Part 3 of Ultimate Adventure 2017. On Day Four of the Ultimate Adventure we left Payson
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MotorTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - ProWheels, baby!
00:09 - Day four, Ultimate Adventure 2017, here we go.
00:12 (cheering)
00:14 So Trent is gonna be leading us out again.
00:17 Here's Trent.
00:18 - How'd everybody like yesterday?
00:19 - Amazing!
00:20 - It was pretty rad, I thought.
00:21 I don't know, some of you may have been miserable.
00:23 It was probably one of my,
00:24 it's probably one of my favorite segments
00:25 of the entire trip, so.
00:27 We are first going to go to the Tonto Bridge State Park.
00:32 The Tonto Bridge State Park is located
00:34 just a few miles north of Payson.
00:36 It contains what is believed to be
00:38 the world's largest natural travertine bridge.
00:41 The bridge itself spans a 400 foot long tunnel
00:44 that is 150 feet wide at its widest point
00:47 and reaches a height of 183 feet.
00:50 It was discovered in 1877 by David Gowen,
00:53 who is said to have found the bridge
00:54 while he was hiding from hostile Apaches.
00:57 So impressed with the area,
00:58 he convinced his family to emigrate
01:00 from their native Scotland,
01:01 and he claimed the land containing the bridge
01:03 for himself under squatter's rights.
01:06 The Gowen family lived in the area until the late 1940s.
01:09 Among the things that makes Ultimate Adventure unique
01:13 is that it's not just about going four wheeling.
01:15 We also like to check out the sights
01:17 when the schedule permits.
01:18 With a relatively short trail planned for the day,
01:21 it was the perfect opportunity to check out
01:23 a very unique natural formation.
01:26 - I just popped my head under here.
01:28 I mean, I was working on the truck all morning,
01:29 but I just popped my head under and took a look
01:31 and just noticed, 'cause there was a drip on here
01:34 and the thing was just loose in there.
01:37 The rear output seal on the transfer case
01:40 popped out at some point, yesterday probably,
01:43 and it looks like we're losing our transfer case fluid,
01:46 so we're just trying to figure out
01:47 how to get it back in there.
01:49 - Unfortunately, we were burning daylight.
01:51 Rick Payway stayed back with Wainey Jack
01:53 while the rest of the group headed for the nearby trail.
01:56 - Spent the morning at the Tonto Bridge State Park.
01:58 I checked out the world's largest natural travertine bridge
02:01 and now we are at the Piat Draw.
02:04 This is in the Tonto National Forest.
02:06 This is actually the hardest,
02:08 pretty much the hardest trail in the entire area.
02:11 (truck engine rumbling)
02:14 Down in a riverbed, so we've got a lot of small rock,
02:31 couple bigger rock.
02:32 We're at, I don't know, 5,000 feet or so.
02:35 Well, we'll take a look over here.
02:36 - 5,295.
02:37 - At our Magellan, 5,295.
02:39 So it's a little cooler, which is very welcome
02:40 after some of the heat we've been in lately.
02:43 So it's good, we've got some good rock crawling going.
02:44 Looking forward to the rest of the trail.
02:46 (truck engine rumbling)
02:53 (truck engine rumbling)
03:08 (truck engine rumbling)
03:12 Piat Draw offers a unique opportunity
03:22 to do some rock crawling among the pine trees.
03:25 There are some deceivingly difficult obstacles here
03:27 that gradually get harder until eventually reaching
03:30 a gnarly obstacle at the end called the filter.
03:33 It also turned out that Piat would show many of us
03:35 weaknesses caused by spending three hard days
03:38 on rock back roads.
03:40 - Vern kind of slipped off of a rock
03:45 and ended up getting kind of turtled on a,
03:49 just a really big rock.
03:51 It was all in the transfer case,
03:52 in front of the drive shaft and everything.
03:53 So just whipped out the Pluto rope
03:55 and gave him a quick tug and 30 seconds later, he's free.
03:58 It's all right.
04:00 (truck engine rumbling)
04:04 That was a big rock with a big drop on the backside.
04:13 You know, normally you're supposed to walk that stuff
04:15 and I didn't bother.
04:17 I just went in with both feet.
