Desert Trip V: Canyonlands Maze District

[DirtyLarry]

Originally Posted by MTCK

Awesome. Watching the next to last vid I understand why you had Phoenix make your popup with no overhang on the sides!

For sure! It had to be narrow and short. My buddy Ty with the Silver Dodge and older Phoenix camper has a lot of side over hang which took time and spotting through some of the tight spots plus his mirrors had to be flipped up which was even more of a tight spot hassle for him. I don’t have a picture of his but a stick somehow shiskabob’d his rear door. The stick poked clear through it! It was hilarious, it looked like some Indian shot him with an arrow The stick even protruded into the camper like 8”. Must have been when he was backing up at some point. Luckily, I haven’t encountered any camper damage yet.

Originally Posted by Greenlee

Damn, that looks like fun!

How much fuel do you typically burn through in a day on the trails? My truck originally had dual tanks, but I currently have just one 16 gal. tank. I'm thinking I would need the other tank if I ever did trip like this!

Hard to say on the fuel. Every day and every trail is different. My truck usually does very well on the desert trips especially on moderately flat ground as it lugs along in 3rd gear at idle most of the time. There are days like last year in Death Valley and the Mohave Rd where we drive all day and the gauge barely moves. This day when we left the Doll House was about an 8 hour drive from camp to camp with many steep climbs. I think this day it used somewhere under half tank. The majority of Thursday was spent crawling in 4 low.

Yeah, one 16 gallon tank wouldn’t work well. I carry 12 gallons on the bumper then have the two 16 gallon tanks.

[DirtyLarry]

Finishing up with Thursday.

So we arrive at the top of the Canyon at Hans Flat and stopped by the Rangers Station to say hi and let them know we were out of the area. As usual with Ranger’s Stations it was closed. We were also bummed there wasn’t a place to dump trash as all of our Trasharoo’s were plumb full. No surprise though as the Ranger’s Station to the highway is still 40 some miles of a dirt path which is probably why they don’t have a trash dumpster around.

From that point on out it is all BLM land so we can camp pretty much wherever we want so we peddled down the road for a few miles to a trail that shot off to the South that looked like a promising place to stay the night. At this point we said our goodbyes to two of the wagons that moved on out. My buddy Bill with the white Dodge wanted to head back home to Pueblo while my buddy with the green Jeep headed out to Boulder, UT to spend some time with his brother. While we aired up the Dodge and Jeep my buddy Ty took off down the trail to spot us a camp site meanwhile the clouds were building thick and fast with lightening all around.

We ended up in cow pasture. There was cow crap everywhere! Quite a bit different than where we’ve been the last few days! Much higher altitude too.







Dinner and party time!


View to the west before the sky opened up and soaked us


Friday morning: Hans Flat to Moab

We packed up pretty early but not early enough for Don. He took off while we were all still eating breakfast.

This was the road out. 43 mile long dirt road. You can hear how the exhaust sounds real weird when before it comes up to temperature.

GOPR0179 - YouTube

Huh, guess who we run into as we reached the Hwy 24 intersection? Don! Still airing up and dumping fuel. Guess he wasn’t in such a big hurry after all.


Airing up. Next stop Hanksville to restock on survival supplies (gas, beer, cigarettes).


The sign at the Hwy 24 intersection shows Hite is 107 miles away, which is where we entered to go to the Doll House. In all we probably rode that trail 150 miles by the time you add the miles to and from the Doll House. Very cool!


Hanksville was about 20 miles from where we excited the Hans Flat road. Very interesting place to buy fuel and goodies. Hanksville is definitely a map dot.


From Hanksville we headed back to the Hite Marina via the highway to pick up my buddy Ty’s sister’s Prius we left at the nice lady from the Hite general store’s house. From Hite it is 155 miles to Moab. We said our goodbyes to Don again while he headed back to Flagstaff.


Our plan was to camp at the Sands Flat recreational area in Moab. You know…the true Moab 4x4 park. As this point it is just us and my buddy Ty with the silver Dodge and his sister. Ty had never been to Moab before so was anxious to see what Moab was all about before heading back to San Diego and his sister going back to Colorado Springs. Well, my mother in-law called this one right. She said being a holiday weekend Moab will probably be so full of aholes we won’t be able to find a camp spot. We’ll she was right! When we got to the Sands Flats entrance the sign said all the camp spots were full. The entire town was packed with people…..CRAP! It was too late in the day to go back south of Moab to BLM land so we went with plan B. I remembered a few years prior we camped somewhere near the river on the West side of Moab so we took off to find that spot. It was a miserable mosquito invested floodplain but it would work.

