Oh yeah! Momma G is calling the faithfull and working her magic karma mojo to make sure we can all make it.
Just today I was sitting in front of my house talking to a friend about our plans for the weekend. He was stressing getting his rail back from the shop today and I was stressing getting my new starter today...
Then the UPS guy drove up delivered my starter! Oh yeah my worries were gone. My friend took off and came back an hour later with his rail in tow. Now upgraded from 2 inches of travel to almost 8!
Got the new starter in, gave the distribuitor a little bit of a twist, adjusted the throttle linkage a hair so it would actually idle below 3,500....oh yeah! Euro car neighbors ain't got nothing on the Pinto baby!
Hooked up four new lights on the friends rail and got my 165 watt KC's back from him (He's been using them for a year while I suffered with the 100watters my rail came with.) Got my good lights on and we're set to roll!
We'll be out this weekend starting around 3 or 4 Friday. So if you see two water pumptes - a big ugly yellow monstrosity with a chevy 350 and a little blue and orage VW style Pinto with a shiny new header flag us down and say hi! We'll enjoy some sacrements together at our church of the shifting sands!
Full Version: Going to services this weekend!
Where were you Jason? I saw damn near everybody at Boardmanville on Saturday afternoon. But no Jason. Were you there?
Doug
Doug
Ok, I guess this is a good a place as any to tell the full story. Short version - my weekend sucked everything broke...repeatedly. Here comes the long version.
We planed on leaving around 2 on Friday, but when Matt showed up to use my impact wrench to change his rail into the new paddles his motor was acting up when he'd get on the gas. Well, mine wasn't running very well yet either but I figured it was something I could work out in the dunes - since I was planning on camping with John who built my motor. So we started to look into Matt's. My first reaction and the opinion I held for the next...oh 3 hours was that there was sand or something clogging a jet. But Matt was sure he could fix the problem by tweaking the idle screws...finally after 3 hours a friend showed up and goes "You got sand in a jet" and Matt finally decides to clean the carb. Sure enough one whole side of his four barrel edelbrock is clogged. 30 minutes later and we're finally ready to start loading up. Matt gets his rail on the trailer and takes off but between the three batteries he owns he's only got one decent and one that's iffy so he puts the good one in the rail and the iffy one in his truck. This comes into play later.
It then takes me about 6 tries to get my rail loaded because the one ramp kept falling off my trailer and my shift linkage moved and I couldn't get into reverse. Finally I get loaded - get my sleeping bag and cooler - load up my spare parts and tools - and head to Matt's to hit the road.
Matt's truck is dead and needs a jump - more time lost and by now it's almost 6:00 and starting to get dark. But we get through the gas station and onto the highway. My power steering is acting up so I'm taking it easy and barely doing 55. We make it to the beach store after a much longer than normal drive and start heading towards wash 7 to find the R+R Duners to camp with them. We find three signs to their camp but then there was a small camp in the middle of the road and no sign of them or where the road went. We got way lost went back and followed the signs four more times each time needing the GPS to get us back to the tracks. Finally we say forget it we're camping....HERE..wherever the heck we were.
So we get out and are about to unload Matt's rail when he sees water streaming out of his radiator. Apparantly he got too close to a tree or something when we were lost and somehow stuck a branch through it. So we headed to the vendor flats to try and find him some "Bars leak" (Not that it would have fixed the big hole he had.) We can't find any and Matt's headlights are getting dimmer (remember that bad batter?). We start heading for our normal camp spot but Matt's truck dies from the battery shorting out.
So he puts in the rail battery and says "I'm going back to Yuma". Even though he's got all the food and the big ice chest. Plus the bolt bin.
So I'm at the vendor flats by myself wondering where the hell I'm going to find some dinner and someone to help me get my rail tuned in and running so I can make the poker run. I figured I'd look for Doug's camp at the cement flats...or as I now know them the pits of hell.
I am NEVER going near that place again! Oh man I though Yuma in the winter was the highest concentration of people who can't drive their RV's possible....wow was I wrong.
I followed the road to three separate dead endgs with no where to turn around or back up but never saw the signs of Dougs camp or anyone else I recognized. So I remembered the posting about Kennies camp being near Pad 2 and figure what the heck.
