Cameron Dawson
“Get your rear in gear!” My Dad used to say that when it was time to get moving. I hadn’t thought I’d face a time when that literally wasn’t possible…
This wasn’t Escape From New York, or even Escape from L.A. But it did end up being Escape from Las Vegas… and me, without my eye-patch.
So, there we were, heading up Goler Canyon from Barker Ranch. It was a gorgeous day. Wildflowers were truly spectacular. The nicest I’ve seen in the 20 years we’ve been coming here.
A fantastic day for being on the trail. The first rough spot came and I made it up like I usually do: I just gunned it and barreled right up in Low 2nd gear. Jeff’s rig, for some reason, couldn’t go into Low-4. And it was just a bit too steep. So Greg got to use his winch for the first time to actually pull a rig up something. It was pretty cool. Easy, actually.
As the trail continued, we entered a beautiful canyon. Really amazing visuals all around. As we left the canyon, we came to another slight rocky spot. Not as hard as the first by any stretch. Low 2nd gear, gunning it, I began to crest this second outcropping. Then I heard it. A bang. Then more rhythmic banging as I crawled forward. I knew what just happened.
“Oh fffff—! I think I broke my drive shaft!”
Greg, Dan and Jeff all came down to investigate. Greg took a look and said, “Yes. You did.”
So, once again, Greg broke out the winch and hauled me to level ground. Once there, and with the wheels chocked, we got down to take another look. Aside from the rapid, unscheduled dis-assembly (RUD) of the shaft from the rear differential, the damage didn’t really look all that bad. The splined sleeve (slip yoke) had broken off at the u-joint mount. The loops holding in the joint were totally broken off. The end yoke at the differential just looked like it had the sheared bolts inside, but was otherwise OK. The CV-joint up at the transfer case actually looked fine. It looked like if I could get a splined sleeve and u-joints and extract the bolts from the end yoke, then I’d be back in business. How hard could that be?
Someone briefly mentioned we could head back to Ballarat. But it was never seriously considered. We weren’t going to end the trip just for this. We had options. So onward we went!
Dan went up ahead to scout how bad the rest of the road was and Greg and I removed the broken drive shaft. Greg and I had talked about this concept before. You can still drive in 4WD mode with just the front wheels. Thing is, on the trail heading uphill, your weight is tilted away from the front wheels and toward the rear. So I lost traction pretty easily. Dan or Greg had to haul me up spots several times. They were very gracious about it. Thanks guys!!!
I also noticed that the steering wheel was off. Tilted about 90 degrees to the left. I figured I must have vibrated out my steering linkage at some point on the washboards. This had happened to Greg’s rig years ago. But I was also hearing some rubbing on my rear left fender. This was common while off-roading when I had 31” tires before my lift. But this was more than that. I stopped and Jeff and I got out to check. Yep, the tire was rubbing a lot on the rear of the left fender. Upon inspection, the entire AXLE was pushed back on that side. Somewhere along the line, I had sheared the leaf-spring pin and the axle had slid back on the left.
Later, when talking to one of the mechanics, he said what probably happened was that I hit something that bent or fractured the pin. Eventually, under stress or vibration, it sheared off completely. This allowed the axle to gradually (or perhaps NOT-so-gradually) slide rearward. Eventually it hit a point where the drive line angles became too convoluted. This caused the drive shaft to shear off under stress when going up that bump.
Anyway, I sliced a chunk of the rubber fender off and drove it gingerly, looking for a flat spot to make repairs. As it would happen, we came to a mining site with a concrete slab perfect for the job. We chocked the wheels securely with things like rocks and beer. Then jacked it up with my hi-lift. After loosening the u-bolts Dan used a hammer to get the axle back into place. It was WAY off. Bonus: after realigning the axle, my steering wheel looked right again while driving.
Eventually, we made our way to the geologist Cabin in Butte Valley. I had to be towed several times, including the final climb to the cabin. But once there, we had a fantastic time.
I awoke early in the morning for biological needs to see a gorgeous sunrise over Butte Valley.
Later that day we headed out to Death Valley proper and planned to go up Queen of Sheeba road. Again, I was towed several times for, what felt like, trivial bits of trail. But once we crested the saddle and was going downhill, I did just fine. Some of the trail was pretty aggressively downhill, to be honest.
On the west side highway, we were surprised by the Queen of Sheeba road. The topo maps didn’t exaggerate. It was a bizarrely straight trail. I had never been on a straight trail in Death Valley before. But here it was, straight to the Queen of Sheeba mine. Yet, alas, even this road proved too rough for my front-wheel drive. So, again, by the grace of my friends, I was towed up and we had another great night of food, beer and music. Even a little fire-jumping/almost falling. Good times.
Our trip was coming to a close. We headed out the next morning for the Furnace Creek Visitor Center. I’d felt my engine coughing a bit here and there but it never got too serious. But once we hit pavement on 178, and started going full speed, my motor kept cutting out. Drastically. It coughed and sputtered the whole way. I made it, but the Jeep was choking out. I’m not sure what it was. Too much dust? Fuel filter? Fuel pump? The heat? I hear that sometimes a fuel pump at the end of its life has trouble in the heat. It was 95 that day.
Regardless, I was in even LESS of a condition to get home that way. Only as things progressed would I begin to grasp the severity of my mechanical situation… Some things ended up being a non-issue. Some were a much bigger issue.
