The Landblogger

Mackenzie Trail 2005 - Part 5

By 9:30 we were all packed and lined up at our new bridge to head westward. The new bridge with Land Rovers going over it provided a photo op for everyone, after which we proceeded up towards the runway. It's half mile of smooth surface was just too tempting after the torturous miles on the previous days. We raced down the runway 4 abreast in 4th gear low range. Great fun, but over rather quickly as we all converged, speed-shifting downward on the cow path at the west end of the runway.
The next few kilometers were the typical endless rough terrain, with mozzies sneaking in the cab and biting us every chance they could. We had a bit of a disadvantage here as we were the only open-cabbed truck and we were constantly dousing ourselves in Deet to keep the bugs at bay.
A short diversion around the end of Tsacha Lake turned out to be longer than expected. We intended to take a quick look at the other recreational lodge on this lake, the Blackwater Lodge, which was about a 2 km detour in and out. However, within about a half kilometer, and in the middle of a rather rough spot, I discovered that the 4WD on my truck had stopped working on the front axle. This discovery was the result of getting abysmally stuck in a spot that I should have gotten through with no problem. Dave T and Peter stayed back and dragged me out of the predicament, while in the meanwhile getting themselves a bit stuck, but we finally both made it to the lodge where the rest were waiting and having a tour around. Phil, Kris and I tore down the front hubs to try and decipher what was happening. It became obvious that either the spider gears had failed or a halfshaft had failed in the front axle. It was decided that rather than try and tear something down that we didn't have parts to fix, we should reassemble, keep the hubs locked in and continue onward, provided I didn't hear any untoward grinds or growls from the front end. by keeping the hubs locked, at least everything turned at the same pace as the energy from the transmission, so less chance of serious damage.
At around 11 we left the Blackwater Lodge, back through the muck and to the main trail.
It takes a significantly different driving style to drive in two wheel drive on 4WD roads. Anyone who's gone fishing in an old F250 Ford knows what I'm talking about. You can get a long ways before getting stuck, but you gotta be a bit creative about it. So what we did was set up Phil and Deb in the D90 in front of us, and he would drive through the bad spots first, with me watching his approach and his path. When he got though to the other end of the bad spot, usually about 50 yards or so, he would pull up and let me give it a try. I would go through following his path, except at about 3 times his speed, and more often than not it got me through. In all Phil had to tug me out due to no 4WD about a dozen times. Other tugs would have happened whether I had 4WD or not, as all of the trucks had to be tugged through various spots. One of the biggest challenges was if I was pushing to get through the last few feet of a mud hole and Phil hadn't moved up far enough. More than once there was a desperate toot of the airhorns to get him to pull further ahead. The other unfortunate side effect was the resultant wheel spin that kicked up mud from the tires to the back of Pamela's head! Of course this resulted in me getting a huge bruise on my arm as she hit me again and again through every mud hole. Finally after a few hours of this we came up with the plan to wrap a towel around her before I proceeded, which kept her clean, but Oliver still was the recipient to regular mud clods.
The loss of 4WD did not slow our progress much, as I'm a rather determined individual and we got to be pretty quick attaching a line for Phil to tug if it was too much to get through.
Around 1PM, we came across an old ranch and hayfield as the day progressed and the road led through the hayfield. Perhaps due to my 4WD problems I was a bit hesitant, and while the Defenders all headed through the hayfield I saw a small trail to the left that seemed to skirt the field. Good decision for us and the 3 trucks that followed us, as those in the hayfield took a couple of hours to clear themselves of the mud holes that had developed where the road had been. This was followed only about 200 metres later by a rather delicate crossing of a collapsed bridge, perhaps this could be a future bridge building project for the club!
Around 3 PM we arrived at the Pan Phillips Fishing Camp. We enjoyed tea with the Phillip's and great conversation. Just before dinner we proceeded towards the Lampert ranch, having decided not to detour southwards to the Home Ranch on this trip. A few moments at the Lamperts that quickly turned into an hour, and we headed across the Blackwater bridge and set up camp at the edge of another hay field.
Oliver was very tired and grumpy that night, and immediately when the tent was erected he dived in for a two hour nap. The rest of us enjoyed trout from our early morning fishing the day before, and ended the day with hot showers courtesy of Kris.
With all the innovations Kris had come up with, like the hot shower, I figured I had to get in the act, and thus was created Dave's Beauty Salon, taking the drivers side defrost hose and rerouting it to the passenger side. With the engine idling, and the heater on high, with all heat vents plugged off, it was like a superheated blow dryer on high speed. The girls enjoyed being able to wash their hair in the shower and actually dry it off afterwards.
Certainly this was one of the most eventful days in terms of the type of terrain covered, and the points west of here are the most remote on the entire trail so we looked forward to a good nights rest to prepare us to tackle the real outback.

