So with Larry driving the bus the 8.1 5-speed install came out awesome. It had it's moments where it fought harder than any other 8.1 install, but as per usual it lit right off on the first twist of the key.
The first official off road outing was our annual snow run on new years day. The newfound power of the 8.1 over the 5.3 was mind blowing. Both on the drive up there into the mountains and on the snow.
Didn't stop me from getting it stuck.
While DT prep was pretty much done with getting the truck back together after the swap I ended up bowing out to stay close to home as my Mom was struggling with ALS and I didn't want to be far. Though later with her blessing as I needed to get the hell away from the shop due to stress I went to Blazer Bash in Moab with my son.
We did the Top of the World trail solo and got the iconic shot that everybody should do when going to Moab. It's a rough trail though..
We had a great time on Backwards Bill.
Did a little wheelie action..
The next day I led a group out to Thelma and Louise point and up the Shaffer Switchbacks.
I came back from BB knowing a lot of changes were coming in my life. My Mom wasn't going to survive the battle and I made sure I was up as often as I could up to the end. I also was filing for a divorce as my soon to be ex had gone completely off the rails and was obviously in another relationship. I pulled the plug and put the house up for sale. Life at the dealership was just getting harder and harder with only two techs, twice the workload and half of it coming back due to shoddy work. I was getting beat up constantly from every angle. Customers, Ownership and the techs. My exit strategy was to pull up and gtfo as soon as the house sold. Then I got covid. Everything was already moved into storage, I couldn't stay at anybody's place for fear of infection. My Mom had passed in October and my Dad was on his own at 83. I was going to leave the dealership and go help my Dad in Denver. The dealer knew what was going on, though my timetable got accelerated when my ex managed to loose my Dog. Long story short she was missing for two days in the freezing cold and was finally found by the local animal control. The signs were pretty obvious, it was then that I decided to just leave. Packed what little I had that hadn't already been sent to Denver, turned in my stuff to the dealer and drove to Denver. Not how I planned it, but I would have lost my sanity staying any longer and staying at a buddy's house.
I got settled in and started working on a plan to hit the desert to clear out my head and hit the reset button. My buddy Bill is retired and is always up to get out of town. We planned on hitting western AZ as the weather is good compared to Colorado in Feb.
We decided to take the roads less taken on the way and cut across NM on two-lane roads. We stopped to check out the Very Large Array radio telescope and Pie Town Fred from Dirt Every Day always raved about. Too bad they were out of pie in Pie town.
My pooch came along as she needed a reset in warm weather after two frozen nights out on the streets alone.
We set up camp on night one on BLM land east of Phoenix in the dark. This is the landscape we woke up to.
Day two had us west of Phoenix at the former Camp Bouse where they trained soldiers to operate tanks for WWII. Not much is left of the old base but some foundations and the flag pole but it was still really cool to check out.
We checked out a large mine operation nearby the next day. We made our way down to Quartzite and got back on dirt south of town made our way on a trail that links up to the KofA wildlife preserve.
AZ sunsets are awesome.
AZ sunrises aren't too shabby either. Even more so when you wake up to a great orange pumpkin that was there when you went to bed.
Nick's burb is a well weathered desert dweller. He and his son are our guides to the KofA area. But don't let the dry orange paint fool ya, he's packing heat under the body. 12v Cummins, NV4500, one tons and ORD custom springs. It's a well sorted out package for sure.
Camp on night 3 was clear and chilly once the sun went down. Nick's home built awning with side walls provided a nice space to escape the wind as group and a little propane fire took the chill off.
One thing that was discovered during the trip was the NV4500 decided it wanted to eat itself. It got stuck in 4th gear a couple of times and the noise coming from the throwout bearing was sounding worse by the day. The noise was worst with the trans in neutral with the clutch pedal released but I had a feeling it was more than the bearing with the trans hanging up in gear. So I did what anybody would do a thousand miles from home and not wanting to work on it, I skipped 4th gear and turned up the stereo. Though a blown exhaust donut did a good job to slow the truck down. I fixed the donut at Bill's house on the way home and made it back to Denver under it's own power.
The I pulled the trans and found the obvious in the wiped out throwout bearing. But pulling up and down on the input shaft confirmed the input bearing was loose. I had made arrangements to get a rebuilt nv4500. They did me a solid and built a hybrid unit of an early and late version of the 4500. Early in that it has the killer 6.34:1 low gear and late in that it has the bolt on shifter and integrated release bearing. It's awesome BTW. Plus they build them with brass synchronizers vs the stock fiber-based synchros.
I got that together and did a weekend run down to Penrose to test it out and watch guys take on the hardest trail network in the state.
My truck stayed out of the rocks.
To be continued..