Final campsite of the trip.


Right next to the River.


As luck would have it, I no sooner got the shower stall set up and the heavy clouds and lightening appeared again. Everybody was anxious to take turns through the shower as we did not take showers the night before at the cow pasture because of rain and lightning. About that time the camp host in a ragged out F150 came rolling by to warn us that we were in camped in a floodplain that often floods and to tell us there was a shower house up the road and around the corner. WOW! Were we happy to hear that! My buddy’s sister took of in her Prius to check it out and quickly came back saying no friggen way! It was horrible. Well, my buddy Ty and I wanted to see it for ourselves as we were desperate for a shower so she shuttled us up there in her fancy Prius. Talk about humiliation! Riding in Prius in Moab of all places! Yeah, she was right…it was pretty bad. The entire place looked like something from the Hills Have Eyes. It was creepy as anyplace I’ve ever been in. This place was like a large house either in major disrepair or still under construction and the showers were in the basement which looked like a prison cell. It was bare concrete and dark with one toilet sitting against the wall with no curtion or anything. The shower stalls looked like small car wash stalls or large prison cell shower stalls. The creepiest part was there were all these people around this place riding donkeys in the parking lot while what sounded like a brothel upstairs with female voices laughing and making all kinds of weird noises. We took our showers and called Michelle on the walkie talkies to come get us out of here! I felt like a prisoner of war with shower privileges. Our ladies decided not to shower here

When we got back to the camper some dude in a new F550 with a huge camper had parked right next to me. Not like next to me…..but NEXT to me. There was barely a foot between his slide out and my camper! I’m like dude WTF!?? This place was wide open with places to park everywhere and he parks right on me. I’m not sure if he couldn’t see well in the heavy rain or what. Well, we got them back! I was in the camper cooking and my buddy was taking a leak behind my camper in the bushes when the rear door of our new neighbor’s camper opened and my drunk buddy says…” HI!, welcome to the neighborhood!” while he has a beer in one hand and his tool in the other. It was so funny I almost wet my pants. She did not respond. We wondered if their big arse truck would sink in the mud over night as the place was getting pretty wet with rising waters.

The next morning we found out what was going on at the weird shower house. As it turns out it was a Mormon family reunion. It probably wouldn’t have been so creepy the night before but we were partying pretty hard before going up there. The guy in the big camper next to us split at the crack of dawn to never been seen again

More later………..

[DirtyLarry]

Saturday, May 24th

After the soggy and rainy night we got up early to begin the all-day drive back home to Pueblo. I was pretty anxious to get home as I was missing our little 10 month old daughter badly. This time I figured we’d take a different route home than we usually take just for the sake of seeing something different so with that we headed South of Moab about 10 miles and took Hwy 46 into Colorado which was quick jount back into the State of CO. What I didn’t realize is once you get past Naturita, CO the road is a dirt path all the way to Montrose. 40 miles of a dirt mountain pass. Not only was it a dirty road, it was a muddy, snowy mess! Not that I have a problem with that, I just didn’t expect it and I was ready to be home instead of bouncing around on more dirt roads. After spending 6 days on dirty roads I thought we were done for a while. None the less, it was a pretty drive. Even though it was slow rolling from Naturita to Montrose that shortcut really knocked off a lot of time. We rolled into Pueblo around 5ish which was considerably faster than going up to I-70 to GJ then Hwy 50 to home or the Southern route into CO on Hwy 160.




Much different from the desert landscapes we’ve been living in for the past week plus we felt like we left summer and went back to winter





So that is a wrap for Desert Trip V! In all we ran 1,717 miles from the time we pulled out of the driveway on May 15th until we returned on the 24th. Fuel consumption for the entire trip came in at 159.39 gallons which came out to 10.77 MPG for a complete trip average. Unfortunately that MPG number isn’t very accurate as I forgot to turn off the fuel transfer pump a few times along the trip and wasted a lot of fuel by overfilling the main tank and dumping it on the highway. Typically the trip average comes in closer to 11.5 to 12 MPG for the long trips. I can only guess I wasted at least 5 gallons during the week so that would have put the MPG closer to the usual of 11ish.

It was a great trip and we all made it back home safely but it wasn’t without problems along the way. I already mentioned the front driveshaft issue that we had to do a campsite repair then I made a thorough repair to that when I got home then there is the 205 shifting issues I need to address but the big but the big issue I’ve been dealing with for the past 2 years is the damn 14 bolt rear axle keeps spitting oil out of the vent tube. Not just sweat out of the vent tube but spray out! This issue is driving me nuts! This problem started last year in Death Valley where it puked oil out the vent tube twice and one time it felt like the rear axle was stalling, or starting to lock up if you will. When I got home I popped the cover off and gave it a thorough inspection. All looked good so I figured it just got hot so I added a higher capacity cover along with synthetic oil. A few months later we ran down to the Overland Expo 2013. That damn axle belched out oil all the way down and all the way back. That really makes a huge mess all over the back of the camper!

