T&T Customs Rocktoberfest in the Black Hills of South Dakota

[wallysheata]

I'm a little late on getting this posted here, but if you've never been to South Dakota, YOU MUST SCHEDULE A TRIP!!! The crew from T&T hosted their 1rst annual Rocktober Fest in the Black Hills of South Dakota this past weekend of October 5th through the 8th. There were easily 50+ rigs which included quite a few members from the board here. Unfortunately we only got pics of our crew on Hal Johns, Fruity Pebbles and Captain Crunch. We were fortunate enough to have Tyrant as our trail leader, Lefthand Rubi as our tail gunner, and TJrecreation, Bentaxle, "Jim Dad" Bentaxles father, and a local SD'en, Caleb in his tubed out 4Runner making up the crew in between. Hal Johns can best be described as 21 road on granite rock. Fruity Pebbles is best described as a granite mountain rock slide and Captain Crunch is the standard for a LONG hard core rock crawling trail, steep long NON STOP!! Overall we had a carnage free trip until the end of the day on Captain Crunch when i puked a hydraulic steering line, which bentaxle and i repaired in an hour, then Caleb lost an axle shaft, while TJrecreation was busy tearing a huge hole in his 40" KM2. There were plenty of other out there including an old teal CJ on 40's covered in cobwebs, so i HOPE they post some pics their trail runs and experiences too :greg:

On to the road into Hal Johns the first day

Game ON

 

[wallysheata]

 

[wallysheata]

And then Bent Axle (aka Jim) stole my jeep in response to me moving his forward to clear a little room...i think he enjoyed it :evil:

 

[wallysheata]

 

[wallysheata]

 

[wallysheata]

Looks like i missed a few pics of Fruity Pebbles
Ok, day 2 we had Krawlzone TV with us, and here's their video. We didn't get hardly any pictures because there was a dusting of snow overnight, making Fruity Pebbles one sketchy stretch of granite strewn boulders. Walking was tough enough, driving was literally bouncing your rig off the rev limiter, working the front end until something caught and launched you forward.

Camping was a bit chilly

 

[wallysheata]

OK the last day we hit up Captain Crunch, Lefthand Rubi left us on this trail to run something else, and Bent Axle's father Jim, joined us in his blue buggy on red lable Krwalwers again after chasing down the ARB air leak that plagued him on 2nd half of Hal Johns. Captain Crunch is NO JOKE, an absolute must for anyone who loves true rock crawling. It's big boulders, short steep climbs, mixed in the middle of a high alpine enviroment. The best way i can describe it to Colorado folks is Holy Cross meets Boulder Canyon :evil:

 

[wallysheata]

 

[wallysheata]

 

[wallysheata]

 

[wallysheata]

Then things went HORRIBLY wrong for us. I had a hydraulic steering line blow out, so Bent Axle jumped it to lend a hand at repairing the damaged line, then just as we started moving forward Caleb lost a rear axle shaft in the 4 runner, and TJRecreation decided it was a good idea to open up a HUGE hole the sidewall of his KM2.

 

[wallysheata]

So we opened up Carny's tire repair kit and tried to sew the hole back together and plug it full.

The proud surgeon

TEAM WORK!!

Then for extra measure we coated every plug with rubber cement and lit it on fire to try and melt it in better.

After we got the group out, the tire plug failed and we decided to send a crew back to the tow rigs to grab a spare tire/wheel so TJrecreation could drive out...only he had a wheel stud break loose from the hub causing us to not get the wheel off, so we tried arc welding it back to the hub with no luck.

Tire in the morning

All loaded up ready to head out.

And of course you can't go to the Black Hills and not swing by Mount Rushmore Thanks again to T&T for an awesome event!!

 

[CJ Matt]

Good to see another SD trip report on here. More people need to get out here and experience the Black Hills!

 

[zukijames]

looks so fun!

 

[Greg]

Crazy stuff Wally, that love all the massive boulders! Looks like a fun time!

 

[Herzog]

Great report, good to see your buggy out in the wild. Didn't you have a rollover you had to repair recently?

 

[wallysheata]

Great report, good to see your buggy out in the wild. Didn't you have a rollover you had to repair recently?

Yes Herzog I had a rough time at a friendly rock crawling competition back in September last year...

MVI 0902 - YouTube

Roll #2

And the one that did me in, MVI 0943 - YouTube

Well I got a later start on it than planned add to it our annual Rock Junction trip is scheduled for May 30-June 2 with the Grand Mesa Jeep Club, and it's May 22nd and I am leading trails for three days. This has brought me to the conclusion that i should just replace damaged tube and get back out on the trails for summer and worry about a 4 seater whenever my wife gets preggo and enjoy the rig as is for now

Ah finally moving forward....more to come next weekend when I am back in town. Wish me luck I've got 3 days to wrap it up.

 

[wallysheata]

On to this weekend, the wind has been AWFUL in Grand Junction the last two days, gusting upwards of 50-60mph so i've been able to get everything bent, cut, notched and tacked, but even this morning at 6:30am there was enough of a breeze outside to blow out the sheilding gas in my Mig causing me to grind out some of the welds i was trying to burn in. Bowtied showed up around 10:00am and was a HUGE help in getting everything buttoned up, definitely nice to have good friends around that love jumping in and lending a hand to get stuff done :thumbsup: Not many pics, but we ended the day by driving the rig up onto the trailer and taking it to Bowtied's garage where i can finish welding it tomorrow morning free of any wind, and slap on a few cans of spray paint. Carrie has been busy trying her hand a fiberglass repair on the hood, and while i'm not completely freshening the hood up, i did want to add some rigidity to the areas on the fender flares that were badly cracked. Sorry no pics of the hood but hopefully Carrie wraps up the hood tomorrow while i'm working on the paint/welding and off to Rock Junction on Wednesday :drunk2:

Went over to Bowtied1 (dane) place Tuesday morning and got right to work. He started welding on the rear of the cage while i finished up notching some 1-1/2" gussets. I then finished welding everything, we punched out the dent in the cowl, slapped some blue and silver paint and sorted through some wiring mix ups from pulling the dash and she's ready to rock and roll....and did i mention my wife Carrie did a kick A$$ job fixing the fiberglass hood. I just asked her to add some strength underneath where it was cracked, and she decided to play with it a little and got it looking almost new again. In the end I managed to gain roughly 3 additional inches of head room so i've got a little over 7" from the top of my head to the top of the cage. Ready for Rock Junction now

Tapped off the rig to rattle can it

Not perfect but a hell of lot better than it was

Sorry for the bad pics was getting hungry and just loaded it up on the trailer and went home, forgot to get some pics

 

[wallysheata]

Then after ALL THAT rush to get it done, some A$$HAT slashed 3 of my 4 maxxis right before rock junction this year, so i picked up some 43x14.5-17 TSL SX sticky's. Here's a couple comparison shots a Maxxis 40x13.5-17 Creepy Crawler vs. a 43x14.5-17 TSL SX both sticky's mounted on a 17x8.5 Walker Evans

Now, a 42x15-15 on a 15x10 Trailready Beadlock with the Maxxis and SX

40's vs 43's Side

Front

 

[Bart]

WOW, you've been busy. Love the trail report and pics and really want to get out to SD one of these years. Glad to see you got your rig back together.