January 27, 2001
Truckheaven run with Rough Riders.

After meeting with Rough Riders in Ramona at 8am we drove to the Borrego Desert around Julian. It was quiet a scenic ride. At 2800 feet there was already plenty of snow. On the ground, on the tees, on the roofs of the oncoming cars...

The Tuckheaven itself was perfect. The sun was shining, and the surface was dry, bun not dry enough to make everything dusty.

Below you can see the map of our Truckheaven adventure on Saturday:

TH-AIR was the air down/up, disconnect place, that we used to prepare our Jeeps for the dirt, and then unprepared them back for the pavement. Various TH points indicate all kinds of interesting hills. The THF1 point is a flat hill, where we decided to call it a day and head back. The strait line, just before THF1, was an interesting drive with a little bit of rock crawling action.

The surface at Truckheaven that day had a little crust going on at the top with some soft action going on beneath. Once you break the crust, the tires have nothing to grip underneath.

Usage of equipment:

• Winch - one time
• Shovels - one time.

I had to experiment with the front locker a little bit. It is the most useful when one of the tires goes high in the air, and the traction of the rear wheels is insufficient to get the Jeep over a hurtle. On hill climbs with low traction locker doesn't do much. I was trying to get up one hill. With front locker on or off I was stopping at pretty much the same place.

Also I had a good chance to flex out my new suspension setup and find out how well the tires stuff. My setup is 35-inch MT/R tires (they are actually more like 34 inches), 4" Skyjacker Doubleflex lift kit, and 1-inch body lift, front anti-sway bar fully disconnected. I found out that at extreme flex the front tires would rub against inner fender, fender lip, frame, and control arms. Well, since there are four points where the tires rub, and not just one, I would say this is not a failure of suspension, but an indication that I need to limit the front-end articulation.

Damage report:

• Tim's CJ stalled at the TIM S point because of the faulty wire connection. This was fixed on the trail very quick.
• Jame's YJ got some body damage from his fellow Jeeper. Wear bumpers next time James! :-)
• I lost the passenger side bumper end plastic cup, and bent one on the rear bumper. Plus my tailgate with the 35-inch tire hanging on it is easier to open and close now than before. I wonder if some dirt I found on the bottom of the spare tire has anything to do with it.
• Gus had to give the front axle disconnect on his YJ a blowjob, when we hit the pavement after wheeling.
• Only Andrew didn't damage anything on his Jeep.

This was a fun fun day! Thank you to Rough Riders for inviting the little TObject team for its first run to Truckheaven.

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