04:18 Fortunately, James Watson was there from Off-Road Design
04:21 and he gave me a good spot at a critical moment
04:24 and I was able to get through unscathed somehow.
04:26 (truck engine rumbling)
04:30 (truck engine rumbling)
04:34 (man cheering)
04:44 - My cheering squad.
04:46 - Reader Chris Paul has been having
04:53 a fairly trouble-free trip so far,
04:55 which is impressive considering the amount
04:57 of custom fabrication that has been done to his H3.
05:00 He knows his truck inside and out
05:01 and he isn't afraid to put it anywhere.
05:03 - You're going faster.
05:12 You got it.
05:20 You got it.
05:21 - Damon Haas hasn't had quite the same luck
05:29 with his 61 Scout.
05:31 A leaky fuel cell was discovered early in the trip
05:33 and the healthy small block Ford hasn't been very happy
05:36 with the triple-dugget heat,
05:37 hence going roadkill style with no hood.
05:40 But none of that has stopped Damon and his co-driver John
05:42 from being a part of every trail so far.
05:45 - Driver.
05:46 - We got like the biggest rock on the trail so far.
05:58 I don't know if this is the end
05:59 or if this is just a good obstacle
06:01 in the middle of the trail.
06:03 Everybody's making it clean.
06:09 We've had a few guys hung up.
06:11 (engine revving)
06:14 - Looks like Clifton got hung up over there.
06:24 - Do I need to hook up and pull both of them?
06:26 - Remember that everyone is fully loaded
06:34 with all the gear they're going to need for the entire week.
06:37 And wheeling with several hundred extra pounds of gear
06:39 also makes the rigs behave very differently.
06:42 It's also a lot harder on equipment.
06:45 The Diesel Power Products crew are no strangers
06:53 to stuffing 10 pounds of truck in a five pound hole.
06:56 Thanks to some careful spotting,
06:58 Cooper made this obstacle look easy.
07:01 - It's going to the tailgate.
07:08 - Right now, tailgate.
07:10 - It's hard to imagine an ultimate adventure
07:12 without Off-Road Design's Stephen and James Watson.
07:15 Their Hot Rod Convertible K30
07:16 may be one of their most capable creations yet.
07:19 A flexi suspension, LS power, and Magnum gearing
07:23 are among the good bits on this truck.
07:25 - That's pretty good stuff.
07:29 Now we're getting into some rock crawling.
07:31 - Love this place.
07:32 A lot of good, you can pick your own line.
07:36 Three or four different lines,
07:37 creek bed from left to right, it's about 50 yards wide
07:40 and there's all kind of little obstacles
07:43 sprawling out throughout the creek bed.
07:46 It's a cool place.
07:47 - Playing around on that shelf down there
07:55 and just got all mired up and everything,
07:58 finally got up it, but what happened was,
08:01 in the process, kept jumping out of gear.
08:03 I was thinking it was transfer case leak,
08:04 which was messed up.
08:05 Well, it turns out it actually broke
08:06 the motor mount bracket off the side of the block,
08:08 of the engine block, so the whole thing
08:10 is sitting in there this way.
08:11 - So with plenty of helping hands on deck
08:15 to get Trent up and rolling,
08:16 I slid into the lead to keep the group moving forward.
08:19 After all, ultimate adventure waits for nobody,
08:22 even the trail leader.
08:23 Turns out, Trent conveniently happened to break down
08:31 just before Piat draws party piece.
08:33 The filter is a huge, gnarly waterfall climb
08:36 with an unnerving drop off
08:38 to the passenger side of the vehicle.
08:40 - So we're just ending up with too many things
08:42 hitting all at the same time.
08:44 We have both front tires trying to climb big rocks
08:48 and the rear's hung up and both tires in a hole
08:50 and the rear diff's hitting and the tie rod's hitting,
08:53 so we need to reposition things.
08:55 I think this line's gonna be this big
08:57 if anybody gets up it.
08:58 - After several attempts, we finally found
09:01 the perfect combination of gearing
09:03 and the off-road design Magnum transfer case system.
09:06 We walked up with just the right amount of wheel spin
09:08 and some great spotting from Steven Watson.
09:11 Meanwhile, further back on the trail,
09:14 Trent and the cronies were hard at work.
09:17 - Two of the bolts broke off in the block.
