singletrack

Yes. The oil pressure sensor got smashed and broke off it's socket on the pump. A T-belt cover got cracked, and the the captive nuts for the front of the skid plate got pulled straight through the sheet metal. I've got all the parts I need to fix it though. Who knows, maybe with a new mouse gasket my brand new engine will stop ticking. My keys fall out of the ignition sometimes when I'm wheeling.... so I hit the rock, and hopped out 'cause I thought I prolly buggered up the plate. Oil was shooting out at 50 psi, so I went to shut the engine down quick, but the keys had fallen out and were under the seat somewhere. Ackkk! Shut it off! Shut it off! As far as skid plates, I'm thinking of the Primitive one... Anybody have one of these on a EA82?

Bah, the Canucks deserve what they get. Yeah, founded in like 1880ish; the name is Biblical. This is Utah after all.

I did Kokopelli's Trail from the TOTW cutoff to Onion Creek while John was in town. We spent Sunday recovering my car. That's it. Murphy's Law prevented us from doing more. It didn't have anything to do with the Subies being capable or not, it was just bad luck.

Well, it is for the Air Force. Massive Ordinance Air Bomb or something like that. It's the biggest non-nukular we've got I think. They dropped one on Osama and missed. For the rest of us it's just a town in eastern UT.

The BLM Ranger was glad too. He seemed kinda amused I kept apologizing for the mess, and reminded me that most wouldn't have bothered. :-\ The rack is fully custom home-depot threaded pipe. The duct tape is factory though. Seriously, store bought doesn't cut it for wheelin' with a $4K bike hanging off the back. Doh! I forgot to leave the wheels out for you, din't I?

Oh, I like that one! Yeah, I got home fine glad you did too.

It was small, but firmly attached the ground. It was in a gully, so it was more the angle that I hit it at combined with a bit of speed. That frickin' oil pump only had 500 miles on it!

No it wasn't too bad, just the flat and a bolt that rattled loose. The bolt actually came out on the washboardy graded road just outside of Dewey Bridge. The rock that took me out was on a different trail, and was tiny, a non-obstacle. I just didn't see it and hit it at a good clip. No problems with the locker, BTW.

This a long story of which John [the sucker king] and I didn't take many pics. But it's purdy funny, so read on.... The Moab "meet" got started about 7:00 am when John showed up at Big Bend having driven all night from Lyons. He had finished working on his car at 11 the night before! We made a quick run into town, and then headed out to the first trail, Top of the World. Top of the World is a 5 mile climb to a killer view point overlooking Onion Creek and the La Sal mtns. This is as close I wanted to come to oblivion. Onion Creek RD can be seen at the bottom. The trail is pretty rough, with lots of coarse rocky ledges. Here's John powering up one of the rougher sections. Lots of fun wheelin' all the way. When we got to the top, we met this couple. Dude had apparently just proposed to his girl! Pretty cool random occurance, and we initially took it as a sign that it would be a good trip. In hindsight, I would say this couple will likely be divorced in a few months. Trouble started at the top of the trail, on the very last obstacle. John put a hole in the sidewall of a Cooper SST, and we hadta change it out. After hanging around a bit and explaining a few times how our Jap-trash cars had gotten up there, we started descending. Maybe a mile from the top, we realized the John's hatch was missing a lift block from the rear crossmember! We searched for the missing parts a while, and finding nothing, continued to gingerly retrace our steps. We got to graded dirt road at the bottom, and it was decided that John would head into town to do some repairs, and I was gonna finish the loop we had intended to run. So we parted ways about 5, intending to meet in town around 8. The route I took turned out to be the gnarliest thing I've yet done with my car. I connected a few mining roads a started following the Kokopelli Trail. Whoo-Boy. I advanced further into unknown terrain, being careful not to drive down anything I couldn't get back up. Then I came to a 400' descent down pretty much the steepest, loosest, rockiest, most ledge filled and off camber section of trail imaginable. The right side of the trail = death. This is the last pic I took from the top. [death hill not pictured]. I scouted the other side of the canyon to make sure I could drive out, and rechecked my position on the map. It would be smooth sailing from here, so I went for it. Don't worry, I made it. After high-centering once and nearly rolling more times than I can count, I made it down in one piece, and started cruising on rolling, relatively smooth trail. The sun was setting, but it was a short run to the graded Onion Creek RD. I was driving into the setting sun, 2nd or 3rd gear low. That's when a tiny little rock that I didn't even see went through my skid plate and took out my oil pump. I lost 5 qts of oil in about 10 seconds. I was 14 miles from pavement, 35 miles from town, and it was getting dark fast. I had food, water, beer and gear so spending the night looked like the best option. I cleaned up the oil slick, moved the car off the trail, and made some grub. I knew John was waiting for me in town, so I hiked a bit to the biggest rock I could find in the hopes I could get cell-phone reception. I managed to complete one call, and left a voicemail saying I was not dead. John hadn't slept in 35 hours or so at this point, moreover, his car might well still be broken. Having had enough fun for one day, I went to bed. Next morning I woke up, drank a beer, and assessed the situation. I had one broken car, and one functional bicycle. Hmmmm.... I used my sleeping bag and foam pad to build a fort in the car, as I would have to leave the dog behind. Once he had proper shade, ventalation, and water, I jumped on my bike and started riding. As it turns out I was 1/2 a mile from the remote, but 2wd accessible Onion Creek RD. Onion creek descends all the way to the river, so I covered the 14 miles in under an hour, stopping along the way to tell a BLM ranger what was going on. I got back to the pavement, stashed my bike in a ravine near the road, and switched to "thumb" power. I immediately caught a ride to town. Once we emerged from the river gorge, my cell phone started working again, and I got a message from John. I had my ride drop me off in mid-town, and walked over to the Virginian Hotel, where I found a lifted hatch on jack stands sans rear wheels. John had found the lost lift block and bolt, but the threads were chewed up and it wouldn't go together. Having recently hada similar problem with my corssmember, we went to the hardware store and gota 1/2" bolt and tap, and replaced the 12mm stuff. Worked good, and the hatch was running again. At this point we realized neither one of us had brought a tow-strap, so we stopped by the friendly neighborhood Carquest to pick one up. They wanted 60 bucks for a 20' strap and two D hooks! Fortunately, John found a $10 12' tow rope in the bargin bin (the kind that breaks easily) and we decided WTF, let's run it. We got back to my car 4 hours after I had set out on my bike, and let a very relieved dog outa the car. We had to prep for the long tow, which meant removing the remains of my skid plate, and pulling a rear axle. There was some debate as to weather or not the Hatch could pull the Wagon, and initially it couldn't, because I had my p-brake on. Whoops. Once we got going, we covered the last bit of rough terrain easily, and really got going on the graded road. Onion Creek is a very scenic drive with 10-15 water crossings over 14 miles. We went tandem the whole way with an incredibly short and pathetic tow rope. I gotta say, we were flying given the cicumstances, and actually passed a Jeep Cherokee through a stream crossing. It was pretty hairy, as I had no brake booster and REALLY lacked stopping power. But we made it. Leaving the car at the trailhead, we went back into town so I could call AAA, then drove back out to Onion Creek to wait for the tow truck. John set out for home at that point, and I ran off to recover my bike from its hidden position. By the time I got back to the car, the flatbed had shown up. Kevin, the driver, turned out to be a pretty kewl dude with a rock buggy in the garage. He knew exactly where the death hill was, and thought I was quite insane for driving down it. Anyway, it was an 80 mile tow back to my house, which was free - Thanks AAA! John can fill you in on his side of the story, a tale of 3.2 beer and cheap motels. It might sound like a disaster, but it was a blast! No regrets, and no serious damage to the cars.

