Dan’s combined trip report and hearsay from Saturday’s April 19 Meet &Greet, and Sunday’s HHSVRA trip April 20, 2008.
All week before the April 19/20 weekend I had been putting everything
back together in my ‘87 VW Syncro Vanagon (also known as a VW Type-2
T3 Syncro Transporter) to get it ready for the field. In between field
runs I have a habit of rebuilding parts of the truck that were working
just fine before-hand, and adding contraptions that I may actually use
someday if I can just stop taking the truck apart. Actually this last
month I had the electrical system torn-up with the entire fuse block
out just to document some previous wiring additions that I had done
last year. Also I needed to get the rock guard back under the engine
as there is only 12in. of clearance down there.
Saturday morning was an eye-opener, there were a LOT of Jeeps in the 4
Wheel Parts parking lot and they all seemed to belong to the folks
from my new club!! Okay, I have seen Jeeps before, usually in my rear
view mirror on a trail, har har… Actually the vehicles that I see
out on the trails are mostly standard non-modded CJ’s and sometimes a
Dodge Colt that had been set ablaze and filled with shotgun holes. (I
used to off-road in the Angeles Forest in L.A. where you never know
what you will find)
I spent Saturday talking with the club members and looking at their
rigs. I was very impressed with the quality and shear amount of work
being put into these rigs, I am a design engineer for work and hobby
so it is always interesting for me to get a look at the design and
workmanship of a vehicle. I spent a little time in the parking lot
bolting on some beefier drive shaft guards that I had just finished
welding up for my Syncro “QUADRO”.
And on to Sunday.
It was a great day for a ride.
I got down to the Coyote Creek at 9am and found the Jeeps, the crew,
the dogs, and yes the No Parking sign. We don’t need to heed no
stink’n “No Parking” sign. We hung out for a while, played with the
dogs then headed out for the hills. When we got to the day-camping
area next to the obstacle course we stopped to bleed-down the tires
and here is my first lesson needing to be learned. The standard Syncro
uses 185/80-14 tires, yes 14″ wheels, after much discussion with
various Syncro groups, I had installed 15″ steel wheels with 215/75-15
BFG All Terrain T/A’s and they run great on all types of terrain, I
run them nominally at 50 PSI and as I don’t do much rock crawling I do
not air them down. The GVWR of the Syncro is 5,512 Lbs. The off road
tire usage chart that I checked showed 15 PSI for this size tire,
don’t know, I thought that would be a bit low so I went the day at 25
PSI. The ride and stability was good but I need to learn a bit more
about terrain and tire pressure.
For the first run of the day we rode to the top of Hector Heights,
always a nice ride with lots of varying terrain. For this trip to
Hollister Hills, I recorded all the runs with my GPS to save the track
info to compare with satellite images on a mapping program. Until
recently, none of the on-line satellite map servers had much photo
resolution in the area of the HHSVRA. Now you can see most all of the
trails that are open to the sky and I wanted to compare where we had
been. For those interested, Hector Heights coordinates are N36 44.675
W121 25.154 and it shows up well on Google Maps.
After some lunch we headed back down and stopped by the ravine and
Truck Hill for some rig tests. Here is another lesson I need to learn,
should I be trying to straddle that ravine? The Syncro has a wheelbase
of 96″, a track of 64″, a tire diameter of 28″, and can run a lot of
trails but I need a little more help in deciding if my rig is capable
of that ravine. I do know that I would not try to cross the ravine
like Jim did but maybe a clean run up or down would work. I was pretty
impressed by Ron’s run up and down Truck Hill but I’m not going to do
that. We then went over to the obstacle course for some fun. I did do
the stair step three times, after each run I had to find the loose
objects that went flying around my trucks cab and tie them down
better. Some of the crew were trying to get me to run the mud pit. I
have in the past but my excuse this time is that I had just finished
adding the pretty drive shaft rock guards, and the on-board air system
is down there without its guard and cover and I still needed to use it
at the end of the day, so there.
Looks like fun was had by all and I will be back in May for the Safety
Clinic for some lessons, to discuss tactics, and get some questions
answered.
Out,
Dan
