Madbunny leaves the pavement!

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Madbunny leaves the pavement!

Postby madbunny » Sat Apr 07, 2007 11:44 pm

Many of you already know, I'm sure that I have a jeep. Last weekend I went on a short jamboree with some others out to the Mojave Calico area.

For those who are curious, and or have your own 4x4
Here is the link to the area

My jeep is a 1975 cj-5, it has 33" tires, and a V8 engine. It is loud, powerful and has a stereo that makes others jealous.

On with the trip.
I'll post the pictures in groupings of five at a time.
Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a night. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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Postby madbunny » Sat Apr 07, 2007 11:53 pm

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That's my brother packing. He's a truck driver, and I was going to be following him in his TT rig, so I didn't need too much gear. Just a change of clothes and some tools along with the usual odds and ends.

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We had some trouble finding the campground, so he simply parked his rig in a nearby truck stop and we camped there, and just CB radioed some other jeepers.
Eventually we found them and...


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Made it out to the trailhead. This is the morning, lots of people looking ready, but not very organized. We just aired down the tires and jumped in the first group that looked like they would be heading up our trail.


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The view throught from the front

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The view from the back
Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a night. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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Postby madbunny » Sat Apr 07, 2007 11:58 pm

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The trail got pretty rough right away. This is some of the early stuff.

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More early stuff. Lots of time waiting for each person to get past a particular section, then doing it ourselves.
If you look back at the corner, you can see the front of my jeep poking around.

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More of the same. Loads of fun.
Again, I'm in the back waiting.

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Yet once again, waiting my turn.

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Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a night. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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Postby madbunny » Sun Apr 08, 2007 12:03 am

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Onwards!

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A rather narrow spot. If I went too far right, I'd get the mother of all keylines down the side, if I go too far left, my tire drops my exhaust right on to that rock.

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More narrow passages. I was slightly worried about rolling here, but my brother (in the front) directs me safely.

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I let my brother drive for a while. Here he is, posing on a rock.

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More of the brother driving.
I'm just hanging on!
Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a night. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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Postby madbunny » Sun Apr 08, 2007 12:07 am

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The problem with rocks like this isn't that they are particularly tough, but that you need to not tear the sidewall of your tire on them.

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We come to a particularly tough shelf.
My brother is still driving, but he can't make it up, so I have to take over at the end and do it on my own.

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I'm giving him advice, just check out how VERTICAL this jeep is here.
We had to do this or we'd have had to turn around and give up.

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Vrooom!
Damm, I"m good.

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And we move on!
Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a night. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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Postby madbunny » Sun Apr 08, 2007 12:11 am

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GET'R DONE BABY! Check out some three wheel action!
These pictures don't do any justice to how rough this was.
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An easy section, other than the loose gravel in the ditch to the left (on the right in the picture).
Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a night. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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Postby madbunny » Sun Apr 08, 2007 12:16 am

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I'm in the back.
Notice the HUGE drop off on the side, right where the road is totally washed out?
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Yes, there was some pucker factor here.
I don't really mind rolling in a canyon or something, but I don't want to take a fall off a hundred foot ledge.
Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a night. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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Postby madbunny » Sun Apr 08, 2007 12:19 am

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Lunch break!

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At this point we all sat back, took stock of any trail damage, and got ready for the really rough stuff ahead.
My jeep had done fairly well up to this point. I'd lost one side of my exhaust, just tore the muffler right off!
I'd lost a fender flare in the back of the jeep, and bent my shackle tie rod, seen here.

There were some mine shafts, but unfortunately my camera batteries died two pictures in.
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So, you guys want me to post the rest of this?
The REALLY ROUGH STUFF?
Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a night. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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Postby madbunny » Sun Apr 08, 2007 1:04 am

After lunch we hit the gatekeeper.
This is the infamously tough section out at Calico.
Most people took the bypass as they were woried about body damage.

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Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a night. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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Postby madbunny » Sun Apr 08, 2007 1:06 am

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Winch time!

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The first rollover of the day!
Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a night. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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Postby madbunny » Sun Apr 08, 2007 1:08 am

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Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a night. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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Postby madbunny » Sun Apr 08, 2007 1:14 am

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More winching!

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Here I am, already at the top, making like an anchor for these guys to hook their winches onto.

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What most people don't know is that if a winch pulls say... 12,000 pounds, and your vehicle weighs less than that, then you're going to get dragged right on over to where the problem is.
So, generally what you do is to get your truck behind something, like a small hills, and get anothe anchor behind it just incase you get pulled forward.

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This poor little wrangler got pulled about 4 1/2 feet sideways till the slack on my tree saver stopped him. That rubicon went from showroom condition to junker in about 15 minutes.
Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a night. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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Joined: 17 Jun 2003

Postby madbunny » Sun Apr 08, 2007 1:15 am

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Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a night. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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madbunny
 
Joined: 17 Jun 2003

Postby madbunny » Sun Apr 08, 2007 1:16 am

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Tires by Nike!

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No! Tires by Reebok!

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Fixing a blown tire.
Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a night. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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Postby madbunny » Sun Apr 08, 2007 1:22 am

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Back in camp, we went down to the truck stop and grabbed my brothers semi. He pulled it all the way into camp!

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Got stuck and had to have this little wrangler pull him out


After that, it was barbecue time!
We had tons of people sharing their barbecues, beer, soda, whatever you wanted basically.
I stayed for a while, aired up my tires and headed home after that.
A long, long drive.

Plus, I was worried about suspension damage so I was going about 50 the whole way. Got home and crashed.
I'm still fixing little stuff on the jeep. I got a new set of flowmaster exhaust pipes, some shackle mounts, a new CB antenna, and a few little odds and ends.

All in all, it was a total blast!
Anybody on AMV interested in joining me for the next one?
Lots of times there are empty seats in the jeeps, and everybody is really friendly.








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Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a night. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
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