pontoontodd

Thursday morning we drove the rest of the way back to Vegas and dropped R off at his WRX and he drove home. While we were in town we figured we should fix the Outback strut tower better. We bought an angle grinder, assortment of wheels, extension cord, and a decent ratchet strap from Harbor Freight and rented a welder and bought some steel strap and tubing from Home Depot. We drove around town for about an hour through a big city park, checking out some RV campgrounds, following Google's directions onto an army base, and looking behind the Home Depot and Harbor Freight for outlets with no luck. So we proceeded with plan G – renting a generator from Home Depot. Their largest model is 6800 watts and is wheelbarrow style with handles and wheels. Guy asked if we needed help loading it in our vehicle and we just told him no. I used the piece of welding glass we keep in the car. I'm shocked they rent welders to the public without even suggesting they buy or rent a welding helmet. Fabrication went relatively smoothly, welds turned out OK for flux core. Ran two strips from the strut mount plate down to some solidish sheet metal. Added a couple tubes from just above the strut mount to the bottom of the main roll hoop and the top of the trailing arm mount. It's no spare tire inflated against the roof but it held the rest of the week. We've been talking about a portable welder all year and now we're convinced we need to come up with something. A flux core spool gun wouldn't take up much space or weigh much. Two batteries or a modified alternator would probably work as a power source. Packed everything back up, got dinner at a Mexican restaurant near there, and headed out of town. Hit a random trail/dirt road in AZ along 15 that had a few little jumps on it. Got to Sand Hollow State Park near St. George, UT after dark and paid the primitive camping fee and found a spot along the edge of the lake with a picnic table. Lake has swimmer's itch (caused by the snails that live there). It was crawling with golf carts, Jeeps, etc. Had a small praying mantis on my tent while I was setting it up.

We drove up the highway to the closest PRC (public road crossing) to the end of the V2R course, 42 miles from the end. As soon as we got on the highway I felt like the car was leaning to the right a bit but quickly forgot about it. Not too far in to the race course, B's car was running hot in the soft washes so we stopped to let it cool off. While we were stopped, Z suggested looking for the source of the noise coming from the back of the Outback. There was a 1-2” gap in the crack in the RR strut tower that I'd welded up before the trip. Weld itself seemed to hold, there's just not much structure left there. We got out the heavy duty safety wire and a couple ratchet straps, jacked up the car and pulled the strut tower back down to about where it was. We found a rock to jam in the frame and hose clamped that in place. We got going again and went by a smaller lake bed that had a burned out first generation Mazda RX7 next to it. We spent some time examining that. It's amazing to me how hot a car fire can get, the transmission case was even melted on this one and the springs were fully compressed from losing their temper. We then got to a rocky wash that's part of the course but were able to drive through it without any problems. We drove up a long rocky grade, maybe five miles uphill through 6-8” rocks. Not extremely steep but had to keep moving due to the lack of low range. Made it through that alright and there was nothing too rough beyond that. Unfortunately we did not get pictures or videos of these rough sections. When we started coming down the far side of the mountain there was some new equipment parked along the road that had been smoothing it out. Perhaps they will smooth out the entire road. Near the end of the course we came up to what at first looked like a fairly tall, steep hillclimb. We were able to get a run at it in second and downshift to first most of the way up and made it to the top more easily than expected. Made it to Dayton, got fuel and burgers, and drove back south. Got to Tonopah about 10PM and decided to stay there for the night. I thought we'd really be missing a great opportunity if we didn't stay at the “world famous” Clown Motel so we did that. The rooms aren't anything special but the price was decent, beds were alright, and the shower was higher pressure than I'm used to. In one room was a large painting of Jason from Friday the 13th.

Wednesday morning we ate breakfast and packed up. While we were packing up and telling stories, B pointed out a switchback trail up a mountain across the highway and we of course all thought it was a great idea to try to drive the Subarus up it. It was fairly steep and rocky but we made it up about 2/3 of the way pretty quickly. Eventually I got to a point where I ran out of power/gearing and slowly backed down to the previous switchback/intersection and waited. B and R got quite a bit higher, they think near the top, and the trail eventually got too loose and steep so he had to come back down. He had trouble getting it back in high range so we decided he should not use low range the rest of the trip unless absolutely necessary.

