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Car
Wrangler Rubicon
The Jeep Wrangler is a rugged SUV made by Jeep that is famous for its ability to drive over rocks, mud, and rough trails. You can take its doors and roof off to drive in the open air.
Place
Cadillac Hill
A very steep, rocky, and narrow hill at the end of the Rubicon Trail that requires careful driving to avoid sliding off the edge.
Car
Saab 900
The Saab 900 is an older, uniquely styled passenger car made by a Swedish company that is no longer in business. It is known for having its ignition switch on the floor between the front seats instead of on the dashboard.
Car
Bugatti Divo
The Bugatti Divo is an extremely rare and expensive sports car built by a French manufacturer. It is designed to drive incredibly fast on race tracks and is owned by a very small number of collectors.
Place
Rubicon Trail
A legendary, extremely difficult dirt and rock trail in California that off-roaders from all over the world travel to test their vehicles.
Place
Rubicon Springs
A grassy, forested camping area hidden deep in the middle of the Rubicon Trail where off-roaders stop to camp, swim, and hang out.
Car
Toyota 4Runner
A rugged SUV made by Toyota that is famous for being able to drive over extremely rough terrain without breaking down. Older versions even let you take the roof off like a Jeep.
Place
Loon Lake
A scenic lake in California that serves as the main starting point for vehicles entering the famous Rubicon off-road trail.
Car
Toyota Land Cruiser (FJ40)
An iconic, vintage off-road vehicle made by Toyota that looks similar to an old Jeep. It is highly sought after by collectors and off-road enthusiasts for its classic styling and durability.
Term
semi-float
A type of axle design where the axle shaft does two jobs: it spins the wheel and holds up the weight of the car. If it breaks, the wheel can actually fall off.
Car
Jeep Gladiator
A mid-sized pickup truck made by Jeep that looks like a Wrangler with a truck bed attached to the back.
Car
Toyota Tacoma
The Toyota Tacoma is a medium-sized pickup truck built by Toyota. It is widely used for everyday driving, hauling items in its truck bed, and driving on dirt trails.
Place
Little Sluice
A famous, extremely rocky section of the Rubicon Trail that used to be filled with giant boulders. It is a legendary spot where only the most modified vehicles try to drive.
Car
Ford Fusion
The Ford Fusion is a standard four-door passenger car made by Ford. It was designed for everyday commuting and family transportation before Ford stopped making it.
Car
4Runner Forerunner
The Toyota 4Runner is a mid-sized SUV made by Toyota that is built like a truck, making it very good at driving on rough dirt trails. The very first versions of this car had a removable plastic roof over the back seats.
Car
Ford F350
The Ford F-350 is a very large and powerful pickup truck made by Ford. It is built for heavy work, like towing large trailers, boats, or heavy machinery.
Part
transfer case
A second gearbox in a 4x4 vehicle that sends power to both the front and back wheels, and provides an extra-low gear setting for climbing steep hills or rocks.
Car
Aston Martin Vanquish
The Aston Martin Vanquish is an expensive, high-end luxury sports car made by a British company. It is designed to go very fast while keeping the driver comfortable on long road trips.
Term
front dig
A trick used by rock crawlers where they lock the back wheels in place and spin only the front wheels, allowing the vehicle to make incredibly tight turns around obstacles.
Car
Toyota Tundra
The Toyota Tundra is a large, full-size pickup truck made by Toyota. It is designed for heavy-duty tasks like towing trailers and carrying large loads in its cargo bed.
Concept
axle wrap
When you hit the gas in a truck, the force can twist the suspension springs out of shape, causing the truck to hop, shake, or even break parts underneath.
Part
panhard bar
A metal bar that connects the vehicle's frame to its axle, keeping the axle centered under the car so the wheels don't wobble side-to-side.
Part
drag link
A heavy metal rod that connects your steering wheel's gearbox to the wheels, pushing and pulling them so you can steer.
Part
ball joint
A ball-and-socket joint that connects your wheels to your car's suspension, letting the wheels turn left and right while moving up and down over bumps.
Term
torque converter lockup
A feature in automatic cars that locks the engine directly to the transmission, stopping any slipping and making it behave more like a manual transmission for better control.
Car
Jeep CJ-5
A classic, vintage Jeep model from the mid-to-late 20th century that is smaller than modern Jeeps and has a very simple, retro look.
Car
Jeep Wrangler (JL)
The modern version of the classic Jeep, which is built specifically for driving over rocks, mud, and trails. You can take the doors and roof completely off.
Part
coil pack
An electrical part that sits on top of each spark plug, delivering the high-voltage spark needed to make the engine run.
LIVE
Welcome, everyone.
Welcome all to the Snail Trail 4x4 podcast.
If you'd like going off roading in Toyotas, reaching on Toyotas, camping in Toyotas, maybe
even poking a little bit of fun at Toyotas.
And of course, hearing about how fantastic the Rubicon is in Toyotas, then this is the
podcast for you.
My name is Tyler and joining me for another episode of Snail Trail 4x4 podcast, episode
721.
One to one.
Sysenta, ventiuno.
Is that what it would be?
Sysenta.
Yeah, I think it's a...
Sure.
Sure.
It's Mr. Jimmy over here.
How you doing?
Good.
Good.
Thank you.
How are you?
I'm mentally out of it right now.
Yeah.
It's been a busy week since we got back.
Yeah.
For sure.
Yeah.
It was like everything leading up to it.
And then at the weekend and then just the week so far this week, I'm just...
I'm not based in reality at the moment, my head.
Yeah.
So.
For sure.
I mean, we had a busy week the week before and then we jumped right into Rubathon with
that short week.
Yeah.
And then you had the Black Friday...
Not Black Friday.
You had a primed day sales and stuff going on.
And then we come back and you guys are absolutely slammed.
We're slammed and I'm a single dad at the moment.
Oh, that's right.
So that's...
I think I was trying to think about it this morning.
I was like, I am just out of it.
I'm not my normal self right now.
And I was trying to think why.
And I think just everything going on with the business and then being a single dad.
So I'm just...
I'm on and going from 6 a.m. until minimum 9 p.m. if not later because of stuff going
on at work.
I'm behind on my personal work.
So I have to work on it at night time after the kid goes to bed.
So I'm just...
I'm absolutely drained right now.
Sure.
Understood.
Yeah.
Single life is tough.
Yeah.
I get it.
On many...
You can take that at many different levels.
Yeah.
Whether you are single because then there's...
You don't have any reprieve.
Like I left all the dishes in the sink today.
You know, like here you go.
Well, my wife's on summer vacation.
She can do the dishes.
I'm going to work.
Yeah.
I'm going to go sit on a casting couch and talk to my buddy through a microphone and
call at work.
There you go.
Yeah.
But I had to wake up and she doesn't get out of bed until like 10.
Oh, that must mean...
I wouldn't be able to do that nowadays.
I can't.
I can't.
I have to be up.
I'm like, I have to be productive.
So...
Yeah.
We've talked about it in the past, but my wife has a really...
She has some sleeping issues where she'll like wake up in the middle of the night.
And I think when she wakes up in the middle of the night, her mind just starts racing
and she can't fall back to sleep.
But in the morning, I always wake up early.
Earlier than she does.
And I...
But I feel bad if I get out of bed that I'm going to wake her.
And she probably had a bad night's sleep and she...
I don't want to wake her.
A lot of times I just sort of scoot myself up in bed.
So I'm sort of sitting in bed and I'll just sit there on my phone and just wait for her
to wake up because I don't want to wake her up.
But the last few mornings, I've just been getting out of bed and she seems to be falling
right back asleep.
So I think I've...
You're training her now.
Training her now.
Yeah.
Whether I go downstairs and start work or go to the computer or start work or go to the
shop or come here or whatever it is.
I think I'm figuring...
Taking me five years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We'll talk about that.
I had my five year reunion this last weekend.
So...
Yeah.
Anyways, let's see.
We can move on off of significant others in single life.
Yeah.
Okay.
We've got some stuff going on.
Cool.
Some fun giveaways happening.
Yeah.
We are...
Let's see.
This is Thursday...
Oh, July 2nd?
Yeah.
We haven't flipped our calendars over.
No, we haven't.
I'm curious what the next phallic symbol is in nature on that calendar over there.
We won't find out until today's episode probably.
Yeah.
So Thursday, that means July 2nd.
That means the cutoff is done for the month of June.
Yes.
And the...
ISECO, the APL 20 that we're giving away for the month of June here.
So we will let you guys know the winner because we're recording this before the end of June.
We'll let you guys know the winner next Thursday.
Yes, exactly.
So that'll be July 9th.
Yeah, July 9th is when we will have the winners for you guys for the ISECO APL 20.
Huge shout out to ISECO for coming on board and doing the giveaway this month or this
month, last month, whatever it is, for the APL 20 and then getting to learn a lot about
what ISECO does in the industry, what they do as a business.
The new VPL 45 plus that's coming out, that's on Kickstarter right now.
I was just trying to look up here and see if that is still live and they're still taking...
Yeah.
Well, while you're looking that up, I will just say that we've still continuously had
people tagging us on that episode with ISECO and sharing it on their platforms because
they're super excited about the APL...
No, the VPL 45.
Oh, V, I've always been calling it the VPL.
Okay.
I think it's VL 45 plus.
It is VL 45 plus.
Okay.
Yeah.
So everybody's excited about that.
People keep tagging us.
There's a bunch of...
A lot of sharing still happening from that episode, which is really cool to see.
And I think it's primarily because it's a really rad fridge.
So do you have the numbers?
Yeah.
So they are still accepting backers on Kickstarter.
It doesn't say when the date ends, but it was an all or nothing pledge.
So the way Kickstarter works is people pledge that they will back a project and then that
project only gets paid out and you only pay into it if X amount of people pledge, right?
So they far exceeded that amount.
Does it say how many backers they needed?
No, but there's 322 backers currently.
My guess is they only needed like 60 to 70.
I wanted to say it was like 25.
Really?
Yeah.
I'll say they only wanted, they were only putting like a pledge of $50,000 down and
they're at $217,000.
Okay.
Yeah.
So whatever that ratio works to with 322 backers.
So it's wild.
My guess is 70-ish backers all they needed.
That is crazy.
I could fairly certainly say that half of those people already have a fridge.
Probably.
Most likely.
Yeah.
And they're just there.
It's like, wow, this is really cool.
I need that.
I need another fridge.
Yeah.
It's like me over here sitting here with three fridges.
I'm like, I need that.
That's mine.
I need another fridge.
I'm at the point where I want to get this one and sell my old one.
Yeah.
I don't really have a, I haven't found a need for multiple fridges yet.
Mainly, I think because I have the fridge in the Lance.
Sure.
That'd be my guess.
But really cool.
We talked a little bit about the collab fridge that Morph late is doing with Isco.
We were able to, I asked if we could do a VL 45 plus for the collab fridge and he goes,
yeah, no problem.
Oh, sweet.
So I'm going to end up with another VL 45 plus, but we're getting a VL 45 plus with
the collab fridge.
So that one will kind of live with whatever vehicle goes to events.
And then the other one will be kind of a spare probably for when both vehicles are going out,
both crawlers kind of thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Where I have, I have the old fridge, your old fridge, right?
And I took that to Rubathon this weekend.
It worked great.
And then I have the tiny Dometic that's inside the trailer.
And then I have the monstrous Ironman four by four fridge.
So I, when we, when I'm solo, I'll take the small fridge, but when we're with a family,
we need the larger fridge.
That's really how it comes down on my end.
So I'm looking, I'm just, I'm scrolling through the Kickstarter right now, trying to find
when the drop dead date is right.
The VL 45 plus, you can control it through car play.
Really?
Wow.
I didn't notice that.
It's listed in the feature list.
So it has an app.
It has a Bluetooth app that you can connect to your car and your phone, I guess, and it
will come up on your show and your infotainment center on your car for carplay.
Cool.
So only if Bobcat had a, an Android or Apple carplay in it, we can make that happen.
Just saying.
The assistant would be very happy.
She hates the fact that there's no music in Bobcat.
I would hate the fact like I can't ride in Bobcat cause there's no music.
That's the only reason.
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
I don't believe you.
You just don't want to ride with me.
That's fair.
So it looks like the super early bird, um, which was 599 bucks on Kickstarter, um, which
is a savings of $200.
Um, and it's just the free, the fridge itself.
Um, they call it a freezer.
They do.
It's iceco.
Freezers.
Yeah.
Not fridge.
There you go.
Um, so that one, which was just the standalone fridge freezer.
Sorry.
Um, 200 bucks off.
That is sold out.
Okay.
Um, and then the same thing with, uh, the 250 watt hour magnetic battery is also sold out.
Oh, okay.
Um, so the only options left are, uh, the freezer with, uh, $160 savings instead of $200
savings.
So MSRP on this freezer is only 800 bucks.
Yeah.
That's pretty good.
That's pretty good.
I'd to a clinic in a B there a thousand to plus $1,200, um, for their fridges, freezers.
Um, a lot of those are a lot of the ones that break the thousand mark though are a duel
zone.
That's fair.
Yeah.
This one's not a duel zone.
It's not a duel zone.
Um, so anyways, the single just the freezer alone with a hundred and $6 off, which is I
don't know I can't do that math in my head right now.
And then the next one, which is the freezer and battery again, just a less of a discount.
And then they have a battery by itself option too. So there's still space left in the kick
starters. So feel free and go over there. Oh, here's the timeline. Finally. It's all
at the bottom, of course. So they're looking at mid July, the first 350 units ship. And
then the July and August is the mass production and order fulfillment. So there you go. I'm
guessing it does still didn't say I'm guessing it'll just be live until they sell out all
of the spaces. Oh, maybe that'd be my guess on how they're going to work it.
Does it say how many spaces left are in each one? Or does it just say they're open? It
just says they're open. Yeah. I didn't say how much is left. I wonder if you click into
the next one. But besides that, we're super happy to work with IceCo free freezers, fridges,
and have them on board. That episode was really great. So if you go back to the list into
that episode, it was a lot of fun talking to David. And it was and yeah, so we'll get
to next week. We'll do the giveaway for the APL 20. And we also have a fun interview coming
up next week as well. Yeah. And that is with our going to be with our giveaway person for
this month, which is Wolfbox boxes. Yeah. Super excited for these. So these are pretty cool.
Obviously, Jimmy and I were on Trail Hero X. If you guys listened to all the Trail Hero
X episodes and the three and a half hour long recap, you'll learn about a little bit about
Wolfbox and our use that we used it and kind of coming to the product or the product coming
to us, I guess, um, out at Trail Hero X and how I, I just, I've known, I've only had
a rear view camera, rear view mirror camera in one car. Yes. And it's the Lexus. Okay.
