TheMike
Adventurer
Thanks. If my family would have been along I would have had about 500 more pictures. There were times where I thought "Vik (my wife) would absolutely love this." Then there were other times where I thought, "Vik would absolutely HATED THIS!" Some of the trails were relentless. Constant abuse!
Yes sir I did. Kind of a funny story this trail was. We got to within 1/4 mile of the very end when we came across a couple of hikers on their way out. They were totally amazed that we were back there and even more amazed that I had a trailer in tow. We had to stop and be friendly.
In the process of chatting about our adventure and our rigs, they were focused on the Lock-n-roll coupler. As I described how it worked I noticed that it was just about to fall apart. I mean within minutes it was going to separate from itself. Apparently this thing doesn't like severe off camber jack-knife situations under load. My trailer weighed about 2K. Not to say they are bad devises but I managed to put it in positions it wasn't quite designed to take.
About to fall apart (can you find all that's wrong in this pic?):
Anyway, we were 7+ hours from Hall's Crossing. My iPhone was useless with AT&T but my buddy's Verizon worked just about everywhere. I called Mario at AT to ask for his help. It was about 3pm I guess and more or less asked him if he could get one out to me Overnighted to some place in Hall's crossing. I would figure out how to get it later.
He was a perfect gentleman and called around in Hall's Crossing for a place that would accept the new coupler in my place. He found the Marina personnel very helpful and it was on it's way.
To try and shorten a long story, we decided to try and "patch" it up enough to get the trailer out, or closer to Hall's crossing so that if I needed to leave it behind it would shorten the out and back to get the new coupler. It was a scary thought to think that coupler could have came apart at the worst possibly time, either up or down a steep long rocky hill. I am so grateful to have stopped to chat to those hikers!
My buddy's goody bag has some stock control arm bolts. They just so happened to be a perfect trail bolt for the pin that sheered in the coupler. Between his bolts and my washers we were in business. Out comes the impact wrench to squeeze the coupler back together, shorten the safety chains, and off we limped out.....very, very slowly.
Trail fix of the coupler:
A slow exit is an understatement. We ended up stopping just after Grey Mesa very close to sunset. The coupler was holding together but getting more twisted out of shape.
The next morning we decided to continue to limp out. We got out without any further problems. We managed to get to Hall’s Crossing just as the last inbound ferry for the day was pulling into the harbor. The new coupler was walked off and into my waiting hands just as we were able to board for the last outbound ferry. All worked out well.
Some minor trailer frame scrapes, a broken ORO Swayloc sway bar (design flaw?? in the end – replacement on the way), and a damaged Lock-n-Roll coupler was the carnage for this trail.
All in all, I was very impressed with everything. Looking back on the trail it wasn’t that “hard” but as you see it for the 1st time you wonder at times could it possibly get any harder. Going out was definitely more of a challenge due to the unknowns but coming back was made easier because I was forced to be extra, extra careful!
On a side note, another group I talked to after the fact did the trail with 4 rigs, and one with a trailer. The trailer in that group was the only thing that didn’t face a mechanical failure! It just proves that proper maintenance, good tools, some good spare parts (combined between all the parties) can make or break a great time!
It's hard when I drive and run the camera.
