Moving to Ocotillo Wells tomorrow to meet up with Tadrad

Will leave here in the morning then will resupply at Brawley need everything figure this will take several hours, anybody have detailed directions to the RV dump station in Brawley?

I can't make it during the week, wife is working about an hour away and I am picking kids up every day after school now, at least for the next few weeks, work is unreal right now too, but I couldn't sneak out even if it wasn't because of the kids. Kinda screwed....

Any idea where you'll be or where Tadrad is out there? If you won't be there by the weekend maybe I can make a night run, at the very least I can throw the parts in the MR2 and make a run out there. Anything you might need, food, beer, firewood, etc?

Still haven't broke the '85 250R in yet, may bring that, is it getting into the 40's at night or just 50's, haven't been checking the desert temps and we never made it out last week since the wife is working.

I wish I did, something like 'go down the main street 8 blocks and turn left into an alley'........I could find it, but can't describe it. Maybe this link will help.........

http://www.sanidumps.com/sanidumps_usa.php?id=18

Or this link

http://www.rvdumps.com/dumpstations/california

The wife and I finally made it out for a ride late Saturday morning, met Hoser, his son and Tadrad at poleline road and proceeded to get left in the dust by Tadrad, he was about a 1/2 mile ahead of us before we even got on the road...... 5 miles later he's waiting for us on the side of the road and we head off down a nice wash, 1 mile later I have a bent left front rim from a rock ridge sticking out of the sand.

We then headed west towards the pumpkin patch occasionally heading down the wrong wash, we get to the pumpkin patch about 6-7 miles later for a short break and decide to check out tarantula wash a few miles further south so we backtrack a few miles and head south, the dust was a real killer and I didn't take any pictures after the pumpkin patch.

We got back to camp after another 10-12 miles, ate a late lunch and helped Tadrad pack his gear and trailer, he was beat, he'd been riding 3-4 days and was sick the whole time. He rolled out of camp sometime around 3:30 or 4:00 and we headed back out for a short ride towards the badlands and tried a few unknown trails and washes that didn't pan out and decided to take a loop back to camp before it got dark, but we only made it another 2 miles or so before I shredded my first pilot belt.

Hoser made changing it a breeze even though the driven spreader bolt would not go in far enough to spread the clutch, we then turned back around because it was dark to take the shortest route back to camp, 5 minutes later Hoser flagged me down to let me know my left rear was wobbling, all 4 lugnuts were loose, after tightening them we headed back towards the highway to take the frontage road back to camp.

After a minute on the frontage road we ALL got pulled over by 2 rangers for riding too close to the highway..... my wife and Hoser were let go fairly quickly, but Hoser's son and I were held a bit longer since I was the ONLY one carrying an ID the ranger actually ran it...... We all got a verbal warning and slap on the wrist and were left to find a trail further away from the highway.

After getting back and loading up I noticed the wife's pilot had cracked the left side inboard CV boot, I expected this to happen eventually since all 3 of our pilots were sun baked in the desert for 5 years before we bought them so I had already acquired 3 complete sets of boots, luckily it happened fairly close to camp as the grease was not coated with dust.

We hit the road home just before 7:00pm and Hoser and son were headed towards Parker, AZ.

Sunday while unloading I discovered both front upper ball joint boots were cracked, also expected so that repair will hopefully be happening this weekend.

Wife says I was going too fast in the washes and left everyone in the dust, she was hanging back because she was hearing rattling noises while accelerating (didn't hear about this until the next day......). I believe she was experiencing the same thing I was right before the belt shredded. I have never shredded a belt on a 250 so the experience was new to me, I've replaced a few dozen on 250's, but always when the started slipping from wear, never had one completely fail before.

The pics that follow are all I took.

More pics

That camera takes nice low light pics, it was about dark that's why we had the flash light out !

I will post my pics when I get unpacked.

Nice report and thanks for sharing pics. I was wondering what the punkin patch was. Look like fun was had by all.

Yeah, looks like it does, we were on our way 5-10 minutes after the last shot and it was pitch black by then.

She took a crap-load of pics of the belt change, but she has an "issue" with my camera and can't take a clear shot to save her life! Of the 20 or so pics she took the 2 I posted are the only ones that are clear enough to make out what it is you're looking at....... I think that's why it became "my" camera.

Got all 4 CV boots replaced on the wife's pilot today, ran out of time and didn't get to her carb, but I did get all of the air filters cleaned.

Front upper ball joint boots on mine are next as soon as the new ones get here.

Oh, both CV cups popped right out of the trans without much effort, still had a bit of grease on them, I guess their previous life in the California desert must have been very good to them, not so good for all of the plastic and rubber though.......

I'm in the middle of trying to remove my axel stubs. I've been spraying on the pb blaster for several days now. the darn things don't want to move. I just bought this pilot several weeks ago and it has lived it's life in the mud. all i can do is keep soakin and hope i get em out. I'm changing my cv boots and gease. I need to replace the final shaft seals, so the axel stubs must be removed. i used empi cv boot kits,(thanks to stoneman) -cost like 8 bucks each even came with the circlip. what cv boots did you go with?