If you can get all the allen bolts out it probably wouldn't be too bad. Just warning you it's more complicated than doing a water pump on an EJ. It will just keep leaking more, eventually it'll leak bad enough you'll have to add coolant every time you drive it. If you let it go long enough you'd probably also have timing chain issues and start bending valves.

Eventually we decided to see other parts of Nevada, repacked T's car and aired back up. He rode with me in my Outback down the ~5 mile whooped out road/trail to the main gravel road. We were going 50mph and he was amazed the whole time by what the car could do. There were a few spots where we'd get air going into a sweeping turn, it was a fun stretch. Our next stops were a few spots along the 2016 and 2017 V2R courses that we'd wanted to revisit. The first one was a highway underpass the course went through in 2017. Took about a five mile trail to get there eventually driving in a wash. A concrete tunnel goes under the highway that's only about 8 feet tall. There were various scrape marks down the roof of it from trucks and buggies that barely fit. On the opposite side of the highway is a giant pile of 2' rocks the highway department piled up to reduce erosion. We did not drive through it but decided if it was part of the course again we'd just have to take it slow and hope for the best. Then we drove up the highway to some other trails leading to a cattle guard jump along a gravel road we'd hit at about 80mph during the 2017 race. We were going slightly downhill, the opposite direction we'd raced in, and figured we could just try it at increasing speeds so the first time I hit it at 65 and we got some air, seemed like we could hit it faster. T pulls up and says he hit it at 80. We didn't believe him at first. Hit it both ways a few times, seemed like 80 uphill and 90 downhill was about all my Outback could do. Landed fine. Apparently T hit it uphill once and had a bouncy squirrelly landing so he parked his car. We continued up the former race course, part of which was surprisingly overgrown. We cut over to the 2016 course to go over a mountain and hit a different jump. On the way to the downhill jump we were circling a dry lake bed so we decided to drive down to that. We got some pictures and videos of the cars driving around on the lake bed. The surface was sticky, I couldn't get my car to slide around at all and didn't want to roll it. One end had many bushes about a hundred feet apart, it was fun to drive through them at speed. The lake bed was almost three miles across the long way. At one point Z was riding with me and we both felt disoriented with tan in every direction for a mile or so and I slowed down. We drove the long grade up the mountain and had some of the shifting back and forth between third and fourth we'd experienced in 2016. Except then we had the four cylinder and I think it was second and third. At the top the tailing pile had shifted the road over to the side. I think it was downhill from that we drove the narrow switchback trail through the pine forest. B still wonders how the trophy trucks get through that section – it has a bunch of tight, narrow U turns. We hit the downhill jump at 70mph which just felt like the car was getting light but the cameramen did say we were leaving the ground. I didn't feel comfortable going over 70mph on that road so we continued up to Tonopah. T parked his car and B and I tried to drive a switchback up a small mountain/large hill but it turned out to be a bit of a maze so we came back down. We did get a good view of town and some wild horses though. Looks like the road leading down from that saddle into town has a bunch of jumps along it but we went back down to where T was parked. We continued on the race course that follows some white hard ground that tasted salty, appeared to be a few foot deep salt deposit that went on for miles. We continued to some concrete barriers in the wash at a break in an old railroad grade where there were a lot of spectators. We couldn't figure out at first how the trophy trucks make it through there, the gap between the barriers is maybe 7' wide, but then we decided they must just drive over one side (these concrete piers are about 2' high). There was an old oil pan embedded in the wash, we decided someone probably thought they were going to clear one of the concrete barriers and then it ripped their oil pan off. We took a short trail to the highway and drove into Tonopah for gas and to cook some food. Talked to T, he decided to stay the night in Tonopah and decide his fate in the morning. We warned him that the last forty miles of the V2R course we wanted to run the next day would be too rough for his car. We drove to a city park and cooked dogs. Then we headed farther up 95 and camped at Walker lake. On the way down the road to the campground there were signs for the former lake levels in increasingly recent years. Z said he read that as the river has been diverted for agriculture the lake has been draining. It was quite salty.