And I hate it. Yeah. I do. I still don't like it. I like, I was driving the Lexus around
over the past couple of days being a single dad. And, um, I was like, I'm
going to flip on, turn on the rear view camera part of it. I, instead of a mirror, right?
Cause it's a dual mirror thing. You can do both. Yeah. Cool. Either
or. Um, and so, um, I turned it on. I was driving around. I was like, I hate this. I don't know
why I don't like it in the Lexus at all. Is it, is it because it's brighter? Maybe it
is real a lot brighter. And that's what's throwing me off. It's just, it's super distracting.
Um, every little thing that moves in the, the display on the screen, just immediately my
eyes dark to it. And I, it's really distracting and really annoying. My only other guess is
that it's not the camera is not the same as what the mirror is. And so it's not maybe,
I don't know how to say that. Like as things go past you in your peripheral vision, you
expect it to sort of hit the, the review mirror at a certain time and the camera is way off
or something. Maybe I don't, maybe I don't know. I don't, I think it's more to do with
the amount of brightness. Like I haven't found a way to turn down the brightness yet. And
I'm wondering if I can tone down the brightness a lot. If it'd be a lot less distracting.
Yeah. Um, but I really, really like the Wolfbox and Fiona. Right. Um, and I think one of the
things I really like about the Wolfbox is that you can adjust the, the camera, right?
Yes. So you can move the display. How do you move the video screen? Yeah. So what, the
way that that kind of works is it's shooting the camera is shooting like, let's just say
a standard TV frame, right? Nowadays it's 16 by nine. But the review mirror that there
or the can't the screen of the rear view mirror is just, is like 21. Yeah. Yeah. Or it's super
long and not very tall. Right. And so the thing is you can adjust where the portion of
this, that the video feed that you're seeing, you want to say, exactly. Yeah. So you can
scroll it up or scroll it down because it's, it's as wide as it's ever going to be, but
you can say, I want to see higher on the TV or I want to see lower on the TV. Yeah. And
you can adjust it that way, which is pretty cool. Cause I've seen people's videos where
they are looking out the back of their vehicle and they want to like their towing or whatever.
And they're like, I want to see how my trailer hitch is doing and they'll scan down and they
can look at the hitch receiver and be like, yeah, everything's still connected and working
good. And then they'll scroll back up to look at the boat or truck or whatever's behind them.
Yeah. So I like, I really like that functionality of it being able to scroll through the video
feed to adjust to the view that you want to view. The other thing I found that I really
appreciate about it is how wide of an angle the viewport is on the camera, right? Yeah. The
video feed coming through. So it's wide enough that as I can watch the car passing me in the
review mirror and by the time it is out of the view of the review mirror, it's like next
to my passenger door. And so essentially it's completely getting rid of blind spots.
And by review mirror, the one inside the cab because you took that, you took that out though.
I do not have a review mirror. Right. And so you mean when you drive past it and you're like
out of your peripheral vision. No, what's the car is passing me. The car is passing me.
I don't have to look in a blind spot. I don't have a blind spot because the wide angle of the
video shows the car all the way up until it's almost passed me. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So
like by the time the car is off of the video feed on the review mirror, the mirror review
the camera TV. Yeah. Yeah. The review TV, the Wolf box, the Wolf box. By the time the car is
out of the view of the Wolf box, it's like next to my passenger door. Oh, dang. So like, so if
you're in the middle lane and a car is in the fast lane and you see it coming up on you by the time
that it's beyond the screen on the Wolf box is pretty much it's past your blind spot. Yes. Point.
Yep. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. How does it do that? I don't know. I don't know, but I really appreciate that.
Yeah. Like I don't have to like turn and look over my shoulder to change lanes, worry about a blind
spot or anything. I can look in the review mirror and know if there's a car like in my blind spot
and I'm like, I don't understand how that physics works, but it does. So that's how wide of an angle it is.
So I've, and I've also really appreciated it on the trail because typically when I'm off-roading
and wheeling, we'll talk about this is when we talk about Rubathon a little bit later. I pack up the rear
of the SUV, right? Yeah. All the cargo area to the roof. That makes sense. Yeah. And so I can't see out the
back with a typical review mirror. And so with the Wolf box on it, I can see out the back and it was very
nice to do that because it made it tracking Lee behind me coming out Cadillac and throughout to Tehoma
made it very simple and very easy to do. Okay. So I really appreciated that aspect of it as well, being able to track
and see out behind me while my rig is while the vehicles. Yeah. And I've got a rooftop tent behind mine. So I did the
inside review mirror that I have is pointless. Yep. Yep. Yep. So I mean, there's a bunch of other features with the
Wolf box, which we'll dig into next week, but it's so far. I've been a big fan way bigger than I thought considering how
much I hate the one in the Lexus, the OEM rear view camera system in the Lexus. Yes. So yes, for sure. So this month we are
giving away a Wolf box. Do you know which one the model the G 900 T G 900 T. Yeah. So it's essentially the G G 900 with
three cameras, the triple camera. Oh, cool system. They're getting ready to launch a four camera system. I know that's nuts.
Yeah. And what's really interesting about the four camera system is that the rear view is going to be 4K just like the 3K, the
three camera system is a 4K camera. And then I believe the front camera built into the Wolf box display is also going to be 4K.
Okay. What's it now? I want to say it's 1080. Okay. Because I believe the rear and then the forward facing on the camera and the accessory
camera does is 1080. The rear is 4K. The others are 1080. And I think that the four camera system is going to have two 4K cameras and then
two 1080 cameras. Wow. Yeah. And that's the hardest thing. That's like, where am I going to put four cameras? Granted, one of them is built into
the review mirror. Yeah. Right. Forward facing on it. But then you have like, and then I have like, okay, I could put one on the front so I can see if I'm coming up on
things. I could put one on the rear as a reverse camera or backup camera or the mirror camera. Where the hell do you put another camera?
There's a couple different options. One is under the steering column looking back at you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. One is on the dashboard looking back at
you. Okay. With how wide angle those are, you could put it kind of centered and get the driver and passenger. Yeah, true. You could put one on the back of a headrest or on a headrest looking at a
review facing car seat so you can know what your rear facing infant or toddler is doing in their car seat. You just leave it roaming around and Velcro at tall kinds of
things. Yeah, you could, right? Just have these little patches of Velcro all throughout your car. Like, what are these for? Well, I just moved the camera around.
Move the camera around. Yeah. That'd be really cool if they did a wireless camera. Yeah. And you literally could just move it around whenever you wanted.
Just have it run a little magnet or whatever you're like, I want it up here. I want it down there. Yeah, you could put one down like watching the view of your, the front of your passenger
tire, your front passenger tire, because that's the one that people are most trouble with. Yeah. So I don't know. There's, I think there's a lot of options, but I don't know exactly which one I would choose.
They have four mobile cameras, not one, so five cameras total. So the one built into the rear view mirror and four additional ones and you put one on each tire. Yeah, that'd be crazy. Yeah.
Yeah. If it was wireless, you could put it on the tire. Like on the sidewall. Yeah. Well, I mean, or however you attach it to it and you just see it like boom.
That would be funny. Hey, alright. Well, box, we got some suggestions for you. We got some ideas coming to you guys. We'll write them all down and get them into email over there.
So anyways, yeah, this month of July, we have the G 900 T for giveaway for this month. We're also going to be doing a group by. Oh, so they've okayed a group by. So if anybody's interested in the group by, please reach out to us. We need your email address.
That's all we're asking for right now. And I need to look up. We have details on how the group buys working. We do. I just didn't come from the group.
We're prepared. The deal is going to be similar to what we've done in the past. Okay. For it's kind of like a tiered deal, right? The more people that sign up, the more of a discount we get.
And so what they're going to say they've agreed to is if we get 10 people in, it's 20 bucks off. Okay. We get 20 people in. That's $30 off each one. 30 people or more is $40 off and that's where it maxes out at.
So let's see the price, the retail price on a G 900 and are they all G 900s? That was my other question. We should have probably talked about this before. Yeah. For the for the group by it's the G 900 TP. So it's the same one we're doing for the giveaway this month, but they're also going to do a discount code
for the website. So if you wanted to get more stuff, you can. And yeah, that way. So or another version. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. And I believe I need to confirm this if the because they want to do the group buy as a discount code.
So essentially, once we collect everybody on the group by figure out how many people we got, they'll give us discount code for everyone to use and then we'll get that discount code out to everybody privately. It will not be announced. Yes.
That's the same more or less the same way that we did it with the Divos. Perfect. So yeah. And it looks like they have like automatic discounts already on the website. So I would imagine that they're letting those stack.
Oh, because the discount on the website is 20% off, which is more than the group by right now. Yeah. Okay. So right now on the website, the G 900 TP is $291. So that's 20% off. And I'm assuming we'll be able to stack that discount on there.
Otherwise, what's the point of doing a group buy at that price? We just take the 20% off on the website. So but there are 20% off right now. If you don't want to wait for the group by then you can go ahead and get it right now. So awesome.
There you go. Okay. Do we know what the discount code is? No, we'll figure that out and let everybody know. Add it to the show notes. All this information will be down there. Yeah. Well, the we're going to give everybody to the end of July to let us know if you want in for the group buy.
Once we get how many people are in because it's a tiered offer, right? We need to know how many people are in that's when we'll get the discount code for people. Yeah. But what if people want to buy something else? Then they just go to the website and buy something else.
Okay. There's not, we don't have a generic group buy or I mean a generic discount code for the listeners. Not yet. Okay. So we can work on one though. We'll work on that. Yeah. For sure. So yeah, a lot of stuff happening with Wolfbox this month. We'll try to make it all clear in the show notes and then we'll do the group buy information.
On the discord. If you're not on discord, you can email Tyler or I at Jimmy at snail trail four by four.com or Tyler at snail trail four by four.com. Let us know you're in and then on the back end of discord. Tyler and I keep track of all the people that are submitting things.
I guess you could also let us know if you want more than one. Yeah. If that's if that's a thing. If you have more than one vehicle, I mean, I would love to put one of these in every vehicle I own. And I'm definitely going to be putting one in the mini assistance vehicle.
The big one that I'm excited for is getting one for the Dooley and the Lance. Yes. Cause there you can't see anything out of the back of the Lance, right? So getting a camera up on the back of the Lance that connects to a review mirror, quote unquote, inside the truck that I think what I'm ended up doing is having the review camera and then an accessory camera.
Put the accessory camera on the back of the Dooley, like on the bumper or something around the hitch. Okay. And then put the review camera on the Lance on a bulkhead fitting of some sort, a quick disconnect. That way when the Lance isn't on, I still have the review out of the back of the truck.
Right. Yeah. I was like, but you once you put the tailgate back on, you have the camera, but you have a different screen then you have the different review camera.
Yeah. Well, the, the rear view mirror on the Dooley is not a camera system. Sure. It goes to the screw. It goes to the infotainment center goes to infotainment center, but you can't pull up the review camera while you're driving. Yeah.
So, okay. I guess you could. There's a button for it, but it's I'd rather see what music I have playing. Yeah. Yeah. Then watch that. But the nice thing is, is that with the accessory camera on the bumper, I'll be able to check on the hitch and trailer setup stuff.
Yeah. And I'm definitely looking forward to putting one on to Kermit for sure because there's no review camera set up in that vehicle.
Bobcat. Huh? Bobcat. He said Kermit. Did I say Kermit? Yeah. I was like, hold on. Wait a minute. Well, Kermit needs one as well. Yeah. Did I say Kermit? I'm pretty sure.
Clifford. Okay. Out of all of them. Yeah. But yeah. Bobcat too. Bobcat doesn't have a review camera, but Clifford for sure. Just and mainly primarily for backing up to hook up to a trailer. Okay. Yeah.
Because that is probably, I have to hop out 23 times to make sure it's aligned. I'm pretty good at lining it up, but it's a matter of the depth and backing up to the right spot.
Depth is a big issue for me too. Oh yeah. So I'm probably going to be in this group by for sure. And then, yeah, we'll see. However, many people we can get into it. They're really cool things.
We'll definitely going to have Wolfbox on to talk more about it and hopefully promote it some more for you guys. And I'm sure you've seen them online quite a bit already as well. So yeah, super excited for it.
Yep. Cool. So that's coming in July. If you guys want to get signed up for that, make sure you're signed up by the end of July. If you want to get in for the group by make sure you reach out to us. Let us know. The best way to do that is through the discord, but there's lots of different ways for you guys to do that. Just do it somehow.
Get in touch with us. If you want to get signed up through the end of July for the giveaway stuff, I fixed the discord. Yes, I know. It's working now.
I had a listener reach out say, Hey, I want to change tiers. Okay. They wanted to get off of the bring, give pay a coffee or give us a coffee and they wanted to move up and they said, How should I do it? Should I go over at irate or go over to the discord? And me not setting any of the discord stuff up and their contact me. I said, Let's do the discord thing. I need to learn.
I need to learn how to do this. And two, let's see how the process is. And I get a message back. All right, I'm done. Did it.
So, yeah, we got a, we got it. It's working. Yeah. It's working. They signed up on the giveaway tier as an annual subscription. So it worked out fine.
Awesome. Yeah. So that's there. It's literally just on the giveaway. Instead of putting in separate threads, I just put it onto that channel. And then I have the threads still available, but they're hidden to everybody, but Jimmy and me.
So that when the gift box tier opens up, I can very easily and quickly copy over the URL and put it back into put it into the chat channel. Once the gift box opens up in April and October.
So everything is in that one chat channel. I think I've it locked so nobody can message or leave a comment or anything in that channel. It's just the initial post with the information, the URLs to click on to sign up for that tier.
Right. So that's all running. It should be all operational for everybody out there. You can still go to irate four by four and sign up that way too. Just more options for however you guys want to work it.
So let's see what else makes you guys signed up by the end of July, which is July 31st, I believe just 31 days in July. I don't know if it's up my head.
We need to flip that calendar. Let's see what else do we got going on? We got giveaway for reviews. I have not checked reviews. We'll do those when we do FNGs and birthdays next Thursday and announce the winner for the APL 20 from June from Iscope.
And sorry, I was there was a fly coming at me. So like high five. What are we doing here? I was like a fruit fly or something coming out. I was like, Hey, I'm trying to hit the calendar up there. Yeah.
Now he got me last row. That's how I talk about reviews.
We don't know what the count is, but I'm assuming we've crested 800.
I'm a so we were pretty damn close last time we were talking about it. So I were probably there. So if you guys did not get a review in before we hit 800.
Sorry, too bad. So sad. Get signed up. So you get in for the eight 50 now. So if there is still a couple spaces, go and make sure you leave a review.
You're there. You might have still be able to get in. I don't know. We haven't checked it. Right. And we're making shit up as we go. So yeah, pretty much.
