Yeah, we had a great time. The day wasn't without breakage but, we managed to run every single one of the trails at Walker Valley and I even had time to break not 1 but, 2 short side axles. With the help of all the guys there and having the right spare parts and right tools we were held up for less then 45 minutes for each axle replacement. Would have been able to keep it under 30 minutes if I'd had my spare axles with the hubs already attached. Had to get that dig in there, Tim....LOL. I didn't even get to use the new winch cable you are letting me borrow. The rock on the Upper section of Lower Mainline is so dug out, now, we were able to roll right over it. I never pulled my winch cable all day. That will change, I'm sure of it, once it gets to be winter and wet up there. We even went up and down the new trail that parallels the Easy Valley Connector 3 times. We walked the new bypass they are building on Upper Mainline. Basically just before the spot where the trail washed out, there was a "Bikes Only" trail that cut's off to the right and goes up the hill called Pat's Trail. That trail comes out in the widespot in Upper Mainline just above the switchbacks. They widened that bike trail enough for 4x4s and that will be the new bypass. It is a very fun off camber frame twister hill climb. The whole area where the old trail washed out will be completely off the new trail. So, there is no chance of the trail washing out and dumping mud into the creek anymore and the new bypass will be a blast to climb. I'm very happy with the fix the DNR and the 4x4 club volunteers decided on. I'm sure anybody who runs the new trail will be happy with it as well. Anybody who hasn't been up to Walker for a few months or never is in for some real fun with these new trails.

 

haha=D buck is trying to beat my trail carnage record i think! lol Glad you guys had fun, cant wait to get up there!

My chromos go in next week buck=D Then i will figure out how to get your shafts back to you! thanks for letting me borrow them=D

 

Thanks to Alex for letting me borrow his spare short side shaft after I broke my spare. Thank you to David for the education on how cold rolled shafts are better when compared to the cast shafts that I was running. I will be getting some of those as soon as I can afford it. I do have to point out that my Duralast Gold knuckle U-joint did not break!!! It was the ears that broke off of the cast axle cup, the first time. The spare axle shaft was just a POS I had sitting in my garage, since my good spares had been lent out. That thing lasted from just above the rockface on Expressway to the end of the trail.....well...hehe...it probably didn't even last that long. I got out and looked when I came out on the road and the ears were gone from both the inner shaft and the stub shaft along with the POS U-joint that was in there. I should have never even wasted the time to put that thing in. I should have just put Alex's spare in the first time. then, there would have been no 2nd time. Oh well, just goes to show even an old dog like Buck can learn something new everyday.

 

Oh, and David noticed my ball joint nuts were both loose on the knuckle on that side when we were replacing the 2nd busted shaft. I'm sure that might have had something to do with the breakage. I'm sure that was allowing the axle to float around more than it should have and bound the joint up when I was getting hard on the throttle. Once we swapped in Alex's good spare shaft and re-torqued the ball joint nuts, I never had another problem and we ran 4 more trails afterward.

 

yea as much time as we spent fixin Bucks broken crap shafts, we still had a good time. even when we were just sitting, we found a way to entertain ourselves