I'll tell the whole tale along with some other pics, but basically I was driving into the setting sun and didn't see a puny rock at the bottom of a gully... 2nd LO speed... WHAM! Hit it at the "perfect" angle, punched through the plate, smashed oil pressure sensor, which broke off the threads in the brand new oil pump. Lost all my oil in about 10 seconds. 1/2 hour before dark.... 14 miles from pavement, 35 miles from town. Oh yeah, I was alone.

That recall is for the 30x16, no one is running those. Thanks though.

Well, I'm off. Back in a few days with pics. :cool:

I'm really happy with mine. They do very well on rock and sand, and OK in mud. Easy rolling on pavement. You can't beat the price, that's fer sure.

I had a fusible link that was bad, but not visibly bad... caused the same problems.

A stock D/R 80's wagon is quite capable. 4x4 high clearance roads never stopped me even before I went lifted.

Well, that looks safe. Yikes.

I believe I said they were "b1tches". Especially Roc.

If my car is capable of moving under it's own power, I'll be there. We just got rain tonight. Moab's generally a hair warmer than here.

Dude, April Fool's was LAST week.

My god man, that's brilliant! /I'm a little slow.

OK, I wa thinking coolant temp sensor; If I understand correctly there's two at the t-stat, one for the dash and one for the computer. Which is which? As far as the computer goes, it throws correct codes if parts are removed/disconnected, which makes me think it's working. Is there a good way to tell if it's not working? I did notice that rotating the TPS with the throttle stationary did nothing to engine speed, which seems odd. The CPU shoulda sent more gas in that case, and engine speed woulda have moved a bit right? There's a Junkyard with a good SPFI motor here.... is there a differnce between the Auto and Manual computer? (yard car has a bad auto) The guys at that yard are Subaru-friendly and will let me try the computer before I buy it, so I should prolly try that out.

TAKE A PROPANE TORCH. If the axles are siezed you can beat on them all day and they won't come loose. Add some heat and they'll come right off.

OK, so the Safari Wagon [88 SPFI] is still idling at 1200. -I've changed/cleaned the air valve on the tb -TPS is functioning, idle switch is closed when thottle is released -I can't seem to find any vaccum leaks, have lots of new hose. -The throttle stop set screw got moved at one point, but I purdy sure it's back were it should be. -Idle adjustment screw can't adjust that far On a cold start it'll idle at 1800ish, then drop to 1200 when warmed up. If I disconnect the harness on the air valve, it'll idle at 700. It drives fine, IT JUST WONT IDLE I've done all the searching I can here and I don't know what else to try. Oh wise and powerful Subaru Gurus please help me and my poor car.

It'll be down. Moab got like the whole years worth of precip during Jeep Safari. That deep water is the result. As long as it doesn't start storming again down there it'll be fine. It's also not a river.