But for 800, if we don't, since we don't know for there yet or not, we're giving away an on ex elite membership. Once we get to 850 reviews, we're giving away another on ex elite membership.
And when we get to 900 reviews, we're giving away $900 of more flight gear. And I'll have to tell you, Tyler let one of the secret items slip the other day.
On here. Nope.
To you. To me in person. That's right. In the lobby. And I'm excited for it. It's going to be rad. And you guys are going to be super excited for it when it actually comes out.
So I think it's going to be a big hit. It's at it's at it's something that a ton of people use more than our current more flight gear.
And it's at a price point that just makes sense to have. Yes. So I think it's going to do really, really well. And they're almost done. Yeah. So, yep. Super excited for those.
It is something I maybe I shouldn't admit this, but it is something that I've been thinking about getting anyway. Okay.
As a another alternative to what more flight does. It's a small enough packaging. Giggity small enough package where it's a really nice safety serves as a safety backup.
A redundancy plan, I guess, without taking up a lot of space in the vehicle at all. Sure. So yeah, for sure.
And that will be included in the 900 review giveaway. Once we get to that along with a whole bunch of other things that are coming out from more flight.
And the other one that is currently out that it will be included is the new braided hoses quad kits or whatever kind of size that you're interested in having.
But yeah, I got my hands on those quite a bit this last week. And they're really nice. Yeah. Yeah, they're sweet.
All right. Cool. So yeah, now I've got, I'm like, how much do I want to say? I'm not going to say anything. No, you can't say more. Okay.
Can't say anything else. No, there's a couple of items that are getting ready to launch right now. One item, all three, I guess three items are very close to launching.
And then we've still have the really, really big item coming in Q4. Nice.
Yep. Well, that's good. Yeah, we're about 30 minutes into this thing already. So why don't we jump over to what the hell we've been up to?
That sounds good to me. Let's let's move along here. We'll take a quick break and we'll be right on back with the stories from the Rubicon.
Are you stuck inside? Are you not sure where you want to go to explore? We'll open the Onyx off-road app.
It shows you all the trails around you and it tells you their difficulty. Now you can quickly search out your next adventure or plan your next trip.
Download Onyx off-road from the app store. Onyx off-road built for the adventurer.
Welcome back ladies and germs. This is Thursday. Happy Thursday, July 2nd for everybody out there.
Episode 721 where we get to talk about Rubathon and all the shenanigans that happened out on the Rubicon trail during the Toyota Land Cruiser Association's Rubathon event.
This is one of the events that I've come to look forward to every year. It's on a trail that I absolutely love being on in a place that I absolutely love camping in down at Rubicon Springs.
It's kind of weird because it's a Northern California event. The group that we go and do this event with typically is a group of Northern California off-roaders that loves the Rubicon trail.
I really only ever see them on this event.
It's like Brian Flynn. I only ever see him when we're out at Cruise Moab. He lives like 10 minutes from me.
I didn't even see him on Rubicon this time. I saw him a few times this trip.
Nice. Great dude. I love Brian. That's tour guide taco for everybody out there.
I love the group of people that we go and hang out with. It's just a good group of people. I love the trail. place that we camp at.
But I really look forward to hanging out with and catching up with these guys during this trip.
They're a lot of fun.
The run that we typically go on is called the four runner run.
But when I originally signed up on this run 4345 years ago, whatever it is, wasn't it the four runner mini truck run?
It was.
So they've divided it now.
Have they?
Yeah, because there's a mini truck run.
There is a mini truck run.
I wasn't sure if they actually stayed and kept through with that or not.
So yeah. So we went, I was a part of the four runner run and you camped with us in the four runner run group.
And there was a mini truck run also.
And there was not a single mini truck on the mini truck.
What vehicles are on the mini truck?
The plethora of everything else.
Yeah. Somebody, I think somebody said that that's a mini truck. It's that little red thing.
And I'm like, no, that's just a four runner with its top off.
Nice. Yeah.
But I thought that was funny.
But yeah, it's, I mean, it is a great group of guys from all over Northern California, from the Bay Area up to like probably people closer to the Rubicon than we are, you know, and it's and they're all experienced wheelers.
It's a, and it's that's one of the great things about it is that I think everybody that because I was at the meeting then and everybody had run the Rubicon.
Before. Yeah.
Right. And so they all have built rigs. They've all kind of know the lines. They all know their vehicle.
And so this run, it goes from Loon Lake all the way to the Springs in one day.
And it's not a run typically that is dragging your feet, going slow, you know, taking their time.
They're all like, and Scott, who's the leader, he makes an announcement at the very beginning of the run during the very first meeting.
He says, I lead this run as if I expect you to be able to do the lines and do things yourself.
And I don't hop out and ask if you want help unless you ask me to help you.
If you want guidance or you want, like, you know, directions on an obstacle or whatever it is, I will give you a hand.
Yeah.
But I'm, but you have to ask for it.
Yeah.
I'm not out on every obstacle telling you how to get up.
Yeah.
And I think that's, that's awesome.
That's, that's the run I want to be on.
That's exactly.
I agree.
So, but we're getting a little ahead of ourselves because I mean, we can, do we want to talk about leading up to the Rubicon or anything coming up?
I didn't have much going on leading up to it.
Okay.
There's some things that need to happen on Fiona, but the last thing I got done with Fiona was the rear swing out.
Yeah.
So that got finished a couple of days before leaving on out to Rubathon.
And so it was nice to kind of have that done and not digging into the rear hatch anymore.
And then be able to load up the rear swing out so that I can really test it on the trail and see if it's going to stay away from the hatch.
If it's going to bounce around, hold, however, it got done, right?
So Brad, hot battle fab is the one that helped redo the rear swing out, set up the Molly panel on it, finished the,
that up finally. So the rear swing out is now kind of at the spot where my brain was envisioning it to begin with.
And it's all kind of done now for the, from the fabrication side of stuff.
And so he moved it out away from the cab two inches, the spindle, the spindle.
So which is the pivot point that the whole swing out sits on, right?
Right.
Moved that away from the body of the truck two inches.
Yeah.
And he said he gained an inch of clearance away from the body.
Wow.
So that's how much the fucking roto packs were digging into.
So there was an inch.
Negative an inch.
Negative an inch of pressure.
Yeah.
Wow.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
And it looks good.
I mean, it still looks like it should be.
I mean, it looks, it looks fantastic.
And I think Brad did a very good job of modifying something that's preexisting.
Yep.
And still making it look like it should have been there.
That's how it was designed.
Yeah.
So he also added a little bit of preload into the swing out in terms of vertical preload.
Oh, what's that?
So that that way.
So if you put the, if you make a swing out such that when you build it so it's a level
when it's in its cradle or latch, latching position, when you load up everything now,
it's going to bend down a little bit just from leverage.
So you end up almost having to lift up the swing out as you put it into its latch cradle
position.
Right.
So he added some preload vertically upwards in it so that once it's all loaded down and
it kind of wears in, then as you swing it in, it should land in the latch rather than
having to lift it up as you, a lot of swing outs you have to do.
Oh man.
I wonder how his brain figured all that out.
Brad is an amazing brain.
Yeah.
That's like how much weight is going to be on here?
How much stuff is he going to load on here?
How many, how far, what degree angle do I need to lift this thing so that when all that
weight's on there, it's going to bend it appropriately.
Yep.
Okay.
Thanks.
Thanks Brad for being Brad.
Exactly.
Right.
Empty.
I definitely need to have two hands to push it down a little bit and get it into position.
Right.
But fully loaded up when the swing out's fully loaded, it's really not bad.
I can almost get it with one hand.
Okay.
I do have to like grab the latch handle and kind of push down and then pull the latch up
with my thumb.
Yeah.
In order to get it to lock in there.
But it's, I was impressed with thinking that far through the process and planning for that.
So yeah, it's great though.
I used it all weekend.
I was able now to put the axes.
Yeah.
I'm going to go outside the video.
So yeah, it turned out really good.
With, you know, going and camping, like you can use a felling axe to split wood for a
campfire, but it sucks.
Yeah.
It's definitely not super efficient.
You end up having to take two or three wax at the rounds in order to get them to split
into campfire wood, quite quote unquote.
So I love having the splitter when I go camping.
Sure.
It's super easy and quick to create a campfire wood, right?
That'll burn good and efficiently and not just kind of smolder for a long time.
So the splitter is there, but then like using a splitter to do felling really sucks because
they're fucking heavy.
Yes.
It's like, you just don't want to be swinging that over and over to hammer in wedges.
A lot of times you need more of a chopping than a splitting when you're doing a fell from
felling of a felling axe.
So you kind of, I've found that I really need both axes when I go out wheeling and camping.
And I hate having to carry both axes inside the cargo area because they're awkwardly shaped.
They're a little heavy.
They're sharp.
Yep.
And so having them on the outside of the vehicle with the chainsaw, with the fuel, with all
the vehicle fluids is a really, really nice feature.
And they stayed nice and secure.
They never moved to the whole weekend.
Nice.
Good.
So I was curious how the bungee elastic things hold up.
I was curious how those were going to work too.
I really wanted like a solid billet thing to hold everything in.
Now that I've kind of gotten to use those little bungee mechanisms, I like those better
because they hold everything in tensioned rather than like a billet thing.
You can't, you're not going to have the tension in on unless it's custom made.
Yeah, exactly.
I've custom made.
I didn't want to pay for and make a custom made thing for it.
So it's twice the price of your axe.
Exactly.
Right.
Her holder.
Yeah.
So those little bungee things are great.
They are, I think 20 bucks for two of them.
Wow.
I got the four of them for 40 bucks and they are set up to flange to a Mali panel system.
They also have a bolt that goes through so you can put it and bolt it into something,
whatever.
So I'm pretty happy with those.
They turned out really good and they hold the axes steady.
The axes never moved as far as I know throughout the whole weekend.
Cool.
And they turned out, it's turned out really good.
So yeah.
Yeah.
I was pretty much alluding to the fact that prime day happened and you were supposed to
be leaving and meet up with us at the trailhead, but because you guys got slammed and you
had some of your employees out at different events.
Yeah.
Tyler actually had to work.
Yeah.
I had to go and stay in and help get orders out the door.
So I was in production.
He had to go to production and use his hands.
Yep.
Not his brain.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Tyler actually was delayed a day.
I was.
So he was supposed to meet up with us at Lune at 7am.
Thursday.
Yeah.
On Thursday, but actually ended up wheeling in down Cadillac on Friday.
Yep.
So I planned change.
I didn't go all the way through the trail, which I was still going to come through with
the trail because I got a phone call on Thursday saying that somebody needed an FJ 40 rear axle
shaft for a semi-float FJ 40 30 spline short side.
Correct.
And so I went and found one and it was at the Spider Lakes parts cabinet.
Yeah.
RTF parts.
Can we talk about that for a quick sec?
Yeah.
We've talked about it before, but if you guys have any old used that are still good pieces
of your truck laying around truck, Jeep, whatever it is, donate it to the RTF property, the
RTF company because they have storage lockers kind of hidden throughout the trail.
I guess there's like only two.
There's two.
Yeah.
And they store a bunch of parts there.
So when somebody breaks on the trail, they go through the storage locker, see if they
have it.
And then it's right there.
It's just you kind of, you need to go get it.
You need to walk there or somebody drive you there to go grab it.
And then you have your spare part or your replacement part right there.
So it's really a cool thing that they, I think they sell it as like normal price.
It a new item is like if RTF had to purchase the item from Napa or whatever, they sell
it for retail plus, I think 10 or 15% markup and that 10 to 15% is goes into a donation
to RTF.
Right.
It's not like going to somebody's pocket.
It's going right into a donation for the trail.
But if it's a used part or a used part, they do mark it down below retail pricing.
I'm not sure what percentage.
I'm sure they have a scale based on how good of a part it is.
In what condition it's in, but yeah.
But my point is that if it's brand new, somebody bought it, they mark it up a little bit and
give a donation.
If it's donated to them, they still sell it, but that money is a donation to RTF.
They don't like it's not any, it's not going back to any individual or anything.
It's just going back to RTF so that it can continue to do good stuff for the trail, which
is a really cool program.
So if you have any used stuff laying around, donated to RTF so that they can sell it on
the trail, use it on the trail, help somebody out on the trail, help them get off the trail.
And then the money that comes around to that just goes right back to RTF.
We were out on the trail.
Well, let me back up a little bit because you're jumping hand to Friday and I still have Thursday
to talk about, which Thursday wasn't too crazy.
I woke up at a reasonable, an early hour for me, but a decent time.
Got on the road about a little bit before five in the morning, had to stop off and get
some gas.
I drove up to Georgetown, got gas, drove up.
I drove Bobcat on the road and went up, went and wore springs, drove out.
I messaged Nick DeLuca, gladiator on 28th.
I messaged Nick when I was leaving the gas station at Georgetown and I said, leaving
Georgetown and he said, I'm just arriving at Fresh Pond.
And I was like, okay, I know it's about an hour or so for me to get to Lune from Georgetown,
kind of Uncle Tom range.
I think it's 45 minutes on Uncle Tom's in like an hour plus from Georgetown.
So like we're right about the same schedule.
And it's about an hour plus from Fresh Pond.
It's about an hour 15 from Fresh Pond to Lune Lake to this billway.
And it's about an hour from the Whartons in Georgetown to Lune Lake's billway.
So I putted like I just, I wasn't full.
I was just cruising, you know, there was some of the really big hills.
I was like, okay, I'm just going to go for low.
Yeah, I'm just going to low, low, crawl up this hill.
No, you know, I just wasn't flying.
I wasn't trying to get there fast.
I was just putting along.
And so I pulled off at the last like sort of corner on ice.
I think it's on, is it still Wentworth Springs there?
The last corner where you can get cell reception before you turn up to Lune.
The cell phone corner.
Yeah, that's ice house road.
Ice house road.
Yeah, when Springs goes up to airport flat.
Right.
So, okay.
So I was on ice house road on the cell phone corner there.
And I was downloading some music because I got my new phone and it didn't have any
of my music downloaded to it.
And I was sending a message to the assistant saying I'm at like last place.
I'm really going to have cell phone reception, you know, have a good day.
I love you.
All that jazzy stuff.
And Nick passed me right there.
And so that's how close we were.
Yeah, and then I got a message.
I didn't ever checked it, but I got a message from him later because
Lee, I met up with Lee and Lee has Starlink.
And it was like, are you OK?
We just passed you.
I waved and you didn't do anything.
And we were out on the trail and I was with Nick.
I was like, yeah, I'm fine.
Why do you ask?
You know, like, oh, no, that was from hours ago.
So anyways, you downloaded a little bit of music, wheeled in or drove into the
spillway, met up with everybody.