We asked J for a good place to camp north of town and he recommended some sand dunes just off 95 so we drove up there and camped overnight. Those are the dunes just to the right of the sign beyond the power lines. Tuesday morning we ate breakfast, packed up, and drove the last few miles to the big dune. It was certainly described accurately, the center dune was hundreds of feet high with no tire tracks going to the top of it. I was driving over one dune when we suddenly got to a sharp drop off the other side so I turned to avoid it and got stuck shortly afterwards because I was going too slow. We aired down the tires and got it out with the sand ramps and pushing. Aired down the other cars, and took turns driving each others' cars around the dunes. T's suspension was bottoming out easily so we unpacked his cargo while we drove around the dunes. I found one good little jump, the last time I hit it the driver's side got up much higher than the passenger side. Since it was soft sand the landing was fine.

If the water pump seal is leaking, coolant will come from the weep hole. It's just to the driver's side (left side of the car looking forward) of the crank behind the timing covers, same as the EJ. The water pump replacement isn't much easier than head gaskets on the EZ though, you have to remove the timing chain cover, chains, tensioners, etc. It's about sixty allen bolts, some of which will strip out, so it's really a lot easier to do with the engine out of the car.

We met with J and he took us to some whoops outside of town that were a little too big to run fast over with the Subarus. He was fairly impressed with what they could do and took us to some smaller ones along a dirt/gravel road. They were similar to the super whoops in the UP but narrow and on top of a crowned trail so we couldn't comfortably go much over 30mph. Unfortunately there was a ditch I didn't see until the last second and didn't slow down enough to prevent from plowing into the opposite side of it. It cracked one of the coolant fittings for the oil cooler. B and Z went into town to get some fittings and we took off the skidplate and cleaned things up and talked with J. After we got it back together we ran the cars over the whoops again (including T's for reference). J recommended valving changes at both ends. He had a small bottle that was good for charging maybe eight shocks but wasn't fully pressurized. I asked him if he had a vice and he asked if we had a receiver. I told him we have 1.25” receivers and he says with a look of disgust “that's not a receiver.” We were able to C clamp it to the rear bumper of the Outback. He also had a little toolkit that had an allen wrench and spanner wrench we needed. He left to pick up some steel as we figured it would take about four hours to go through all the shocks in the desert. It didn't feel a lot better in the car, mainly we noticed the car stayed almost perfectly level but bounced up and down. It definitely looked better from outside on video. He also took us to a deeply whooped out recent racecourse leading to some embedded rocks, B and I both thought the Outback rode better over them than with the old shock tuning in Texas. J had mentioned earlier in the day he'd never owned a car, only pickup trucks, but was looking up Subarus on Craigslist by the end of the day.

R and I each drove our cars to Jean, NV Sunday night. Filled up at the largest Chevron station in the world - 96 pumps and 60 bathroom stalls. We met B and Z at the check in counter in the Terrible casino. Monday morning I got up early as usual to check over the suspension on my Outback and met T in the parking lot. He had driven his Outback XT 5MT there from San Diego to join us in some trail riding in NV. T is crazy about weight reduction on his car, says it's down to 3000#. For instance, the rear doors are gutted and the glass has been replaced with carbon fiber that's fixed in place. The five of us had breakfast and checked out the off road hall of fame. One interesting combination was a Jeep and a Rokon that had driven the Darien gap (first two wheeled vehicle to do so).

I went on a 13 day trip of just over 5000 miles a few weeks ago. This trip report will be multiple posts and it will take me a couple days to put them up. Tuesday night I camped in Nebraska. Wednesday afternoon I decided to take a break from driving on the interstate and check out Sager's Canyon trail in UT just off 70. It was fun. Fairly smooth so probably recently graded, many turns and a few jumps. Part of it went through a narrow canyon and had a fairly steep climb out but nothing too difficult. At the top I got out of the car to try to hike to the top of the bluff but it eventually just became a vertical wall. Tried to get to a couple campgrounds in southwest UT just off the highway but they were closed due to a past fire. Took longer than expected to find another campground but I eventually did. I spent the next few days with my brother and a couple friends in southern CA. Meanwhile Z and B were driving B's blue long travel Forester to meet us near Vegas. On the way they stopped at Black Dragon Canyon for a lunch break on the UT/CO border.