But I go right past pad 2...3....4...and 5 and never see the banner or Luxor Lights. Finally I'm sick of driving and figure I'll go back to my normal spot and get some sleep and figure out the rail situation in the morning. I see what looks like a nice firm place to turn around and get stuck almost instantly. I'd learn the next day I was about 5 camps up from keyhole - I've never gone further down Gecko than Pad 3 before...and that was to pick up my engine! And I still don't have a working front driveline on my truck since labor day. Somehow getting stuck also managed to lock up my rear brakes which will come back to haunt my weekend later.
Nobody camped near where I got stuck would give me a tow but they did offer me food and beer and a cell phone to call Matt with the coordinates so he could come pull me out in the morning. 1:30AM two more trucks pull up and say I'm stuck where they want to park...I say no problem - pull me out and the spot is yours! They do I grab some open hard pack a few feet down and party till 4 with them when their last friend showed up.
The next morning around 9 I call Matt and find out he's just getting back from the radiator shop - they managed to solder up his hole and get him going. He's on his way out. I spend the next hour and a half trying to get my timing set and shifter adjusted by myself. Neither of which is an easy one man job on my rail. Finally Matt shows up and we get my shifter dialed in and timing as close as we can manage in about 10 minutes. We take a few quick test runs...eat some turkey sandwiches and decide the rails are ready for a run up to the ranger station to test them out....Matt on his new suspension me on my new just about everything.
Well the trip up to the station was the highlight of my trip. Except for my temp guage not working the rail ran great. And showed no signs of overheating but did spit a little bit of water when I stopped - but I don't have a catch tank yet so I wasn't shocked. Then we got ready to head to Olds but when I went to shift my shifter was loose. One of the bolts on the linkage had fallen out!
We searched where I was parked (I had shifted when I pulled up so it was working then!) but couldn't find it. Matt went to Sweet Maries to find one but they didn't have a replacement. I tried using some pliers to get my tranny into second figuring I could roll off the hill I was one to get up to speed and then just cruise back to camp to dig in the bolt bin. Unfortunatly we mis and I was in 4th no 2nd and couldn't stay moving. Rather than wait for me to drive back to camp in 1st gear Matt goes for his trailer. We load me up on the trailer and about half way back to camp on Gecko Matt's trailer gets a flat.
We pull off to the side and use a poor mans jack (Shovel in the sand) to change it. By the time we get back to camp the sun is already getting ready to go down and we're really not having a good weekend.
Matts rail is running and his new tires and suspension are working great - but he dosen't want to camp at Gecko. I don't want to move my truck until I go home because of the brake issue. So we load up the rails and reluctantly decide to cut our losses and go home before anything really bad happens. After all my temp guage on the rail isn't working and I'm not going to run my new engine without out and risk overheating it. The shifter I could have jurry rigged but without a temp guage I was SOL. And with no front driveline in my truck no duning that either.
So we start heading home. I tell Matt to keep an eye on me since my truck was not feeling very good. We make it to 78 and just past the overlook I hit my brakes and the pedal goes to the floor. The locked up rears were overheating my lines and boiling off all my brake fluid! As soon as we passed the beach store (me creaping because of the almost non-existant brakes) I start flashing my lights at Matt like mad - but he had already lost patience and was getting on it in the distance. I drove 35 the whole way home praying that I wouldn't have to make any quick stops. I stopped twice to refill my master cylinder but it still made little difference.
So saturday by 10:00 I was home licking my wounds.
I checked the rail out today though and it will be working MUCH better next weekend. The plugs are looking good and it turns out I probably would have been overheating if I tried to run it without my guage. When John rebuilt my motor he didn't put my restrictor plate back on to replace the thermostat (Which won't fit on my water neck). Without that restrictor plate my cooling system is MUCH MUCH less effective. So a new temp guage and sender - new restrictor plate - and a shift linkage bolt and I'll be back in business - all things I should be able to fix by this weekend..
Now my truck I haven't even looked at the dammage yet. I'll know more there tomorrow.
So I missed the poker run, missed the wash 9 RC races, and basically got about 10-15 minutes of almost duning in all weekend. But the new motor feels VERY strong and the new rear suspension is working good. By T-day I'll be feeling much better.