I pulled all the way ahead, kind of farther up past the kiosk kind of area
and parked just to kind of be out of the way.
And then Scott wheeled in and he pulled up right in front of me.
And then I was talking to Scott, who's leading the four run around and he was
like, I'm like, hey, I'm not like part of your run.
Like I never signed up for your run, but I just wanted to cruise with you guys.
I'll just be behind, like behind whoever's anchor or caboose or whatever.
And just put along.
He's like, yeah, man, you can come in, do whatever.
Like you're good.
Like we don't have to worry about you.
Metal Cloak was out there.
They had a booth at staging and they're giving out coffee and some like
Danish's nice and talking to people.
And they had their fourth gen Tacoma out there.
With their links and things and control arms and all the stuff that they're
doing for the fortune Tacoma.
I didn't realize they were going in deep on the fortune to come.
They're trying to make a splash in the Toyota market, I think.
Yep.
So if you guys have a fourth gen Tacoma and you're thinking about doing a
lift of some sort, go check out Metal Cloak.
They do some fantastic stuff.
So it was great to talk to, I think it was Chris was out there and then they had,
there's some other guys who are listeners of the podcast.
Sorry, I forgot your guys's names.
Should write some of this down.
I'm really bad at writing this stuff down.
That we're helping TLCA Rubathon and their handout pamphlets and things
right at the Kiosk.
So then Scott did his old talk about, you know, here's how the run's going to go
and blah, blah, blah.
Let's get ready to go.
So then I walked up and wrapped up my Morph Lake gear and threw it in the back
of the truck and he's like, Jimmy, you ready?
I'm like, yeah, I'm just going to be in the back.
He's like, no, just follow me.
Let's go.
Like, all right.
So I left the Kiosk, wheeled up the hill, wheeled down the hill, started to go
through some of the rocky sections on the other side.
And then there's this like really nice tree camping area.
And Scott from portal pose was there.
Pulled off and said, I'll catch up later.
It went and talked to Scott for a while.
Yeah.
Talked to him for a little bit until I really didn't hear any motors revving.
And then I was like, well, it sounds like they're through gatekeeper.
So I'm going to take off and then I went up to gatekeeper and there was Ken.
He has a first gen four runner, an 85 four runner, a really clean build.
He's the original owner.
And then there was Steve from power tanks there.
And they were both working their way through gatekeeper.
And then I came up and potted right through it with them.
So that worked out perfect timing.
He's like, I delayed by talking and having a good time talking to Scott and then
wheeled on.
And so he was on the mini truck run.
Oh, OK.
And he here's he was funny because he said the four runner runs sounds like the
people that don't mind waking up early.
The mini truck run sounds like the lazy people that just want to get a little
later start because they both go from the spillway to the spring.
So one day truck is supposed to start, I think, like an hour later.
Something that was nine.
Oh, that much later.
Yeah.
OK, like an hour and a half, two hours.
Yeah.
And so it's just the people that want to sleep in a little more get to do the
mini truck run.
So be me.
Yep.
Yeah.
So that was kind of funny.
So no real problems wheeling in somewhere.
I picked up Davis, who's one of the media guys from power tank, and he rode
passenger for a little while.
And then we caught back up to people and he jumped out and jumped into one of
the power tank rigs.
And yeah, we had it.
It was a pretty uneventful drive in for the most part.
When we got to Little Sleuths, I threw on the more flight trash bag.
Oh, I went through Little Sleuths.
I did.
I did the box.
Nobody did the box.
There was one guy that sort of started and then he got off camera and then
yeah, and then backed up and went to the right up the up the ledge there.
The bail out.
Yeah, the bail out.
And everybody went up the bail out for the most part, except for power tank,
Steve.
OK.
And then they ate lunch right there on the slide.
OK.
And I went through Little S the box and ate lunch in front of them.
OK.
Yeah.
And so took my power tank bag off through or maybe my more flight bag,
trash bag, put it on the rig, ate lunch, threw all the stuff away.
I realized at that point that I was leaking a little bit of power steering fluid.
Not very bad, but it was still leaking.
So I was like, well, and it was when we got back, right?
I like made my lunch.
I went up to talk to everybody hung out there.
They're like, OK, let's go.
And when I went to hop in, I was like, there's a puddle of something
like a little bit of a puddle on the ground.
And so I was like, what is that?
So then I looked into it and it was the power steering fluid.
And so I was like, OK.
Where was it leaking from?
At that point, I didn't know.
OK.
And so I was like, well, we're going to get to Bach and we're going to take a
positive buck, so I will deal with it then.
OK.
And so I wheeled on and I was almost to the bottom of little
of Indian Trail and my power steering was whining like crazy.
Like it was out of fluid.
OK.
So I was like, hey, I'm going to pause.
I need to my power steering is low.
I need to top it off.
So I hopped out and looked in my power in my fluids box and I don't have any
ATF or power steering for that matter.
OK.
But I use ATF throughout the system.
I didn't have any ATF.
I'm like, what the heck?
So I radioed the minivan on 28th Gladiator Nick.
And I was like, hey, Nick, you got any power steering for, I mean, ATF,
because I don't and I need to put some in my rig.
And he's like, you have a manual.
And I'm like, no, it's for my power steering.
And he's like, oh, I do.
Hold on.
And he's like, OK, well, where are you?
And I was like, I'm coming down Indian Trail.
And he's like, oh, well, and they were like at that.
They were a little ways ahead.
And I was like, it's winding really bad.
Do you think you can like huff it up here?
He's like, yeah, I'll come right now.
And they come him and one of his kiddos come running up the hill.
And I was like, what are you doing?
Like, you don't need to run up the hill.
And so, yeah, they came up.
I topped it off.
It's still wind, but that radio dynamics reservoir pulls all those bubbles out so fast.
So I wasn't too concerned about it.
So I filled that thing up through the top on.
And I kept the bottle in case I was going to need it later.
So was it empty then?
It was completely empty.
Really? Yeah.
And so while we were doing that, because it fully was so empty,
I was like, we need to figure out what's going on with this.
And the very top nut, the preload nut on with the one that has the screw top,
the very center top nut on this power steering box on the box.
OK, yeah, yeah, OK.
Was loose, very loose.
Lee had that happen in Big Suisse a couple of years ago.
Yeah. OK.
OK. And so one thing that's kind of funny is because I have a redhead box
and redhead boxes say, don't touch this nut.
Yeah. No matter what you do, don't adjust it.
Yeah. Right.
They're very picky about that.
They're very picky about the preload.
They don't want people tightening or changing the preload.
Yeah.
But this is now the second time that bolt has come loose.
Really?
It came loose on the snow run.
Remember, we tightened it on the snow run.
Yeah.
And and now it came loose again.
And so this time, I mean, I gave Nick a screwdriver and I said, hold it as straight
as you can and where in the position is that?
I'm assuming it's roughly in the same position it is.
It might have moved.
But I cranked it down this time.
OK. So yeah, I tightened it a lot and it didn't appear to be leaking
any more sense on the rest of the trip and the and fast forward a little bit.
The reservoir did go down a little ways and I topped it off at camp again,
but doesn't seem to be going down ever since then.
So and that was it for the most part.
So we drove drove to Buck and the game plan was to meet up with Lee and Delta
Dave at Buck and spend time with them because they were making tacos at
Buck Island for everybody that was running a part of the TLCA Rubathon.
So hung out with them the rest of the night.
Scott from Portal Pros came wheeling up with the mini truck run and he's like,
what are you guys doing?
And I'm like, well, we're spending the night here.
Our group went on.
Nick also stayed with Lee and Scott decided to stay with us and you ditched
his run and then some other group that was part of the breakfast run
decided that they were always camping at Buck, but they decided to camp with us
and not with the rest of the breakfast run. OK. Yeah.
And mainly because they knew Scott.
Yeah. And so it was a Ford Fusion.
A Ford Fusion. No, it was.
I forget.
There was a it was a group of guys that are down in like San Jose that have
a shop and they do builds. OK. And I forgot.
I'm sorry, guys. I forgot what it was called.
Anyway, so we hung out there all night.
We went swimming at Buck.
We hung out.
We had a fire because fire restrictions aren't up yet.
You can have a fire time.
They were not. Are they already?
Oh, wow. So in 30th, they went live.
Went live. Yeah.
So yeah.
So we snuck in and had a we're able to have a fire legally have a fire.
And yeah, just hung out all night.
Just chilled, relaxed.
It was pretty low key night.
That while I was at Buck, though, I realized I lost my more
flay trash bags somewhere on the trail.
Well, we have more. You can know.
But mine was the OG like
green and white one.
Yeah, you had the sample of OK, the one I know I'm pissed.
Well, I like it because it wasn't.
I love more flay. I love everything you do.
But it wasn't so in your face about that it's an MF or bag.
Yeah, it was subtle.
Subtle, yeah. And and so I'd like to be able to support.
I mean, it was still the neon green bag.
Yeah. If anybody saw it, they probably knew what it was
without needing the logo.
But the logo was still on there, but it was subtly on there.
So I kind of like that.
I like things like that. I don't know why. OK.
Even like when I put the damn snail trail, four by four stickers on my rig.
I'm like, it's way too bold. I love it.
You know, I'm like, I want something subtle.
I like it. Subtle.
Like I want I wanted you to look at and be like, oh,
there's a design on there or whatever.
But somewhere between.
Bold in your face.
Somewhere between a little sloose and
a buck, I lost the damn trash bag.
Oh, I put my trash in the trash bag and then I dropped the trash bag
somewhere on the damn trail. Yeah, I'm pissed.
Well, two reasons I'm pissed that because I lost that cool bag.
That are that rad bag that was a one of a kind.
I think there was a few made.
I don't know.
That might have been like two or three.
But yeah, it's like one or three or something.
Second reason is I'm pissed is because I put I trashed
the drop trash on the river gun.
So hopefully somebody found it.
Hopefully somebody picked it up and is using the bag and the trash out.
Yeah, so that it was a great night.
We are game plan was to wake up fairly early to try and beat everybody
out of buck and not get stuck behind anybody.
We were pretty deep. We're a pretty decent wheeling group.
And so that was the sort of the plan and we packed like our game plan
was to be out of there at nine and all of us were up early, like with the sun.
And we it was like eight o'clock and we're kind of like looking around
and we're like, are we almost all ready?
And they were like, yeah.
And so it was like 8830
I think we started wheeling out.
And that we were sort of waiting for that.
The those group of guys that run the shop and they were like, no, we don't want to
like, we're going to take our time this morning.
We're going to leave when we leave.
And then we're like, OK, let's go.
And so we will we were camped right by the dam.
So we wheeled over the dam.
Went. Did you see the bats in the rock?
No. So that big ass rock that's right there,
you kind of have to go around it before you hit the dam and go over. Yeah.
There's a big ass crack going through the center of it.
Oh, really?
Inside that crack.
A lot of times you can find some bats. Oh, cool.
Yeah, especially during daytime, they kind of just huddle in there.
I was walking around that rock one time and heard these tiny little
Yeah, I was like, what the fuck is that noise?
Yeah, I was like looking around me.
I couldn't find it in my bedroom. Oh, nice.
Yeah.
So, yeah, and I looked down, there was like 20 bats in that crack.
And I'm like, these things are so fucking cute.
Yeah, they are. So until they have rabies and by chance.
But I think that's one of those things that's like somebody
somewhere, you know, like they all don't have rabies, but just better safe than
sorry. Yeah.
So they blocked they've done RTF or somebody has done a lot of work on the
Rubicon. OK, they blocked.
So whatever that steep, smooth rock is, right as you're driving out of buck,
they like I always go up and then there is a roundabout.
They dropped like three or four trees on the roundabout.
Everybody has to go up the smooth rock.
Really? Yeah. Interesting.
Yeah. OK.
They made that.
Oh, that is now the dedicated route.
OK. Lee was going up that.
So I went up that I wheeled on.
I went tried to go up my normal line on tree line and I got denied.
And so then I went to the farther right side of tree line where most everybody
goes and walked up that.
And then I wheeled on up towards the next little ramp.
And Scott was going up from Portal Pros was going up the tree line.
And I go, where's everybody else?
Where are they? And so I'm like looking.
And then I think Nick ends up coming.
He's like, thanks for waiting for us.
I'm like, what happened?
He said, Lee was going up that ramp rock and his swing out opened up
and he couldn't make it up and he came back and he landed on his swing out.
So he couldn't reverse and he couldn't go forward.
Because he was just stuck there.
And I think it reminds me of me and Moab on
why don't remember what run it was, what there's metal masher.
There's that big, just long ledge and there's like four different lines.
You can go up and I picked the second or third one to go up.
And I tried to go up my rear bumper caught on the background as I was going up.
And I was like, oh, well, I can't go forward and I can't go back.
Yeah. Which before pretty much same thing.
Yeah. So I think Lisa was driving the gladiator at that time.
So I think she backed up and Lee went to her.
They got they pulled him forward, I think, so they could shut the swing out
so that he could go backwards or they did something like that.
But at that same time, we've realized that Scott bent one of his
his lower links on hit the four link of the GX, the rear on the rear.
And it like just bent it way.
Actually, I think it was bent down.
Interesting. Yeah.
I'm not quite sure how it all happened.
But he said that he did that yesterday and they solve.
He knew how to solve it and they welded some plate on it yesterday.
And so it happened again that day Friday.
And so he put this, he put a jack underneath it.
And then they like got on the rig and they like jumped on the rig
to compress it against the jack and to straighten it up.
And it didn't that kind of worked.
But then Nick brought out his like Humvee scissor lift jack
and more or less lift the vehicle up and then they got on it
and kind of bounced on it and straightened it way out.
And then we tried to weld more plate onto it.
And then I think that was when Nick's
I think Nick's carnage welder died.
OK. And then
at that point, we're like, well, let's just take the link off
because then Lee pulled out his carnage welder.
And so then we started welding more on it with the link out of the vehicle.
And then Lee's carnage welder died.
OK. And we're like, OK, I guess that's it.
And then by that time, that other group, the other shop group
caught up to us and they were like, we have a carnage welder.
So we got on to our third carnage welder
and welded that up.
So my PSA is make sure your damn carnage welders are fully charged
because these ones weren't.
That's why. Yeah.
It was like, normally you get like 30 minutes a runtime.
It's 15 to 20, 15 to 20 trigger time.
Yeah. Yeah. Which is quite a bit of welding, which is quite a bit of welding.
And we I think the the shop, yeah, has had theirs fully welded.
But Lee and Nick did not.
Mine was fully charged. Yeah.
Thanks for helping us out. Any time.
So by that time, everybody had caught up with us.
A few few the breakfast crew had gone in front of us.
Like we spent some time trying to fix this rig, so we didn't have a problem again.
And so when we took off, now we were in the thick of it.
We were stuck with everybody.