The later EZ engines with variable valve timing should have better low end torque, the little I've read about them confirms that. I haven't driven turbo cars much, and the ones I have driven/ridden in have been stock suspension. So I haven't really been able to drive them as hard as mine. From my limited experience I'd say a WRX/XT is similar to an EZ30 with a 5MT. A modified WRX/STI would certainly be faster, the only one I've ridden in certainly was but it only really started pulling hard over 3000RPM. So I would lean towards an EZ36, add a supercharger if that's not enough. Unfortunately none of the EZ cars came with a manual trans in the US and the auto seems to really sap a lot of power.

That's an interesting comparison. It would be a lot less work to lift an Outback an inch or two than to start with a Legacy and replace all the struts and add subframe spacers. But if you can get a Legacy a lot cheaper maybe it would be worth it. I personally prefer wagons, from a quick internet search Subaru stopped selling Legacy wagons in 2006 in the US.

Lifting a Legacy wouldn't be too bad if you can get them cheaper or less rusty than an Outback and get the EZ30 that way. I personally prefer Outbacks too but the Foresters do have advantages. My experience with an automatic Subaru is that it robs a lot of power but other people love them. I agree the 1.2 dual range would help but not much. The 1.6 often leaves you wanting more. I don't know why you wouldn't want a turbo Subaru, the increased power helps a lot in sand and other unpaved driving situations. Although the lag is annoying, they will build boost even at low RPMs if you're under load for a while. You're tired of me saying this, but I think a lot of the problems you describe are due to driving style. If you're driving slow, yes the VDC helps in two wheels up diagonal situations. You'll be slipping the clutch a lot in a manual transmission car too. If you just drive faster, momentum solves all those problems. I'm not talking 50mph, just enough to get over obstacles without stalling out. It looks like a lot of what you drive on is sandy; low weight, horsepower, and momentum is really the key in sand. If you're not willing to drive a Subaru that way and want to crawl, you really should get a Jeep or Toyota. I think you'd be happy with a Cherokee.

I don't know much about the dual range transmissions, we've only had one. As far as I know they have an open front diff, viscous center and rear, so yeah, effectively 1WD in the wrong situation. I still think my Outback has too much traction more often than too little though. I've never driven an EZ with the variable valve timing, I assume it's a significant improvement. The first gen EZ30 is pretty quick with a manual trans but the auto slows it down quite a bit. Calling any stock Subaru a beast is an exaggeration though. The average street vehicle sold in the US now has 300hp.

B's Forester didn't require any CV axle swaps on our long trip out west (more on that soon). Should measure angle at ride height again but it definitely rides and handles better with the softer springs. You were right about the strut tower. I've only dented/cracked those alloys in desert races. It's just a whole different level of abuse than trail riding. Thanks for posting your AR video.

How much oil and coolant do you have to add how often? Liters/1000km? The oil leak might be valve cover gaskets, can't remember if you said you'd done those recently. Does your steering rack leak? It seems like they usually do. If it's a liter every few thousand kilometers I would just make sure you keep the oil and coolant topped off. I'm sure you're tired of me saying this but just keep it full of oil and coolant and keep saving money for a rust free car.

