What a blast this weekend was! /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif
Had a great time and met some really cool people.
Started off on Friday when Reb88 and his buddy came over to my house and asked me to chop up his fender. No problem there. /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif
We headed out and met up with 86BlazerK5 halfway. As soon as we got to camp, we swapped out my 35" Streets for 39.5" Meats.
Setup camp and started drinking with the group. Had fun around the camp.
Then Saturday, the CARNAGE begins. We all rolled up to Paragon in a single line. Looked pretty cool. Josh (forgot his username here), drove by us, with his Blazer on 44"s, with a video camera taping us...it was funny to see.
We get there and split up in groups.
Josh, Mike (forgot his username too) (both blazers on 44"s), Pete (Yunit) and myself rolled with a group of people that had as Jeep willys, Jeep, Blazer on 36"s maybe and another red Blazer on 44"s.
We headed up to the "M" trail. First we took the "M" trail extension, which was in my opinion, NASTY! This is where all the serious Carnage happened, while the actual "M" trail just finished us off.
The Willys broke the yoke off his front axle. I believe it was a D44. There was a local junkyard near by where he bought another one and replaced.
Josh with his Blazer on 44"s and a tricked out suspension had some troubles with his Carb (Holley /forums/images/icons/frown.gif ) bogging out on him. He didn't have enough gears (gears too high), to really get the 44"s moving. It was really cool to see him give it all throttle and boucing around everywhere though.
Mike with his Blazer on 44"s really made it look easy, even though it was his first time on rocks like this. He made it up with very little problems.
As I was going up, my rear spring got hung up on a rock and bent. Not pretty.
Then got hung up everywhere and backed my rear diff into a rock and the gears poked a hole in the cover and there goes the fluid. I had to winch out and we just puttyed it up and went on.
Now to the "M" trail. Here's where I took some serious body damage. Trees were killing me here. Seems like the trees were positioned perfectly to take out my top. Now I have an excuse to get a softtop.
Best memory of this trail, was Mike going of this 4 ft. drop. His truck tilted over and a tree caught his rear quarter to hold him up. He went through the whole trail gracefully like a pro. I was really impressed with his truck! /forums/images/icons/smile.gif
At the end of the trail was really rough. Some took the bypass out. I remember trying to think which line I should pick, and then my g/f went up to me and said, I think you should take the bypass out like some others. I was like...Nah!
The other guys were telling me to take the more "rougher" (less turning, but more rocks) line, so I agreed.
I remember going down these huge rock ledges and the truck would slam into these boulders. There were some really LOUD bangs. Turns out it was my rock sliders that was saving me! One of my sliders took a major scar /forums/images/icons/laugh.gif (better that then my truck.
Anyhow, made it out with no probs.
The Doubler really shined there. It made crawling along soooooo much easier than ever. I literally just tapped the throttle to go up some stuff.
The hummer beadlocks really shined as well. I had the PSI to ~ 7. The passenger front seemed to lose a lot of air somehow, but never lost a bead.
Honestly, running 7psi, seemed a little too low. Lost too much clearance and that really hurt me in some situations. It folded over the rocks nicely, and gripped very well, but I think I'll go back up to 10 or 12psi again like in the past.
Damage I took:
Rear driver quarter, smashed
Rear spring bent
Tire carrier swing, twisted off almost (39.5" was too much for the box tubing)
Destroyed most poly bushings in my springs.
Diff cover smashed a hole in
Both hard top windows, smashed
That's all I can think of for now. All in all I had a blast and it was very nice to drink some beers with the group of people that went. Here are a couple pics I downloaded. Have a bunch more to download later with other trucks too:
Boss
