Moab trip & Bronco Off-Roadeo review

[crenca]

Taking the family for a few days of easy/moderate trails between attending Off-Roadeo on March 14th. I suppose this trip starts out with this story:

As of today March 10th I have 4200 miles on my oil so I decide to do an oil change before I leave as the trip will be at least 1300 more miles total. As I am removing the passenger side skid bolt that bolts to the frame (of my 24 Big Bend 2.3 manual SASed 4 door) with my impact the head breaks off:

($2.18 replacement the local Ford dealer had in stock in background)

I thought about just going with three working bolts, but if the skid is rattling on the highway all the way up there I will never hear the end of it from my wife. So tomorrow morning the local diesel performance/fab shop will take a wack at removing the rest of it, and if that fails drilling a new one just off the existing placement. I am hoping the former as I have a transmission skid sitting the garage I have yet to install that uses the OEM locations if memory serves.

Bad bolt, trail stress, or did I overtighten it last oil change? Who knows...oh well, excited about the trip!

Edit: Local diesel shop had the bolt out quick and charged me less than $40 so we are good to go for a tomorrow morning departure

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[Mjasi3]

Similar... There's a note from Talons Garage...

"Note: We do not recommend using impact tools to install our products. The OEM ford weld nuts may break loose from the hammering force."​

Has anyone run into this issue?

 

[BeachBroncoBabe]

Taking the family for a few days of easy/moderate trails between attending Off-Roadeo on March 14th. I suppose this trip starts out with this story:

As of today March 10th I have 4200 miles on my oil so I decide to do an oil change before I leave as the trip will be at least 1300 more miles total. As I am removing the passenger side skid bolt that bolts to the frame (of my 24 Big Bend 2.3 manual SASed 4 door) with my impact the head breaks off:

($2.18 replacement the local Ford dealer had in stock in background)

I thought about just going with three working bolts, but if the skid is rattling on the highway all the way up there I will never hear the end of it from my wife. So tomorrow morning the local diesel performance/fab shop will take a wack at removing the rest of it, and if that fails drilling a new one just off the existing placement. I am hoping the former as I have a transmission skid sitting the garage I have yet to install that uses the OEM locations if memory serves.

Bad bolt, trail stress, or did I overtighten it last oil change? Who knows...oh well, excited about the trip!

Edit: Local diesel shop had the bolt out quick and charged me less than $40 so we are good to go for a tomorrow morning departure

Anxiously awaiting another day of experience and more pics!

 

[crenca]

Just a grainy pic of last night’s nearly full moon ( with La Sals under) from the porch of the condo just south of town:

more to come!

 

[crenca]

Thanks to good advice offered here:

https://www.bronco6g.com/forum/thre...involve-shelf-road.110265/page-3#post-2473841

We started this morning at the Arches NP visitor center to purchase a pass which technically you need even if you enter the park on one of the trails. We then continued up 191 to the Willow Springs Trail entrance. The first part of this trail is on state land, and this is where the dinosaur tracks are. The state has strangely graded even slip rock, so it’s a level three at best. Based on the new construction at the trailhead, I am speculating the state is getting ready to pave their section and make this say more tourist friendly area.

Once you enter the enter the national park section of this trail, it turns into an honest level three to three-in-a-half trail (4 lo is optional, but helpful at certain points). We turned north on Eye of the Arch/10 Mile Valley and visited the arch. We then drove back to Willow Springs and took what was left of it to the main park road, and spent some time on it visiting various sites and eating lunch.

We finished up the day taking Salt Valley Road, which is a well-maintained gravel road, to the Tower Arch trail. Somewhat to my surprise my wife and daughters tolerated me getting us down a distance on this trail, before we starting fretting about the time and turned around. This is an honest level four trail. I never needed to lock the rear, but it has some pretty steep sections, and I dragged my recovery hooks couple of times.

Overall a wonderful (if mostly cloudy) day wheeling in a national park. I’ll post in cab video later:

(me in the arch, wife in the Bronco at the trailhead head zooming in)

 

[BeachBroncoBabe]

So cool! We visited (family of 3) Arches two years ago. We camped right in Arches campground. We traveled around the U.S. twice and Arches was our favorite place to camp and hike...hands down. We didn't have our Bronco and never 4 wheeled with it, yet, but your Bronco Experience sounds and looks like so much fun! I want to go but I think k time will run out for our free trip. Two questions...1) Did you use your own Bronco or a rental? 2) Why did you turn around, I thought it was guided?

Hoping to hear more.

 

[crenca]

So cool! We visited (family of 3) Arches two years ago. We camped right in Arches campground. We traveled around the U.S. twice and Arches was our favorite place to camp and hike...hands down. We didn't have our Bronco and never 4 wheeled with it, yet, but your Bronco Experience sounds and looks like so much fun! I want to go but I think k time will run out for our free trip. Two questions...1) Did you use your own Bronco or a rental? 2) Why did you turn around, I thought it was guided?

Hoping to hear more.

Yep, we drove our own Bronco from our home in southern New Mexico up through Gallup to Moab via 191, about a 10 hour drive with lunch stop. It is a Sasquatched Big Bend 2.3 manual that I have installed skids and rock rails on. Bronco Off-Roadeo provides you with a Bronco (I drove an Everglades) So my wife and daughters spent Friday in ours in the north end of Canyonlands NP (on pavement) as well spending some time in downtown Moab shopping.

Unless a person already has off-road experience I personally would recommend doing Off-Roadeo or the equivalent before driving an honest level 4 trail like Tower Arch…but that is just another opinion on the internet That said it was not really a high consequence trail where a mistake would likely lead to ending up on your side, at least in the section we did. I did notice a couple of Jeeps on that trail were guided - customers driving with guide in passenger seat, and probably out spotting at times.

By the time we had started up Tower Arch trail it was only a couple hours from sunset, so we were anxious about light and thinking about dinner so we turned around about halfway I believe. It had been a full day so we were happy!

 

[crenca]

I’m on an iPad right now so I will say more in a day or two, but Off-Roadeo was worth it. From videos I had worried that it was going to be too intoductory, but it was not (though it was that too). We spent the vast majority of the day on the Doom Plateau trail which was very cool and it was nice to have experienced spotting on a couple of the obstacles.

After sleeping in and visiting the ‘Moab Giants’ dinosaur museum this afternoon, I left the wife and kids at home and tried to do Fins n Things on my own today. I expected more traffic, but it was later in the day. I did the first third, but decided certain obstacles were just too sketchy (mostly due to not being able to see the line from the vehicle on descents ) without a spot so I bailed on the back half. Better to live and wheel another day

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