Yeah, we started the trail at the VERY beginning and camped the first night just before Committee. The second night we stayed on the side of the trail about 1/4 mile above WH3 once my carnage became evident
(I'll explain below). Have you guys traversed the section between Cisco Grove Campground and Eagle Lakes Rd? The people at the front desk at Cisco said they cut that trail themselves not too long ago and they charge $5 to go that way - it was pretty cool.
My carnage shoudn't have been so bad but we made a mistake in the first repair. I was attempting the far left line of WH3 - the wall/notch - and popped the left rear chromo axle shaft
. While my buddy ferried me back to Cisco to grab a spare shaft, another buddy stayed to get the remaining piece out of the carrier. Upon return with another shaft, he said he got the piece out of the carrier but didn't retrieve it out of the axle
. I reluctantly agreed to proceed with it still inside after he seemed pretty confident it wouldn't be an issue. He's taken part in many many more trail repairs than I have, so I took his word for it. Just up the trail approaching another little technical spot he hit me on the radio and said I had something leaking badly
. Upon inspection it first looked as though the carrier was just really loose and leaking through the seal so I cinched up all the nuts and continued. Another 100' further, just as I got up onto one of the stair-steps of rocks, he said it was still pouring out
. Upon looking at the axle from the back, I could now see a 1" hole in the top of the diff "cover" just above the diff armor
. The hole was "splined" so it was obvious what had happened. That's when I limped it up the trail a few hundred feet to the first place we had room to work on it as well as set up
(
). Once we got the diff out we saw that the damage was a lot worse than just the hole we saw at the top. The broken piece had actually gotten wedged in at the bottom and sliced open almost the entire back cover as one of the ring gear bolt heads carried it up; we just couldn't see it on the outside due to the diff armor. We hammered all the openings back as closed as possible then 24VDC stick welded the whole slice, followed by a half tube of blue RTV over the entire damaged/repaired area inside
. Drove out Committee to Cisco on Sunday and still hasn't leaked a drop yet! Hell, my front leaks more and it isn't damaged! haha
Truck has been in need of some serious TLC anyway so I think it's time for an overhaul. Coming up on the long, wet winter time up here in the PNW anyway so I won't be missing much desireable wheeling. Besides, wheeling the hardcore awesomeness of Fordyce combined with experiencing the renowned mystique of Rubicon should hold me over for a while.
