W/E Wheeling

[jimmy salmon]

Hey Mike are we out wheeling the weekend , anyone else??
Wippa's tonite

[Mike Hippert]

OF COURSE! I have a running Rover and nothing is currently broke (well the heater is a bit flaky but who need heat). The real question; is anyone else going out with us? Or who wants to see how long I can go without something else breaking?:grin

[Mike Hippert]

So does anyone want to come out and play? Come on! I know some of you guys! And I know some of you live near by! We can do an easy trail or 2 if you are afraid of breaking something. Heck does anyone want to ride shotgun with me? Don't worry I'll let you out before I try anything crazy, I haven't lost one passenger yet!

[jimmy salmon]

will meet you sat and i've got a pass for sunday
two days of wheeling,the rest of you guys or girls pick a day or both
sunday i can take a passenger

[jimmy salmon]

Looks like were are alone Mike

[jimmy salmon]

Out wheeling today with Mike Gary and Todd,had a great day,out again tomorrow,here are a few pics to show you NH guys what you missed

[flippedrover]

Gee Mike that first one looks kind of familiar.

[jimmy salmon]

dont follow mike lol

[Noah]

Shoot.. I wasn't up on reading the forum.
Looks.. wet. I need to get that wading plug for my tranny before I join you again.

Spent today extending my bumpstops so I won't go through any more shocks.

[jimmy salmon]

out again today Mike made it through this one

[Noah]

that looks like a familiar hole... same one?

[jimmy salmon]

diffrent one this one was more of a bog, its the one you got half way through with gary and mike.i had about 3ft to go and bogged down and had to winch

[Mike Hippert]

Noah, yep thats the one that you went through, the one Garry went around and took off his mirror. I did the same thing you did, I took it in third and bogged down at the end, backed up and shot through it in second. Jimmy went first and almost made it, he was 10 feet from the end and then he got high centered and had to winch a few feet.

Tyler, yes my shoes got soaked again and my headlights have some water in them. What you didn't get to see was when Jimmy went into the hole in the second set of pics, about 1/2 way through a log about 3 feet long and 16" in diameter got washed up onto his bumper and stayed there for the rest of the ride through the mud.

[cgalpin]

Looks like fun, but a mess to clean up :) I went playing in the rocks yesterday for the first time in my defender - had a blast .


http://lhsw.com/gallery/crozet20040829/DSC00235


Mike, what do you use to mount your Hi-list? Got any close ups? I need to do the same.

thanks
charles

[Mike Hippert]

Charles, I have an ARB bumper that has 2 light tabs across the top bar, and I just stuck some 1/2 inch threaded rod through to bolt the high lift to.

[cgalpin]

OK, thanks. I have a stock brush guard. The plastic coating makes welding tabs onto it a pita, so I'm looking at alternatives (until I shell out for a nice ARB bumber or make my own).

charles

[dmarchand]

The S.S. Hippert returns....

[Mike Hippert]

Some pics! ANd theres no water!:eek:


:grin

[cgalpin]

Looking good! Where is that BTW?

[Mike Hippert]

The Granite state.:grin Come up sometime and I'll show ya.

[cgalpin]

I'll hold you to that! :)

[Mike Hippert]

Well we are going out again this coming Saturday, we are heading out to Mabel and Florida Road, anyone interested?

[jimmy salmon]

Looks like were are alone again this saturday Mike unless ernie turns up

[Mike Hippert]

Some pics of yesterday! There would be more but Jimmy forgot his camera (again:) ) and my camera battery died (forgot to charge it).



It was fun, went through some small puddles (they were about 3 feet deep) but I still managed to get my Copilot a little wet :naughty. Some water managed to get into Jimmy’s T-case:eek: . And due to the water it screamed on the highway, it sounded like a jet engine! At 65mph I could hear it from 200 feet behind. Oh and that’s not the bad part, it smelt BAD! I mean real bad, boiling swamp water is not the kind of thing you want to smell. I could smell it from behind him but Jimmy and Brenda (Jimmy's wife) had to deal with it in the cab.



We had several comments from fellow wheelers on Florida Rd, they all stopped to check out the 90s, and were very impressed by the articulation. But what impressed them the most was my steam whistle!:proud After watching them try to out do each other on a rock that a Toyota almost rolled on both Jimmy and I drove over it with ease, then I was given several offers to trade my 90 for there rides.



