Fun in the desert

Dad and I were out in the desert about 20 miles North of Globe yesterday scouting for whitetails. We had done some pretty gnarly driving (at least for my truck) and were on our way back out to the highway when we decided to check out one more trail we had skipped earlier.

A couple hundred yards up the trail we were off in the bushes and there was no more steering the truck! The pitman arm shaft on the steering gear had snapped off!

Using a jack to reposition the steering and tie-downs to sort-of hold it in place, we managed to 'steer' the truck back into a position where we could work on it. Luckily, we were near the top of the ridge and had good cell phone signal. Dad got Mom to go over to Scott's house and wake him up (he works nights). Scott rounded up a new steering gear and some tools then came to the rescue. We got the job done pretty quick and were on our way down before dark. THANK YOU SCOTT!

Thinking back, we couldn't have been more blessed...

• After not seeing anyone all morning, a rancher showed up within minutes of the breakdown and eventually returned to take Dad down to the highway to meet Scott. We never saw another person out there.
• The steering broke while we were in a safe location. Had we not turned onto the side trail we would have been driving on the edge of a near vertical drop-off several hundred feet to the bottom. Or worse...we could have been going 75 MPH on the highway and turned into on-coming traffic!
• The Autozone closest to Scott's house had the steering gear in stock and there was only one other in the Valley at the Chandler warehouse.
• I have never in my life done this kind of work without at least one bolt or joint that needed serious persuasion to remove, but everything came apart and went back together like a dream.
• Mountain Lions didn't attack us. (Well, okay. They probably wouldn't have anyway.)
  

There's just no way to write that all off as coincidence.

Steering (the hard way.)

The broken steering gear


Under the hood


A friend I made while waiting for Dad and Scott to arrive
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