The day started at 6am by heading over to the AARC Hamfest at the DeVry parking lot. After a couple of hours of looking at old radios, coax, resistors, diodes and doing it in the cold rain, a group of us headed over to Denny's to grab breakfast. Mmm, hams eating ham and eggs. Ham Radio Outlet opens at 10am, so that was the next stop. The challenge was to see how many people could jam into their small store at once.

Ok, onto the offroad part. About noon Randy and Shelia (madmanx) and myself headed north to Table Mesa. Everyone else chickened out since they didn't want to get wet and muddy, but I had some new mud tires to break in.

We aired down about 1pm and wandered the roads while splashing in the puddles all the way. After an hour or so, we ended up at the Tip Top Mine. We got out and walked around and checked out a few mine shafts before it started raining again. As we were heading back it started to hail on us. It was just tiny little pebbles that melted fast on the hood, but the hail at 2500 feet was a surprise.

We decided to take a different route back than the way we came in. This road lead us down a canyon that cris-crossed the stream the whole way. We stopped for a little bit at an old stone cabin and also passed "The Beastmaster". Towards the end, we came upon the deepest/biggest water crossing. Randy made it across and then took video of me crossing.

Looking at our GPS's, it looked like there was a way to get back towards I-17 from the road we were on. But, by this time, we had gone so far south on this trail, we actually were on the north side of Lake Pleasant and the water was too deep to cross. As we were trying to figure out what to do, 2 other Jeeps came through the same area. We chatted with them and they knew the way back to I-17. So, we followed them on the trail out. The rain had let up enough now and a huge double rainbow crossed the sky.

While airing back up, we were breifly seperated from the other 2 Jeepers, but caught them again as we got onto the freeway. All 4 of us were heading south with me in the last position when the Jeep in front of me let out a huge poof of smoke that engulfed his whole vehicle. Neither of the other guys had CB's, so Randy and I flagged the 2nd guy down since he didn't see his buddy blow up. We got him turned around and headed back to where the Jeep had pulled onto the shoulder. Something had grenaded in his engine. It was getting dark by now and I didn't see the damage too well myself, but he said there were big holes in the bottom of his oil pan. They hooked the tow strap up and took the frontage road to Happy Valley Road where they headed west and I got back on the freeway.

Instead of going right home I swung by the carwash and dropped $5 to clean off the huge chunks of mud before they had a chance to dry. I'm still cleaning mud from Canyon de Chelly last October. Mud is so fun to play in, but such a headache to clean. haha. I finally pulled into my driveway at 8pm.

All in all, it was a fun and exciting day. Rain, ham radio, a good breakfast, mud, new tires, hail, mine shafts, old buildings, water crossings, exploring, meeting other Jeepers, rainbows, helping out other Jeepers when stuff goes bad, etc.

Full Photo Album Here.



















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Wow, man. Looks like a blast.

the new tires lookin' good! How'd they do for you?

Hams eating ham and eggs... killin' me.

Good deeds AND Rainbows? Nice.

Thanks for posting, Virgil. I enjoyed web wheelin' with you tonight.

Sounds like a great day. You got to see it all.
Thanks for the report and pics Virgil :cool)

nice, sounds like a fun trip!

good job helping out with the breakdown too

looks wet and mudy.....8|

Glad you you had a good time.

I drove the XJ to work today and discovered the steering wheel was not centered. Checked things out and found a bent tie rod. I'm pretty sure it was that big rock I jumped when we were leaving Tip Top. haha.

Nice write up Virgil, you always crack me up with your write-ups! Never been to Tip-Top, need to squeeze that in one weekend. Looks like it was a fun adventure. Awesome Rainbow! I wonder who belongs to the grenaded Jeep? Was it a VJC'er?

diane

Vigil, I have a stock one (tie rod... complete stock steering actual, from when I upgraded mine) in my garage that you can use right now while you figure out what you are going to do. Come by tomorrow and I'll hook you up. (I carry it as a trail spare, honestly, in case I bugger up my new stuff so bad, I can at least take it back to stock steering to get home. LOL)

I've got extra tie rod ends if you need them too, or just the stock tie rod.

Thanks Alan. I haven't figured out what to do yet. I had thought of going to the junk yard and looking for a ZJ (little beefier) tie rod. I'm not going to have a chance to work on it until Wednesday night. I'm going to see if I can flip the tie rod and put a jack under it to bend it back somewhat straight. Iron Rock Offroad has a new HD tie rod with new ends for $130 shipped. Then I was looking at Sy's setup (Awesome price, but a little out of my budget right now.) and other aftermarket steering upgrades. (Most of which are also beyond my budget.)

It was supposed to be a simple and easy run to play in the mud. haha. I know exactly where it happened too. When we were coming down from Tip Top on the way back, Randy kicked up a rock in the center of the road. It was kind of flat about the size of a small spare donut tire standing on end, but partially buried. I hit it thinking my front diff would just knock it back over. I heard it clunk and even checked the front diff when I stopped the next time. By the way, my Ruff Stuff 1/2" thick front D30 diff cover is awesome! Not a scratch on it from that hit, but I know that's the rock that folded my tie rod.

Number 7 wrote:Nice write up Virgil, you always crack me up with your write-ups! Never been to Tip-Top, need to squeeze that in one weekend. Looks like it was a fun adventure. Awesome Rainbow! I wonder who belongs to the grenaded Jeep? Was it a VJC'er?

diane

I want to go back to Tip Top. We started hiking up the hill to check out the ruins, but it was raining hard at that point so we turned around. There was also a mine shaft we walked maybe 100 yards back into, but turned around because we didn't have proper flashlights/gear. I'd like to go back and check that out further. The road we took on the way out was a really nice trail also that I wouldn't mind repeating. I'll find a free weekend and lead a trip back.

The 2 guys that helped us get the heck out of there when we were semi-lost were Tom and Mike. I didn't catch the girlfriend/wive's names. It was late and I wasn't thinking, but I should have gone back to the Jeep and given them a HG4x4 card. I gave Tom my cell number and he said he'd text message me his email. Nothing yet.

Tom had a yellow CJ-7 and Mike had a green TJ (Same color as Chris-offroadaz) that they had just done a bunch of work on. It was Mike's TJ that blew up. He said he had a cone air filter on there that was sopping wet. I wonder if he didn't pull some water into the intake and bend a piston or something that exploded at highway speeds.

I haven't made it up there yet. I'm sure Chris and I would go sometime.