Unfortunately, we weren't quite on the ball with pictures at
this event, but I can say that it was the most fun I've had at
an event in a couple of years. We started out by repairing
our problematic throttle bracket that keeps preventing us from
being able to open the secondaries. We also fixed the
front driveshaft that we broke the last time out, and tried
booting the splines on both the front and rear driveshafts to
keep them from filling with mud and binding.
On our first run, we took aim at a deep hole in the bog that
nobody had tried yet, kicked in the secondaries, and were making
great progress through the hole when the brand new front
driveshaft let go. That left us in two wheel drive again,
and buried. Luckily, the event organizers had two logging
skid steers that drove around all day and pulled people
out. We returned to our campsite and proceeded to repair
the driveshaft. We were smart enough to get a backup
driveshaft when we bought our new front driveshaft, so we were
able to fix the broken shaft. We also had spit the degree
shims out of the front axle, which loosened up the front
u-bolts, and let the whole axle shift around. It was
probably this problem that killed the driveshaft.
Fortunately for us, the shims had gotten tangled up in the weeds
that the front axle was encased in, and we were able to
re-install them and get the truck back into action in a couple
of hours. Just in case though, we disconnected the
secondaries to de-tune the motor so that we wouldn't break
another driveshaft.
The rest of the event went fairly well, but after breaking
two driveshafts in two events, and spending close to a grand on
driveshafts and components, we were determined to rework the
front axle so that we could reduce the chances of snapping
another driveshaft.
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