Mackenzie Trail 2005 - Part 4

Day 4 — Determined to do better than we had the night before, Mark and I got up at 5 and launched his canoe for a further try at fishing Tsasha Lake. It was still pretty dark, and quite foggy. By the time the electric motor had delivered us to the other side of the lake, it was light, but very chilly and foggy. We found several island with deep channels between them. We let out our lines in the fog and started trolling. Shortly we saw a beaver fishing in the same area, which raised our hopes a little. The sun rose and immediately warmed us up, chasing away the fog. Mark caught the first rainbow trout soon after. In short order, cruising between the islands we had our limit for the day of plump fresh trout. At about 8:30 we headed back toward the lodge.
A quick gulp of some breakfast, cleaning the fish and putting them on ice and we were ready for the day's real project. This was to be a day off of driving, but we had agreed to rebuild a fallen bridge for the lodge owner.
This commenced with Peter and I dismantling the existing cross logs and laying them on each bank. The ladies arrived soon after and their job was sorting the cross logs, and hammering back the 6" spikes for reuse. A few were rotten, but most were in good shape. The biggest challenge was we didn't have enough spikes as we hadn't really prepared for this activity in advance. When we asked the owner for nails and tools, he had only bee able to provide a few gyproc nails, about 1.5 inches long, which really didn't cut it for 4-5 inch thick cross logs. So we came to the conclusion that every third log would get nailed, and the two logs in between would lay loose.
The rest of us teamed up, using Kris' D90, to pull out the three old stringers out of the creek and clean up the banks at both ends. Mark and Bill were sent out on a search for new stringers, of which they found two large enough beetle-kill logs up above the airfield and dragged them back to camp with Mark's 110.
We couldn't find a large enough third stringer so opted to chop a beetle-killed tree right down at the lodge. Only thing was, it had a twist at the base of its trunk, so presented some falling challenges. As well, there was an outhouse/sewer shed to its right at the 2:00 position, and three cabins on the left, about 10:00. After stringing a line as high as we could up the tree, which was attached to Kris' truck about 100 feet away, Peter, Phil and Dave T proceeded to notch it and back cut. After everyone was clear, Kris gave it a tug. Even with the line pressure helping to set the direction, it came down within about 6 inches of the outhouse, but in so doing cleared out a bunch of weeds anyway.
After lopping off all the dead branches, and trimming the ends, Kris dragged it across the stream with his D90 and into place as the third and final stringer. Bit of trimming and balancing and we were ready to reassemble the cross timbers.
Peter headed the crew hammering the cross timbers back in place, as all the rest sorted and brought up timbers from both sides. It didn't take long before it was actually looking like a bridge again.
To finish it off, Kris and Mark used their chainsaw to trim the ends of the cross timbers to the same length, with the 2-3 foot end pieces dropping into the stream. We didn't want the logs to float out into the lake, so while they were doing this, I was sent down to the stream mouth to catch the pieces and toss them onto the bank. If you can imagine, a robust (fat) guy like me chasing about 60 of these log ends as they were floating past. I caught all but two. Oliver, our border collie, was in there and retrieving all the short pieces, which were about 3 inches thick. I was surprised at how fast he caught on and made himself useful.
The owner was pleasantly surprised at how fast the bridge went up and before long had line up other tasks he was hoping we'd do. We did a couple of more jobs, such as draining boats, and dragging an old wharf out of the lake for the winter, but spent most of the afternoon laying low and relaxing.
Art Pye, the part time caretaker for the lodge, was stringing yarns about the lodge, the area, and the Mackenzie Trail, keeping us all interested and giving us lots to think about.
This was followed by a nice campfire, and we turned in for the night, prepared to continue our trip the next morning.

