The Matt, Andy, & probably not Mike Rubicon Sausagefest July 11th-14th

4runner DOA

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Maybe he can get Andy to drink with him and they will both be hungover and miserable the whole next day.

:rofl:

I have yet to see Andy actually drink an alcoholic beverage. He's far too straight laced for our lifestyle. Matt, well, we need to confiscate his beer and keep him to 6 beers per night. 12 is just way too much for his liver to handle.
 

theesotericone

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Fredo Baggins
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:rofl:

I have yet to see Andy actually drink an alcoholic beverage. He's far too straight laced for our lifestyle. Matt, well, we need to confiscate his beer and keep him to 6 beers per night. 12 is just way too much for his liver to handle.

Or I could just self ration. Oh, wait, I don't have that little off switch that some people have. lol
 
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The gist:

I thought it was harder that Dusy.

Matt thought it was easier.

We both had to get tugged once.

I had to get spotted 2 or 3 times.

We finished the technical part in 8 hours, that was after getting held up by another group in front of us. We could have completely finished the entire thing staging area to staging area in a little over 7 hours.

I smashed my front bumper/passenger fender being a dip shit and fucking around. I put a small dent on both rear doors. Matt dinged one of his rear doors.

We ran Slick Rock Trail today, if it wasn't for 2 optional obstacles that trail would be a joke.

Matt fucked up his diff on little sluice and we are waiting on Sonora pass for a AAA to get his junk back to bishop. It's pissing oil pretty bad and the bottom fasteners are stripped.

Other than Matt's diff nothing broke.
 
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AssBurns

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The gist:

I thought it was harder that Dusy.

Matt thought it was easier.

We both had to get tugged once.

I had to get spotted 2 or 3 times.

We finished the technical part in 8 hours, that was after getting held up by another group in front of us. We could have completely finished the entire thing staging area to staging area in a little over 7 hours.

I smashed my front bumper/passenger fender being a dip shit and fucking around. I put a small dent on both rear doors. Matt dinged one of his rear doors.

We ran Slick Rock Trail today, if it wasn't for 2 optional obstacles that trail would be a joke.

Matt fucked up his diff on little sluice and we are waiting on Sonora pass for a AAA to get his junk back to bishop. It's pissing oil pretty bad and the bottom fasteners are stripped.

Other than Matt's diff nothing broke.
Well that’s shitty for Matt. It’s the bolts that hold the 3rd member in or what?

Obviously rubicon itself is pretty easy but how were the optional lines?
 

theesotericone

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Well that’s shitty for Matt. It’s the bolts that hold the 3rd member in or what?

Obviously rubicon itself is pretty easy but how were the optional lines?

Lower 2 bolts on the 3rd are both stripped. Can't tighten it anymore and it will be towed back to Bishop tomorrow. The tow company that picked it up couldn't drive it to Bishop tonight.

Since I'll have to pull the 3rd to fix the studs I decided now would be a good time to send it back to ECGS to install a new bonded seal. So I'll be down for a few weeks.

As far as the Rubicon being easy it's not. You'll find out when you do it. lol
 

4runner DOA

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Lower 2 bolts on the 3rd are both stripped. Can't tighten it anymore and it will be towed back to Bishop tomorrow. The tow company that picked it up couldn't drive it to Bishop tonight.

Since I'll have to pull the 3rd to fix the studs I decided now would be a good time to send it back to ECGS to install a new bonded seal. So I'll be down for a few weeks.

As far as the Rubicon being easy it's not. You'll find out when you do it. lol

Stupid question, because I know how far sonora pass is from bishop, but was there no way to seal it and just refill the gear oil every 50-100 miles or was it puking that bad?
 

theesotericone

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Stupid question, because I know how far sonora pass is from bishop, but was there no way to seal it and just refill the gear oil every 50-100 miles or was it puking that bad?

We where on Monitor pass not Sonora. Andy got them mixed up. I first noticed it when we where airing up after finishing Slick Rock. Andy and I where talking about doing Niagara Rim Trail when I looked under my rig and said I'm done.

From there I filled the diff up and drove an hour over Ebbats pass back to the start of Monitor. I stopped and filled it up again. As we where going up Monitor Andy had to pull way back because I was spraying him with gear oil. We stopped at the bottom of Monitor about 200 feet from 395. It was pretty obvious at that point that limping it home wasn't an option.

Andy offered to use his 200 mile tow to get me home. I called AAA from my phone and arranged the tow. The CSR that fielded the call told me I had a free 200 miler on my policy so there was no need to use Andy's. From there we waited. Andy was kind enough to wait even longer since there was no way for me to get home. He drove me back to Bishop and headed home himself. He stuck it out when he didn't have to and I'm incredibly indebted to him for that.

We had a great trip and it could have been even greater but shit happens. My rig will get home and I'll get the ARB fixed. That will allow me time to look at the front end again because something also got out of whack with my alignment. lol
 

4runner DOA

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We where on Monitor pass not Sonora. Andy got them mixed up. I first noticed it when we where airing up after finishing Slick Rock. Andy and I where talking about doing Niagara Rim Trail when I looked under my rig and said I'm done.

From there I filled the diff up and drove an hour over Ebbats pass back to the start of Monitor. I stopped and filled it up again. As we where going up Monitor Andy had to pull way back because I was spraying him with gear oil. We stopped at the bottom of Monitor about 200 feet from 395. It was pretty obvious at that point that limping it home wasn't an option.

