Just got back from our trip to Ocotillo Wells/ Truck Haven. We had an absolute blast this weekend. We had a couple broken axles, shocks, transfer cases, motor mounts, mirrors, and other random things break in our group. Easy to see we had some fun. What we love about this area is there is every level of difficulty throughout the area. You can be going 50mph through the washes one minute then creeping through tough narrow canyons in 4-low the next, then back to high speed. So about some of the carnage we had. First my buddy in his ZJ broke the CV joint in his Dana 30 front axle. Luckily we were close to camp and he just went back to swap the axle. Next my dad broke his Dana 35 rear axle shaft on his XJ in the middle of this super gnarly canyon that you can barely squeeze through. This happened at night, and none of us had a spare axle shaft. We had to leave it overnight until we could pick up another shaft the next day. Luckily we got it fix with not too much issue besides a little rain. After that our buddy that has a 3rd gen runner on Dana 60 rear and 44 front with dual cases and 40's broke something in his front transfer cases 4 low. Luckily he was able to just put that one in 4hi then the second one in 4lo and finish the run with no other issues. A few of the jeeps broke their mirrors going though the canyons. Then today I broke a motor mount somehow. I was going over a steep little hill in 4low and every time i got on the throttle the intake would pull apart and lose all power because the motor was shifting so much. I just kept a light foot the rest of the way home with no issues from there. We went back up to the BBQ that we put on top of one of the hills last new years and BBQ'd some brats. We are going to try to add something new to the BBQ each new years. The arches are pretty cool for a good picture. I also almost rolled strain over the front end falling off a big ledge that I though was not so big. Scared the hell outta me. I'll post pics when I get them. We had so much fun bombing down the washes at night when nobody was out. We were able to go as fast as we could make our vehicles go without worrying about other people too much. That stuff makes me want LT so bad!! Now from going so fast through the whoops and stuff, my front shocks have almost no dampening left and my alignment is pretty damn jacked up right now. I have a whole new list of parts and upgrades before next trip out. I'm hoping coilovers are in the near future. BTW if anyone knows of upgraded motor mounts, let me know about them. I'd like to not have this problem again.
Oh and if you need a model to pose in front of your 4runner, I work for beer...