Mackenzie Trail 2005 - Part 3

I was up with the sun the next morning. The dew was thick and not quite frost, and fog rolled over the meadow around us. It was a very refreshing morning and Oliver and I decided it would be a good time to toss the fishing line in the water again. We had about a half hour of peaceful relaxation sitting on the log bridge fishing. No fish were harmed during the process, much to my chagrin.
We all got under way by 9:30 or so as there were no major repairs required. Bernie's bumper needed some reattaching and from then on he had to get tugged with a strap attached to the frame. It seems that the movie folks he had purchased the truck from had attached the bumper for looks rather than strength, so Bernie will be doing some rebuilding and reinforcing when he gets home.
The trail today skirted the north side of the Blackwater River as it widened into various flowing lakes and narrowed again. We would go past the active Kluskus native village, and also end up on portions of the trail that we hadn't gone through the previous time.
It didn't take long, however to perceive a change in the trail conditions. Yes, there were the regular mud holes, and the tight trees, and fallen branches, and innumerable potholes, but to add to the fun a new feature of the trail presented itself: side slopes. Since the trail was running parallel to the river, on the slope above it, there is some natural side sloping going on. But since last trip, it had become obvious that the primary vehicles driving the trail were ATVs, and ATVs tread quite differently than larger trucks on a dirt road.. ATVs are faster, and tend to take the path of least resistance on any trail. Due to their narrower track, one tire ends up on the hump in the middle, while the other ends up in the track on the low side. This erodes the low side even lower, while not wearing the high side. Thus, after months or years of ATV use, the side slopes along the way end up being amplified.
We started encountering side slopes around 20-35°, which is a rather uncomfortable position. Add a high load, mud and bumps to that and you have a recipe for clenching the butt cheeks way too regularly. In several places Pamela had to get out, and her regular routine was to lean out the window or open the door on the high side — not that it helped, but it gave her a bit more confidence that at least she might be able to exit the vehicle if it decided to go over.
From my viewpoint, it was tense, but one can get used to just about anything. However, there were a few spots where I was sure we were going to tumble, so I didn't hesitate to stop, call for big guys to balance the high side, then proceed. I heard later that one of these spots where I had called for help had weighed in on Bernie's Tipometer at 42°, and I'm told you go over at 45°.
Our morning departure started with a photo opportunity on a log bridge. We encountered a number of these bridges — three or four stringers stretched across a gap, with loose 4-5" logs laid across it. Occasionally a log will be nailed into place to keep the other ones from jumping around too much. One has to be careful that the logs are not rotten, but otherwise they are quite safe. This particular bridge was long, by log bridge standards, about 100 feet, and curved, and there was an earlier bridge along side it, which was beginning to rot. But it made the entire crossing appear like a highway compared to the road around it. All trucks except Mark stopped to get photos. Mark, as usual, was scouting the trail ahead.
As the morning progressed we drove past several dilapidated and rolled over vehicles, standard fare for this trail, and a rotted out mid 50's pickup truck with Cariboo Ranch, Big Lake stenciled on the doors.
Another water crossing, some serious side slopes, some slippery sections, a feww tugs and winching, and it looked like we were approaching some kind of civilization again. There was even a road sign, indicating a mileage of 53 miles(?) to Nazko. We think this was a bit of trail humour, but it certainly could be accurate.
We arrived shortly before lunch at the inhabited Kluskus Native village, only to find that no one came out to check on us. We saw a few heads pop up in the window of their main lodge, and as we gave up and left saw another fellow working on his pickup truck. Some of us ended up taking a wrong turn on the way out of the village and found themselves at an interesting dead end — a pickup truck graveyard. The trail is awfully hard on vehicles and many of them appear to end up here.
An hours or so later we met a fellow on the trail. There were also some rare signs of life, such as signs pointing to various side roads and ranches. The fellow was riding an ATV with his son on another one behind him. He was very friendly and pointed us to where an airfield crossed our path, and told us to take a right turn and go down to the lake. This was Tsacha Lake, according to our maps, and there appeared to be a fishing lodge on it. When we got down to the lake, sure enough we had arrived at the Mackenzie Trail Lodge. Although currently closed to clients, this lodge caters to fly-in visitors providing them a remote catered fishing experience. The owner and his wife were in doing a couple of days of maintenance, and they were quite surprised to see 9 Land Rovers roll in. Just as we were beginning to visit with them, there also appeared 4 or 5 ladies on horseback, who had ridden in from the northwest. They made negotiations for a night's accommodation, and in the meanwhile we did a bit of exploring.
One thing was quite obvious — the main bridge that crossed the creek to the lodge was out. Manny told us it was a vehicle too heavy that finally did in the bridge. All three of the stringers were broken and laying in the bottom of the creek. Our negotiations for accommodation went a little different that the horse ladies. We offered to rebuild the bridge in exchange for our choice of camping spots and we would stay for two nights, thus giving ourselves a bit of a rest before proceeding west. Manny discussed it with his wife, agreed and we took the long route around to the beach on the other side of the collapsed bridge. Although it was rainy, it was really nice to be setting up camp before dark, and to know we could relax for a few hours and unwind from behind the wheel.
Once the rain let up, Mark and I got in his canoe and tried our hand at trout fishing in Tsacha Lake. We hated to admit defeat, but by twilight we were back in empty handed. After dinner we discussed bridge building strategy and the plan was to start the rebuild at 9 AM sharp. So Mark and I had our own strategy meeting, not being happy that the fish had eluded us earlier in the evening. We were going to get up at 5 AM and give it a try for a few more hours.
Everyone fell into their beds quite early as we were all bone tired from the trials of the trail.

