More from Q

From Q via email - Late Friday night

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Mikes RR was still at the welders and the red 88 wouldn’t start yesterday am, so we didn’t make it to the gathering point for the trail briefing and start but we did get info by cell phone so we knew where to go if we could catch up.. Scott, Eric Carlane and JL having gone ahead.

The red 88 would crank fine, sputter when first cranked and then nothing.. Big fat spark from the coil wire, little or none at the spark plug wires.. I pulled the cap and the center electrode was ground flat and there was carbon all over the inside of the distributor.. New cap? .. No .., Cleaned old one with brake clean … same problem eventually swapped out the whole distributor … same problem.. The coil was bad.. The extra resistance to the plugs was too much for it… I should have figured it out faster but …

It turned out well tho as we went straight to the welders and the truck was almost done . 15 min and $232 later we were on out way. After a couple of minor navigational missteps we found the trail head and within 30 min had caught up with … Ben and JL, the rest of the group having moved on. Dora was not starting and there was much puzzlement all round.. I suggested checking the battery water and after adding a gallon she actually started…

Just that once tho..


Yesterday we did the porcupine rim trail. Jeff B broke a front diff, as did Ben (he also had a panoply of maladies as listed by Ben himself) Mostly it was ledges and baby heads (rocks the size of a … ) I have become remarkably tired of running on loose rocks the size of a football… Tomorrow we are going back to driving on slick rock (which isn’t slick at all btw)

 

 

The view at the end was worth all the trouble.


A huge canyon ( 15x30 miles ) with the stub of a long extinct volcano in the middle. And from the vantage point there was a 1000 foot vertical drop….

I got pictures of Mikes truck about 5 feet from the edge… It was defiantly impressive..

We stayed there , took pictures and repaired Dora until twilight and barely got off the trail before dark…

Dora by this time was running on about 6 v and had no lights, even the brake lights were almost invisible. Bill C driving Mikes RR went first, then Dora, them me and bringing up the rear was JL.. It was about 10 miles down a twisty VERY dark dirt road with Dora all but invisible. All they had to navigate with were the tail lights of the Rangie and a dim flashlight…


Poor flat Dora only made it about a mile off the access road and then died completely..

Ben and I went back to the campground after trying to find a battery store at 9 pm in Utah.. And we found a battery to borrow. Bill Fischel never even missed it till we mentioned that he should get a hold down and tighten the battery terminals next time…

Back to Dora, battery swapped and she started right up, no problem. Back home and off to dinner.

A generally 5 hr trail, about 12 for us, par for the course.

Hundreds of other stories later when I can. + more of my pictures

Bens pictures are at for the trip to date are at www.roverist.com/bsmoab1

He caught the BEST picture of JL’s tip over…