Drybone Canyon Through from the Top

[Kauri]

Splendid hike, really quite an achievement, way beyond what I could pull off at this point.

And what the hell happened to the truck?  Looks very bad.

Lower Ball Joint failure.  Pretty common on 1st Gen Tacomas.  There's a whole FaceBook group dedicated to this failure.  Haha.  

Luckily it happened in the sand for a soft landing.  But it wrecked the upper ball joint, brake line, threw the axle out into the desert, destroyed a new tire, bent the steering rack, etc.  

Getting out of there was ... interesting.  Luckily I had the CT110 to get me back to Stovepipe and cell reception.  Took a couple days to get extracted.  The only guy that would come get me was a ... helluva character... from Beatty.  If I believed only half of his stories he's still done some insane stuff.  Like quitting the Air Force to run guns on sketchy planes in Africa? Anyway... he showed up with a crew in a 2wd pickup & a trailer (the 4wd truck wouldn't start that day or course).  That went very poorly in the sand out there....  Another long story there.  Lol.

Eventually I was dropped off in Stovepipe campground where the host let me stay for free until I got patched up.  Hitched a ride to Parhump because the CT110 didn't have the range to get to the nearest Autozone.  That was a first.  Hahahaha.  Eventually got her all patched back up in the dust at Stovepipe.  I meet the craziest group of weirdos with my truck up on blocks in the center of Stovepipe for 2-3 weeks while I'm bang on various things.  Great great people for the most part.  Including one random guy that was helping me out who turned out to be from my home town 3000mi away and was best friends with my... Grandfather's sister's son.  Whatever you call that.  

Eventually drove it out to Pahrump under it's own power for an alignment and was on my way.  

Until the same (new) LBJ failed out on White Rim Road in Moab about a year later.  And I had to hitch in 120mi from there to get parts and fix it in the desert again.   That's why I'm building a solid axle 80 Series now.  Haha.

Wow, sounds like quite an adventure getting it fixed! 

I can't remember if I asked you this earlier, but what company's LBJ did you end up replacing it with? Our local 4WD shop replaced the OEM Toyota LBJs on my 4Runner with Centric parts (280k miles on the original LBJs, it was a miracle they didn't fail before they were replaced since I didn't know they were prone to failure until the shop told me; I have the old ones and they feel quite bad). I've thought about looking into upgrades (and have been reading about uniball conversions) since I'm planning to keep my 4Runner forever. 

Also, off-topic again, have you heard of the Toyota Land Cruiser Association, now that you have a cruiser? They welcome all Toyota folks, and I've been told by members of our local chapter that they have a good network and there's often someone willing to lend a hand if you're traveling and have issues with your classic Toyota.