So when we got to Kaufman's corner, Nick calls it Bullshit Corner.
Yeah.
Which is the fun little sharp corner as you're leaving Buck.
All the like 40s and 60s and stuff were stuck in that.
And so we got stuck there and then we let them through like we got through.
And then we stopped at the margarita tree and just regrouped
and hung out there for a little bit.
And then when we got down to the squeeze on Big Sluce,
they're all in there.
And then when we got through that, sawtooth.
And then there's I don't know what the obstacles name is,
but they're sort of like this right hand turn with these rocks
that you have to kind of go on a really tight, really tight right hand turn.
And then there's you have to either I have to do a three point turn
to drop off a ledge that would go driver side down to lateral ledge
in the middle of the trail.
Or you can do a wide swing and there's a V notch that you can go down.
Right as we got there, about 15 Auburn Jeep Club members
were coming up the trail or down whatever way you want to say it.
OK, so the Auburn Jeep Club.
I know where this is going.
Yeah.
And so there was all the there was the breakfast crew group
of like eight rigs in front of us.
There was our group, which was like three, which was five rigs, I think total.
And your group, because you were no longer with the four runner run.
Correct. Yeah. OK.
And yeah, it was Lee, Nick, me, Scott.
No, Scott went on. OK.
There was who there was you mess me up.
There was Lee, Nick, me.
Oh, sorry. I was wrong, Scott.
I was thinking of first jet and four runner Scott Wilson.
There was Scott Portal pros.
And then there was it was another one.
And I can't I'm totally blanking on who that was.
Oh, there was Brian.
He has like a 79 series.
Land Cruiser. Cool. OK.
So there was five of us.
And then there was the other group and I'm like, what the fuck?
Like, so there's OK.
So there's eight roughly eight rigs in the breakfast crew, five in your crew.
And you were still around the forties as well.
That that was the other breakfast crew.
Oh, they were the breakfast for the 40. OK.
And so another group behind you.
So and then the fusion group.
And then eventually there was the 74 Weld group back there.
So we had on Rubathon coming down through that section at that time.
20 to 30 vehicles. Yeah.
And they there's an AJC group coming in opposite traffic flow of Rubathon.
And they know Rubathon's going on this weekend. Yes, they do.
I know they know it.
So so the Auburn Jeep Club decided to run.
Yeah, backwards.
What I would consider backwards on trail backwards to the flow out of of an event
of an event weekend on trail on a Toyota event
when the Auburn Jeep Club wants to go on the trail.
And they were going to their property at Ellis Creek,
at near Ellis Creek all the way across trail.
Yep. And I'm just like the opposite end of the trail.
Yeah. What the fuck are you guys doing?
Why are you out here?
Like, you know, why are you doing this?
Yeah, like, you know, an event is going on.
Yeah. You know that everybody is going to the Rubicon Springs on this day from
Lune from Lune and everybody should be at Rubicon Springs or getting two
springs on this specific day.
Uh huh. Yep.
Why are you guys going against traffic?
Yeah. On this day.
Why are you out here just to screw with it?
Yeah.
And it's if it was just if this was the only incident of of AJC going
backwards to the trail on an event weekend on the busiest day, right?
Yeah. It'd be like, okay, maybe they don't know any better,
but they do this every time.
Yeah.
They do it every fucking time.
Um, it never ceases to a me at all.
It never ceases to a man.
I'm amazed every time that there's an event weekend going on.
There's a busy traffic weekend.
There's it's just a holiday weekend, whatever it is, something somewhere,
just a lot of chatter about the Auburn Jeep Club being dicks on the trail.
Right.
Every single fucking time.
I'm like, you guys figure your shit out.
Yeah.
Like this is I understand they have property on the trail.
They're one of the oldest clubs around.
They've been accessing and using the trail forever.
Right.
Um, they they're out on the trail a lot.
That's a big club.
They have a lot of users.
I get it.
Like I totally get their point of view of being able to access
the trail and their love to be up there.
Right.
Absolutely.
I mean, I'm right up there with them.
So does everybody else.
That's the problem.
And they just they treat it like it's their trail.
They treat it like they can do whatever they want.
Like they're not going to consider anybody else.
That's out on the trail that day.
That's just the attitude they always seem to have.
Yeah.
And um, and that was the thing.
It's like I was running.
I forgot who I was talking to.
I think it was Nick.
And Nick was saying that whenever they go through, like when they're with their
event, maybe it was you.
I don't remember who it was.
I was telling later, but they say whenever they are with their club, they
know it was you.
I'm pretty sure they say that.
Look, we're a big group.
We're going to be going slow.
When traffic comes, you pull aside and you let the traffic go by because we are
the big group and we are moving slow.
So yeah, I say that.
Yeah.
So when it was so mad hatters, we go through into our full trail trip.
It's usually the first weekend of June every year.
Um, and we usually end up having 15 to 30 vehicles, which is a lot.
That's a big group to go through the Rubicon trail with, but I tell everybody
in the morning, if I'm leading that trip and I try and make sure that whoever is
leading the trip does this speech kind of thing.
We're a big group.
We're going to be slower.
If somebody comes up on the back of the line, everybody's on radio.
Yeah.
So just tell, just let the person start working their way through the group.
And if you see the identified vehicle coming, just pull over, pull over real
quick, let them through.
We're a big group.
We can pull over.
We're going to be going slow.
Don't impede traffic.
Like we're going to our own pace.
Um, just be kind of consider it and let people around that are going faster
pace than us.
Right.
Right.
And if we come up on, um, say oncoming traffic and big slews, cause we've
definitely had that before, um, we try and communicate with the other group and
say, how many rigs do you got?
Oh, you guys only have five come on through.
Right.
Right.
So I always put it as the bigger group should give right away, yield right
away to the smaller groups, in my opinion.
So, um,
And granted, I don't, I was never there.
I was not at the front of the line.
Right.
I was at the back of the breakfast, breakfast club.
And I think I was in the smack dab in the middle of our group.
Yeah.
Right.
And when I got to the point where I wasn't going to need to drop off the
ledge, um, or go to the, I like taking the V.
Yeah.
I like going that route.
Yeah, you do.
The Auburn Jeep club was just starting to come up that section.
And the breakfast group had was stopped letting a bunch of them through.
So I think the bright, the Auburn Jeep club was had clear sailing until they
hit the breakfast club in a property line.
Okay.
And I think the breakfast club kind of moved as like stopped and got out of
their way.
Cause I think they were my, I'm assuming they were almost all the way that group
or the leader of that group was probably all the way through property line.
Okay.
Which like they can do, they can do as they should or they did or whatever.
But the thing was that they should have just said how many rigs are with you.
And then told their group to like make room in property line to let those
58 rigs get through.
I mean, there's not a whole lot of room for 12 vehicles.
You can barely get two vehicles out of the way in property line.
Well, but if they are not like just out of property line, you drop off.
You cut, there's a bunch of room after the corner, uh, the bottom of property line.
Yeah.
And then there's all kinds of room in the trees.
That section of trail below property line is very, it's pretty narrow.
Yeah.
Um, and it drops off on one side.
I've had, I've had, you know, Stuart black first gen forerunner with the
Mad Hatters, um, long hair.
Um, he tried to pull over there at some point to let people buy and he almost
rolled off the side of the mountain.
Right.
But after there, there's a spot where there's a big open area further down.
Yes.
It's not.
It's, it's a good, it's a good ways below property line though.
But the thing was all of Auburn Jeep club was not through property line.
Yeah.
Right.
There was still a chunk of it down below.
And regardless, you know, we, we all figured it out, but we had to like shimmy
to make room like I had to back up so that Lee and, well, there was Scott behind me.
And then I think Lisa was driving the gladiator was behind that.
And so we had to make room for the some, uh, like I had, I went down the ledge
and I think Nick Lee, Scott and, um, Lisa got, went through that obstacle
so that they could start moving through the trail so that they could pull over
or make room so that then we could get out of that way so that they could
continue going up the trail so that they could clear property line so that then
the breakfast group could start going down.
Yeah.
So it was just a huge traffic jam.
Yeah.
Because they brought a huge, group of 15 vehicles.
Yeah.
All in one group too.
Like it then on that's another argument.
It's like, if you're in a group, try to divide your group up and space yourselves out.
Yeah.
Uh, it seems to be like a good spacing amount coming down the Rubicon trails about
six vehicles, um, beyond that, more than that, it just, it becomes a big cluster fuck
when there's a traffic jam, right?
Um, what we like to do in the Mad Hatters, we've learned is we like to send
one vehicle just out ahead.
Yeah.
One vehicle stays 15 minutes ahead of the rest of the group.
Um, and that way you can, you can go through those pinch points, like property
line, like sawtooth, like big sluice, um, like Cadillac, right?
You can send one vehicle ahead and then just stop traffic and be like,
all right, you've got, we got, we got 10 rigs coming up.
Sorry.
We made it here first.
You know, let's just, just hold on here, um, and all radio back down and we'll
see if we can get a breaking point.
Like in your guys's case, you guys had 20, 25 vehicles, but you're split up into
like groups of four or 54 to eight, whatever it was.
Um, so like you could be like, okay, do you know, AJC hold on.
We've got a few people in property line, a few people at sawtooth.
Let's just get those through property line.
And then you guys can come up.
There's big clearing right before proper, right after is there coming up.
There's big clearing there.
You guys can park and get there.
We'll get our five people that are in sawtooth down.
We'll hold the people behind.
You guys can then come up sawtooth and, and it would be nice if AJC was split
into groups of 53 groups of five for their 15 plus rigs or whatever it was.
And if they would like get out to try and talk and work it through rather than
just driving up the trail and being like, get the fuck out of our way.
That would be really nice too.
Yeah.
So granted.
Yeah.
And right below that sawtooth, that corner, whatever that corner is called.
I mean, everybody was off.
Everybody was all the breakfast club in our group was pulled off to the side
trying to make room for AJC and AJC was all stopped because they had nowhere
else to go because we were continuing down the trail.
Right.
And so everybody was kind of out of their rigs at that point.
Okay.
Yeah.
And so it was just, it was a cluster.
It was.
Yeah.
It like they could have been dealt with much better on, on both sides.
Right.
But it, I just don't understand why Auburn Jeep Club was going backwards
through the trail on an event weekend.
Yeah.
Well, I know why they were doing that.
Yeah.
But they're just doing it to be assholes.
Yeah.
And having a Jeep Club run backwards through a Toyota event.
So, and it's just, I don't know.
It just was, it was rude.
It was just rude.
I mean, that's what it was.
Yeah.
They could have done it.
You could have organized things better to better work for the trail instead of
yourself.
Yep.
So anyways, after that, it was smooth sailing all the way into the springs.
And that was Friday.
And so we, we got there.
I wheeled up to where the rest of the forerunner run was.
We camped how long out there.
It was, I, I parked and pulled out my bottle of whiskey and went over to
power tank Steve because they were sitting at their table having lunch and he
had a few bottles of whiskey in front of him and I know he likes whiskey.
And so we liked to share.
And so we opened my bottle.
He opened it.
Well, his bottle was already opened.
We opened another bottle or just hanging out there.
And then probably, geez, half an hour you showed up.
Yeah.
It was pretty quick.
And I was like, I parked in a fairly easy, convenient spot.
And I was like, dude, if you need my spot to set up your tent, tell me to move.
Yeah.
And so that's when Lee parked behind you.
Well, you took my spot, Lee parked behind you.
And then I just parked on the other side of Lee and propped my truck up with some
rocks and pulled out the wheel every weekend, the rooftop tent and made camp.
Yeah.
So it was a, after the whole fiasco of trying to get there, it took so, and it
took us almost four hours to get from Buck to Rubicon Springs, which in my opinion,
now hearing everything you guys went through, I think it's a pretty
good time.
Pretty decent for all the shit show you guys were kind of held up and doing stuff.
With uneventful, it'll take two hours.
I say me and Husman went from the springs to Buck in about an hour.
Yeah.
And then from Buck to the springs and 45 minutes to an hour downhill.
If you're cruising with no traffic, nothing, you can do it
at less than two hours, but no, it seems like two hours is my mark.
That's a decent, that's a good average.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah.
And that brings us up to my trip in was pretty nice.
Why I didn't come in Thursday.
I came in Friday and I decided to go drive up 80 and come through Northlake
Tahoe and Palisades.
Yeah.
Hold on.
Let me let me time you out.
The FJ 40 with the axle shaft broken.
Oh yeah.
Right.
In the morning, you messaged us and was like, do I need to come through the
trail and pick up that?
I figured we can sort of close this story up.
Yeah.
Grab that axle shaft.
And we said, I think we said you told you no.
Yep.
And then later we get to springs and somebody's like, hey, did anybody grab
that axle shaft?
And we're like, nobody told us to or not to.
Yeah.
So I don't know where it is.
Some you should just send somebody up to the springs to go or to the spider to
go grab it.
Yeah.
And they're like, okay, we'll figure it out.
Yeah.
I was like, okay.
Yeah.
So, um, yeah, I messaged.
I messaged that out of 530.
I think something like that.
Yeah.
Um, and I was like, hey, I'm leaving my house.
You know, I have until Auburn to make a decision.
So I've got about 45 minutes.
Let me know if you guys need me to come in through loon and stop at spider.
Right.
Um, and Lee was like, nope, you're good.
And I was like, okay, cool.
So I kept on going.
I've never gone to Tahoma that way before.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
I've come back once.
Um, but I always go to Tahoma by going down up 50 through South Lake Tahoe.
Oh, really?
And up and around.
Okay.
I didn't realize it's like an hour quicker.
Yeah.
You always are like, oh, I'm going over to fresh pond and going up this way.
I'm like, why?
Like you have to, it's not, I know from your house, it's not very far for you to
get over to the 50 side, but I bet it's faster for you to go up 80.
Yeah.
For sure.
It's about an hour faster to get to Tahoma.
To Tahoma, but even loon, I bet it's faster for you to go up to 80.
It's about five minutes faster.
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, um, and I like Wharton's in Georgetown, great little market.
Yeah.
So like either way, uh, that doesn't really matter to me.
It is more effort in my opinion to go up 80 to loon and go through Georgetown just because,
that climb coming out of Georgetown to go up the hill and the, uh, forced hill bridge going
under that.
Yeah.
The confluence, the confluence.
Both of those are quote unquote more effort to get through than just going up highway 50
and up ice house road.
I think, yeah, I, I always say it's the, like the confluence climb up to cool and the climb
out of Georgetown are, they're, they're steep and aggressive, but then it's flat after that.
Yeah.
Right.
And whereas the ice house is just a long continuous uphill.
Yeah.
Right.
So it's like, do you, would you rather get it all over with quick?
Yeah.
Or would you rather like have this a longer stretch of climbing?