Mackenzie Trail 2005 - Part 2

I did say it would take awhile to get this all posted. Here's the next installment.

Day 2 - Kluskoil to the Indian Village

After the rain and storm of the night before, things quietened down for our first might of camping on the trail. The next morning we woke to drizzle and an assessment of damages from the previous day's rather rough start. We decided to get repairs done before breaking camp, which seemed to be the order of the day every morning afterwards.
I took a time out to fish off the dock early this morning, catching numerous squaw fish and throwing them back. Oliver thought this was great fun and really got into it.
Stuart had pranged a tree with the right front corner of his freshly restored 109, bending in the bumper about 6 inches and crushing some sheet metal against the tire. The wing had been pulled out on the trail the night before to allow him to continue, but now was a good time to bend it straight, with a little more finesse. Mark, Kris, Dave and Phil rolled up their sleeves. A suitable tree was found as an anchor point, and with careful positioning of a chain and gentle reversing, the dent was gone and the bumper straightened in no time. I was surprised at how accurate a job it was as you could hardly see where the damage had occurred.
Next on the list was Dave's roof rack on the Red Range Rover. I had loaned Dave and Peter an aluminum roof rack, sans mounting brackets to use for the trip. Dave had a set of mounting brackets and crossbars already, so mounted the rack on the crossbars. What we didn't know is that the cast upright supports on the crossbars were made of some kind of cheap cast pig iron and had decided to snap in half as soon as the trail got bumpy.
This caused the rack to drop down directly on the Range Rover's roof, and the remaining inch or two of upright to nicely leave some gouges whenever it bounced up and down. A trailside repair had been done the night before by inserting a small log, then tightening a strap over the back of the rack to keep it from bouncing. Now it was time to make the repair more permanent. Mark to the rescue... He brought out his chainsaw and sacrificed a small plywood tabletop to make two triangular brackets which held the cross bar of the roof rack and sat nicely in the rain groove of the Range Rover. A bit of strapping and reinforcing and all was in order.
We also were astounded at how much smoke Stuart's 109 was putting out. We knew the 2.5TD is more prone to smoke than a TDI, but he was fogging the whole place. A committee examination under the hood concluded that the air cleaner was not big enough to allow proper volume of air through and therefore a significant amount of unburned fuel was making its way into the exhaust. As we were about to close the hood, Mark also noticed something that was far more of a culprit -- that the plastic turbo hose had come off the intake manifold, thus rendering the turbo ineffective and allowing the engine to breath unfiltered air along the dusty trail. Having no recourse but to just plug it back in, we crossed our fingers that no permanent damage was done. This significantly reduced the smoke, but Stuart still has to work with Alan to increase the breathing on his engine.
Pamela, Oliver and I went for a morning stroll down to Chinee falls, where I was able to toss the line in a few times before it was time to leave.
At about noon we were all loaded up and ready to roll. The stretch from Kluskoil Lake to the park boundary seemed to go on forever. Much rougher and muddier than last time, but certainly the trail was passable.
As we were getting close to the Pan Meadows crossing, our first actual crossing of the Blackwater River, I got a call on the CB that my battery powered welder was required back down the trail. Somehow the viscous fan in Dave Tebbutt's Range Rover had decided to part company with its shaft and had ended up kissing the radiator, but, thank goodness, had not embraced it any further. During the process the threads on the end of the shaft had been buggered and now the nut -- not the original one -- would not stay on, which in turn allowed the fan to stray again at will. Mark and Peter put it all back together and were ready for a spot of welding by the time I got back down the trail to them. Mark got the honours and a few zaps later the fan will not come off the shaft -- ever.