Andy offered to use his 200 mile tow to get me home. I called AAA from my phone and arranged the tow. The CSR that fielded the call told me I had a free 200 miler on my policy so there was no need to use Andy's. From there we waited. Andy was kind enough to wait even longer since there was no way for me to get home. He drove me back to Bishop and headed home himself. He stuck it out when he didn't have to and I'm incredibly indebted to him for that.

We had a great trip and it could have been even greater but shit happens. My rig will get home and I'll get the ARB fixed. That will allow me time to look at the front end again because something also got out of whack with my alignment. lol

Yep that's worse than mine was. I lost about half a quart from bishop to Sonora (with a side trip to mono lake) that day before I noticed mine was leaking. Glad everything worked out in the end. We all know @Tetten is a stand up guy and he's always gone above and beyond for us.
 

theesotericone

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Well, my rig is back home and in it's usual resting place after a hard wheeling trip. lol

B4onhAFl.jpg
 

WrenchnWheel

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So Rubicon doesn’t sound as long as everyone makes it out to be. I’m planning a trip with a couple of guys for aug 23-25. Most of us are on 35s and at least have the rear locker. We should be fine from talking to others from work. Anything we should look out for?

@theesotericone and @Tetten glad y’all had some fun and good on you Andy for helping a buddy out. How many jeeps did y’all encounter?
 
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So Rubicon doesn’t sound as long as everyone makes it out to be. I’m planning a trip with a couple of guys for aug 23-25. Most of us are on 35s and at least have the rear locker. We should be fine from talking to others from work. Anything we should look out for?

@theesotericone and @Tetten glad y’all had some fun and good on you Andy for helping a buddy out. How many jeeps did y’all encounter?

We ran into probably 20+ jeeps in large groups coming in from the Tahoe side as we were leaving Thursday afternoon. We only saw 2 small groups coming in the opposite direction up to that point.

It would get really long if you get stuck behind another group if you are moving fast. We made it to Cadillac Hill in 6 hours, it's maybe around 85% of the way through the crawling part of trail before finding anyone else going the same direction as us.

We started the trail at 6AM on a Thursday, so if you are going on a weekend just count on traffic jams. We didn't really stop to watch each other or take videos, I took a couple pictures of my truck, that was it for "doing it for the gram" for us. The vast majority of the 8 hours we were crawling was spent with tires rolling, I don't even think we really stopped for lunch.

Like the Dusy, that trail would be very hard for anyone in a long wheel base vehicle on 33s with a single locker, hopefully anyone in your group with 33s is SWB
 

theesotericone

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The vast majority of the 8 hours we were crawling was spent with tires rolling, I don't even think we really stopped for lunch.

Exactly. The trip report for this one is we did it and we did it fast. Anyone who want to say it's easy or we bypassed shit go ahead but we didn't bypass anything other than Old Sluice. We were told by a well built rig to expect to loose glass and roof impacts were mandatory. Andy and I know what we just did and that's all I really give a shit about. Anyone of you guys want to go put in a better time feel free. I'm betting no one comes close.
 

theesotericone

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So Rubicon doesn’t sound as long as everyone makes it out to be. I’m planning a trip with a couple of guys for aug 23-25.

Shit, I happen to have those dates free for a wheeling trip. I was going to post up about it after my rig is back on the road. Doing the Con twice in a year would be pretty sweet. How big is the group and how experienced are the guys going?
 

theesotericone

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I just got done pulling the diff. The bottom 2 nuts where completely stripped. There was only fines on the drain plug magnet. The ring and pinion look like they are in perfect condition.

I've ordered grade 12.9 M8 x 1.25 x 40mm hex bolts to redo all the 10.9's I used. I also ordered new 10.9 nuts. The nuts that where on there where not grade 10.9. They where grade 5 at best it looks like. I'll call ECGS Monday to get the return started so they can put in a new bonded seal and give the diff a once over. Then I'll put it all back together and take a look at the front end.

I also am looking into diff armor. Bud built makes one that looks OK but if anyone else has any ideas let me know.
 
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AssBurns

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I just got done pulling the diff. The bottom 2 nuts where completely stripped. There was only fines on the drain plug magnet. The ring and pinion look like they are in perfect condition.

I've ordered grade 12.9 M8 x 1.25 x 40mm hex bolts to redo all the 10.9's I used. I also ordered new 10.9 nuts. The nuts that where on there where nut grade 10.9. They where grade 5 at best it looks like. I'll call ECGS Monday to get the return started so they can put in a new bonded seal and give the diff a once over. Then I'll put it all back together and take a look at the front end.

I also am looking into diff armor. Bud built makes one that looks OK but if anyone else has any ideas let me know.
I wonder why they are stripped. From landing on them?

If they are 10.9, they should be strong enough. Are they stripped in the housing or in the nut?
What kind of diff armor are you thinking? Like a diff cover or a whole skid that covers the 3rd member. If the later then don’t waste your money.
 

theesotericone

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I wonder why they are stripped. From landing on them?

If they are 10.9, they should be strong enough. Are they stripped in the housing or in the nut?
What kind of diff armor are you thinking? Like a diff cover or a whole skid that covers the 3rd member. If the later then don’t waste your money.

The nut was stripped. The housing and studs are fine. I'm going up to 12.9 for the bolt and 10.9 for the nut so that if this ever happens again the nut is still the weak point. Now that I have seen it I'll know to just pull the nut and replace in the future.

As far as diff armor goes, I'm looking at Marlins rear weld on cover. Then I'll fab up something off of the cover that goes forward a few inches and protects the bolts. The bud built skid and BAMF skid are all full 3rd member covers and they loose to much ground clearance for me to want to go that route. I'm still working through it in head. lol
 
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