So this year before we took off on this trip I pulled the drums to look at the seals and wheel bearings. I found the left rear seal leaking and a broken bearing cage on the right outer wheel bearing. Still not a smoking gun as a cause to the puking but at least it was some place to start. I replaced both axle seals, the right rear outer bearing and installed fresh shoes at that time. This time I also ziptied a bottle over the vent tube to catch any oil if it spray out again. Well hell! When we left on the 15th we made it as far as Alamosa, CO which is 1.5 hours from home to find the 12oz bottle I ziptied on already completely full of oil! Errrr. That crap carried on the entire duration of this trip. Towards the end of the trip I got tired of dumping the oil back in the axle every night so I just started emptying the bottle without filling it back up. In all it pumped out at least 24 to 30 oz of oil. I am at a loss WTF is going on with this thing .

This is how it sits at this very moment. This time it popped the right rear axle seal and soaked the shoes again. I’ve got it completely gutted and still see no smoking gun as to what is causing this. None of the bearings look like they have been over heated and I see no reason why it would be building pressure. What is a guy to do? So I have the carrier and pinion at the local driveline shop getting new bearings installed then I’ll replace all of the wheel bearings and seals we well as another friggen set of shoes! Errr…This crap is getting old. Anybody ever see a 14 bolt with a case of drippy d ick?





My fancy oil catcher. This is 100 miles worth of oil spit on a slow state highway (65 MPH). If cruising 75 to 85 MPH on the interstate it will fill this bottle up within 150-200 miles. WTF!! We’ll see what happens after the axle rebuild!


Curious if anybody has ran into this problem on 14 bolts before.

[MTCK]

That is an absolute head scratcher... I can't imagine that much expansion of the fluid from temp change so it must be presssuring up some how. I'm about to tear into my 14FF for some maint and will stare at it a bit and see if I have any revelations.

[Greenlee]

Found a thread where someone was having the same problem.

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/chevy...-out-vent.html

[Greenlee]

Out of curiosity I've been reading up on this.

Here is another thread.

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/gener...breathers.html

[DirtyLarry]

Thanks Greenlee!

That is great info. I’ll read through that and see if there is anything to come out of it. Ironically that guy talks about 4:56 thick cut gears. Well, that is exactly what I have too.

The axle having premature ejaculation started last March on the Death Valley trip. Then again in May when I ran down to Flagstaff. The summer prior to that I had converted the rear drums from the typical 70’s ¾ ton 10.5 axle 11” drums to 1 ton 13” drum but I also replaced the cheap “Genuine” brand ring and pinion to a Yukon set sometime around then but I can’t remember exactly when the new ring and pinion went in. One of these projects brought on this new problem. Now I just have to figure out which is the culprit.

The only thing I noticed that surprised me is the vent hole is right above where the carrier adjuster collar is on the left side. The adjustor collar actually covers the vent but there is still plenty of room for air to get by. Although with using thick gears I wonder if there is splash coming off of the left carrier side bearing and getting slung up into the vent hole. That still would not answer as to why it keeps blowing axles seals and why it stalled on me in Death Valley. What I mean by stall is it felt like all of a sudden the truck was pulling a freight train for a split second then let go almost like the brakes were coming on. It did that three times in a row real quick and has never done it since but the axle vent orgasms started from that point on. I really expected for find a welded bearing in there somewhere when I took it apart but nothing yet. This thing does not make any odd noises either. Quiet as any other healthy 14 bolt. Friggen mystery!

Any one piece if info on the oil level. When this started there was a thought I had overfilled the axle so I just let it keep belching oil until it stopped coming out, which it finally did stop puking on the way home from Flagstaff last year. This past winter when I had the truck apart for the NV4500 redo I checked the oil in the axle and it was way too low. It was so low the pinion bearing was sitting high and dry. I couldn’t even touch oil with my pinky finger nor see anything with a flashlight. I found it was 1.5 quarts low from there up to the fill hole. I really don’t think fluid level has anything to do with it either as it has ran just fine for the past 20 years with oil up to the fill hole. Mystery I tell ya!

Thanks for the links!

[Bowed]

Larry , thanks for the picture book type adventure . it was a treat .