Well, I never got to meet up with Grappler and his crew, but had a good time nonetheless. Here's some pictures:
Fun story behind this one. I had just come up "Little Daniel" on the Dickey Bell trail (which was fun, but I played safe and took the easy line since I was by myself) when I ran into a group of three guys who had broken down. The guy's D35 had snapped a rear shaft in half on Saturday night. They ended up attaching this log to his control arm and under his axle to support it while they tried to limp off the trail with only three wheels.
Sunday, he was able to source some new axles, but when I found them, they were missing the wrench needed to remove the pin from the locker. Thankfully, I brought along just enough tools to help them with what they were missing and we worked on getting the c clips out for the next hour. Once that was done, it was time to remove the 3 inch snapped axle piece from inside the axle tube. They ended up taking an antenna, bending a one inch, 90 degree angle on the tip and fished it out. All that was left was to reinstall the new axle, re-attach the c clips, put the pin back in the locker, put the diff cover back on and top up the fluids.
Lessons learned from the trip:
1) Wheeling by myself was probably stupid and I won't do that again
2) Trail repairs suck ass
3) The tool you need will not be in your tool box, but will be back home mocking you
4) The Jeep wave means nothing if you don't stop to help strangers
5) Good karma isn't given, it's earned
6) I should make friends with a mechanic and bring him along on every trip
. You all have fun and put up a lot if pictures for us.