Are you repalcing the entire ball joint or just the boots? If just boots where did you buy them? I need ne boots on mine also, front and rear.

I was afraid I was going to have to beg Hoser to make me a puller like his, but they popped off with relative ease.

I bought these at least 2 years ago in anticipation since the rubber was in such bad shape when we got them, kind of surprised they lasted this long:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayI ... MEWAX%3AIT

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayI ... MEWAX%3AIT

I got the balljoint boots through Service Honda # 53546-611-310. I did not get the clips, figure I'll try the glue method first, picked up some loc-tite super glue gel.

Hoser, your vendor substitution mis-spells service as "Srvice"......

Yeah I had a spelling error in it, FIXED!

Hey, did you notice that in the "quote" the link works?

Not sure I follow you.

I think it looks at ALL the text on each page it builds for a bad word then changes it as it finds it before sending that page to you.

When you quoted me the s e r v i c e h o n d a link actually works within the quote, but not in my original post.

Oh I see, no idea whats going on their lol Assume when it looks at the text in the quote it looks at it the same as when you type a link in a normal post and automatically makes it a live link not just the text.

Nice write up Oddystable. Thanks for the help with loading up and for the meds. I made it home in good time but my plans to clean the dinosaur crap from Salton sea of my pilot the next day were put on hold for nearly a week as that flu went south into my lungs and floored me. All better now and Pilot squeaky clean besides my air filter that I will get to once it decides to quit raining here in San Diego. I had a great trip besides having the flu. Hoser and Chris looked after me well while I was running at about 50%. Desert is not the best place to be dealing with a fever with the temperatures jumping around between 39 and 75 degrees!! However if you want to forget you feel like crap just jump in your pilot and go for a good ride. We had some great rides all week and I must confess I was quite impressed with Hosers Golf Cart especially with the collapsed front corner. It was great to see him after about a 12 year gap, hope it will only be 12 month gaps from now on?? Good thing I went home and didn't get nabbed by the rangers, I haven't dealt with the DMV B.S. to get my pilot registered in California and am sporting an up to date but out of state sticker

Good to hear you're still alive!

Maybe you caught something from the "bear" you caught.......

I was surprised by the golf cart too, especially when he jumped it 12" to my left as I was sitting on top the hill. Best sounding golf cart I've ever heard too.

You would have been fine with the rangers, I was the only one with a license on me so I was apparently the only one to have the numbers run, he ran Chris's name through the database too, even checked the spelling.....

Tadrad..

Glad your felling better, we dodged a bullet and didnt ever get the flu you had.

You make it back the next week?

You guys getting any flooding, pics?

You have any ride pics to post?

I still have to sort my pics and post.

That was a big freakin BEAR !! Or was it a horse.Was kinda dark and hard to tell!

Flooding pics? No, but the 40+ foot pepper tree in our front yard blew over today in the 40+mph hail storm that blew through around 3:30, I helped plant it 40 years ago, been outside with the chain saw for 2 hours, barely made a dent in it.

It missed the '69 Camaro by about 2 inches and some branches landed on the '68 Firebird, but no damage, wife was freaking out when I called her.

Gotta head over to my dads now and help fix his shed, the doors were blown off.

Jeez guys. We lost a shutter yesterday that can be nailed back up in a couple minutes but that is a real bummer. Glad it didn't blow the other direction! Glad the cars survived, I'd be down there with a chainsaw today if I could but I'd probably cut my own leg off Is that going to be a lot of advil this weekend or will you have a crew come in and have it taken away? As little as I know you both, my money is on you pair cuttin that sucker up and curing it for next winter. Save some of it for the desert!! If you guys are going out anytime, Kelly and I would love to join you. I got a Weber Q on ebay and am looking at the portable Honday/Yamaha generators for heating and coffee. Moving up in the world!! Oh and I'm a lot less needy when I'm not sick. Cheers and good luck. If my trailer would be of any use, let me know and I'll head over with it. Wouldn't mind a look at your muscle cars anyway. Tadrad

Nope, a LOT of advil and aleve.......

Thanks for the offer, I think we have it under control, assuming the rain lets up as they say we should have it under control by Sunday, my dad and brother-in-law are coming over to help.

Not sure how we'll move the trunk yet, may just carve it into a couple of benches for now. Gonna be hot this summer since the tree shaded 80% of the east side of the house.

We got way lucky, a eucalyptus fell on a house a few hundred feet down the road and I've seen at least another dozen around Poway and Escondido that fell on or partially on houses. I'm still worried about the 60+ foot pepper tree on our back lot, it's close to 100 years old and has lost a few limbs in the 4-10 inch range already, at least if it falls it can't hit anything.

If I can get the few minor things left to do on the pilots done by the 29th we may go out on the 30th, but we'll have the 6 and 10 year olds and the 19 yead old with boyfriend in tow......... You're more than welcome to come along, but we will be crawling at 20-30 mph with the gocart.

Take the dune buggy and strap the kids in leave the go cart at home heh

Yeah, there's an idea, will take longer to get that ready though, but it's coming to that point quickly........