A bad day wheeling is better than a good day...

... - and after waiting nine YEARS to wheel - and NOT getting to do it Saturday - I have no idea how to finish this sentence.

"Mom" (wife) FINALLY gave me permission to go wheeling this past Saturday, and our club (Steeltown Offroaders) had an outing planned for Wellsville, OH, & the weather forecast for mid-November was great - sunny, and low 50's! So #1 son & I were moderately prepared, and lit out around 8 that morning.

Well, allowing for the 20 minutes it took for the RC to turn over (see this video as for WHY - took forever for the RELAY to warm up, so it could START clicking, the fuel system charge, and THEN allow the truck to turn over...), we FINALLY got going, headed out the Parkway West to 22/30 west, and then stopped at the WORST McDonald's (Noblestown, PA) in the ENTIRE chain for 45 minutes - which was 40 minutes longer than I'd planned on staying.

So we're BACK on the highway, and - HEY! The CRUISE CONTROL still works!!! I'd tried it exactly a year ago - the first time I took it out on the highway, but got nothing. Wasn't EVEN trying it this time - musta bumped the buttons by accident - next thing I know, I was CRUISIN'!!! Noting like 6,000lbs of American LEAD on 35 M/T's doing 70 on CRUISE!!!

After a couple of missed turns initially, I caught up with our club president down by the lower entrance beside the OH River/Yellow Creek. Only problem was, by 10am, EVERY wheeler in western PA, northern WV, and eastern OH had heard the weather forecast as well... and beaten us there! That, and Officer Friendly of the yokel locals had wheeled a Crown Vic squad car back there , and was hassling EVERYONE without a plate (i.e. - NOT street legal), on private property!!!

So Nick, who's tube buggy has no plate, had driven that off the trailer, and driven back up to the entrance to greet me, when the officer hassled him. So I drove him back to where his truck and trailer were, so he could get them, come back and load the buggy, and get outta there. Have some nice video of the RC bouncing through mud to get back there, but I can't get it posted yet. Here's a pic of the RC BACK at the entrance by his buggy, waiting for him to return.




So we decide to go back across Rt.7, up to... the FORBIDDEN ZONE! So here I am - bunny slope material - going up to the TOP of DEATH MOUNTAIN - and that's when the real fun starts. The... "road"... a generous description, even by Pittsburgh standards - was a real kidney puncher. And here we go to the TOP of the Forbidden Zone!

I think if you click on this, it takes you to my ANCIENT Flikr account which I didn't know I'd ever set up, and haven't done anything with since doing so, in 2007! And THERE you can watch the vid.


Wellsville1 by BigMacGT, on Flickr


I got some shiite bungeeed, but bouncing around INSIDE the truck - not EVERYTHING you hear is the truck disintegrating! At some points, like the switchback, I'm talking on the radio to Nick back behind me.


Wellsville2 by BigMacGT, on Flickr


MY Autistic son is great - tells me EVERYTHING I'm doing wrong, and adds his own sound effects to everything!


And so we get to where we can finally start doing some TRAIL running AND... the eyebolt in my right rear spring pack is broke...





Nick tells me up there, that the rear end was "crabbing" the whole way up (and honestly, I've felt like - for a couple of months, my rear end HAS been trying to pass me on the right!). So Nick and HIS buddy Zach (no relation to MY son, Zach!), bust out the tools, the hi-lift, and we go to town - on TOP, of the forbidden zone!!!


Wedgie is popped out of the spring pack!




Time to pop the pack apart, go through our boxes of bolts, and see what we have to replace it. Cordless impact wrench make light work, that's for sure!!! Glad Nick KNOWS what he's doing when he goes off-road!







Nuts and washers Nick had - LONG enough bolt, we didn't. So thinking outside the box, Nick pulled the bolt out of the spring packs front retainer clip, secured that with some wire (the rear clip and the "new" eye bolt together would be enough to keep the spring pack from going '52-pickup'/SCHPROING on me). They cinched everything back down tight, and while the shim wasn't popping out (yet) on the left yet, the U-Bolts were loose enough to tighten with the impact gun as well. We figure the eyebolt is probably bad there as well, but that'll be a fixer-upper for a future cold day this winter.

And so - to be on the SAFE side -that ended our day at Wellsville. We thanked them for all their help, let them enjoy the rest of the day (now close to 2pm), and we headed for home.

Wellsville3 by BigMacGT, on Flickr


The OTHER crappy thing, is that FLICKR is cutting my videos in HALF, so even what's posted in each video, is HALF of what's in the *.mov file, that's edited to an MP4 file, so as to MAKE is smaller and more uploadable. Damn chintzy photo hosting sites!!!


Well, time to get those spring packs squared away - and probably the ECU while I'm at it, before spring gets here. Much like the Pirates, we'll get 'em NEXT year!

Awesome. Been there. Went camping in my 79 Ram charger, got there Friday night, Saturday morning first mud hole cost me an engine. Sunday, foot of snow. Find a truck, find a trailer, two hours home, go back for camper.
Six months later, new engine. Wait, front Warn hubs are packed with dry mud and screwed, along with the bearings.
Check oil, good.
Pull rear diff cover, my disc brake converted GM 14 bolt was a gunky rusted ball of mud. Yay.

That hole was deep.
Hood level with the ground. Muddy water to the headlights.

Front seal let go and wheel seals were bad and rear vent, although snorkeled, was torn off.

I used to go off-roading with my Dad growing up and it seemed like we'd always spend half the weekend hill climbing and trail riding and the other half fixing stuff.
Hopefully you'll have gotten most of the bugs worked out on this trip.