Yeah.
That's the way I've always kind of looked at it.
Yeah.
Because that's the way I, that's, it's way faster for me to go that way than go over to 50.
For sure.
From my house.
So it's, it's the route I always go and people are always like, I can't believe you tow up
the confluence.
And I'm like, to me, I'm like, I've never gone.
I don't think I've ever towed up ice house.
Like I don't know what the difference would be, but it's not that bad.
So it's really not bad.
Towing through the confluence.
Coming downs worse.
Yes.
Not in the, not in the F 350.
Anyways, continue on.
So you drove up to Toronto, right?
Through North Lake.
The kid started freaking out a little bit around Eagle Lakes.
Okay.
So I was like, I'll just go into truckie.
Let's let him get out of the car.
We didn't really have breakfast before leaving.
So I was like, he's probably hungry.
I just kind of like pulled him out of his crib and out of his toddler bed.
We just converted it, pulled him out of his bed, put his clothes on, and then we left.
Right.
And I gave him an applesauce packet on the way.
So we got into truckie and I was like, all right, let's stop, let him get out,
move around a little bit.
We'll find a place to get some breakfast.
And so I found this little cafe and right as you enter truckie and they had some bananas
and he just devoured.
Devoured some bananas.
And then putting back in the car, we kept going, made it around to Tahoma.
And as soon as we got into Tahoma, it started raining.
Yeah.
That's staging.
I forgot to talk about that.
Yeah.
So on Thursday night, it was like around three in the morning.
It was super windy, like really big gusts of wind.
Okay.
And it was one of those like I could hear it coming through the trees before I hit the tent.
And usually the wheel every weekend tense pretty good with wind, except if it's hitting me
broadside.
Okay.
And it's just a big wall and it doesn't deal with the rain fly doesn't deal with the wind very well.
And so it was just flapping.
And I was like, oh, I can't sleep like this.
So I unzipped my doors, took the flaps of the rain fly and shoved them up underneath the rain fly
between the bars of the rain fly and the tent and shoved it up there.
And then did that on both sides and then went back to bed.
But I still didn't sleep that great because it was so windy.
And then yeah, about six in the morning, I would yeah, about six in the morning.
I think it started raining.
Okay.
On us.
It was just sprinkling.
It was light, but almost like the drive until about we met up with AJC.
It was on and off like good down pouring and spring.
Okay.
Nice.
Almost that whole stretch.
Yeah.
Cool.
Yeah.
It's a it's, I my opinion, it's nice when it rains on the Rubicon, like the granite rocks.
You would think that when it's rained, it gets slick.
It doesn't really like cleans the dust off and you almost get more traction.
Yeah.
And it reduces dust.
And it reduces dust really nicely.
So I always welcome rain as long as it's not like a torrential downpour.
Like it was that one time I think we went in for Marlon call a roundup.
Oh yeah.
And everybody was hiding under the one umbrella, 15 people would have a great video of Amber and I
underneath the rooftop tent.
She was able to stand up and I had to be all crouched over.
Yeah.
But anyways, so it was raining at staging into Alma airing down.
I moved Reed's car seat to the front seat to come down the trail.
Got everything aired down, stuff reorganized in the vehicle,
and then took off down the trail and it was 1130 when I left staging.
And last time I went down the trail in Fiona, that section of trail, I had the secretary with me.
And so we took us about an hour and 40 minutes to get from staging to observation.
Okay.
So not too bad.
No.
Decent pace.
Yeah.
The fastest I've done it in Kermit pushing it was about 45 minutes.
Okay.
40 to 45 minutes.
So an hour difference.
About an hour difference.
Yeah.
So this time I was like, I don't have the secretary here.
She's the one that complains about bumps and the jostling of the vehicle.
You have a child that likes it.
I have a child that likes it.
More bumps daddy.
Yeah.
And so I was like, let's just cruise at a comfortable pace that I'm comfortable with,
but not pushing it in Fiona.
Not being aggressive.
Not being aggressive.
Like I do in Kermit on that section of trail.
And I'm like, let's just see where I end up.
And I started thinking about it.
I was like, what is a decent pace where you're going through that section of trail and you're
able to keep a good pace, but not be an asshole to anybody else that happened to be going through
that show.
Sure.
That section.
I'm like, I think an hour to an hour, 15 minutes from staging to observation is a good pace where
you're also not running the risk of coming around a corner and head oning somebody.
Right.
Sure.
And so I was like, okay, let's just go.
So what I did was I dropped, I just did the 228, the two 2.3 gear in the transfer case,
my first low, and then locked to the transmission and first gear and just kind of cruised at that pace.
And so it wasn't really pushing the vehicle, but I was just cruising.
And I came across the Placer County Sheriff.
Was it Placer County or was it State Parks?
I forget.
I think he's with County Sheriff.
Yeah.
The County Sheriff's Placer County Sheriff's were down with us at different guys.
Oh, then it might have been Parks.
No, it was the same guys.
The red beard guy.
Right.
Yeah.
So what was that guy?
So that was the Placer County Sheriff.
So he's a listener of the podcast.
Oh, yeah.
So hi.
Sat there and talked with him for 10 minutes or so, five to 10 minutes,
chatting about just random stuff, and then said bye to him and kept on going down the trail.
And then I ran into Richard.
Oh, yeah.
FJ80 Richard.
So you ran Pritchett Canyon with him in Moab.
I ran Pritchett Canyon with him the following year in Moab.
And then every time I seem to, I've run into him a couple times now out on the Rubicon.
And every time he's like, where's Jimmy?
Yeah.
I was like, ah, he's in the spring.
Should be in the Springs by now.
I don't know.
So I talked with him for five, 10 minutes.
So, and then continued on my way.
I made it to observation in like 58 minutes.
Oh, not bad.
Which means you would have beat your 45 minutes if you didn't talk to people.
Yes.
If I didn't stop to talk to people, I would have beat Kermit's pushing at time.
And I was just cruising.
I was not trying to go fast.
Yeah.
And I was like, oh, okay.
Maybe that was a little still a little faster than what I would deem is an okay pace to go
through there without being a risk or an asshole to other people.
Let's put it this way.
I was going very slow on my way out for reasons that I'll talk about in the future.
But from observation to Tahoma took me an hour and a half.
Okay.
And I was going very slow.
Okay.
There you go.
So I'm on leave Springs.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So anyways, I thought that was interesting kind of running that experiment and seeing the
result of it.
So that was nice.
Once I got to observation.
Oh, the other thing that kind of threw me off.
I'm like, I'm going in on a Friday midday.
Yeah.
On an event weekend when everyone's trying to get to the Springs.
I don't think I'm going to hit any traffic.
I probably came across 15 vehicles coming out.
Wow.
And they're all Toyotas.
Okay.
So Richard was coming out.
He said, cause he'd been there since Monday.
He likes to go in the days before we were with on.
And he goes, once it started raining, I was like, I'm out of here.
I'm done.
Yeah.
So I'm guessing that there was other people doing similar things.
They just didn't want to be out over the weekend in the rain,
which is too bad because the rest of the weekend was gorgeous.
There was no rain at all.
So anyways, ran across and came across 15 people roughly coming out,
which was way more than I thought it was going to be.
But when I got to observation, there was a group from Jeepers, Jamboree
at observation.
Okay.
And 15 rigs roughly.
Same group.
No, couldn't have been.
But 15 rigs roughly at observation.
And I got there and I was like, Hey guys, anybody else coming or anybody else down
or coming out, coming up, coming down, whatever.
And they're like, we don't know.
We just got here and we haven't heard anything on radio traffic about anyone
coming down.
And I was like, all right, I'm not stopping them.
I'm going to go.
Yeah.
And I'm going to roll the dice and head on down.
Cause usually if a big group is coming up Cadillac, the big groups just go slower.
Right.
Oh yeah.
So you would think that if there's nobody right behind them, that you might be able
to make it down in time before somebody else hits Cadillac trying to come up.
Right.
So it sounds like that group was coming down.
Anyway, right?
The, the group at observation.
Yeah.
No, they just came up.
Oh, from Auburn Jeep Club.
No, Jeepers Jamboree.
Oh, Jeepers Jamboree.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Okay.
So they had just come up Cadillac and just had gotten observation.
I was like, well, all right, I'm going to take the time.
Sure.
Shoot on down.
So I made it down Cadillac in 10, 15 minutes.
Yeah.
And I got to the bottom didn't see anybody on Cadillac, which was really nice.
That's nice.
Yeah.
As soon as I got to the bottom, you're kind of coming through the creek section before springs.
Yes.
There was a group of about 12 to 15 land cruisers coming up to Cadillac towards you towards Cadillac.
So I pulled over, let them all go by and then continued on to the springs.
And I heard so the Tahoe high lows were in staging at Tahoma to kind of take care of the
bathrooms because they oversee the bathrooms and staging.
I was chatting with them a little bit and they said, yeah, we'll be right behind you.
I've met up with them later in the springs.
They were like, man, we thought for sure we would catch you and we never found you.
And I was like, I just, I who the guys where they came and talked to you when you parked on this lab.
Okay.
Yeah.
So that was the high lows and they said they got caught by the, that group of land cruisers.
So they were like just hitting like the waterfall, the waterfalls at the top of Cadillac as
they hit the land cruisers.
So I was like, well, that sucks, but I'm glad I made it down.
It needs to be some sort of street light on Cadillac.
That would make things way safer on Cadillac.
Yeah.
Like just that section from the hairpin turn to the top of the waterfalls, there's just no room.
Dude, there's no, there's no way.
I did it one year where I came down and got below the V notch, the V rock.
And there's a little bit of a clearing right below V rock.
And I just parked up on the side of the hill as best I could in Kermit and hung out there
for like an hour while I waited for traffic to come through.
But like, it's only enough room for one vehicle.
They're like, I still knock on wood.
I haven't been on Cadillac in a massive traffic jam going both opposite directions.
Right.
I cannot imagine.
I don't know how it would work.
I don't.
So,
um, yeah, I got lucky, but the Tahoe, High Low guys got stuck in the oncoming traffic
coming down Cadillac.
I think what you said earlier about sending one person through the section,
the best way to do it is the best thing.
Send one person, just have them boogie on through and then radio back to everybody
either once they get through or once they find out that there is traffic.
Yeah.
And they don't need to get all the way up to observation.
No, because there, once you get past those waterfalls and there's like a little rocky
section or that big corner that I have the three point turn, once you get to there,
you can stop traffic easily for people coming down.
There's turn offs and options and things.
So yeah, from that point, I think that's, that is where, yeah, I think that's how that
should be done.
So, um, came on down, no problem.
I, and I pulled into camp pretty much Nick came walking out.
He was out at the entrance to camp area there and he comes up and he goes,
we just got here like less than two minutes ago.
It was a little more than that, but yeah.
Well, I was sitting out there talking to Nick and Lisa and Lee and everybody before I came
and found you at the whiskey table.
So yeah, well, I saw you pull in before you pulled into the camping area.
I was sitting out there talking with them for 10 minutes or so before I pulled in.
Wow.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, um, because I went and told Nick and Lisa that they could have my spot too.
And they're like, no, we're good here.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, um, yeah, I pulled in and then met up with everybody in the festivities.
Yes.
Um, yeah.
I thought the event was pretty good.
I, it was very low attended this year.
It was like maybe 50% attendance seemed weird, but I had a great time at the event.
I thought the event went from what I saw because I did have to leave early.
The event was ran really well.
I did, I participated in the rock crawling, uh, RC rock crawling competition.
So, um, hey, buddy's at vanquish.
I might need, uh, I might need some gear, some stuff to so I can win the rock crawling competition.
I say I got second in the rock crawling competition.
Scott from portal pros actually won.
Okay.
But technically Nick DeLuca gladiator in 28 Scott second, but.
Why, why did you think you won second?
Well, because I beat him in points, but I did, but I timed out on the course.
I got to gate.
I think there was 15 gates and I got to gate 13 and you had 10 minutes to get through course.
And, um, so I got to gate 13.
But I had probably, I don't know.
I'm guessing I'm throwing numbers out here, but they're semi probably close.
I probably had negative.
Um, I probably had like negative 15, maybe 10 points or something like that.
10 to 15.
Nick probably had negative 100 because he would, uh, it's called, they were doing this
thing called the hand of God when you had to pick up the rig and put it back on all four.
And Nick probably, Nick had a bunch of those and a bunch of reverses and reverses negative one.
And I know I heard him talking about how, uh, he had 10 to 11 reverses and probably,
I don't know, probably at least another 10 hands of God's.
So he had negative 40 something and I didn't.
I was going slow and meticulous and that cost.
And because of that, I didn't finish on time, but it took, and it was funny because it took
me probably five minutes to get up the very, very first obstacle through gate one,
took me about five minutes to get through that.
And you had 10 minutes to do the course.
So out of 15 gates took me five minutes to get through number one.
And then I got to 13 in the next five minutes.
Scott from portal pros made it up within the first minute up the gate one and then just
cruise through the rest of it.
And it kind of didn't, at that point, it didn't matter.
I think Nick went second and took him a few minutes to get through gate one,
but he just, he's so throttle happy or that vehicle is so throttle happy that,
it wasn't as slow and controlled.
Okay.
And I was borrowing Brian Flynn's rig, which had all had front digs and rear steer and all
this stuff that I had no idea how to use.
And so it was a lot of fun to do that.
So I Nick, because I know you listen, I think I got second, but I know,
I know how Brian scored it.
Yeah.
So, but it doesn't matter.
We were both first losers and Scott won.
And I think he got a plaque for it, which is kind of fun.
And he was driving Jose, car, FJ 80 Jose, car, neat, Cardone's card,
carnitas, whatever it is.
He was driving his rig, which was great.
It was a really, really well built rig.
So, and Jose won the scale class and you can only kind of compete in one class.
So once he won the scale class, he's like, I won.
I'm good.
I don't want to compete again and like possibly lose a thing.
So then he let Scott drive his rig and Scott won in his rig, the pro class.
Okay.
So, but it was a lot of fun.
That was a really cool thing.
Brian Flynn puts on a fantastic little competition.
Yeah.
It was, it was a blast.
So I'm definitely going to either build a car or just bring my Marlin one to have some fun with
next year because that was really cool.
Besides that, I didn't hang out at the, I hung out at the springs, walked around to the vendor
stuff had, you know, you parked on the big slab or the, what do you call that?
The concrete pad.
The concrete pad.
In front of the vendor area.
Hung out there like all, quite a bit of the day and went back up to camp and talked to Delta Dave
for a good chunk of the day as well and hung out there.
And I did try to bleed my steering again.
My high centered myself on a rock and had both my tires sort off the ground and then
added more fluid or topped it off because it really, it sucked some fluid in, but
I needed to add just a little bit more and just turned it back and forth,
back and forth, but it still winds quite a bit.
