and called the towing guy out of bed and bought a POS
tire and had it mounted up and we were off to Payson where James found
no tires shops open.
Meanwhile we find out that Alan from Higherground4x4 lost a track bar
mount and never made it to Payson.
We proceeded to the restaurant where we were to have breakfast at 0800
and we got there at 1000. everyone (9 other rigs worth) was in the
parking lot waiting for us..... We proceeded to the trail, Thom's wife
was looking for tire shops for us to get trailer tires after the run.
With 11 rigs heading to the trail it was bound to get better......
Such was not the case.... with all the rain we had last week there was
more water in the wash then I had ever seen..... wet tires, wet rocks,
mud, sand etc.... make for tricky situations.......
First I slid off a rock and wiped out my rear driveshaft, Brad and TC
went back to my trailer to get my spare (Thanks again guys). I removed
the broken shaft and proceeded as far as I could in front wheel drive
and made it too the waterfall, bypassing all the fun optional
lines.....
When I get to the waterfall my rear tire with the plugs let loose and
started leaking bad so I through my spare on the left front so I could
keep an eye on it and put the LF tire on the RR.....
Meanwhile, Jonathan in the Yellowsub broke a front axle on one of the
optional lines down stream..... A repair attempt was made, but the
broken shaft end was twisted in to tight to remove and he was stuck
with 3 wheel drive for the rest of the day......
We're all at the waterfall and there is 30" of water in the bottom of
it but we're gonna give it a shot, spare tire and rear driveshaft and
all...... Crawled it
Brad crawled it with his Sticky Krawlers, Charlie and TC took the
strap after great efforts....James broke a left front hub or stubshaft
and lost a bead on the right front at the same time......We couldn't
get the beads to seat so I went back to the trailers to get his
spare.....
While I was gone, Jim played on the fall only to break a rear axle
shaft.......James got his spare on and we were heading back out......
Jonathan and James fought to get out in 3 wheel drive but we all made
it back to the trailers to "try" to head home.....
Brad and I stopped by TC's place to borrow a trailer tire just in case
but his trailer is a different size 5 lug pattern......Off we go to
come home without a spare trailer tire....... we made it home without
incident other than the usual Phoenix idiot drivers that just cant
seem to see us?
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