| The truck ran great on the way home from California and I was able to engage compound low a few times just to show off, but I still hadn't had a chance to wheel in earnest! There is an urban articulation ramp on the way to work so I gave that a shot. I realized that the contact between the passenger tire and the windshield washer tank only occurs on flat and level ground... |  |
| I remembered a pile of concrete chunks that might make for a decent crawl... The first trip through was so easy that I thought I'd take another shot at a harder line. |  |
| Of course that time I ended up with both diffs wedged against rocks and a wheel or two in wet dirt. Not to mention that I left my rear diff and t-case skid plates off because I was going to change my fluids later that afternoon. A little judicious line selection and I was able to get out ... the crawler and the 35s were working way well! |  |
| The following Saturday a few folks were headed to the den, which sounded like the perfect shake-down cruise. Here John faces a wave of solid stone, which helps lend a little perspective to the following pics... |  |
| By the time we started climbing... |  |
| ...the SA Jeeps Exclusive club... |  |
| ...stopped by to watch. |  |
| Pat launches Kermit up the face of the wave with her daughter Jody along for the ride. At breakfast we discussed her thoughts on Mom moving to Texas and loosing her mind with all this wheeling stuff! |  |
| Pat brings it off the other side. If you look closely you can see the bite out of the driver's rear fender flare caused by the pointy rock just to the right of the back tire. John swears it was my spotting, but I'm sticking with my claim that it was his! Pat decided it was a good reason to get more durable flares with better coverage in any case. |  |
| Dave takes it... |  |
| ...up and over a line... |  |
| ...close to the one... |  |
| ...Pat had just come down. |  |
| This is a little carnage from David's trip to Las Cruces last weekend. The axle shaft snapped clean right before- the Birfield. He said he didn't realize what a crowd pleaser it was until people kept coming up to him the rest of the weekend saying stuff like "Wow, man! When that axle let go with that big bang it was -so- cool!" |  |
| A close-up shows what a clean break it was... It looks like you can see the hardened zone from the heat treat. The rust is from the intervening week. |  |