The ladies along with us got a kick out of the road warrior style welding goggles and had to do a fashion show for the cameras with their rather unique fashion statement.
About an hour later, around 4 pm, we arrived at Pan Meadows Crossing with Phil and Bill already there ready to cross. Phil crossed with ease, defining the route for the others. When it was Bernie's turn he decided that it would be more fun to flood his engine in the middle, so he had to wait for Stuart to hand him off some WD40 before he could proceed. Of course Mark had to use the opportunity of a water crossing to pressure wash the undercarriage of his truck by crossing at as high a rate of speed as possible.
Once across it was discovered that Bernie had taking on water in his crankcase, so a quick side of the road oil change was undertaken. We were a fair ways down the trail by then, which is the byway between the old native village and the river crossing. This is the obvious route when heading westward, but I recall it being a major undertaking to locate the start of this trail last time heading eastward. A huge volume of trees had blocked the trail but had been cut away enough to allow ATVs to get through, so it was slow going, as we squeezed through narrow gaps and low overhangs. Phil was in the lead, and I was second. My roof rack made me at least 2 feet taller than Phil's Defender 90, so there were a number of slow downs to lift trees. We found out rather quickly that the chainsaw was back with Kris, who was back with Bernie doing the oil change. So our primary method of tree clearing was to lift them up or bend them back and drive on.
We came to one spot where there appeared to be three trees fallen, hanging at about the 8 foot level. Two were about 6 inches round and one was about 3 inches. I eased under them, just touching the gas cans on top, and Pamela got up on the hood to lift a wee bit to get us through. However, several things happened at once that brought us to a dead stop. I was easing forward with Pamela assessing from the top of the hood, when the 3 inch tree snapped. It had actually been holding up the other two trees which immediately came to rest on top of our truck. Pamela bounced forwards and landed butt first in the spare tire -- an embarrassing position that I was gracious enough not to photograph -- and the trees crushed one of the plastic jerry cans. It was full of fuel, but was crushed and twisted quite badly. It didn't leak, but I think it was a close thing. I am told these jerry cans are rated for dropping out of aircraft, and that actually may be true.
After some rather colourful conversation, it was concluded that we had to get a chainsaw to cut away the trees. I called on the CB to see if any of the trucks other than Kris had a chainsaw, and a few moments later Dave Tebbutt trotted up with what looked like a tobacco tin. Opening it up we saw a chain, but where was the rest of the saw? It didn't take long to figure out that we were the power behind the saw as there was a length of string and a small wooden handle attached to each end of the chain. Wrapping it around the tree trunk, and exerting a fair amount of energy Peter cut through the first tree and Phil and I shared the second tree.
We still had a number of miles to go and it was getting close to twilight. The forest along this trail was so tight that there was simply no place to stop and set up camp, so we kept plugging until we reached the abandoned native village at sunset. A quick wander around for those who hadn't seen it before. Certainly was creepier in the limited light than in daylight, but not the photo op it was last time since the light was waning.
We decided not to set up camp at the native village, as it was at the crossroads of several regularly used fuel routes and we figured we didn't want to have a confrontation with anyone about where we were camping. And, a few of us wondered about the ghosts floating around this creepy spot.
So, about a mile further down the trail we camped in a meadow on the side of the road. On the previous trip we had used this spot as a lunch spot. This day's drive seemed never to end and a few of us -- self included -- were a bit grumpy by the time we threw camp together. But a good night's sleep would fix that.

