I have never been a superstitious person, but after this weekend's event I don't think I'll be wheeling on a Friday that lands on the 13th day of the month anymore.   Our club hosted a campout for some out of state wheelers to show them some of the best wheeling Arizona had to offer.  We jokingly referred to the weekend as "MLK on the Rocks" which was based off of our old "Turkey on the Rocks" traditional turkey day run.  I am thinking next year we will call it "Carnage on the Rocks".  I started this trip report with a numbered list of breakages we experienced and left the numbers in so you can see where stuff broke. By the end of the weekend only 5 of the 17 rigs were unscathed.

Friday the 13th

1. Jack is the first on the list when a unit bearing on his tow rig goes out on the way to camp, he ends up changing it in a restaurant parking lot.

2. Further up the highway one of the California wheelers looses boost in the tow rig and has to pull over.  He suspected a blown hose but finds no problems under the hood.

3. Jason cuts a trailer tire heading in to camp.

We gathered everyone who had arrived up to this point and went down to the river to play follow the leader in the rock garden.

4. While driving in the wash rear sway bar breaks but I wouldn't discover it till getting back to camp.  I suspect when it happened I was flexing the rig out on a large notch (shown above) to get a picture when the rig suddenly listed to the side and slid into the notch which launched my camera from my lap and down about 5 feet to the rocks below.  The camera was pretty tweaked but it looked like it was still functioning. 

The next obstacle I tried to climb was a vertical wall.  Without the sway bar the rig was acting differently, when I crested the wall and bumped the gas the rig listed to the side and came crashing down into some nice soft sand.  Once we got the rig back over we discovered the motor was hydro locked.  After clearing the cylinders we started the motor and it had a horrible knock and only had 2 cylinders firing. I limp back to camp and then discover my sway bar is hanging from it's mounting tube.  This explains the roll.  I disassemble the intake and pull the plugs again to clean up any residual oil and eventually get all the cylinders firing again.  The engine still feels down on power but I chalk it up to having to burn off oil in the intake/exhaust.

5.  While I was getting winched over from my roll, Scott broke one of his airshock mounting bolts (grade 8 1/2" bolt).  He also fell and twisted his ankle while rummaging for a replacement bolt.

6.  Shane (CA) attempts the wall I rolled on and destroys the ears on his long side axle (D60).  Jack and I waited by his rig while everyone else ran back to camp to get a replacement axle.  When Shane finally returned we discover his spare axle does not fit so he stuffs a rag into the axle tube and limps the rig back to camp.

7.  Once back at camp Jack discover his battery is dead.  We also meet Nolen and Jim from Texas.  They wisely choose to get some shut eye after their 16 hour drive.

8.  Undeterred by the above carnage, Randy  (CA) and Wade (UT) both want to try an S&M night run. I lead them back there and Randy makes a beautiful climb on the first fall.  Wade lines up and gives it a go.  After the 3rd or 4th attempt he comes down hard on the rear end and we hear a loud noise.  On closer inspection we discover his lower cross member has rotated upward, ripping the tubing and binding one of his suspension link joints causing it to snap off.

9.  After securing Wade's rig and getting everyone back to camp I lead a short run down Bushmaster and up 1/3rd of Suzy's Choice.  On the way back my rig starts cutting out as if I were out of fuel.  we make it back to camp just after midnight.

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