I noticed both the front wheels on the Outback were cracked/dented. Let's blame that Texas desert race. This was the worst, I think this is one I hammered/chiseled in Texas to make it round enough to hold air. They still held air but I had them swapped out with some non cracked wheels. While we had the struts out of my black Outback one of my friends pointed out the RR wheel well / strut tower was starting to crack more. You should know the drill by now. If I keep this car for much longer I should really rebuild those more thoroughly and/or add some tubing. On our last trip a couple guys were driving my car in soft sand and before I could stop them there was clutch smoke coming out of the car (stuck in soft sand). So I figured I'd replace the clutch disc. Only one I could get in a few days was an ACT that's 228mm (stock is 225mm). Measured pressure plate, looked like there was plenty of room. Old one (Exedy, I think stage 1) actually measured within about .005" of new thickness but I put the new one in. Went to test drive it today and it would shift in all the gears with engine off but not with engine running (clutch pedal up or down). Clutch was moving the slave cylinder about 1/2" which I think is normal. Thought about it for a bit and then started it in gear with clutch and brake pedals pushed down. Started fine, made some noise, pumped clutch pedal a few times which made decreasing amounts of noise. After a couple cycles it seemed to work fine. Drove it for about 45 minutes in town with lots of stops and starts and seemed to work perfect. Couple times I applied some brake pressure and full throttle and clutch never slipped. Have driven it for hours now and seems to be working great. With some bushings and ball joints replaced, the car was much quieter so it became very clear that the RR CV axle was making noise under load. It's been making noise all summer I think, definitely on the last trip, so I replaced that and now the car is pretty quiet (compared to usual). Drives straight and vibration free on the highway which is a good thing since we plan on going on a long trip soon. Figured out the problem with the one radiator fan not working was a fuse inside the car in the small fuse block so that was a relief. Wired in a DPDT momentary toggle switch to manually operate the HVAC actuator. Have it wired in parallel with the stock control that seems to not work at all anymore. Pin 8 (red/black) is 12V ignition on, pin 12 (black) is ground, wired those to the center terminals of the switch. Pin 4 (blue/black) and pin 13 (yellow) go to the actuator, wired those to the other terminals of the switch so it can reverse polarity. Wanted to put it just below the cupholders but didn't quite fit. Seems to work but I plan on using it as little as possible to not burn out the actuator. Should have done this years ago. Ultimately I think if you had a strong enough HVAC fan you could just have it come out everywhere all the time and adjust the fan speed and aim the vents. Maybe even have the center vents spring loaded so they only open when the fan is on high. I also wonder if some new cars and/or any standalones have an option to cycle the AC compressor based on throttle position. Like with the AC on low it would only run the compressor at or near idle, with the AC on high it would only shut off at full throttle (yes I know most cars do that), some middle position it would turn on and off at half throttle, etc. B worked on his hatch and trim some more. I welded a tube to a bolt and a big washer to support the middle of his floor panel that goes over the spare tire well so he can put things in there aside from a spare tire that's smaller than the other ones on his car. Also drilled and tapped a hole in his bumper for a clamp bolt for a flag. He says the softer springs might ride a little better but definitely make the car more stable when cornering. CV axle angles didn't change much from the stiff springs which is weird, haven't check to see if or how much the springs we pulled out had sagged but it wasn't too much.

Yeah, we all thought you'd like that one. Will have to take you there when you go to the UP with us next year. It's a long distance from the nearest pavement or campground host. While I had the suspension apart I replaced the rear bushings in the front lower control arms. I tried the Whiteline bushings again, I think they lastest longer than OEM and are cheaper. We went through all the struts on my black Outback and B's Forester. The main goal with mine was replacing some sloppy bushings, I also went through them and replaced some other seals and things. The main goal with B's was to put on softer springs to get it to sit lower and ride softer, they're about 2/3 the spring rate of what was on the car. C stopped by and replaced our windshields too. I bent the radiator support/skidplate down somewhere between 1/2" and 2" depending on how you measure it. Seems to have more engine to skidplate clearance which was my main goal. Welded those big rectangular tubes to the skidplate. One thing I added this time we didn't do last time are those square tubes to pull down on top of the radiator support tube. Without those you're just pulling down on the skidplate tabs. Both times we've done this we've stopped when the tabs start to rip that tube. I welded the cracks and stopped there.