Mackenzie Trail 2005 - Part 1

I think I'll be editing this post for some time, because this trip was longer than I can fit into a single session of writing. Or maybe I'll just give small bites at a time. We'll see how it goes.
For Pamela and I, this was our first big holiday since going to England and Scotland in 2003, and it started for us on Friday, August 12th, with a long hot drive from Abbotsford to Vernon, via Merritt, Nicola Lake, where Oliver had a dip, Kamloops, and then finally, on to Vernon. We stayed overnight in Vernon Friday night, and left Willow, our 11 year old Husky, with Pamelas parents. Willow still likes to be out and about, but is getting a bit too old for the harsh bumping of an offroad trip. Looking back now, we would have likely ended up with some serious problems, as it was a very bouncy trip and even very hard on Oliver, our 2 year old border collie.
On Saturday morning we departed Vernon early, then had breakfast with my brother and sister-in-law in Kamloops. Headed up highway 5 through Barriere, where we had a short stop just short of Little Fort, at the farm wher I original purchased this truck 8 years ago. The previous owner, Mickey, was really excited to see how far the truck had come and that it was being driven daily.
We proceeded up the big hill on highway 24 westbound, which slowed us down to 2nd gear for about 15 km. We didn't overheat, but the footwell got hot enough (even with the door vents) that Pamela had to splash my toes with water because the felt like they were burning up. When we got to the top and drove for a bit we found another lake for Oliver to dip in, one of his favourite activities.
After a long day, we arrived in Williams Lake around 5 PM and stayed at a low budget motel, resting up in a normal bed and having a real shower for one last night before the offroading starts.
Sunday morning found us waiting, chasing around, waiting some more, then finally proceeding to Quesnel as the rest of the group assembled in dribs and drabs at the Extra Foods on the south end of town. A few trucks had a bit of trouble on the way up, everyone wanted to top up fuel, grub and beer, and lots of last minute activities, and around 2 PM we were ready to hit the dusty trail.
And dusty it was. The first 70 Km west from Quesnel were on a main logging road and, even separated by a kilometer between each truck, we were all eating dust. The open cab on our truck didn't help a whole lot. Finally, we reached the turn off for Titetown Lake, and with that a reduction in speed to about 5 mph, in low range, which effectively reduced the dust to nothing. This is close to the Mackenzie Trail head, and where the fun really starts. It was now around 4 PM, and we had about 18 Km to get to Kluskoil Lake, which is where we planned to spend the night. After fording the narrowa at Titetown, the trail immediately got narrower and much more primitive. Those of us that had been on the trip in the opposite direction 3 years before recalled that the last kilometer or so down to Kluskoil was rather rough, but the rest of the trail was pretty good. Well, 3 years later, and the main trail leading from Titetown past Kluskoil was rougher and muddier than the road down to the lake itself. This was a real surprise to both the newcomers and the returnees, and the last of the trucks finally made camp at the lake as it was getting dark around 8 PM. Just as we were setting up tents and preparing supper, a thunderclap rattled our teeth and it poured down rain for a half hour. What a way to start the first night's camping!

The Night Before...

As Pamela is busy packing the food, I'm here doing a last minute round up of what I've had to finish off this week. Last weekend on the West Harrison run I discovered that my clutch was not holding. After a quick trip back home, and a great response by Aart and Alan to get me a good used pressure plate and release bearing, I had it back together again Monday evening. Then, retorquing the springs again, reinstalling the roof rack, fixing a pesky fuse problem, fastening on some seat covers, changing all the fluids and greasing it, putting a leather strap on the antenna to keep it from hitting the metal roof, buying ratchet straps and bungies, buying more straps, installing the rear package tray to hold soft stuff, then gathering all the camping supplies together, and now we're more or less packed.

Tough uphill grunt from Hale Creek did in the clutch cover.

Mostly packed. About 350 pounds up top and another 350 or so down low.

We leave tomorrow morning for Vernon to drop off Willow and have a short visit with the inlaws, then head northward to meet the rest of the group Saturday night or Sunday AM. The preparations for this have been rather steep, so hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come.

Spring Plate Sliders

When re-installing springs earlier in the week it became apparent that the old u-bolt plates on the back were no longer servicable, due to cracks. So, as written in the previous post, I built some sliders. The project worked well, but took nearly a day to build 2 of them, so the fronts will be put off till sometime over the winter when I get time.

The original spring plate. Note the crack at the left.

Assembled parts.

Getting ready for welding.

View of the top (spring) side.

View of the bottom (slider) side.

Mackenzie Trail Preparations

Mostly customizations, but a few repairs along the way. Does it count as a repair if you're fixing a customization? I'm preparing for the Rover-Landers August trip along the Alexander Mackenzie Trail, eastward from Quesnel, BC.
This time (we previously traversed this trail west-east in 2002) we are making this our summer vacation, so in addition to 9 days on the trail, we'll be adding a few days front and back to make it a full 2 weeks. Pamela and Oliver are coming along and 11 other trucks.

