Topic: Wheelin' at Prairie City (Sacramento) [**pics and video inside]

[Revivalist]

Had some fun yesterday out at Prairie City in Sacramento, CA. . . . I was looking forward to checking out this OHV park for a while. It had some nice rocks and steep hills to play on. . . . a nice change of pace since all we have are snow trails around here in Fresno right now. . .  .

Like most OHV parks, it’s not really as fulfilling as being on a good trail out in the mountains. But at least I could do some rock-crawling instead of snow-wheelin for a change. . . .

The only thing is that I couldn’t air down my tires because I forgot to bring my Power Tank and I didn’t want to get back on the street with low PSI. . . . So I just did what I could on 35PSI. . . .

I started by exploring some of the little trails. . . They had some fun little hills. . .





Then I went on to check out the rock piles. . . . Of course, I had to get the poser shot. . . .








I figured I’d see if I could crawl over the whole length of the rock pile. . . .











Just for fun, I decided to take some video clips. . . . But I was out there alone for most of the time so there was no camera man. . . . I just kept putting the camera on a any flat rock I saw in front of me and let it run. . . . So here’s a little video I put together highlighting some of the fun. . . .


http://s79.photobucket.com/albums/j160/Revivalist/06-My%20Truck/02-Off-Road%20Trips/07-Prairie%20City%204-07/?action=view&current=PraireCitymovie100mb.flv


Unfortunately the end of the day didn’t turn out so good. . . . . After playing on the rock pile, we decided to go climb the stair-steps hill obstacle. (Unfortunately I didn’t take a picture of it.) . . .  On my first try up the stair-step hill I BLEW UP MY REAR DIFF!!. . . .

It happened while I was rolling backwards. I was trying to back up so I could get a little more momentum. While I was backing up the rear starting bouncing a bit, and then one of the rear wheels fell in a little rut and suddenly I heard "SNAP"! . . . . I was in the lowest gear. So I think that falling in the hole put a sudden forward torque on the wheel but the drive shaft wouldn’t budge in the low gear so the ring & pinion gave out instead. . . . I’ll be pulling out the 3rd member tonight and taking it over to Marlin Crawler. . . .

Speaking of, I remember him telling me once that the R&P gears are always weaker going in reverse for the rear differential. . . . I guess I should have been more careful to go veeery slowly while backing down the hill. . . . .Live and learn I guess. . . .

[MiniSimp]

Bummer. I take it you don't carry a spare?

[Revivalist [OP]]

Bummer. I take it you don't carry a spare?

You mean spare R&P gears?

[Revivalist [OP]]

Well, the carnage report is in . . .

I just got through pulling the 3rd member and axle shafts. . . . It turned out that the rear passenger axle shaft snapped. . . .





It always amazes me how those things snap off so smooth. . . .





The 3rd member seemed to be ok except the adjusting wheel was a bit warped and the broken piece of the axle needed to be slipped out. . .





From what I can tell, the r&p gears seem alright also. . .





I'll take everything over to Marlin's tomorrow morning and see what he says. I'm thinking that maybe I need to get some chromoly shafts for the rear. I would rather not have to repeat that experience again. . . .

[All_Set]

Looks like good times.

What kinda camera did you use for the video?

[UKMyers]

Nice pics but why did you come all the way up to Prarie City from Fresno? Hollister is closer and about 100 times better than Prairie.. 

[Revivalist [OP]]

Looks like good times.

What kinda camera did you use for the video?

It's a Sony with a 30GB hard drive and 2.3 megapixel camera. I forgot the model number. I'll post it up later.

Nice pics but why did you come all the way up to Prarie City from Fresno? Hollister is closer and about 100 times better than Prairie.. 

No, I was already up in Sacramento. I agree, I wouldn't have come all that way just to go to Praire City. I haven't gone to Hollister yet but I plan to in the future.

[UKMyers]

Gotcha.. Sorry about the carnage. I've seen alot more R&P's go than shafts.. weird.