matandtiff's Jeep!

2006-11-04 – Big Bear/Pioneer Town

This trip was originally to try and go to the Pontiac Sluice and test our off-road driving abilities since both my Uncle Bob and I were in (nearly) stock Jeeps. Tiffany and I drove up Friday night after my monthly company BBQ and we made good time after we got off the 76! We were ready to get up early Saturday morning and get out there w/ the Jeeps. We started off by installing the “storage pins” for my Uncle’s JKS Quicker Disco’s. He actually broke the tap! So 1 was in, the other had the butt end of the tap still stuck in the frame. No big deal. If we disconnect, we’ll just zip-tie his sway bar out of the way!

Now the big deal… I had advised my Uncle to get a Dana 44 rear end for piece of mind. I doubt he’d ever wheel hard enough to break a Dana 35, but if you don’t have to worry about it, it will make his trips that much better. He and his wife both asked 2 different people at the dealership twice to make sure it was a D44, and were assured it was. As I was looking over his Jeep I saw the dreaded RUBBER FILL PLUG!!! The shape was awfully round too, unlike a Dana 44. I let him know, and we got the numbers down. Come to find out they were sold the Jeep without the sticker and the dealer later found it and DHLed it to them. They have been in contact with the dealer who acknowledged the error (thank goodness!) and are currently trying to work out options.

We start out the 38 to get to 1N01 only to find a fairly large group of people in front of us headed to Pioneer Town. We decided to take it easy and run with them to Pioneer Town and see the Pontiac on the way back. The group we met with liked to stop every couple hundred feet for beer breaks. They were shooting a potato gun into the woods, and we just didn’t “vibe” with them. Here was the first stop, where we decided to break off from them.

After breaking off, we wanted to make sure we got to Pioneer Town before the group since they were also planning on having lunch at the small restaurant there. We passed through the fire damaged area and made it to Pioneer Town well ahead of the large group (they made yet another pit stop on the way).

On the way back we decided to take a look at the Pontiac Sluice. We drove up 2N61Y a bit, but decided to turn around because right where it started getting harder, the sun was DIRECTLY in our windshields, and after a day of dust, it was already getting hard to see through them. Also, with less than 1000 miles on my uncle’s Jeep (not even license plates yet!) my Aunt wasn’t too confident in making it through. It looked like we’d have to pick good lines instead of just driving wherever, but no problem for a stock jeep with a good driver. We hiked quite a bit to see if the trail got harder before we decided to call it quits. We thought that it could take a couple hours, and by that time the sun would be gone!

We ended up heading back out to 2N01 and then taking 3N01 back to the 18 for a change of scenery on the way back. Glad we did this, different terrain which was a tiny bit more difficult. Still all 2WD stuff, but it was still fun. The amazing part was we were descending, which made it easier, but we came across a group of dolts that were in a 2 wheel drive Ford Ranger trying to climb up some of the slightly tougher stuff. There were 2 girls in the bed sitting on a cooler, ready to fly out if the truck bounced much more than it was already. They were getting stuck, but the driver was determined so we didn’t want to stick around for when he either broke something or hurt somebody… We headed off and found some other terrain that looked like it might be hard for a LWB vehicle in 2WD to climb, so maybe the driver was better than we gave credit!