The SFWDA 1st quarter meeting was held on Saturday, March 20th in Jellico, Tennessee. Trail rides began departing at 9:00am. Riding was on Clear Fork Mining's property in White Oak, Tennessee. This is the same location where the rock crawling events are held. Trail rides ranged from easy/medium challenge to hard.
The meeting and trail rides were hosted by ET4WD.
The pictures below are from the "Cave Trail ride".
The Cave Trail Ride was rated a 3-4, and it started out with 13 rigs, on what promised to be a beautiful day. The number of rigs could have been a harbinger of things to come. The ride was about five miles long, and turned down the mountain on a spur trail that was about a mile of steep wash. Everyone made it for the cave photo with no real problems.
Then, at the first major obstacle, the big black Dodge Ram, driven by Jamie Kerr, developed a problem.
The Dodge has a Cummins turned up with the 330 Horsepower and 750lb-ft Torque plate. It runs a 2 wheel drive NV4500 jack shafted to a divorced 203 doubled into a ford 205. The shaft that couples the 203 and 205 broke. The 203 range box was in low and the 205 was in high. He won't run that way any more. They are warranting the shaft because he was the first person to break one and they have been out over a year.
Anyway, at an estimated 8600 pounds and about two miles of steep mountain to climb, we were in trouble. After it winches around a turn with its 15,000 # Warn, Ben Jordan (K5 Blazer) and Lynn Tromba (F-150) start a tandem pull up the ravine. Things were moving swimmingly until suddenly the Ford's tire hooks up with the ravine's bank, and pulls the steering's tie bar in half. Now, we really were in trouble!
In an attempt to reduce potential causalities from a cold overnight stay and missed 7 o'clock meeting, Dave Owens led eight rigs over the mountain and toward the EROC rock crawl area.
Necessity being the Mother of Invention, the remaining members came up with a three- battery welder, some 6013 rods and a welding hood. Thirty minutes of dabbing, burning holes in a tarp and Stefan Roth's borrowed coveralls, the tie rod was declared together enough to carefully make it out. The Scout was reluctanly conscripted into service, replacing the F-150, and progress was slowly made. Along the way, Stefan broke a front drive axle and Ben's torque converter kept cavitating, but we finally got to the top of the mountain overlooking the town of Jellico. There, a strong thunderstorm hit us, enticing a quick downhill retreat to avoid lightning strikes. Would you believe it? The first one down was the big black Dodge Ram, coasting like a bat outa hell, almost to the Jellico Motel lot. And Stefan had two hours to spare, before the First Quarter Meeting.
Click on an image to enlarge
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Pictures courtesy of Ben Jordan and the write-up courtesy of Joe Smith.
This page last updated on 10/16/2007.