So, but it doesn't wind at low RPMs.
It's only wind at a higher PMS.
So I think it's because I drilled the power steering pump out and now it's just,
it just winds with a lot of fluid kind of going, a lot of fluids going through.
I think it's, is what's going on.
Gotcha.
Which sounds like the opposite.
You don't think you burned up the pump when you, when you drain to the system?
I don't, it always wind.
It just seems lot more than usual.
Okay.
And it will, it always wind once I drilled the pump out a little bit.
Okay.
And it wasn't winding on the drive home.
I think it was just higher RPMs that it really gets in there.
So, I don't know.
I mean, it very possibly could be, I need to add another pump or something, but
yeah, I'm not quite sure.
So, besides that, I saw, I found that I had recracked my axle housing.
The rear?
On the rear.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the passenger side leaf spring mount is cracked where it meets the mount,
the mount for the leaf spring meets the axle housing.
The leaf spring perch.
Thank you.
Leaf spring perch.
Where the leaf spring perch meets the axle housing is cracked.
And so, and it was wet underneath there and it was leaking.
And where I parked at the springs, I had elevated that side a little bit.
So, a lot of the fluid wasn't on that corner.
But yeah.
So, I think it's officially time to change out that axle housing.
Okay.
And when I do so, I'm planning on going to the carrier bearing for the rear axle,
or for the rear drive shaft, getting that elevated, rotating the pinion of the axle.
So, I can point it at that weld on new perches onto the new axle housing.
And yeah, kind of go down that route of redoing the rear axle setup.
Still sticking with the tundra leafs and everything, but just want to change out that axle housing.
So, Kermit's going to be going, or Kermit, I did it again.
What the hell?
Bobcat is going to be going under the knife here soon,
because I have a few trips ahead of me and I want to get that stuff done before I do that.
So, probably not going to be working on Samantha so much in the short future,
just because I need to get Bobcat up and running so I can do another wheeling trip.
Okay.
Yeah.
Nice.
So, anything else?
I mean, I left at, everybody was sort of sitting down prepping for the raffle and dinner.
It was like four o'clock-ish.
You know, I went around and said my goodbyes to everybody.
It took me like half an hour or 45 minutes to say goodbyes.
And then I took off and drove home because the mini assistant,
so actually Friday was my wedding anniversary and I was out on the trail alone.
And then Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the mini assistant had theater performances.
So, I missed Fridays and Saturdays.
So, I needed to get home to catch the matinee time or the theater on Sunday,
which drop off time was at noon.
And then the assistant and I went over to Monks and had lunch and hung out there.
And then we went to the show, which was at 2.
Yes.
So, that's how mine, my everything ended up for me.
But on my way out, I went, I took it very slow because I knew I had that cracked axle housing.
And I didn't want to damage it more.
I didn't want something to happen.
I was alone.
I was on radio, but I was alone and just wanted to be careful about it.
And I heard this creaking going on.
And I was like, I don't like that.
So, I was going very slow.
It took me overall, it took me about two and a half hours to get from the springs to Tahoma.
Okay.
And just because I heard that creaking.
So, like anytime my front dropped off, I went really slow for the rear axle just so I didn't have any problems.
And yeah, and then aired up in Tahoma and started driving home and I was on the road
and I still heard the creaking.
And I was like, what the hell?
Like it shouldn't like, I'm not bouncing.
I'm not having problems in the act.
I'm not axle wrapping.
Like what, what, why is this?
So, I don't know what it was, but I'm assuming it was something to do with all the stuff in my bed.
That was actually was creaking and it was coming through the window.
Okay.
And so, I don't know if I was driving extremely slow for no reason or not.
But I still think it was safer.
A safer mood.
Okay.
Um, I don't know what happened on trail.
I told you this the other day.
I don't know what happened on trail, but I was able to fly home in Bobcat at like 70 to 75 miles an hour.
So, I must have hit something and it realigned something and rebalanced my driveshaft or
you put another dent in one of my wheels that made my wheel balanced or something,
but I was cruising on the way home.
I wasn't, the vibrations weren't there.
Nothing was happening.
And yeah, it was a smooth sailing all the way home.
Nice.
And I got home like five minutes before the assistant and many assistant got home from their Saturday night performance.
So that worked out really well.
Good.
So how did the Rubicon, uh, Rubathon end as I left?
Yeah, it was, it was good.
The, it ended a little bit of frustrating disappointment.
They had in the schedule pamphlet that dinner was at four o'clock on Saturday.
Yeah.
So everybody, that's why I was leaving.
Yeah.
Everybody ended up setting up their chairs cause like usually they do dinner and then the raffle
afterwards, right?
So everybody sets up in the lawn area, um, in the springs.
So everybody from the event was there at like three 30, three 45, um, setting up chairs and
getting their spots for dinner and to get kind of set for the raffle afterwards.
And then they made an announcement that dinner wasn't going to get served until six.
Whoa.
Okay.
Yeah.
They changed it up and they, they didn't change it up last year.
It was always the plan in the schedule to do that six o'clock last year.
And like everybody was kind of complaining about it.
And so I was like, Oh cool.
They brought it back to four o'clock this year.
Yeah.
And then had it in the schedule as four o'clock.
Everybody was there for dinner at four o'clock.
And then somebody went up and was like, Oh yeah, we're not serving until six.
Here's a, oh some live music to listen to.
In the meantime.
Oh wow.
So everybody would just kind of sat around in the lawn for two hours.
Okay.
Waiting, waiting, waiting.
And it wasn't like, it didn't seem like they had stuff to prep for dinner.
Yeah.
Like they didn't even light the coals until five, I think.
Okay.
In the barbecue.
So like if they would have started it then they could have had it ready by five.
55 30.
They served at six 30.
Geez.
So I, I got really frustrated because I had a toddler that was hungry.
So right around four, right around that announcement, maybe four 30,
I went back to the rig Fiona, because I'd taken, take it off the concrete pad
and parked it kind of down near the VIP area.
So I just grabbed like all the remaining snacks for the weekend and just brought them out.
And I sat down in the chair and read started was just snacking and having on snacks.
And then he got a sugar high from all the snacks.
And then I was getting hungry.
So it was probably about five 30 by this point.
And I'm just like, I'm just getting frustrated now because I'm getting hungry and I'm tired.
And I know that he's going to, I need him to have some sort of protein, right?
So I was like, you know what?
I'm just going to go back up to camp and make dinner.
I'm not going to sit here and wait.
Cause they hadn't even put the chicken on yet to start cooking by five 30.
So I was like, I'm just, I'm not even worried about it.
I'm just going to go up to camp and make dinner.
So that's what we did. I took read back up to camp, made dinner.
We got done eating about six 15.
And I learned that dinner didn't even start getting served in the spring until six 30.
So I was like, I'm really glad that I went up and had dinner.
And then after that read was really restless.
Okay. And he really wanted to go wheeling.
So he wanted to climb the rocks and go wheeling.
And by this time, like, dude, I'm tired.
I don't want to go climbing and chasing you all over all these granite cliffs over here.
So I was like, let's just go wheeling.
So I threw them in the rig and we went back through the springs towards the slabs and the
river past 30 dozen and went out to the base of Cadillac pretty much the pet cemetery area.
And turned around to the pet cemetery came back and we parked in that big creek area where you
kind of drive through the creek a little bit. Yeah. Parked there off to the side in the big
gravel bed and threw rocks into the creek for about half an hour.
And while we were there, the 74 weld group came through.
So we've got to say bye to everybody there.
They left. Yep. Oh, okay.
Yeah. They were staying over in a dirty dozen.
Yes.
And so they left and they went up Cadillac in dusk time.
Okay. Yeah. So when I left, when I was leaving, they were leaving the springs and we kind of
wheeled out to dirty dozen together. And then I said, my goodbyes, they left and I continued up
Cadillac. Okay. So I just assumed that they were coming back there to go eat dinner or whatever.
Yeah. My guess is they had dinner and packed up and then headed up and out Cadillac.
So once it started getting dark, because the problem on Friday night was I put Reid down in
his, in the tent at his normal bedtime, 737 45, but it was still super bright outside.
Yeah. So he didn't want to go to sleep until I got darker. So I had to go in there and lay with him.
And so I got like an hour nap until I got dark and he was out in a sleep and that was around
a 45. Yeah. So to this on Saturday night, I was like, I'm just going to wait until dark.
He gets to stay up late. It's camping trip, special thing. So we ended up wheeling back and went over
to dirty dozen on our way back and walked out to the waterfalls to check out the waterfalls.
And then got back in the rig, headed back to camp and I got him in bed. It was probably about 845,
838 45 got him in bed, got him to sleep. And then I walked back down to camp because I had to get
my chair. Oh yeah. And I figured like I was thinking with dinner being at six, the raffle
probably wasn't going to end until nine. Okay. So I was like, this is about good. It's almost
nine o'clock. I'll just head down and finish up whatever's left of the raffle and grab my chair
and back up to camp. And as I was going down, everybody was packing up and heading back up
to camp. Yeah. So apparently read one an award. Yeah. For being the youngest wheeler at Rubathon.
That's cool. So he got a plaque that Nick and Lisa accepted for me and I guess they fought for
letting everybody know how old Reed was while we were off wheeling. Oh, cool.
So I thought that was kind of ironic that he won the youngest wheeler award while we were
out wheeling and playing around during the award. So he got that. I got picked up my chair and
everything brought back up to camp and talked with Lee and Dave for about 45 minutes and then
Reed woke up because he was cold and I was like, ah, he started screaming. So I was like, I'm just
going to go to bed. Yeah. Went to bed, woke up in the morning, had a super kind of lazy morning.
Um, but I wasn't, I didn't really know how to pack up because anytime Reed is on able to move
around on his own, he was running over to the rocks and climbing rocks. Yeah. Anytime the whole
weekend. There was multiple times throughout the weekend, right? Be standing there talking to somebody,
turn around for 15 seconds and then turn back around to find the kid and he's halfway up the
granite cliff face. Yeah. I'm like, Oh no, gotta run it over. Yeah. Sprinting across the camp site
or across the springs to go get him as he's climbing up our cliff face. Um, so I was like,
I don't know how I'm going to pack up. And so, uh, Nick came over in the morning as kind of he was
getting ready and kind of slowly pack it up and he goes, I was like, dude, I don't know how I'm
going to pack up. Like if I, if I leave Reed alone, he goes and runs up the cliff face and goes,
you know what I do with my kids? I was like, what? He goes, I put him in the car,
turn the car on cause it was cold Saturday morning. Um, it got, there was frost on everything. Oh,
wow. Okay. So it got down around freezing over Saturday night. Um, and Nick goes, I turn on the
vehicle, get the heater going and then I put the girls in the truck with their tablets. Yeah. He
goes, it's totally cheating, but that's the only way I can pack up. And I was like,
huh, well his kids are old enough now that can help a little bit. Yeah. A little bit,
but not read yet. Not yet. So I took, I turned on Fiona and, uh, got the heater going and then
sat him in his car seat, um, with, uh, applesauces. Yeah. Packets of applesauce. So like I would come
by and I'd wait for him to start yelling from the front seat, um, that he needs more snacks. Yeah.
And then I'd come back and give him another packet of applesauce. So the pouch and then I'd
just work on packing up from there. That's funny. So that worked out well. Um, me and Lee were the
last ones in camp. Um, and we left probably about nine. Oh, okay. So, um, we picked up, uh, Chris and
Leland on the way. And I believe Leland was on us, or on us. He was with us when we were at
cruise moab when I broke my leaf springs. Oh, really? On the trifecta. Yeah. He had the FJ80
with the trepidors. Yeah. The 37 trepidors. Yep. So, um, he picked him up in the springs on our
way through, um, and then headed up Cadillac and we had a little bit of an issue coming through
the springs, the slabs and dirty dozen area, um, with one of the, I think it was Leland's rig.
Um, his lockers were not engaging. So he got held up. And so while we were trying to figure out
why they weren't engaging a lot of vehicles cause it caught us bummer. So we ended up behind
all the FJ 40s, um, and five or six FJ 80s. And then in front of the FJ 40s was a group of
Jeeps. Um, and one of them was a branded code for LED Jeep. Oh yeah. Yeah. So glad to hear.
Um, so anyways, we ended up behind 30 vehicles and trying to go up Cadillac. So it took us
about three and a half hours to get from the springs to home a staging. Wow. Yeah. Um,
whatever. That's just a busy weekend coming out of the trail. So it's an event. It's what you do.
Um, so anyways, got out the trail, got to Toma, 12, 30 ish and then, um, made our, my rounds around
staging. I found a few people that, uh, or more flat users whenever it said hi to them. Um, the
group that was in front of me, um, airing up, they were having issues airing up. And so I let
them after I was done, I was like, do you guys want to use all my gear? I have it out. I haven't put
it away yet. Um, they're like, that'd be great. And so gave them a demo and they were like, this is
amazing. Yeah. Um, and then so I left staging about two. Oh, geez. So I was chatting with people
for like an hour and a half at staging. Um, but it was fun. I, that's fun. I like going around
and just chatting with random people and seeing how everybody's trips was and see what people got
going on. Um, and then I went up and around 80 and came home and made it home. I don't know what
time it was five. Um, as I was on the stretch going from, uh, to home to, I guess the truckie
river turn off. Okay. Um, I could feel that the rig, the front end was a little darty again. Oh,
so like after we redid the front end of Fiona and we got rid of the dartiness, it was still really
sensitive steering because of the steering issues that are going on, but we got rid of the dartiness.
Okay. And I felt like the dartiness was a little bit back. Okay. I was like, hmm, this is kind of
weird. Yeah. Um, but it wasn't too bad. It was still okay. But once we got to the section that
falls the truckie river up over to highway 80, um, it was pretty bad. And that was just a faster,
I was able to get up faster at speed to about 60 miles an hour is when the dartiness started
getting bad. And I was like, something's going on here that I'm getting a lateral movement in the
front axle. So I was like, immediately I'm thinking panhard bar came loose. Sure. Um,
and so I was like, man, that's a, okay. And there was like a slight clunk too. I could feel a little
bit of a clunk and like when we hit a, when I hit a bump in the road, the whole axle would kind of
shake and chatter a little bit. So I was like, a joint, it's got to be a joint somewhere. Um,
so I pulled over in truckie on the on ramp to 80 and just kind of like took a quick look at the
panhard and it was fine. All right. What about the drag link? It's fine. I was like, that makes
sense. It wasn't pulling on the steering at all. It was just lateral movement of the front axle.
