- Location
- Grand Junction, CO
I was headed to Moab on Saturday morning, planning to run the Pickle solo... I wanted to make a test run with the TJ and see of the recent changes I'd made to the cooling system had done the trick.
On my way into town @RockChucker mentioned they had 4 rigs heading into Coyote Canyon and secured the proper permit to do so. I asked Dave if they had room for one more and he said sure, we can write you in on the permit!
It's probably been 15 years since I've ran Coyote, I was very excited to put tires on it again.
We had 4 built TJ's and a mean U4 buggy in the group; Dave's built TJ on 40, Mike on 37's, Tom on 37's, myself on 40's and Dan in the buggy on 42's.
The trail starts with a Gatekeeper right off the bat and then is just a relentless wash filled with boulders and climbs, one after another. Many of the rocks move as you drive over them, making for perfect diff hangers. There are a few harder optional obstacles, with our group opted to try nearly every time. It was slow going, with Dave doing a lot of spotting and guiding to get everyone thru Coyote.
This is why I love my Dana 70U.... nothing to hang up on! Rear axle just slides right over big boulders without any drama!
My engine temp stayed right around 185-190* all day, looks like the cooling changes really helped!
Earlier in the trail one of the guys noticed that the passenger steering arm on Tom's Super Duty 60 had a crack in it round the bolt holes. There wasn't much we could do to repair it, so we cautiously pushed on. As we were dropping back down, not more than 300' from the end of the trail the steering arm failed and tore. It was still attached... for another 50', then came totally disconnected.
At this point we still had around 250' of trail left, a few pretty large boulder drops and many smaller boulders to traverse. It became an exercise in patience and to be honest, it was very well done... considering the TJ had zero steering from the driver. With a combination of locking the front diff, unlocking and locking different hubs, backup moves, some winching from the rear, stacking rocks to get a tire to turn the right way and some dragging, the guys were able to get the broken TJ off the trail.... right at 5 PM, which is the required time to be off per the trail permit!
It was a fun day, the weather in the morning was ideal.... the trail was perfectly technical, hardly letting up much at all, just how I remember it. The Speed Goat worked great, I was really happy with it, the Nitto's hooked up, the Olympus beadlocks took a beating and so did the undercarriage, skidplates, axles, etc.
Between driving, taking pics and video I didn't get pics of some events and rigs along the way... I have some vids to edit and post, working on them now.
On my way into town @RockChucker mentioned they had 4 rigs heading into Coyote Canyon and secured the proper permit to do so. I asked Dave if they had room for one more and he said sure, we can write you in on the permit!
It's probably been 15 years since I've ran Coyote, I was very excited to put tires on it again.We had 4 built TJ's and a mean U4 buggy in the group; Dave's built TJ on 40, Mike on 37's, Tom on 37's, myself on 40's and Dan in the buggy on 42's.
The trail starts with a Gatekeeper right off the bat and then is just a relentless wash filled with boulders and climbs, one after another. Many of the rocks move as you drive over them, making for perfect diff hangers. There are a few harder optional obstacles, with our group opted to try nearly every time. It was slow going, with Dave doing a lot of spotting and guiding to get everyone thru Coyote.
This is why I love my Dana 70U.... nothing to hang up on! Rear axle just slides right over big boulders without any drama!
My engine temp stayed right around 185-190* all day, looks like the cooling changes really helped!
Earlier in the trail one of the guys noticed that the passenger steering arm on Tom's Super Duty 60 had a crack in it round the bolt holes. There wasn't much we could do to repair it, so we cautiously pushed on. As we were dropping back down, not more than 300' from the end of the trail the steering arm failed and tore. It was still attached... for another 50', then came totally disconnected.
At this point we still had around 250' of trail left, a few pretty large boulder drops and many smaller boulders to traverse. It became an exercise in patience and to be honest, it was very well done... considering the TJ had zero steering from the driver. With a combination of locking the front diff, unlocking and locking different hubs, backup moves, some winching from the rear, stacking rocks to get a tire to turn the right way and some dragging, the guys were able to get the broken TJ off the trail.... right at 5 PM, which is the required time to be off per the trail permit!
It was a fun day, the weather in the morning was ideal.... the trail was perfectly technical, hardly letting up much at all, just how I remember it. The Speed Goat worked great, I was really happy with it, the Nitto's hooked up, the Olympus beadlocks took a beating and so did the undercarriage, skidplates, axles, etc.
Between driving, taking pics and video I didn't get pics of some events and rigs along the way... I have some vids to edit and post, working on them now.
