The Tierra Del Sol Desert Safari, TDS for short, is always one of our favorite weekends. Not only is it one of our last trips before the heat of summer but this weekend bring thousands of people and rigs from all over the Southwest and packs them all into a few square miles of what is usually empty desert. It has traditionally been a great weekend to test any upgrades with the go big or go home mentality, knowing that if we break the TTB WJ we have all summer to get it running again. In years past, TDS has been our first trip on 33’s (over 31’s), first trip with a welded diff, first trip with our 8.8, first trip with rear coilover, and the first trip with a 32 gal fuel cell from a Ford Bronco. Some of these first were successful, some were not. With no major upgrades to test this year we needed to do something a little different to make the trip memorable.
Photo Credit: J. Leomo
We are a part of a newly formed Southern California WJ group on Facebook that has never had a face to face meet up before and we decided TDS would be a great time to get the group together for some wheeling. Planning through Facebook and some word of mouth we ended up with 11 Jeeps participating. We all met up and headed out Saturday morning, our first stop was Telephone Booth Hill. On a regular weekend this is a small meeting spot with a few people and an old phone booth high atop a hill. But on a TDS weekend there are hundreds of vehicles from stock to full custom. With a few trying to climb the short but steep face for no other reason than ‘because they can’.
Photo Credit: P. Ogden
We stay for awhile and watch people try to climb the hill. Some make it, most don’t. Once we were tired of watching the same thing over and over, we all loaded up and headed to our next destination.
Sadly we did not make it.
Heading down a wash Andy lost focus and clipped a rock on the side of the trail forcing the tires hard to the left and breaking the power steering gearbox. We sat in the wash for a few minutes, leaking power steering fluid from the main seal, trying to figure out what to do. We could run it until all of the fluid leaked out and we fried out pump, we could splice the pump output back into the input to save the pump and run without power steering, or we could call it quits and tow it back to camp. As much as we wanted to continue, we finally decided to tow it back to the road and pick it up with the trailer to avoid any unnecessary damage to the parts that were still working. Once loaded up on the trailer, we headed to our favorite parts store about 30 miles away to pick up a replacement. The swap was easy and took less than 45 minutes start to finish. The group ride was cut short, but at least we had the rest of the day and Sunday.
Photo Credit: J. Leomo
Sunday was relatively uneventful. Did a short loop through the desert and played a little in the 4×4 terrain park just outside the event area. Returning to camp with a working Jeep, we started to pack up and head home. The end of a TDS weekend is always a little quiet because it means the end of another desert season, but on the upside, but back at home it means the start of the ‘build season’. What do we want to do this summer? Do we race Tuff Trucks again, buy and install a race legal fuel cell, swap out our 7 year old seats and harnesses for some fresh ones or swap in the 5.2 that is sitting on the donated ZJ out back. With so many options to choose from we will need some time to think and plan.
Needless to say, we are excited for the upcoming build season.
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Photo Credit: P. Ogden