We then drove to the next trail (I almost ran out of gas getting to the trail but made it to the gas station and put 14.5 gallons in the tank). After a few minutes on the trail I started to overheat, my Radiator was clogged with mud from the last trail. So we blew it out with Jimmy's Power tank and I was OK. We then came to the first big obstacle, it is a short steep climb up a large rock, it also puts you a little sideways at the top and requires a bit of "momentum" and some tire spinning to get up it, Jimmy gave it a couple tries and said he had enough (Jimmy is doesn’t like to get too sideways), I moved in quick not giving time for my Copilot to get out before I hit the climb and preceded to give a scary ride (no doors makes any ride more fun) and on my third attempt I made it over. After that I was told I have to put an oh $hit handle in.



10 minutes down the trail and Jimmy's 90 over heated, we blew as much mud out of his radiator as we could but we could not get the mud out of his AC radiator and it kept overheating , so we called it a day and headed home.



On the ride home myCopilot was pointing out construction sites saying “that looks like it could be a good trail!” and “look at that pile of rocks I bet we could make it over that.” Jimmy and Brenda slowly went def listening to the howling T-case, and could no longer hear us talking to them on the CB. We pulled over at a Dunkin Doughnuts to stretch our legs and get some coffee (well everyone except me). When Jimmy started to back out of his space after 5 feet he said “I have no power steering!” I was in the next space and told him to pull back in, when he put it in gear he realized the engine had stalled, he could not hear and didn’t know the engine had stopped running,:lol we all had a laugh and hit the highway to get back home.

[flippedrover]

Cool. Sounds like fun.

[jimmy salmon]

drained my T-case the smell nearlly made me sick the oil was black and really pastey.
almost sure i see a frog come out to
have flushed it twice with clean oil gonna do it again today then road test it
hopefully i have done no lasting damage
as for the jeepers mike mentioned we had to check underneath our trucks b4 pulling away to make sure there was no legs sticking out from under
seemed every time we stopped there was at leased 2 with there heads under
they were all nice guys and gals and we all had fun

[jimmy salmon]

well the T case has had it

[jimmy salmon]

had to post this pic

[Mike Hippert]

Wow it doesn't look that deep.

[dmarchand]

Sounds great Mike! We had some fun up in VT this weekend with the VTXS.org crew. Jamil's site has most of the pics for now.

http://www.pbase.com/jamooche/pete1

[Mike Hippert]

Looks like some of the guys saw some damage.

[dmarchand]

Yeah. Jo slid off a rock and mashed the front quarter, pushing the heater intake into the heater matrix. We fixed that by bypassing the heater entirely. That's the first time I've seen Jo do any damage.

Scott literally plowed into a tree going about 15 to 20mph coming out of a mud hole I was previously stuck in. He bent his RW bumper into the panel really nicely, cracking the welds on the winch tray. I must say, it was pretty funny.

Then Mike in the red 90 bent his trailing arm. But managed to fix it in under 30 minutes. It was like he worked on a nascar team. Used two bottle jacks to do it and didn't even remove it from the axle.

We did all this in the matter of a few hours. We were on some private land and held our own little comp. We split into teams and cut our own trails. Then we all made a go at them with judges. Pretty fun.


It was a great time.

[Mike Hippert]

Cool! Sounds like fun! I am glad I have the ARB bumper up front, I hit a tree the same way at MAR coming out of a mud pit and I just pivoted around the tree on the ARB. I can't belive Jo! He is always so careful.

[dmarchand]

My pics are making it up now: http://www.pbase.com/dmarchand/pete_the_beagle_2004

[Mike Hippert]

Scott literally plowed into a tree going about 15 to 20mph coming out of a mud hole I was previously stuck in.
Any pics of this?:grin

[dmarchand]

Well, I hear their is video of it but I haven't seen it, yet. Pics of the damage:
http://www.pbase.com/dmarchand/image/33543228
http://www.pbase.com/dmarchand/image/33543233

Pic about a split second after initial contact with the tree:
http://www.pbase.com/jamooche/image/33473679

Notice the rear tire is still spinning, and the front eyebrow is in mid-rip off from the wheel well... :eek:

Their are more pics in the two places I posted.

[Mike Hippert]

He bent the bumper on that little tree! It only looks to be 6 inches! What was he thinking going that fast? The mud really doesn't look that bad.

[dmarchand]

Yeah, it was that tree. The mud was slick and thicker than the pics show. The entrance to the mud was slow as their were trees bordering each side. Also their was a steep 3-4 foot climb out of the hole with nice big, exposed roots with no bark and stumps inside the hole and on the exit. So you get your front tires on the roots and they just spin. And I had just finished ripping into the hole myself before he went. Took me six tries at the exit to get out. It was deceptively tricky.

http://www.pbase.com/dmarchand/image/33545889

Me on about my third try consulting the boys.

I think he hammered it a little too much trying to make it the first time (since it was a comp and you lost points for every 3 tries on an obstacle). The bumper might have been suspect due to some rusting. Not sure yet.

And the tree was hardwood... :kiss