Almost flipped my Explorer on Saturday

Saturday after fishing the Bean with Sean, I'm blasting down 1 at 70 mph, and I hit a big bump, steering wheel comes out of my hands and yanks right... Corrected it just in time. Slowed down to 60 and made it home safe.

It felt like the whole steering rack was loose. Jacked up the front end, racks fine but both lower ball joints are wasted.

Damn, now I gotta tear down the front end before we head to Albion, I'm gone all next week back in North Carolina, and not home till Saturday PM.   

Oh well, what do you expect with 162,000 miles on it... And of course there pressed into the control arms, so they gotta come off, its nice to have a machine shop here at work...

Rich

Its good to hear that you are OK! If you lived up this way I could change those out for you. Torsion bar suspension. They went south on my daughters explorer too. Glad you are safe Richie. I stiil have to fish down there with you this year. Craig

Yikes!

I did run into a single car accident on my way south that same day, just before Scott Creek. Looked like a white sedan headed south.
To me it looked like the driver may have drifted to close to the shoulder, over corrected, and then went off the road on the inland side. CHP & tow was there so I only had to wait for 15 minutes or so. This was around 4:30pm.

I had just been thinking about car accidents there, as that bridge across Scott Creek is a bad combination of #1 narrow road, #2 high speed on a steep downhill, and #3 proximity to distractingly beautiful surf/beach break. There are a number of wicked accidents at that one spot each year.

Glad you made it home OK Rich. At least you can do the repair yourself!

Thanks. Having the skills and tools to do the job has saved me so much money over the years. But thats only on old school rides. I've got a new Sonata and Donna has a new Mustang. I can change the oil and rotate the tires, but other than that, its all computerized foo foo.

Man...glad you are Ok!!!

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Sketchy! Stoked you guys are safe man!!

IMO some of us are getting waaay too comfortable around traffic on that road.

I could easily see someone getting flattened loading or unloading at Bean.

In fact, I'd bet someone eats it that way before a shark gets one of us.

I think you're right Eric. I was standing behind the Explorer Saturday after I put my yak on the racks when a big commercial truck flew by and he was hugging the shoulder. There looked to be less than 12" between him and my truck....

It was kind of spooky walking the line carrying a kayak while people are driving past at 70. Well at least it wouldnt hurt too much.

Only for a second or two....

It's easy to get lulled into a sense of familiarity, since there are extended periods of no traffic in the AM...    PM is a different story... loading up, drowsy and happy after a morning of bliss, it would be easy to accidentally push the guy in front out into traffic, or just trip and stagger a couple feet, whammo.