This trip was in November, the most recent and the first one I have access to pictures of right off without having to dig out flash drives and external hard drives. We've gotten older since we started doing this kind of thing and as such, trailer the trail rigs. Getting home Monday for work is now a priority and it also lends it's self to more adventurous wheeling since there is less worry about making it home.
So this trip started on Thursday night. I hooked my trailer to the truck and headed to my buddy Matt's house after work. His little brother needed to use my trailer to haul his CJ3A for his first ever off-roading trip. This was a very proud moment for Matt and I'm honestly glad I was there to see it too.
That night we hooked my trailer to his Dad's truck and loaded the Jeep at the farm, then headed to Matt's house where we checked all the fluids on and loaded his F150 then hit the hay. The next day started about 7am, with Matt out feeding the animals before he left and me doing final checkouts on the truck and gear. We hit the local Food Lion for groceries for the trip then hit the road to Uwharrie. From his house, we took 221 over to Hillsville, Va then down I77 to I74 to US52 through Winston-Salem down to Lexington, NC. From there we went east on 64 to 109 South to take us right into Uwharrie. We camped at the hunt camp just up the road from the Eldorado Outpost in Troy.
Many moons ago, we learned the importance of setting up camp before you go wheeling. We learned this by trying to setup the most complicated tent known to mankind at midnight with the use of one small, almost dead flashlight after 3-4 hours on the trail after 3-4 hours driving down there. So, first things first, we set up camp. We were waiting on another friend and his son to show up which means that we go wheeling and hope we have enough cell service to get a call or text when he gets there. I'm a Ham but have been unable to talk any of my other buddies into getting their license or even being able to get them to install a simple CB setup. It's infuriating, but it is what it is...
We picked a few easy trails to get Andrew (Matt's little brother) acquainted with his Jeep and just a little taste of off-road driving. I remember we ran Dickey Bell from top to bottom and Falls Dam. At the end of Falls Dam we ran into Wolf Den, then down to Slab Pile and back to the 553 Access Road on the south end of Rocky Mountain Loop.
Here is Matt's truck and Andrew's Jeep coming down the hill top hill climb on Dickey Bell.
Again, most of the time we're riding so picture taking is sparse. I got these because I was already out helping spot Andrew down and just stayed out to take a few pictures of the F150 doing it's thing as well.
When we got back to camp, we got word that our buddy Brett had gotten a later start than planned and was a few hours out. We fired up the stove (my buddy's stove if you've seen my post in the camp stove thread) and got to work on some fajitas with rice and some cold beer to wash it down.
Brett and his son showed up around 9:30 if memory serves and we all hung out around the fire and had a great time. It's nice to get out and see old friends plus we were coaching Andrew and his buddy on trail etiquette and picking lines and all those kinds of things. Apparently in that family you make friends with a gear head to bring along on your adventures with you and we were trying to give them pointers to develop the kind of driver/spotter relationship that Matt and I have developed over the last 20ish years of doing things like this.
The next morning we fixed some oatmeal and sausage patties then started packing up for the day on the trail. Matt and I were headed out to get some gas from the Outpost and some drinks (soda, guys, soda) for on the trail. On our way back, we were talking about tuning the truck some and I was watching his AFR gauge as he was driving. When we turned onto the road to the hunt camp, he stopped and told me to watch the gauge while he did a hard pull to see how the engine was running and possibly make some jetting changes to it.
So he revved it up and dumped the clutch, tires (Super Swamper TSL Bias Ply Q78's) aired down to 10psi and we were off. The 1-2 shift is almost immediate with the super low first in the NP435, but when he dumped the clutch it slid sideways and was spinning. He let out but the truck was wobbling and acting funny. We both started looking out the doors and checking things and Matt said "I think we broke a rear axle, the back tire on this side is moving around." We limped it back to camp and sure enough, the axle was snapped. He's never carried a rear axle spare as he's never managed to break one before. We talked it over when we got back and loaded it on the trailer to work on. This way it would be there if we decided to pack it in and head home or at least up in the air where working on it doesn't involve crawling around on the ground by two guys with hurt backs and creaky joints.
I immediately got on the phone, calling junk yards as far away as Winston-Salem looking for a shaft. We finally found a little Mom and Pop joint near Silver Hill, NC called Floyd's. Floyd is an older gentleman in his 80's that still gets up and opens this little yard every day except Sunday. This being Saturday, we were in luck. He said he had some old Ford trucks and should have an axle for us. Matt and I told Brett and Andrew to hit the trails and have fun, we should be back by lunch time and we'd meet them at the camp then and we headed up the road to get some axle shafts.
I wish I had taken pictures of Floyd's place it was really neat with some cool old vehicles stashed there. We arrived just as he pulled up and unlocked the gate. At the shop, he got his bobcat and told us to follow him. We rode around to the back side of the place where there was a 78 F100 long bed sitting. Matt's truck has the 31 spline axle shafts and it's really a crap shoot as to which trucks got the 31 splines vs the 28 splines but we figured that being a V8 long bed, we stood a decent chance even being a 2wd. Floyd got some old rims to stack up under the axle and Matt and I got to work pulling wheels off. Floyd apparently doesn't deal with many people who've been into messing the junk vehicles as extensively as Matt and myself. He said he was really impressed with us and that really meant a lot to us, being in our early 30's, many of our generation don't have these skills.
Anyways, the truck turned out to be 28 spline, which was a real bummer but Floyd told us to take a look around and if any other truck had the right axle, he'd lift it and we could check it. While Matt was throwing the axle back in the F100 so it wasn't crippled if Floyd ever wanted to move it, I went on a search of the other trucks in the lot. Ford is WEIRD... I found some very small lug pattern 9" axles under F150s that looked like they had a Jeep 5x4.5 lug pattern and a myriad of other combinations, but none we suspected would have the right spline count. I finally identified the best bet for finding what we needed and then Floyd mentioned he might have something in the rafters at the shop. Not having much to lose at this point, we followed him back up and started looking through what he had. BINGO! Two 31 spline shafts with decent looking seals and bearings, ready to go and no more wrenching needed to be done. We paid the man and signed his register and were off, back to to Denton, NC to hit the Advance Auto for oil, sealer and some little things like a strong magnet to try to pull the stub out of the carrier.
