Gary E
NAXJA Member #687
- Location
- Elk Grove CA
Well we started the trail around 6:00 and ended up getting home around 5:00 am. The good news is Tom, Seans friend, is doing well after receiving many stiches. Tom rolled his well built Samari around 1 am And suffered from a nasty gash above his eye and nearlly had his ear scrapped off his head. It was dangling by part of the earlobe. Luckily it was not bleading but you could see white back there that looked like the bone. Sean immediatly rushed him to hospital in placerville and I tagged along. Tom was concious the whole time and was very coherant, definatly in lots of pain, but was a really tough guy about it all. Here is a pic of the Sami
[img:ba166b987d]http://home.attbi.com/~6mach9/rolled_Sami.jpg[/img:ba166b987d]
About 15 minutes into the trail I took a bad line on an optional obstacle I had done before and noticed my rear wheels were not turning and thought to myself thats not right and peaked under the car to this view.
[img:ba166b987d]http://home.attbi.com/~6mach9/ripped_dl.jpg[/img:ba166b987d]
Oops I had torn the rear driveline in two, thats not good, I still have the slip yoke so without the driveline I would spill t-case fluid all over the ground while going up hills. So we started thinking about how to fix it. We pulled it out and decided to cut off the torn ends and hopefully someone coming up the trail would have some metal to patch it. I pulled out my cordless sawzall and using this workbench and hi tech vise proceded to cut the ends.
[img:ba166b987d]http://home.attbi.com/~6mach9/sazallends.jpg[/img:ba166b987d]
Thats Sean and I standing on it with the sawzall cutting the mangled end off.
Now onto the next step finding some metal so when someone came along with a welder we could buzz it together. we brainstormed with out much luck thinking of high lift handles, without to much luck till a really nice guy came along in a jeep I think sean looked at his tail pipe and though hey that might work the guy in the jeep didn't take a second thought, and just said "cut it off" I decided if someone was going to donate their exhaust it ought to be me. So I whipped out that wonderfull cordless sawzall again and cut out from the cat back to the rear axle (I didnt want to just cut a small section and have the muffler dangling).
I know what you are thinking, you are thinking no way exhaust tubing will be strong enough to tube a driveline, well not according to jeep, my 2.25 inch exhaust pipe is the exact same size as the tubing on the driveline same thickness and everything, the jeep driveline did have cardboard inside it though?? anyway we slit the 6 inch pipe of exhaust tubing and rolled it into itself with a hammer so it would slip in the ends of the driveline. We then measured it to insure the correct length, I put it on my straitedge(hood) to try to get it as strait as possible, I expected this to vibrate really bad on the freeway. Here is a pic of the patched Driveline awaiting a welder.
[img:ba166b987d]http://home.attbi.com/~6mach9/ready_to_weld.jpg[/img:ba166b987d]
as we were waiting for a welder Sean and I came up with our T-case Condom to prevent fluid from coming out the back, It probably would of worked but luckily Gabe Showed up.
[img:ba166b987d]http://home.attbi.com/~6mach9/t-case_condom.jpg[/img:ba166b987d]
Yes it consisted of a ziptie and a rubber glove.
But then Gabe showed up.
[img:ba166b987d]http://home.attbi.com/~6mach9/Gabe.jpg[/img:ba166b987d]
Gabe was a member as the same club as Tom and he had a welder What a super nice guy he burned up a bunch of stick and spent a lot of time helping a complete stranger. In the previous picture he is wearing 4 pairs of sunglasses, that about a shade 9 right?
Here is a pic of the completed driveshaft after we got home. Notice the butchered exhaust system.
[img:ba166b987d]http://home.attbi.com/~6mach9/weldeddl.jpg[/img:ba166b987d]
I think Tom Woods has some competition, Gabes driveline service did an awesome job, I had some vibration at 60mph or so but not bad, he weighted his welds to virtualy vibration free at 70mph without any balancing equiptment.
The repair looked good enough we decided to continue down the trail but shortly after Tom rolled and it was more important to insure his safety.