I started my preparation with picking up a roof rack from Gregg Porter. Then went out and purchased 5 plastic military surplus jerry cans. Then decided that 250 lbs. of fuel was too much for the roof. So I spent last weekend manufacturing a jerry can holder to fit in place of where the spare tire usually goes on the back. Of course, the spare tire will now have to ride on the bonnet. And 3 jerry cans will still go on the roof rack. I figure my total weight on the roof rack, including 5 various size tote boxes, lawn chairs and table, and 3 cans of fuel will be about 400 lbs. And, since fuel will be consumed at a frightening rate on this trip, it wont be long till we're down to 250 lbs on top.
I spent some time last month creating some A-frames to replace the normal sides of the hard top. As most of you know, I am an addict of the soft top with its sides rolled up and lots of fresh air flowing through. However, its really tough to put a roof rack up above a canvas top. So my plan was to fabricate some supports at the back and put the hard top in place, suspended by the windshield — as normal, then a reinforcement on the roll bar, and two a-frames at the rear. See the pics. It worked very well. I am awaiting canvas so I can make side curtains, which will normally stay rolled up, but will provide a little bit of protection if the weather turns on us.
I had a bit of time last night, so I reinstalled the hitch mount/recovery bracket at the rear — now heavily reinforced. And put the grab handles back on that had been sitting on the bench since April. Speaking of sitting on the bench, the metal for the rock sliders has been sitting on the bench for way too long. So I cut everything to size, and was able to finish one side last night. Too bad I had recently scraped the crap out of that side. Should have done the sliders sooner! Later this week I'll finish the other side.
Defender hinges and mirrors happened somewhere along the line. Only my wallet knows for sure when it was.
My springs had been doing a fair bit of creaking of late, Wise Owl Parabolics with some pretty extreme use on them, so I ordered new bushings, which arrived today. Ripped out the springs during dinner hour, and they're off to the spring shop in the morning. The guy is going to rebush, re-curve and install teflon shims to stop the constant squeaking that is characteristic of thes springs. I will remount tomorrow evening. Of course, I don't expect these new bushings to outlast the old, so if I get 3 years out of them I'll be happy. I do stress the springs to the max articulation quite often, which is kind of hard on bushings. The neoprene ones I installed in the frame are holding up well, though.
I'm now down to a short list of things to do, but as usual, the time will catch up with me real fast and I'll be wondering why I didn't get everything done.
Last thing on the agenda of fabrications it to make som spring plate sliders for the rear. I would have put this job off, except that one of my rear spring issues was that the spring/ubolt plate on the left side was cracking, and getting worse. So on the drawing board is a simple desing of a spring slide, which you'll see photos of when its done. I'll only do the back two for now as time is creeping in on me.

McGiver Welding

I don't know where I first heard about this, but a few months ago it was brought to my attention when browsing through a South African off-road website.Welding McGiver style using 12 volt car batteries. Numerous other off-road sites can be found with descriptions of it as well.

Well, I just had to try it. And even before trying it myself, I volunteered to demo how its done at the VanIsle Rally on June 11. Me and my big mouth. So, over the past week, between long hours of work, I've collected and prepared the equipment, and this evening I did the testing. I'm really excited about the results. This is a great emergency repair tool and I plan on carrying the kit with me on long trips from now on.

List of equipment:

2 12 volt starter batteries, fully charged. Not Deep Cycle.
4 Lead Battery Clamps
20-30 feet of heavy cable, either from a good quality jumper cable set, or used welding cable, which can be found easily at a flea market, auto jumble, or my shed...
2 Clamps, one end can be a standard jumper cable clamp, but the other end you are best to purchase an actual electrode holding clamp, about $16 or find a used one.
Welding Mask or goggles, full hood not required, as this is only for short term emergency use.
Welding Rods, 2.5 mm general purpose, or "dirty metal", farm use rods will work fine. I used #6011 rods.
Gloves
Fire Extinguisher
Resistor Wire, a foot or two of 8 to 10 guage galvanized fence wire will do fine.

