Long overdue update--sorry, guys! It has been non-stop issues of work, fence-building, and general life issues that have kept me away for a while. I figured since I'm home sick today I'd post up some highlights.
We got it done one day later than we wanted to to head out for Colorado. It was a Saturday and hotter than Hades with humidity closely matching the temperature. We got it ready, tested it on a RTI ramp, and loaded it onto the trailer at Neil's shop then headed home, loaded up everything for the trip, and left about 8 PM. We drove straight through the night with brief rest stops. Halfway through Kansas we got a CEL on the Excursion but everything seemed fine (the problem turned out to be we weren't letting it acclimate to the altitude changes since we never shut it off! A 44 gallon tank lasts a while!). We never stopped for a night until we met up with some FSJ Invasion friends in Salida, CO. We spent the night there and proceeded on to Ouray the next day.
I did some brief road testing trips with the longest being from Ouray to Ridgeway and it drove great--50 MPH on the highway and it rode better that it did in it's previous incarnation. I was also able to use 5th gear again!
I had a brief wiring problem when a harness came loose from where Neil and I had moved it to do some work and it burned on the exhust manifold, killing power to the fuel pump. Two hours later it was good. The next day I noticed a significant gear oil leak on the driver's side hub which ultimately put me behind again by about a day and a half--in my rush to get it done at Neil's I forgot to put the outer bearing back in the hub on the rear axle!
I was able to get a replacement bearing, hub seal, and misc. other items needed from stores (including an overnight spindle nut from the Ford dealer) in Montrose. Once everything was back together properly it was ready to go again.
We got in about two full days of wheeling out there. Aside, I'm glad ScottyJ and his wife had a good time, too, despite his experience with the Million Dollar highway!
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Coming up on the playground at Poughkeepsie Gulch:
Just outside of the Animas Forks ghost town outside of Silverton:
Cinnamon Pass summit:
For our last day of wheeling we decided to relax a bit and rode with another FSJer, Mark, who was nice enough to give us a ride. Keep in mind driving these mountain passes, sometimes with areas going too much to one side means you roll off of a mountain and die, in a completely untested SASed vehicle, isn't the best for one's nerves.
We got it home and fixed some other issues, like the front driveshaft U-joint (that's when I said, "I'm done" in Ouray (Engineer Pass, actually) after everything else). The next trip was with my local club to some private property over Labor Day weekend where I had more front driveshaft issues. First, the slip pulled out:
Later, the front shaft just exploded near the front yoke. With the help of a local machinist, it went from the stock shaft with a hybrid 1310/1330 joint to a square tube shaft with a 1350 joint and matching yoke installed on the D60 (thanks to a local club member, Vince, who even machined it for U bolts instead of straps--he didn't want anything, he said, but I at least got him some Sam Adams).
Then we took it out to CCC's Fall Crawl, our annual "big" event--if you want to call it that--at Flat Nasty ORP outside of Salem, MO. We had a good time there and I tried progressively harder trails and was again feeling pretty good about the truck (like I was in CO before I lost the front d-shaft on Engineer). I was still cursing the lack of a really good crawl ratio, though--even though it's better than it was.
You can see Vince spotting me here:
Saturday night I was pretty worn out and went to bed a bit early (also thanks to a bit too much "celebrating" around the campfire). BethAnn wasn't done yet, though. Evidently, I missed quite a trip:
From the stress on the lack of an outer bearing in CO and then wheeling it hard the DS rear axle shaft broke while BethAnn was driving [insert women drivers joke here] that night. The broken shaft has also somehow rendered the Detroit Locker a Detroit Open. I plan on getting it back to Neil's to see if it's repairable or not. I did some searching and found that a broken shaft can lead to Detroits grenading, too, so with that serious design flaw (in my book) I won't buy another. If I have to replace the rear locker it will be an ARB.
Overall, I think the truck has about 7-7.5" of suspension lift in the rear and just a tad more in the front. The 2" body lift is still in place.
So, immediate plans are a Detroit autopsy, adusting the front leaf shackle mounts a bit, some bumpers and sliders, and then a NP-435/NP-205 swap (I found a guy that makes a 4.0/NP-435 swap kit rather cheaply). Possibly also a Bronco II gas tank. I'll have to wait a bit for a front locker and 203/205 doubler since we are going to need a new air conditioner for the house this summer.
So, mods, can we move this to the SAS registry now?
I still don't plan on driving it on the street, though, unless we get some horrible snowstorm and I HAVE to go somewhere (BethAnn and I both work in health care, so we don't really get "snow days").
