Lefhand Canyon 3-30-13

A few of us ponied up and hit Lefthand Canyon on Saturday, 3/30 instead on Bunce School Road. Our group of 4 met up with the kids from Crawlorado Jeepers, but we quickly branched off on our own. The weather was absolutely perfect  on this day with no real showing of the snow that had happened earlier in the week. The trail was muddy at the bottom first thing in the morning, but by afternoon, that had even dried up. It was a great day to throw the top down!

We headed straight for 5 points first, where we decided to make the trek up fireman's hill. After a quick 10-100 at the bottom, we started the climb.

 

 

(Photo by Robert Roe)

 (Photo by Robert Roe)

 

 

 (Photo by Robert Roe)

 

As Ben approached the top of the hill, he became pinned between a couple rocks. He cranked the wheel hard driver, and just as he was revving up the throttle, BAM! Something snapped in the front end. A couple of us thought the bead had popped at first as the tire was severely folded over, but that was not the case. Next, we checked the u-joint. Nope, not that either. Ben began to lightly hit the throttle again to see what would happen. His driver tire was no longer turning. Bad news... Ben just snapped a shaft... Good news... Ben has a replacement shaft with him :-)

 

 





(Photo by Robert Roe)

We winched the crippled Cherokee up to a flat spot on the ridge where we could begin the tear down.

 

 

After securing the Cherokee a bit with the winch line, a couple bottle jacks, a high lift, and rock-made jack stands, the work began.

(Photo by Robert Roe)

(Photo by Robert Roe)

We were forced to improvise with a catch pan. And don't worry, we made sure to clean up all the diff fluid with Ryan's spill kit, and Ryan even had a gallon water jug to put all the used diff fluid in. Sometimes you don't always have the right tools, but you still have tools that will work.

 

 

 

After pulling the broken driver shaft, we found that the shaft had sheared right at the splines, and in order to put the new shaft in, we were gonna have to pull out all the broken parts. We were forced to crack the diff and try to pull out the pieces from there. Unfortunately, the broken pieces turned out to be locked inside the locker. The next option was to pull the entire carrier out and limp out in 2 wheel drive. For that to happen, we needed to pull the passenger shaft out. After 4 hours of work on the top of the hill, we finally limped Ben down the trail and got a call into a tow truck.

 

Not a ton of 4wheeling happened on this day, but it's not always about just that. It's about helping each other out, having fun, and making sure that everyone gets home from every single trip.