I started out by gathering this all together. In the shop at our place, there were numerous old discarded welding cables from the previous owner, so I used 2 15 foot lengths, and a couple of used ends that were laying around. Also, I was able to find an old hood. I had to go out and buy the welding rods - $10.95 for about 25 of them, a new piece of dark glass for the hood, and I found about a foot of 8 gauge wire, which the hardware store threw in for free.
I assembled 3 well charged batteries on the driveway, about 20 feet from the house in case of explosion or fire. Two of these came right out of my Land Rover, and one was recovered from a vehicle that had went to the wrecking yard recently. [As an aside, never store an unused battery on the ground or concrete. It will have the life drawn right out of it, never to recover. This has something to do with the conductive qualities of battery acid, and the fact that there is a light grime layer of acid adhered to the case of most batteries. This acts as a short to ground and will draw the charge right out. Don't ask me how I know this. Always put a battery to be stored on a piece of wood, instead.] The three batteries were each 625 cold cranking amps. So by linking them together in series -- positive to negative -- the maximum potential amperage would be 1875 amps. Wow, that's pretty heavy duty welding, since 120 to 150 amps is more typical of what's needed for day to day AC welding. I figured I'd have something a bit more like a plasma cutter than a welder.
One of the sites suggested putting a resistor into the curcuit, which reduces the amperage, but, of course creates heat. Remember, you'll be using this for emergencies so you want everything to be really simple. I used 8 gauge galvanized fence wire for this purpose, putting a small U on the end and then attaching a battery clamp on each end. This goes between two of the batteries and you should be very careful that no part of the wire itself touches or comes close to the plastic battery cases, as it can get quite hot.
Trial number 1, 3 batteries. I clamped a 2" by 6" piece of 12 guage flat iron into the ground clamp and figured I'd try to create a bead on its surface just to get the feel for it. Well, in seconds I was digging holes -- I had a cutter on my hands. It cut through 2 inches like butter. Checked the clamps on the batteries, nothing even warm. Checked the resistor wire, it was warm, but could still be touched with bare hands.
Trial number 2, remove 1 battery, keep resistor wire in the circuit. Again I tried to create a bead. This time, it was successful and I was able to run an inch of weld quite easily across the metal surface. The most noticeable difference between regular welding and this was the lack of power behind the current -- lots of zap, but everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. The circlular motion of creating the bead also had to be slowed down. I can still touch the resistor, not too warm.
Trial number 3, still with 2 batteries and the resistor in place. This time I planned on welding together two pieces of 1" square tube, 1/8" wall. I think this would be typical of the work it would take to re-attach a broken spring hanger or other trail carnage. I stopped a couple of times for a few seconds to check the resistor wire. It got hot, but not untouchable. 4 inches of welding later, I have a fairly flat bead, but with deep penetration. There seems to be a fair bit of spatter, compared to the mig welding I normally do, but this may just be a characteristic of this particular rod.
Trial number 4. This time I changed the resitor wire back to a normal thick battery cable. Even with two batteries rather than 3 I had a cutter again. Actually it was quite controllable, so in my kit I'm keeping both the resistor wire and the standard cable.

A few things to note:
--Always make sure all your connections are well tightened on the batteries before you start. Loose connections can result in arcing at the battery terminals, not only causing danger of fire or explosion, but the current going through is very high and the heat generated will melt the head off a battery terminal in no time. As long as all terminals are tight, there is no heat created at the batteries.
--Work about an inch or two at a time and let everything cool off before continuing. Each inch takes about 15-20 seconds which is similar in draw to cranking your starter.
--Always use starter batteries and not deep cycle batteries. The deep cycle ones are not made to take deep amperage draws like that needed for welding.

A small canvas sack to throw your cables in and you have a portable emergency welding kit. Don't forget to use gloves and keep a fire extinguisher close by!

Topping it off

Sealing the floor with MONO Ultra. This stuff works great, 'cept I ran out. Funny enough, when ripping apart the truck a couple of weeks back, the toughest job of the entire chassis swap, in terms of energy expended, was pulling out the 1" thick rubber mat I had cut to fit in the rear tub. It's carefully cut to go around the roll bar, and I'll definitely be putting it back in as not only is it a sound deadener, but the dogs like it as they can claw in a bit and don't slide around. But when I built the roll bar, I sealed it the same way with the little rubber pads, and MONO Ultra, followed by putting in the big rubber mat — before the sealant dried. And boy was it stuck! The rubber itself is tough stuff, but the sealannt is almost as tough and it was a sweaty job to get the mat out. This time, hindsight being what it is, I think I'll wait until the sealant cures for a few days before putting the big mat back in.

I also had fun with the hoops for the roof. Seems that my lift resulted in me not being able to get into the carport anymore. So, out with the angle grinder and I lopped off an inch. Then, of course had to drill out the rivets holding the door frame pieces together and redrivll and rivet them back in place. Round, round we go, but by 10 PM Sunday evening it was ready to roll.