A few things with sand driving that became more clear after our last trip were: Power to weight ratio and keeping your momentum is most important. There was at least one loop we were able to do in the turbo Forester and the H6 Outback that the NA Forester just didn't have the power to drive around. Low range doesn't help much. On moderately soft sandy roads it was an advantage starting and stopping but on climbs it was no substitute for momentum and power. Lowering tire pressures seemed to help but we didn't do it enough to see how much. Over the weekend we did some work on the cars. My friend replaced the rear wheel bearing in his Forester that was getting loose. We pulled the exhaust, driveshaft, front axles, and transmission out of my black Outback. I was worried about the clutch so I'd ordered a new disc. The old one was almost as thick as the new one so I guess I have a good spare now. The hanger bearing on the driveshaft had a little slop so I put on a different used one that didn't have any slop. I replaced the other two u-joints also. One wasn't bad, the other one was notchy and one leg was badly brinnelled. I didn't get a good picture but you can see where the needles had dug into the leg of the cross: Put the driveshaft and transmission back in. Adjusted the parking brake. I still plan on going through all the struts before our next trip. Going to replace some bushings and tie rods that are sloppy. Exhaust is cracked so I tack welded it while it was in place, need to fully weld that now that it's out of the car. Messed with the fan wiring a bit. Both fuses blew when I drove it in the mudhole and I replaced them and they were both working. Later on that weekend I noticed the passenger side (sub) fan is not working. The fuse is getting 12V and the power terminals at the relays are getting 12V but the coils aren't getting 12V. So that might be difficult to track down. I'm also going to try to get the HVAC controls working, my current plan is to wire in a switch to control the actuator directly.

Can you cut more out of the door and wheelwell without affecting the door seal? Might have to weld the door stampings together before you do that. That's always something I'm looking at on my car in case I want to go wider.

Monday morning we took the highway south to the stunt area south of Seney. When we got to town we filled up in the gas station where we'd flushed out B's clutch on a previous trip. Got to the stunt area and M&B realized it was a lot bigger than the little section we'd looped around you can see from the dirt road. Drove back in it and through some big sand bowls and kept going to a big banked turn and hill climb. Climb wasn't as bad as it looked at first, B and I got up it on the first try but Z took it too easy on the first try and had to get a bigger run at it and made it to the top. From there it kept going, there was a little loop/bowl around a tree that I made but B got stuck in. Z pulled him out, ran the loop a couple times, and we kept going until we got to a different gravel road. Went back through the stunt area a different way to the dirt road. I decided to hit a small uphill jump. Got decent air at about 30mph but it was difficult to get a good run at it through the soft sand to hit it faster than that so we continued south, mostly off pavement down to 2. When we got back to pavement we cleaned out our wheels at an abandoned gas station (otherwise they shake from imbalance). There is an axleshaft poured into the concrete. M thought it was a cheap substitute for rebar. Maybe the person who put it there is trying to confuse the next species of intelligent life on earth in a few million years with this strange fossil. Got down to the test hill I wanted to hit but the path we normally take to get to it was blocked off and it would have taken a long time to “drive around the block”. At this point B was getting a shuddering in the rear of his car occasionally and noticed his RR wheel bearing is a little loose. We stopped at a gas station to make a decision, at this point we would be heading west to the super whoops so Z would probably have to backtrack to get home. He made up his mind with a coin flip that determined he'd follow us to the super whoops. We got some video driving alongside the Outback going through the little whooped out trail along the pavement leading to the ORV parking lot but it wasn't ideal since the grass in between the cars was pretty tall. We ran the super whoops a little and measured the larger ones. The rear end of the Outback was kicking up a bit on a few of them. We made PB&Js and at this point Z decided to follow us down through Wisconsin as it was probably faster than going back over the Mackinac bridge. Mike had left the burger patties for the trip in his apartment so we'd already decided to cook those in his parking lot before we all split up for home. Not far from Milwaukee we saw an Outback XT with some mud on the sides towing a teardrop trailer. We kept seeing it when we were stuck in a slow moving traffic jam. When we pulled off the exit to go to M's apartment they followed us. We were wondering how long they were going to follow us so I rolled down my window and waved for them to follow us around one of the last turns. We introduced each other and we invited them to join us cooking out. The husband had built the trailer about five years ago and it was still very nice. He'd also done some modifications to the engine of his XT running E85 and 22psi of boost. They had some brats and veggies that were added to the menu and they stayed for hours as we all eventually left for home. Overall a good trip, cars all held up pretty well. The guys learned one of the reasons we made better struts. Outback went through 1.5 quarts of oil. Have seen a few clouds of oil smoke at startup in the last month including one when I parked the car with one side jacked up overnight on the trip. On the plus side the last couple times I checked there is no noticeable blowby now and it ran fine all weekend so I'll probably leave the engine in at least for the next trip. Plan to replace the other u-joints in Outback driveshaft. While that was off I noticed there's quite a bit of backlash in the rear end so I want to check that out. RF CV axle made noise all weekend and LF was leaking grease by the end so those both need to come out. Clutch got used hard so while the driveshaft and axles are out it's not much more effort to pull the trans. Need to adjust parking brake. One radiator fan is rubbing on housing and the other one wasn't working despite having a good fuse so need to check those over. HVAC controls still not working so I should sort that out. Need to replace at least the RR wheel bearing on B's car. Really needs softer springs to lower it before our next big trip so we don't have to take a dozen spare CV axles with us. We now know that the ball spline axles are junk. Still need to get the center blockoff plate mounted to Z's bumper, he ran out of time with the sanding and painting on it and putting the bolt on wheel bearing front spindles, smaller front brakes, and 15” wheels with mud tires on his car.