09:19 We got one of 'em out no problem.
09:20 The other one was actually broke off,
09:23 almost kinda countersunk in the block itself,
09:25 and of course, that's the one that's not spinning.
09:27 We drilled a little bit of a hole into that bolt.
09:30 We'll weld the Allen wrench to it
09:32 and hopefully we can then back it out.
09:34 - Okay, so we slid over a little bit.
09:40 There's a little outcropping
09:41 and it grabbed the rear drive shaft.
09:44 They had an argument and the drive shaft did not win.
09:47 - Longer wheelbases like the Watson's K30
09:53 have an easier time straddling the double whammy.
09:56 And it doesn't hurt to have 525 horsepower on tap
10:01 when you need it.
10:02 The sun was getting low and by now,
10:05 we should have been sipping beverages and camp.
10:07 But Piat Draw had other plans for the UA.
10:10 With several rigs under repair
10:12 and most of the group left on the wrong side of the filter,
10:15 we started stacking rocks
10:16 and doing whatever it took to get a move on.
10:19 - Well, we've been hitting the obstacles
10:26 pretty hard here this afternoon and it's a lot of fun,
10:29 but big trucks, they exert a lot of force on things.
10:32 So I've rocked my eccentrics
10:34 and made my driveline angle a little bit off.
10:37 So what I'm gonna do is take the weight off the front
10:40 with the bottle jack here and loosen up the driver's side
10:44 and rock it back to where it was
10:46 and then do the same thing to the passenger side.
10:49 Hopefully we'll be back on track here shortly.
10:51 (engine revving)
10:54 - Four-wheel and off-road tech editor,
11:03 Vern Simons brought his family station wagon.
11:06 It's just a mild little mall crawler.
11:08 That's nothing special.
11:09 Yeah, right.
11:14 Vern flat out knows how to build stuff
11:16 and he's one of the best off-road drivers out there.
11:19 Both he and his vehicles epitomize the word sleeper.
11:23 - I really didn't think I was gonna make it.
11:24 I was pretty sure I was gonna be on the winch.
11:26 I'm pretty sure everybody else has a 38s or 40s
11:30 and I'm on 37s.
11:32 And I really didn't think I was gonna make that.
11:35 I'll take it.
11:36 - Two of the three bolts are broken
11:38 and the third, the tab on the motor mount bracket is broken.
11:42 So I guess we're just gonna jack up the motor
11:45 and hopefully we can get the broken bolts out of the block.
11:48 - I've got a countersink in case you wanna countersink it.
11:51 I need what come in that bag originally.
11:55 - This is the way we work out here.
11:56 We're all in this to help each other out.
11:59 Yes, this will be perfect.
12:01 This will be exactly what I need.
12:03 It's the craftsman's lifetime work
12:04 in case I snap the end off.
12:07 (upbeat music)
12:09 (motor revving)
12:12 - So the Hummer was coming up
12:31 and decided we needed to go ahead and winch.
12:37 However, we got really heavy on the back,
12:40 ended up pulling a bead
12:41 and now we've got a whole other problem.
12:43 So we actually have another vehicle on the other side
12:45 pulling off the XO cage to unload the front.
12:49 And now we're going to get a high lift under it,
12:50 get some air in it, get it up top
12:53 'cause in addition, it's got a broken hub.
12:55 We got two warrants on them
12:56 'cause it's a pretty heavy pull, big, heavy truck.
13:00 - Coming in.
13:01 - We just got the bead reseated
13:09 and hey, it's all in the fun on a day in the trail.
13:12 - Yeah, that's a busted hub.
13:20 See the broke ring around here,
13:23 shrapnel in there, big crack.
13:24 - Meanwhile, we're still fighting extracting broken bolts
13:28 and Chris Durham is taking care of the broken bracket.
13:31 One of the bolts proved impossible to remove.
13:34 So we just ran with two on the welded up engine roller.
13:37 - So that old saying,
13:44 we get by with a little help from our friends.
13:46 We got the eccentrics rocked the way we need to.
13:49 The driveline's happy, happy.
13:50 We're back rolling on the trail here, having a blast.
13:53 So all smiles, no whining.
13:56 (engine rumbling)
13:59 - Yeah, my passenger rear was undercut
14:16 and lifting the front end.