The Moral of the Story is that there are a bunch of awesome 4wheelers out there, I really want to thank Sean, Tom, Gabe and all the others that helped. for helping me get my junk back together Everybody we met were so helpfull it was amazing We were probably dead in the water for 4-5 hours but nobody complained once what a great bunch.
[img:ba166b987d]http://home.attbi.com/~6mach9/rolled_Sami.jpg[/img:ba166b987d]
About 15 minutes into the trail I took a bad line on an optional obstacle I had done before and noticed my rear wheels were not turning and thought to myself thats not right and peaked under the car to this view.
[img:ba166b987d]http://home.attbi.com/~6mach9/ripped_dl.jpg[/img:ba166b987d]
Oops I had torn the rear driveline in two, thats not good, I still have the slip yoke so without the driveline I would spill t-case fluid all over the ground while going up hills. So we started thinking about how to fix it. We pulled it out and decided to cut off the torn ends and hopefully someone coming up the trail would have some metal to patch it. I pulled out my cordless sawzall and using this workbench and hi tech vise proceded to cut the ends.
[img:ba166b987d]http://home.attbi.com/~6mach9/sazallends.jpg[/img:ba166b987d]
Thats Sean and I standing on it with the sawzall cutting the mangled end off.
Now onto the next step finding some metal so when someone came along with a welder we could buzz it together. we brainstormed with out much luck thinking of high lift handles, without to much luck till a really nice guy came along in a jeep I think sean looked at his tail pipe and though hey that might work the guy in the jeep didn't take a second thought, and just said "cut it off" I decided if someone was going to donate their exhaust it ought to be me. So I whipped out that wonderfull cordless sawzall again and cut out from the cat back to the rear axle (I didnt want to just cut a small section and have the muffler dangling).
I know what you are thinking, you are thinking no way exhaust tubing will be strong enough to tube a driveline, well not according to jeep, my 2.25 inch exhaust pipe is the exact same size as the tubing on the driveline same thickness and everything, the jeep driveline did have cardboard inside it though?? anyway we slit the 6 inch pipe of exhaust tubing and rolled it into itself with a hammer so it would slip in the ends of the driveline. We then measured it to insure the correct length, I put it on my straitedge(hood) to try to get it as strait as possible, I expected this to vibrate really bad on the freeway. Here is a pic of the patched Driveline awaiting a welder.
[img:ba166b987d]http://home.attbi.com/~6mach9/ready_to_weld.jpg[/img:ba166b987d]
as we were waiting for a welder Sean and I came up with our T-case Condom to prevent fluid from coming out the back, It probably would of worked but luckily Gabe Showed up.
[img:ba166b987d]http://home.attbi.com/~6mach9/t-case_condom.jpg[/img:ba166b987d]
Yes it consisted of a ziptie and a rubber glove.
But then Gabe showed up.
[img:ba166b987d]http://home.attbi.com/~6mach9/Gabe.jpg[/img:ba166b987d]
Gabe was a member as the same club as Tom and he had a welder What a super nice guy he burned up a bunch of stick and spent a lot of time helping a complete stranger. In the previous picture he is wearing 4 pairs of sunglasses, that about a shade 9 right?
Here is a pic of the completed driveshaft after we got home. Notice the butchered exhaust system.
[img:ba166b987d]http://home.attbi.com/~6mach9/weldeddl.jpg[/img:ba166b987d]
I think Tom Woods has some competition, Gabes driveline service did an awesome job, I had some vibration at 60mph or so but not bad, he weighted his welds to virtualy vibration free at 70mph without any balancing equiptment.
The repair looked good enough we decided to continue down the trail but shortly after Tom rolled and it was more important to insure his safety.
The Moral of the Story is that there are a bunch of awesome 4wheelers out there, I really want to thank Sean, Tom, Gabe and all the others that helped. for helping me get my junk back together Everybody we met were so helpfull it was amazing We were probably dead in the water for 4-5 hours but nobody complained once what a great bunch.