View from our campsite Sunday morning: In the morning we packed up and headed west. Took a washed out road down to this river. The climb back up was challenging but not quite as bad as it looked. A got the Outback stuck on a stump near here and Z decided it was a good place to get a picture. Again the Foresters were starting to run low on gas so after some trail riding we went to Grand Marais on the highway. There was a triathlon and possibly some other things going on in town so it was pretty crowded. This guy was directing traffic with a stop sign he'd pulled out of the ground. We got gas, ground beef, beer, etc at the gas station. This guy was selling dreamcatchers and other things out of his Cherokee. Don't worry, the interior was also spray painted gold and decorated with drift wood. Then we decided to just run the highway down to the bar and unload some of our stuff there. It was early afternoon and I'd seen some trails and lakes just east of the bar so we wandered in that direction for a few hours. We decided to hit the wheelie jump and C's pond and see if we could get through on some roads that were flooded in June before we went back to the bar to cook dinner and settle in. We were able to easily drive through C's pond and continued west. Neither road that was flooded in June was flooded at all and I decided to head north to go back to the bar on a smoother gravel road than the whooped out snowmobile trails we'd been on. When we turned around D got the Outback stuck in the soft sandy road temporarily and I was able to barely drive it out on my first try. Z also had difficulty but B had an easier time due to the low range. When we got back to the bar we raised the passenger side of the black Outback with the jack again and M took the nut and washer off the end of the control arm and I ratchet strapped the wheel forward and he packed the remains of the bushing with RTV to try to minimize the slop and noise. Put the washer, nut, and cotter pin back on and left it to cure overnight.