There were more bad things that happened (My power steering going out completely, me and Matt getting stuck in the washes simultaneously....that kind of stuff) but I really don't want to relive it all at once. I think I covered the major points enough
We planed on leaving around 2 on Friday, but when Matt showed up to use my impact wrench to change his rail into the new paddles his motor was acting up when he'd get on the gas. Well, mine wasn't running very well yet either but I figured it was something I could work out in the dunes - since I was planning on camping with John who built my motor. So we started to look into Matt's. My first reaction and the opinion I held for the next...oh 3 hours was that there was sand or something clogging a jet. But Matt was sure he could fix the problem by tweaking the idle screws...finally after 3 hours a friend showed up and goes "You got sand in a jet" and Matt finally decides to clean the carb. Sure enough one whole side of his four barrel edelbrock is clogged. 30 minutes later and we're finally ready to start loading up. Matt gets his rail on the trailer and takes off but between the three batteries he owns he's only got one decent and one that's iffy so he puts the good one in the rail and the iffy one in his truck. This comes into play later.
It then takes me about 6 tries to get my rail loaded because the one ramp kept falling off my trailer and my shift linkage moved and I couldn't get into reverse. Finally I get loaded - get my sleeping bag and cooler - load up my spare parts and tools - and head to Matt's to hit the road.
Matt's truck is dead and needs a jump - more time lost and by now it's almost 6:00 and starting to get dark. But we get through the gas station and onto the highway. My power steering is acting up so I'm taking it easy and barely doing 55. We make it to the beach store after a much longer than normal drive and start heading towards wash 7 to find the R+R Duners to camp with them. We find three signs to their camp but then there was a small camp in the middle of the road and no sign of them or where the road went. We got way lost went back and followed the signs four more times each time needing the GPS to get us back to the tracks. Finally we say forget it we're camping....HERE..wherever the heck we were.
So we get out and are about to unload Matt's rail when he sees water streaming out of his radiator. Apparantly he got too close to a tree or something when we were lost and somehow stuck a branch through it. So we headed to the vendor flats to try and find him some "Bars leak" (Not that it would have fixed the big hole he had.) We can't find any and Matt's headlights are getting dimmer (remember that bad batter?). We start heading for our normal camp spot but Matt's truck dies from the battery shorting out.
So he puts in the rail battery and says "I'm going back to Yuma". Even though he's got all the food and the big ice chest. Plus the bolt bin.
So I'm at the vendor flats by myself wondering where the hell I'm going to find some dinner and someone to help me get my rail tuned in and running so I can make the poker run. I figured I'd look for Doug's camp at the cement flats...or as I now know them the pits of hell.
I am NEVER going near that place again! Oh man I though Yuma in the winter was the highest concentration of people who can't drive their RV's possible....wow was I wrong.
I followed the road to three separate dead endgs with no where to turn around or back up but never saw the signs of Dougs camp or anyone else I recognized. So I remembered the posting about Kennies camp being near Pad 2 and figure what the heck.
But I go right past pad 2...3....4...and 5 and never see the banner or Luxor Lights. Finally I'm sick of driving and figure I'll go back to my normal spot and get some sleep and figure out the rail situation in the morning. I see what looks like a nice firm place to turn around and get stuck almost instantly. I'd learn the next day I was about 5 camps up from keyhole - I've never gone further down Gecko than Pad 3 before...and that was to pick up my engine! And I still don't have a working front driveline on my truck since labor day. Somehow getting stuck also managed to lock up my rear brakes which will come back to haunt my weekend later.
Nobody camped near where I got stuck would give me a tow but they did offer me food and beer and a cell phone to call Matt with the coordinates so he could come pull me out in the morning. 1:30AM two more trucks pull up and say I'm stuck where they want to park...I say no problem - pull me out and the spot is yours! They do I grab some open hard pack a few feet down and party till 4 with them when their last friend showed up.
The next morning around 9 I call Matt and find out he's just getting back from the radiator shop - they managed to solder up his hole and get him going. He's on his way out. I spend the next hour and a half trying to get my timing set and shifter adjusted by myself. Neither of which is an easy one man job on my rail. Finally Matt shows up and we get my shifter dialed in and timing as close as we can manage in about 10 minutes. We take a few quick test runs...eat some turkey sandwiches and decide the rails are ready for a run up to the ranger station to test them out....Matt on his new suspension me on my new just about everything.