14:18 So I figured out that warrant did the job.
14:20 - Keith gave it a good try, couldn't make it up.
14:22 So he's up his 82-74.
14:24 (engine rumbling)
14:27 - Passenger, passenger, passenger.
14:43 What's going on, you're too far.
14:47 You need to turn passenger soon.
14:49 Passenger, passenger, passenger, passenger.
14:52 - Tell you what I saw, I saw this guy.
14:53 It's a steep waterfall rock climb.
14:56 And of course it's off camber to the downhill direction.
14:59 So as you start to get some traction and climb the thing,
15:01 you feel like you're going off to the right.
15:03 But had Christian stacking some rocks for me.
15:06 Had some good spotting, a little bit of worn winch,
15:08 and we're up the hill.
15:09 So here we are.
15:11 - We are doing a lot of winching,
15:13 which is probably pretty smart.
15:16 The spot is definitely taking out some vehicles today.
15:18 We had a lot of damage.
15:20 (engine rumbling)
15:22 - I don't have the best approach angle
15:31 with the front bumper being as low as it is,
15:33 even with the 42s.
15:35 We got the nose to lift, got up as high as we could.
15:47 (engine rumbling)
15:50 Our worn winch came through in a pinch.
15:53 The old 16.5 TI got some work in,
15:56 and hey, here we are moving on down the trail.
15:59 Got a couple of things to look at underneath.
16:02 It looks like the plague of the eccentrics has hit us again.
16:06 So our pinion has changed and our driveline
16:08 is all kinds of wonky.
16:10 So we're going to end up readjusting that
16:12 and then we're ready to roll on.
16:17 - Class clown Tom Boyd made several attempts at the filter
16:20 and burned shrink ray TJ.
16:21 But this is about as far as he got
16:23 before going for the warn.
16:25 Brony extraordinaire Sam Gillis
16:27 is always good for a one-liner
16:29 and a thick, heavy southern drawl.
16:31 And failing that, just sit back
16:33 and watch him take his mean green two-car
16:35 up the gnarliest optional lines available.
16:38 With a five-foot vertical wall to climb,
16:42 this was definitely a make or break obstacle.
16:46 (wind blowing)
16:49 Chris Durham can sniff out the right line on an obstacle
16:54 easier than a bloodhound.
16:56 As one of the early pioneers of competitive rock crawling,
16:59 we've yet to see Chris break a sweat on the trail
17:01 no matter what he's driving.
17:03 - It's kind of different for me driving a school bus,
17:07 but I enjoy it.
17:08 It's about 2,000 pounds heavier than what I'm used to
17:13 and a foot and a half longer than what I'm used to.
17:16 And you just kind of figure out how to make it work.
17:18 - I have this all figured out in my head,
17:23 but I don't know how it's gonna work out in real life.
17:26 - If Chris is driving a school bus,
17:28 dirt head Dave is in a go-kart by comparison.
17:31 One of the smallest rigs on UA this year,
17:34 Dave's Rugged Radio's Amigo easeling hangs
17:37 with the big rigs.
17:39 And then there's famous Freddie Williams
17:41 and the Cummins R2.8 turbo diesel powered tube sock.
17:45 - Yep, a mere three and a half hours later,
17:48 I'm caught up with the crew.
17:50 Wow, what a day I had drawn.
17:56 What I thought was gonna be a fairly quick trail day
17:59 has turned into probably some of the worst carnage
18:02 of the trip so far.
18:03 I broke engine mount, we had a drive shaft go,
18:06 a transfer case fitting go bad.
18:08 Great trail.
18:10 We're running out of daylight,
18:11 really need to get up to our campsite for the night.
18:13 Not only are we not getting to camp before dark,
18:22 we had to hop on the pavement
18:24 just so we wouldn't get to camp after midnight.
18:26 It's going to be a late one,
18:30 but the guys are in for a surprise
18:31 when they wake up in the morning
18:32 that's going to make it well worth it.
18:34 Tomorrow there's a whole lot more in store,
18:36 including epic scenery and a stop
18:38 that must be very much what it's like
18:40 to go four wheeling on the moon.
18:42 We're over halfway through the week,
18:43 but in some ways UA is just getting started.
18:46 (upbeat music)
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