Well,
after the last trip and all the rear diff noises and leaks, it was time to repack bearings on the back and verify the whole thing.
Also, 200K miles is upon us, so I decided to do the ZF box maintenance (I've been procrastinating that enough).
The filter replacement was a royal PITA, with the chassis crossbeam and all, but I am done for now.
On the rear, I realized 3 bolts were broken halfway on one side, I guess it was loose and eventually broke them, they are still half size, and they seem to hold, but I will have to replace soon enough if they get loose again.
Check steering and some other stuff, all seems ready to go.
I'll drive it for a while and see how it feels.
As a recce trip for SCLR, I joined Jake on a trip up high on the sierras. What a change from the hellish heat down here, we were in the low thirties Fahrenheit overnight, saw snow, ice, water, and rocks, millions of rocks. I can describe what we saw any better than these pictures:
This is around 11,000 ft altitude, boy we felt the elevation!:
Snow run in late June?
Camping at over 9,000 ft, cold.
And something to work on, since I won't get out until it gets cold again, it's time to do the 200K miles service anyway. The vibration from the mud tires, loosed up the bolts on the driveshaft (lost a couple just reaching Bishop) but all is good. I guess all that vibration is not that great on the axle itself either... still this thing works great, I did 4 hours+ with the AC full blast without problems, it could use some extra HP when climbing with A/C but no overheating or anything. Very happy with this thing.
Thanks to Luis, Ted and Drew for the pictures and videos.
We gathered at my place and had pancakes to start the day properly, then heading down to the border to join the rest of the team.
So after we got some pesos and food, we were ready to continue down to Ensenada.
The official sticker, it all made sense later on...
Stopped at a winery to "sample" some of their stuff, time well spent.
Fooling around
We got to Ensenada, camping on the beach. This trip I wanted to try sleeping inside the range rover and I love it, simple.
Cool wine collection.
April 4th
There is something magical about waking up in the beach.
Truck still goes strong.
Ensenada time for tacos.
Danger, boobs?
La Bufadora, a little touristy spot.
Oh, more danger, martian boobs?
Where are they?
We arrived to El Rosario, gas, food and hotel here.
Always time for some music...
April 5th
Let's go!
Ingalls, the GPS
This is getting interesting.
Beginning of the trail, airing down.
A nice bunch of people...
Beautiful place.
Ingalls brought a sister...
Nice shot.
Another one:
We made it to the mission, going up is not going to be that easy...
Ah, the sticker makes sense now.
I love these tires, really good offroad.
Camping...
... music ...
... games.
April 6th
Nice hike up the mountain:
I didn't get any pictures of the pool, but it was great. After all the walking and swimming, music and tea.
April 7th
Let's get out of here... not that easy...
Broken diff for our Baja friends.
There is always time for food.
Ok, so some shavings from the diff in the magnet...
Representando al CLRTTE:
Despite no rear traction on the series and no front diff on the Disco II, we all made it out safely.
Despite being tired and being very late, Coco agreed to meet us, he told us some of the stories he has in his log book of people passing by this legendary place.
April 8th
We are in Bahia Gonzaga, let's relax!
We did quite some work on the series to make it road worthy again, rear stub axle was shot.
Lanterns were released when the wind slowed down a bit, thanks Ron.