Well the trip up to the station was the highlight of my trip. Except for my temp guage not working the rail ran great. And showed no signs of overheating but did spit a little bit of water when I stopped - but I don't have a catch tank yet so I wasn't shocked. Then we got ready to head to Olds but when I went to shift my shifter was loose. One of the bolts on the linkage had fallen out!
We searched where I was parked (I had shifted when I pulled up so it was working then!) but couldn't find it. Matt went to Sweet Maries to find one but they didn't have a replacement. I tried using some pliers to get my tranny into second figuring I could roll off the hill I was one to get up to speed and then just cruise back to camp to dig in the bolt bin. Unfortunatly we mis and I was in 4th no 2nd and couldn't stay moving. Rather than wait for me to drive back to camp in 1st gear Matt goes for his trailer. We load me up on the trailer and about half way back to camp on Gecko Matt's trailer gets a flat.
We pull off to the side and use a poor mans jack (Shovel in the sand) to change it. By the time we get back to camp the sun is already getting ready to go down and we're really not having a good weekend.
Matts rail is running and his new tires and suspension are working great - but he dosen't want to camp at Gecko. I don't want to move my truck until I go home because of the brake issue. So we load up the rails and reluctantly decide to cut our losses and go home before anything really bad happens. After all my temp guage on the rail isn't working and I'm not going to run my new engine without out and risk overheating it. The shifter I could have jurry rigged but without a temp guage I was SOL. And with no front driveline in my truck no duning that either.
So we start heading home. I tell Matt to keep an eye on me since my truck was not feeling very good. We make it to 78 and just past the overlook I hit my brakes and the pedal goes to the floor. The locked up rears were overheating my lines and boiling off all my brake fluid! As soon as we passed the beach store (me creaping because of the almost non-existant brakes) I start flashing my lights at Matt like mad - but he had already lost patience and was getting on it in the distance. I drove 35 the whole way home praying that I wouldn't have to make any quick stops. I stopped twice to refill my master cylinder but it still made little difference.
So saturday by 10:00 I was home licking my wounds.
I checked the rail out today though and it will be working MUCH better next weekend. The plugs are looking good and it turns out I probably would have been overheating if I tried to run it without my guage. When John rebuilt my motor he didn't put my restrictor plate back on to replace the thermostat (Which won't fit on my water neck). Without that restrictor plate my cooling system is MUCH MUCH less effective. So a new temp guage and sender - new restrictor plate - and a shift linkage bolt and I'll be back in business - all things I should be able to fix by this weekend..
Now my truck I haven't even looked at the dammage yet. I'll know more there tomorrow.
So I missed the poker run, missed the wash 9 RC races, and basically got about 10-15 minutes of almost duning in all weekend. But the new motor feels VERY strong and the new rear suspension is working good. By T-day I'll be feeling much better.
There were more bad things that happened (My power steering going out completely, me and Matt getting stuck in the washes simultaneously....that kind of stuff) but I really don't want to relive it all at once. I think I covered the major points enough
Damn Jason, sounds like your weekend sucked hardcore. Bummer man, I was hopin' to see that rail run. Well, just think, you got all the problems out of the way on the first trip. The rest of the season has to be better. Cya.
Doug
Doug
i don't know if this will make you feel better jason, but i broke the pull starter on the tmaxx so you would have beat me, since i couldn't start the thing.
kevin
kevin
Dame Bro. You at least made it home. I met a guy on the side off the road on the 78 at about 6 on Sunday and I was the 3 car to stop. No emergency crews or police yet. He had just rolled his suburban and his toy box.(the big one with the upstairs bed) He was fine and so was his family but the toy box was a total and so was the Burban. His quads all made it ok too. I and 2 other guys helped him unload the toys and gas to keep them from spilling fuel anymore.
Somebody had passed him and made him lose control.
Somebody had passed him and made him lose control.
Damn I will never complain again about a couple of little mishaps.
And I though I had a bad weekend! I wont be complaining about pulling my motor and all the other problems my rail had here.
Jason sorry to hear that, you got all the bad luck out for the rest of the season on the first trip.
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GO BIG OR GO HOME!!
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GO BIG OR GO HOME!!
:P
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