Last year I took out:
My rear driveshaft, front outer CV boot, gas tank and gas tank skid.

This year on much harder trails I broke:
2 3/8's Grade 8 skid plate bolts
1 MT/R sidewall
Pinched my exhaust tip

Steve O did some good work too, but I will let him post that up.

Anyone else break stuff that I am not aware of?

 

Believe it or not but absolutley nothing.

1. Bent exhaust hanger, bent streight again.

2. Scratches on both cross members, re-painted

3. Scratches on my rear bumper, so what

4. Rock chip in windshield from highway 285, State Farms's problem

That's it, the crawler may not have shined in the mud and hail but it sure did make sure I did not damage anything.

 

I slightly re-crushed the same $6 wheel center cap that I had crushed the weekend prior. Apparently I did that both times on the same rock in the Iron Chest boulder field. Good thing I didn't have time to replace it before the gathering. I still like to use the $6 center caps because it helps hold the rocks further away from the aluminum wheels.

I can't think of any other damage I did this year (including the pre-runs). I added several more scrape marks on skids and sliders, but that's what they're there for.

 

On the contrary, I would say the crawler did shine. It is perfect for Arizona wheeling and dry Colorado wheeling.

Jeff, your center caps are a thing of beauty.

Regarding slider and bumper scuffs, anything that can be repainted I hardly think is worth counting.

 

I think I left some yellow french fry paint on a rock in Chinaman's.

On the way down the highway Sat. evening I over revved the squirrels a bit and threw the alternator/water pump belt. I diagnosed this to a bad fan clutch. I did the same thing Sun morn. on the way home.

Fan clutches are rediculously expensive so i'm going for the Taurus electric fan mod. I got one for $11.
Junkyard parts RULE!!

Nothing broke though.

 

I got stung by a bee in camp. Does that qualify as body damage?

The clamp holding the intake to the throttle body broke and I put a few new scuffs on the skids.

Sunday, I beat my skid plate into submission going up to Webster Pass (okay, maybe not CO4RJ related)

 

- Bent and cracked a frame rail mount.

- Pulled back bumper away from body

- Sliders did their job and took a beating

- Some grease leaked out of my passenger's side outer axle boot. (If it's not leaking now, does that mean I need to do anything about it??)

- Plenty of sratched paint underneath

- Lower control arm mount mashed a little bit more than it alreay was

- Scratched paint on lower control arm

See pictures: http://community.webshots.com/user/sandman_02

I think I'm in the lead. Do I get a prize?

 

No, Martin beat you by a long shot.

 

And I was trying so hard... :cry:

 

Congradulations, you win a can of black spraypaint and use of a BFH for a weekend.

 

I finally dropped my skid plate and gave the truck a bath to make all the rock dingers easier to see.

My belly pan pretty much gave it's live in Colorado. The part that I did not reinforce was caved. The part that I butressed worked great.

The whole bottom lip of my rear bumper is without paint, but did not move all weekend. There are no scars on the body indicating it flexed in.

Mike, you did take a beating for sure, but I think you are a distant second. When I started thinking about my rear bumper, I got a jar to put cash in when I had extra. Sounds like you need one of those jars, but it would be better to start with a pretty near full one.

Alan, if you have any other cool Iron Chest pics that are e-mailable, I would appreciate seeing them.

 

Flygtenstein,

Do you have the red 2nd gen 4Runner with a Rock Ware rear bumper/tire carrier combo? I need a new rear bumper for my '92 ASAP and wanted to know if you are happy with yours. Sounds like it has taken a beating out on the trail. Anything you would change? Does your tire swing out to the drivers side or passengers side? I assume you put the spare tire behind the driver so you can get at the keyhole for the rear window. Got any pics of the rear bumper (I have only seen one pic of the back of your truck taken during the CO4RJ and you were way up the trail in front of a green 3rd gen 4Runner that also has a custom rear bumper).

Thanks,

Bill

 

Yup, that is my truck.

It swings on the driver's side so that I could have the time behind me and still see some road.

It got pretty well used this summer and did not flinch.

My only mild complaint is that the piece below the hinge drages some times. It does not move, but it drags when I don't think that it should.

I think Darren took some pics of my bumper, otherwise I will look for some more trail shots. Shoot me a PM and I will e-mail you some.

 

I think most of it was from Holy Cross and Chinaman's Gulch. Iron Chest was a pretty clean run. It also helps to get my point across that I think Holy Cross is harder than Iron Chest, despite Holy Cross being rated an 8 and Iron Chest a 9, which I disagree with.

 

Where did it happen?

Most of that was on Chinamen's and Holy Cross.

Mr. Hunt broke one bolt on Iron Chest and I broke two. Mostly because the rock came and mowed down the bolts on the middle of the skid plate.

The wheeling is not all truck and not all driver. As some saw, a goodly chunk of it is listening to the spotter.

With the exception of the sidewall stupidity, I incured zero damage on the two trails rated 8. Most of that was because I had good spotting. This includes all optional obstacles except the solid axle line on Whale Rock.

In a perfect world, people would run trails right at the limits of their truck. Then they would drive perfectly and it would be a great time. I think a lot of people learned that weekend what the next step was to make trails more enjoyable.

 

I was lucky enough to be Adrian's co-pilot for the Holy Cross run, and this is the best shot of his rear bumper I got that day:


I should have the rest in myWebshots Album , listed according to trail...

 

Jayson, nice camera, and thanks for uploading the full size pics!

 

Thanks for posting those pics Jayson. That is a decent pic of the bumper and an even better pic of the cruiser coils doing some work.

No one else will bite on the driver vs. truck stuff. Thought for sure that would start a riot. I mean no harm in what I said, just that there is a difference between making a clean run, just getting over the obstacle, getting stuck and needing 2 hours to get extracted.

 

Mark, Your welcome. That's one nice thing about webshots, you can put up big images, it just takes a while to get them all on there...Download whatever you like!

Adrian, I agree with you on the driver vs truck thing. I too expected more comments...The Wheeler Lake run is a good example. Through listening to my spotters, I was able to take the harder lines on the way up without spinning a single tire, and I'm just running half worn A/Ts. With a rear locker, sliders, and a mild lift, I was probably built "just right" for this trail. With good spotting, I had a really fun day. A better, or maybe more experienced is a better way to put it, with my truck and good spotting could have done a harder trail, but it might have been questionable. If I had attempted a similar trail without spotters, I would have bypassed all o fthe hard lines...I prefer to make clean runs, and drive within my comfort levels of my own driving ablilties and trucks abilities. Too conservative or too much of a :chicken: , I'll let someone else decide...

 

There is no doubt that choosing a good line is a big part of the equation of determining how gracefully a driver gets through an obstacle (or sometimes, whether they get through it at all). If a spotter is used, obviously they're making an important contribution in that regard. And the more built up the vehicle, the less important line choice becomes -- the less built, the more important.

Sometime brute force can substitute for a bad line or a built vehicle. When I had an open diff '89 Toyota pickup -- which is a light vehicle -- with stiff desert racing shocks, momentum was my friend because I had little fear of bottoming out on things. I can't take that approach with my 4Runner.

It hardly needs saying that a truck's set-up will also determine the spectrum of what that truck is capable of. That's just pure geometry, and it's obvious. (Don't see too many Honda Civics on the trail.) In that category I would lump tire pressure, too.

In regard to driver's skill, I would say that mostly involves choice of line, but it also includes how much throttle to use and when to recognize you're stuck and need to stop before making things worse for yourself.