We lifted the hood. The air filter looked fine, but Dan grabbed it and shook it out. Tons of fine dust fell out. While not good, that didn’t seem like it could have been the issue, though. We ALL must have lots of dust in our air filters. Checked the gas station next door for a fuel filter, but they didn’t carry any parts. They got them from Pahrump. So I called AAA and decided to just get towed to a mechanic in Pahrump. It was closer than Ridgecrest. Under my 100 mile tow-limit.
The guys and I said our goodbyes and I watched them go. I got out my guitar and camp chair and sat in the shade as I waited for the tow truck. Not how I wanted the trip to end, but ahh well. Shi… I mean… Adventure happens…
It was 4pm before the truck arrived. I signed all the paperwork as the Jeep was loaded on the flat-bed. The drive up 190 was uneventful. Hot, desolate and beautiful in that Death Valley way. But it had taken so long for him to get to me that we barely arrived at “All Automotive” in Pahrump before they closed. They seemed nice enough. I dropped off the Jeep, then checked into one of Nevada’s ubiquitous casino hotels. Had a burrito (my go-to comfort food) at “El Jefe’s” and went back to the hotel for the night. I slept well with the comfort that my Jeep was in the hands of a mechanic that could fix it.
Early the next morning I got a call from the mechanic who told me they couldn’t reproduce the motor issue at all. However they said they COULD get the part to fix my drive-shaft. I was elated, but went over there to see if driving the Jeep around would reproduce the problem. The part was due back 2pm that day. So I drove the Jeep around all morning and it drove just fine. Even at higher speeds. Though I noticed that the transfer case got really loud up around 50 mph. The chain from the transfer case to the front wheels is not designed for highway driving. I was glad I hadn’t tried driving home on the front wheels anyway. I was so happy I’d be repaired that evening and be on my way home.
I showed up at 2pm to hear the mechanic on the phone with his supplier. “So NONE of them fit, eh?” Wait, what?!? Was he talking about MY jeep? Then he says, “He just left it and took off?” It went on a bit from there, but the gist was that the mechanic (though I told him my drive shaft was after-market) was trying to match it with parts from a dealership. Christ… Not only this but his driver left my spline sleeve there at the Dodge-Chrysler dealership in…. yes… Las Vegas. He told me, “We can have it back here by 5.” At this point I was a bit frustrated. I called 4X4 and More in Scotts Valley (the guys who originally installed my slip-yoke eliminator and drive shaft) for advice. They told me the part number of the Rubicon Express shaft they installed. But he said what I really needed to do was to get to a drive-line specialist. A regular mechanic just wasn’t going to be able to do this. I glanced at the mechanic and I believed it. I know they meant well, but they just didn’t know how to handle this kind of issue and I wished they’d just copped to that before I wasted my entire day. To their credit, they didn’t try to charge me anything for their time since they really hadn’t helped me at all.
So my options became clear. Pahrump had nothing that could help me. I had to get my Jeep to Vegas, get my part and find a specialist. It had been drive-able all day. It was 3pm and I could make it there in time to get my part. So I loaded up on water and ice (just in case) and headed East on 160 through the “Rainbow Mountain Wilderness” to Vegas. But I just took it slow and steady at 45 mph. Cars and trucks whizzed past me, their air trail surging against me as they honked, yelled and threw bottles and wrenches at me. OK, nobody did that, but I felt a little like a feeble Sunday driver anyway…
I called two drive-line shops on my way: Dan’s and Adams. Dan’s said he could take a look in about a week. No earlier. Adams hemmed and hawed a bit. I could tell they WANTED to help, but were just too booked. Adams said, “well, maybe if you can get the part to us first thing we could try to squeeze you in. Mmmaybe… I don’t know. I’ll ask.” Pause. “I’m sorry. I asked him, but he said there’s just no way. We’re too booked. Maybe you can try Dan’s?” For good measure, I even called U-Haul to see how much to rent something to tow it home: $1200. Ouch.
I can tell you I wasn’t thrilled with having to call Dakota to tell her I had to extend my trip so I could go to Vegas. But she just laughed it off. “Vegas. huh? Oh SURE you just HAD to go to Vegas to get the Jeep repaired…” she joked. With all this stress and uncertainty, it was nice to have a moment of levity, I can tell you. It felt really good to laugh.
After sitting through packed bumper-to-bumper traffic all through Vegas I finally got to the dealership. By the time I got the part I was hot, exhausted and frustrated. I just wanted to get the hell out of there. So I said screw it and started heading North on the fastest route my GPS could make for me: Due North on 95 to Reno.
Evening now, cooler and even beautiful as the sun set in the distance. As I drove through dessert, darkness descending through desolation and nothing I started to relax my frustrations of the day. As I did so, I began to put the pieces together:
- I was driving a very damaged Jeep
- on a route with very little support…
- at 45 mph…
- for hundreds and hundreds of miles.
- Stupid.
“Ffffuuuuu…. Back to Vegas…”
I turned around on one of those Highway Patrol u-turn spots and headed, begrudgingly, back to Vegas. My plan was to find 5 shops that I’d all call at 8am the next day and get somebody to help me. There had to be SOMEBODY who could help me right away. Vegas is a big town.
Death Valley Dogs 
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