So I checked the, all the links now. So the lower links and the upper link, those are all tight and
fine. I'm like, oh, wheel unit bearing, maybe, maybe ball joints. And I started thinking about,
I was like, I don't have steering stops. There's no steering stops on Fiona. That's still one on
my to-do list that I have to do. Um, and last time when we fixed the dartiness, Jason was like,
dude, your ball joints were super loose. I don't know if you wrecked the ball joints from it being
loose, but I highly recommend you get a new ball joint soon and you need steering stops.
Yeah. In order to not wreck the ball joints and loosen them up. So I was like, I wonder
the ball joints came loose again. So I checked the passenger side. It was a little loose, but
nothing like bad. Check the driver's side, upper ball joint. And there was a gap of space between
the ball joint and the outer sea. Wow. Okay. I was like, that's not good. And so I checked the nut
underneath the sea that kind of holds everything in and, um, the ball joint shaft, the threaded shaft
that comes down through the seas, um, that gets all connected together with the nut.
Um, typically you have about one to two threads, maybe three threads showing below the nut. Yeah,
hopefully that's ideal. Right. If not more, if not more, um, and so I checked in the, the,
the nut is like a thinner nut. It's not like a normal fat nut. It's kind of a thinner one
because you have a U joint or in my case, the, the RCB bells right there. So it's a thinner nut.
It may encompass three, maybe four threads and it only had like two threads in the nut.
Okay. And I was like, Oh, that was close. Yeah. So it was super loose. I was like,
granted, if that nut comes off, I don't think the whole sea would just fall off because the,
as long as the ball joint is still pressed in there. Yeah. Um, but if the ball joint presses out,
then for sure that whole sea is just falling off. And my, my, my driver wheel is just going to
go flying down highway 80, right down Donner summit. Um, so I was like, well, all right. Um,
let's, let's, let's tighten this up a little bit and just be careful driving home. Yeah.
So tighten it up. And I wasn't able to get it perfectly tight. Um, because in order to do that,
you kind of have to take the wheel off and lift everything up and get tension off of
the whole sea and that turning axis. Um, so I just tightened it up with everything all the
weight of the vehicle on it. Um, and then just drove carefully home. Um, and when I got home,
it had loosened up again by the time I got home. It wasn't as bad, but it was loosened up again. So
I was like, well, all right, time for ball joint limitators. Yeah. So well, that's not,
that's on the to do list as well, but that's going to, I think be a pretty high priority
when I get the, when I go and redo the rear end, we'll do the front ball joints. So yeah.
Nice. That was a trip. Sounds like a good time. Good ending. Yeah. Sounds like it was a good time.
It's always, it's a good group of wheelers, guys. I don't, I don't want to give
landcruisers like a special shout out, but they're, they all seem like really good people, you know.
I don't know what it is, but it was funny. I was like talking to, I'm pretty sure his name was Brian
in the 79 series, a guy I've never met before. Um, but they have their own special lingo. Like
they talk about stuff and I'm like, I have no idea. Like I'm a Toyota guy and I don't know anything
you just said. And he's like, Oh, it's the transmission out of a 60 series, you know,
blah, blah, blah, you know, with the special thing. I was like, okay, yeah, that's like,
you know, I'm sure I could say like a W 56 and he might not understand because it's just a different
realm, but that was kind of, it was funny chatting with him and learning more landcruiser stuff. Yeah.
Yeah. But, um, yeah, it was a good event. I'm super happy to be there, support the event.
You know, both more flay and snail armor donated stuff to the raffle. I think Nick
won my snail armor. So that was kind of funny, even though he doesn't have an 80 anymore.
Yeah. So sell it, Nick. And then, yeah, I mean, it was a lot of fun. I have one little small update,
but is there anything you want to say to close it up? No, not really. I still want a torque converter
lockup. Yeah. So there was a couple of times I was descending like down Cadillac and the drive
chain would just disconnect on me and I'm like, fuck off, not here. Yeah. Right. So I really
do not like automatics for rock crawling. So that's after things get fixed back to where
they should be, that's the first thing I'm doing is that whole valve body swap go on the
four runner and manual torque converter lockup. Excited to see how that goes. That'll be fun.
Yeah. So on Sunday, I got a message, a text message from Blake from Blake's garage. Okay.
And he was like, Hey, I have selling my CJ five. It's at the Sierra College auto fair.
I want it's didn't sell this week. I want to put it back in next week. Can I store the jeep at your
house for the week? And I said, yeah, sure. So I have a Jeep at my house right now. Jeep in Jimmy.
A CJ five super clean, really nice. If anybody's interested in it, hit me up. You have today or
tomorrow before it goes back to this year college auto fair. Is it built? Is it pretty stock?
Almost all original. Oh, wow. Almost completely original CJ five. Okay. Original. Still has
original carpets floor like floor like pads from that era. I'm not 100% sure what year it is.
But it's like minus the tires. And I may be the wheels. I think like almost everything's original.
So it's it's fair. Very stock. Yeah. What's he asking for? He hasn't listed for 18,000. Okay.
I know he'll take less. He just Sierra College auto fair. You mark it high and you hope somebody
comes off nearer and comes lower to you. So yeah, but it's super clean. If you're interested,
I can snap some photos or, or, you know, get you in contact with Blake really easy.
So that was funny. My neighbor came down and he was like, nice Jeep. And I'm like,
it's for sale. And he's like, if I brought another Jeep home, like I get to be getting a divorce.
Yeah. So that was funny. And then on Monday, I changed spark plugs in a Jeep JL for a buddy.
Okay. So I am don't know what's happening around me right now. I'm fee like I have a weird rash on
my body. Yeah. My, I don't know. It's weird, but I'll tell you to change. And it's probably just
be it's a 2020 Jeep. And I'm probably it might be similar to like changing spark plugs in my,
you know, Tacoma, but it was such a pain in the ass. Okay. Like all the other vehicles I've worked
on in my past, you know, spark plugs are easy to get to you have to take off the complete
air intake system. Oh, what? Yeah. To get to the spark plugs, to get to the driver side spark plugs,
the passenger side spark plugs you can get access. Okay. But the air intake system, the whole
manifold and everything that takes all the air and injects it into the engine. Yeah. You have to
remove that from the top of the engine. To access the spark plugs underneath it.
And at first I'm like spark plugs. Yeah, no problem. I'll help you with them. Like he's
having six hours later. He has a weird he has a P zero P 030 code going. I think it was.
And it's spark plugs, injectors, things like that. And now he's like, what do I do? And you know,
I was like, just let's change the spark plugs and let's see if the code goes away. That doesn't go
away. We'll figure out the, um, it has the, what are they called the coil packs? Coil packs direct
to the spark plugs. Um, and before we did it, I checked the codes and it was a error on cylinder
three, but I was like, let's change the spark plugs and see if that solves it. If it doesn't, let's
we'll change the coil pack on number three. And then we'll see what happens. So we changed the
spark plugs and I said drive around for a week or so, see if it solves anything. If it doesn't,
let's change the coil pack on number three, which fortunately number three is on the passenger side.
Okay. Um, so, and it will be easy to remove. Uh, and get, you could also take the coil pack and
put it on like swap three and five. That wouldn't have been a bad idea. Yeah. And then see if it,
the code changes to cylinder five. Yeah, that could have been a, that would have been a good idea.
Um, yeah, that would have been a good idea. Uh, but yeah, so in the last few days,
I've had two, I've worked on a Jeep and have a Jeep in my driveway. Nice. So I thought that was
a funny story to share. Yeah. Jeep and Jimmy making a comeback. Here you go. Yeah. Not happening,
especially after working on one. You got to wheel a Jeep this year too.
On Mormon immigrant. Yeah. Oh yeah. That's true. What's wrong with this year?
Was that this, was that 20? Yeah. That was this year. Yeah.
That was after the snowmageddon and getting all the vehicles off of that.
All right, Richard from Atlanta. Yeah. You got a Jeep for sale.
He does have one. Yeah. All right. Well, cool. That does it for today's episode.
Yep. Nice recap of Rubathon, beginning of the month stuff, end of month stuff. So
I will be back on Monday with a fun episode for you guys and tomorrow with snail mail.
Anything else to add or just wrap up the show with today, Jimmy?
Not really. I just want to say it was funny cruising with the four runner guys. They were a good group.
They wheeled really well. We got to Slick or Soup Bowl and Senna and his 88 Toyota pickup
attempted Soup Bowl and completed it. And they all, I was a little behind because I was waiting
for some rigs to come up the trail. And then I caught them like at the last minute and I start
wheel, I do soup. I hit Soup Bowl because they were like just taking off. And I heard Steve on
Power Tank Steve come on the radio and he's like, Oh, hold on. Jimmy's wheeling Soup Bowl.
Oh, hold on. You guys keep going. Jimmy made it. So that was, that was funny.
Nice. Good. That's a fun time. Yeah. Well, cool. If anybody has any feedback for us,
you guys know where to do, where to keep it, where to send it over on discord,
Instagram, voicemail. You guys give us a call 916-345-4744.
And we love hearing from you guys. Love the feedback. Love the interaction with you guys out
there. So send it in, send in all the communications. Jimmy, what's your final words for today?
That was my final words. You always do that to me. Anything else? Any final words? You do it?
Like I get it twice. No, I would say go support an event. Yeah. You know, they're out there for
usually typically they're out there for good causes. You know, they're raising money for trails or
the groups or they're donating things one way or another. So I'm typically, I'm not a fan of large
crowds and off-roading events like that. But when things go to a good cause, it's definitely
fun to go out and support those. Yep. I agree with that. My friends, keep crawling.
I got one for you. Okay. What did zero say to eight?
99 That's not the answer. No, I don't know. Said that belt looks good on you.
Corset. It's a corset. Pretty much. Yeah. So yeah, if it's a corset,
does that make eight a female number? I mean, today, nowadays, it doesn't really matter.
Good. Cause I'm wearing one right now. But corset. Yeah. That's why you look so good today.
About this episode
Hosts Tyler and Jimmy catch up after a grueling but rewarding week at the TLCA Rubithon on the legendary Rubicon Trail. They share updates on their Iceco APL 20 fridge giveaway and dive into the impressive Kickstarter success of the new Iceco VL 45 Plus, highlighting its unique CarPlay integration. The duo also introduces their next partner, Wolfbox, debating the merits of digital rear-view mirror cameras in off-road rigs versus daily drivers. It is a jam-packed recap filled with trail stories, gear talk, and practical off-road advice.
Original notes
Tyler and Jimmy both attended the Toyota Land Cruiser Association Rubithon this year, but they took different paths. Jimmy went in the 4Runner run and met Lee at Buck Island Lake, and Tyler went down Cadillac. They met each other at the Rubicon Springs on Friday and relaxed. The main event was on Saturday, and they spent the time shaking babies’ and kissing hands.
GROUP BUY: There is a new group buy happening, and this time it is with Wolfbox for their G900TriPro. If we get ten people signed up then we will get $20 off. If we can get 20 people signed up, we will get $30 off, and if we can get 30 people signed up, then it will be $40 off. If you’re interested in joining the group buy, then please email Jimmy or Tyler, or jump on to the Discord.
SnailTrail4x4 Discord: https://discord.gg/yFyFFkQbuy
Come hang out with us on the SnailTrail4x4 Discord — it’s the easiest way to connect with Tyler and Jimmy directly, chat with fellow offroad enthusiasts, and get first access to Group Buys and Treasure Hunt token drops.
MORRFlate Giveaway at 900 Reviews on Apple Podcast. But our next giveaway is when we reach 800 reviews; we are giving away an OnX Elite Membership. We will also give away an OnX Elite membership when we get to 850. However, when we reach 900 Reviews, we are teaming up with MORRFlate for a $1000 MF Product Giveaway. Go over to Apple Podcasts to leave your review now and become eligible to win. Congratulations to A13XMONT, who won a set of tires from Yokohama Tire!
Call us and leave us a VOICEMAIL!!!We want to hear from you even more!!! You can call and say whatever you like! Ask a question, leave feedback, correct some information about welding, say how much you hate your Jeep, and wish you had a Toyota! We will air them all, live, on the podcast! +01-916-345-4744. If you have any negative feedback, you can call our negative feedback hotline, 408-800-5169.
4Wheel Underground has all the suspension parts you need to take your off-road rig from leaf springs to a performance suspension system. We just ordered our kits for Kermit and Samantha and are looking forward to getting them. The ordering process was quite simple, and after answering the questionnaire, we ensured we got the correct and best-fitting kits for our vehicles. If you want to level up your suspension game, check out 4Wheel Underground.
SnailTrail4x4 Podcast is brought to you by all of our peeps over at irate4x4! Make sure to stop by and see all of the great perks you get for supporting SnailTrail4x4! Discount Codes, Monthly Give-Always, Gift Boxes, the SnailTrail4x4 Community, and the ST4x4 Treasure Hunt! Thank you to all of those who support us! We couldn’t do it without you guys (and gals!)!
SnailSquad Monthly GiveawayJuly’s Giveaway is with a company that Jimmy and Tyler have very good experience with, especially after TrailHeroX. This month’s giveaway is with Wolfbox. They are giving away one G900TriPro to a lucky winner. This is the same three-camera rearview mirror setup that they received during TrailHeroX. If you want a chance to win this system from Wolfbox make sure you sign up for the giveaway tier on either Irate4x4 or the SnailTrail4x4 Discord.
This month’s giveaway is with Iceco Freezers. We are excited to work with and share their exciting new releases. One lucky winner has a chance to an ALP20 Fridge. Big thanks to Iceco for sponsoring this month’s giveaway. If you want a chance to win, sign up for the Giveaway Tier on Irate4x4
Congrats to Johnny Freskie, you won the Rusoh Fire Extinguishers. We have one of their 2.5-pound extinguishers to give away to a lucky winner. This extinguisher has an 18-year shelf life and is the best fire extinguisher for any off-road vehicle. To learn more, check out Rusoh.com. If you want a chance to win, sign up for the Giveaway Tier on Irate4x4
Listener Discount Codes:SnailTrail4x4 –SnailTrail15 for 15% off SnailTrail4x4 Merch
MORRFlate – snailtraill4x4 to get 10% off MORRFlate Multi Tire Inflation Deflation™ Kits
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Iceco – SnailTrail 12%off
Ironman 4×4 – snailtrail20 to get 20% off all Ironman 4×4 branded equipment!
Sidetracked Offroad – snailtrail4x4 (lowercase) to get 15% off lights and recovery gear
Spartan Rope – snailtrail4x4 to get 10% off sitewide
Shock Surplus – SNAILTRAIL4x4 to get $25 off any order!
Mob Armor – SNAILTRAIL4X4 for 15% off
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Show Music:
- Midroll Music – ComaStudio
- Outroll Music – Meizong Kumbang
Snail Trail 4x4 Offroad Podcast
Tyler and Jimmy: Off-Road Enthusiasts
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134:42