Soldier lake Saturday morning: In the morning we paid at the honor box and trail rode up to the giant hill climb we'd found a couple years ago. Pictures really don't do it justice but this is the top. We stopped at a park just west of there, walked down to the beach, went to the bathroom, and then drove across the highway to ride trails west. In the distance in this picture you can see the bluff that the hillclimb goes up. After a while we started hearing a bad clunking noise from the rear of the Outback so I got out and watched M drive a bit, sounded like it was coming from just in front of the rear suspension. Figured out it was a bad u-joint so we got off the trail, jacked up the car, and M pulled the rear half of the driveshaft. The cross had actually broken and at first I was nervous but then remembered I had spare u-joints so I swapped it out and we put it back together. These have been in the car for about five years. The downside is since the cups are thicker walled than stock and the cross is hollow it's weaker than stock. The upside is that it's easy to replace on the trail. The u-joint at the trans seemed loose too but we decided to leave it and it lasted the rest of the trip. Later on D was driving my Outback with M navigating and they hesitated to make a turn and got stuck in a soft sandy intersection. I told him to stop trying to get out when smoke was coming out from the clutch and the car wasn't moving much. We aired down the tires to about 15psi and I drove out on the first try. I think it was in this section I got the Outback stuck in a big mud hole that B bypassed in his Forester and pulled me out. It was halfway up the door on the driver's side, not quite as deep on the passenger side. There was another even deeper mudhole ahead and I think due to this blockage we had to make a big detour around to get to our campsite. After a while I noticed the temps were creeping up a bit and the fans weren't running, both fuses were blown. There were only a few spares under the fuse box cover so I put in a 20 and a 30 and the 20 immediately flashed out. Later in the day someone noticed there were occasional rubbing noises in Z's Forester. Both rear spring perches were shiny and the tires were extremely close to the strut tubes and spring perches so the rear struts had probably bent a little. We jacked up the car, removed the wheels and tires, and Z hammered the spring perches. I think about this time I aired up. We eventually headed back north up another highway towards the campsite on the bluff I wanted to stay at on Saturday night. When we were within about 20 miles we rode various trails for an hour or so on the way to the campsite. I was relieved to see it was unoccupied on Labor day weekend and the guys who hadn't seen it before thought it was awesome and worth the drive. After we'd been there at least an hour, someone drove there with an FJ cruiser and turned around, they may have planned on camping there and fortunately we'd gotten there first. A cooked dogs, we set up tents, I started to replace a control arm bushing that was blown out on the Outback but then stopped when I realized my spares were pretty rough too. I left the car jacked up on the side to help drain mud/water out of it and left the doors and hatch open overnight. I dug out a few more 30 amp fuses in camp to put one in to power the fan and put a couple more in the fuse box cover for easy spare access. After we'd set everything up and eaten dinner and were hanging out around the campfire I saw a few people down on the beach a half mile away. Eventually one guy with a purple/UV flashlight was slowly heading towards us along the beach. A few of us walked down to the beach to see what he was doing. He was concentrating so much on looking at rocks with the flashlight he didn't notice us until we were about twenty feet away. He was a typical old yooper guy and explained that someone was trying to find an easy way to find agates (a semi valuable stone found along Superior that's often sold in gift stores, etc) and tried using a UV flashlight at night about a month ago. Didn't find agates but started finding rocks with portions that glowed under a UV light. They sell them as yooper rocks in the gift stores and on ebay and he was saying a rough one about an inch across goes for about $25 on ebay. Sounds like they get cut, polished, and made into jewelry (earrings). After talking with him for about five minutes he asked if we had any pot. Must be a side effect of UV light. We all laid down on the beach, looked at the stars and milky way and small northern lights since it was a clear night and talked for about a half hour.

Drove up to the UP over labor day weekend for some trail riding and camping. Most of us met up north of Milwaukee at M's apartment Friday morning. As we and Z were all getting to the UP, B said that we should replace one of his CV axles that was making a ton of noise. It was the front ball spline axle, we replaced it in a gas station parking lot east of Escanaba. The inner CV housing was blue but the boot was intact. Met Z in Naubinway around 1 or 2PM EST. This is how his bumper turned out: Used PDF of Mackinac county on Avenza, sort of useful. One issue was that your location on the map is just indicated by a small gray circle. There is a small arrow next to it to indicate direction but it seemed to point the opposite way of where we were going. I did use both tablets for navigation using mytrails most of the weekend with two different maps at different zoom levels, that was more useful than just one. We hit a lot of overgrown trails or trails with trees fallen across them that we cleared out and eventually connected to other trails, where they normally seem to dead end. Also found a bunch of stunt areas, at least four. At one of them a pair of women we'd seen hiking along the road walked by and one of them commented on how she had a Subaru and shouldn't have to worry about getting stuck in the snow after seeing us driving in soft sand. B tried the low range but it just got bogged down. Not many jumps or whoops this weekend but lots of fun sandy trails. Camped at Soldier lake Friday night, came in off some narrow trail to find out the campground has a paved loop and running water. Nearby are east soldier lake and a small lake called toy soldier lake. Fortunately we found a site that wasn't reserved for Friday night fairly close to the pit toilets so we camped there. A cooked burgers while we set up the tents.

Do you know what that structure used to be?