All were locked up front except Ray. I'll let Ray tell his own story. He is an excellent driver but his open front diffy and those 4" drop brackets with skid plate on the rear of his torsion bars shot his breakover angle and did handicap him on the trail.
My new front locker made a
HUGE difference and took me up obstacles I wouldn't have even attempted a month ago. If I had walked the trail before going in, I wouldn't have even taken my vehicle in there, but locked front and rear with the 35's I not only made it; I did well enough that I don't recall taking a strap a single time. Make no mistake; I used the heck out of my rocksliders and skidplates, but I made it. Any Explorer without rocksliders will totally destroy its rocker panels and doors on this trail. Don't even think of going there without rocksliders.
In a week or so I am going to update my registry page article and also post a thread on the effects of the front locker for a second generation Explorer. I don't think very many second-gen owners have put the front NoSlip in yet. If they had any clue at all just how much difference it made there would be a hundred doing it right now.
RangerX did extremely well and also noted a huge improvement from his new front locker. He is also one of the best drivers I wheel with and experience makes a lot of difference on a trail like this. I was behind him on a couple of very steep hills and noticed that his rear limited slip let loose and wouldn't help him, but his front pulled him up. If he was still LS in front he would not have made it on at least three of those occasions that I watched.
Brian's newly built up Explorer performed extremely well. He was the front Explorer, so sometimes it was he that had to "experiment" a time or two to find the right line, but once on it, he also went through without needing help.
Tom's Zuki performed awesome, what can I say. What a rig. There was a few times that his short wheelbase made things "interesting" and at one time because of the short wheelbase he nearly rolled it on a tough obstacle at the base of Cadillac Hill while Brian was riding shotgun with him. (I did notice that Anthony walked instead of rode with Tom often on those types of hills
). However
most of the time his SWB had quite an advantage over ours while negotiating through the tight turns and rocks on the trail. I cannot count the number of times that I had to pin the middle of my rockslider up against the side of a rock and use it to pivot around the rock. Tom just motored happily through without a care in the world.
... request a CD with the photos when you get them developed and start POSTING SOME PICS! 
RAY!! 
