Strolling Amok

Air Spring Day

After an overnight stay at Escapees North Ranch in Congress, Arizona (a judicious stop to shower, do laundry, take on water and get rid of trash for $7.50), I made my way to Nichols AutoFab in Prescott to have some air springs installed on the rear suspension of the Mighty Furd. Recommended by my Four Wheel Camper dealer Adventure Trailer, AutoFab has a shop and a couple of bays packed into what is the most claustrophobic hole in the wall mixed-use shop mall I’ve ever seen. The limited parking lot for the group was claustrophobic for the Mighty Furd, anyway.

In a repair bay intended mainly for Jeeps, the Intrepid needed a cautious backing up.

Prescott is an interesting town nestled within the Prescott National Forest at an elevation of 5,600′, measured at whatever point they consider this burg’s nexus to be. The general landscape for the town is challenging, requiring either that the roads follow valleys or paths along forested hillsides, or that massive walls be built beside the newer multi-lane roads to keep back the earth and rock that they short-cut through. With a population of just 40,000 people, the terrain turns the city into a genuine sprawler, each home and business finding a niche where it can exist. The old downtown is an inviting (and popular) place to wander through, which I did not have the opportunity to do because of my service appointment and the lack of any street parking suitable for the Intrepid. The town gives off an interesting vibe, and a significant number of the people who chose to live here seem to be oriented toward the outdoors and outdoor activities.

Nichols AutoFab is who Adventure Trailer uses to do what it can’t or doesn’t have the time for. They seem to me to be a competitor for off-roading equipment and installations, but AutoFab goes much deeper into it. They do differentials and other drivetrain and more radical suspension work, plus fabrication work as extensive as needed. The owner – a hands-on guy with one other mechanic – had scheduled me in on the day before he was planning to close the shop and have a 3-day vacation requiring two days of travel time. And due to delayed or incorrect shipments on other work in progress, I think he was sensing the harbinger of doom on his escape plans. But in yeoman style, he and his cohort broke out the Firestone air spring kit and started in. It was a comfort to me that they consistently pored over the installation instructions, since brackets, specific washers and fasteners make these more of a challenge than you’d assume. Running on ego on the install is likely to result in significant problems. It’s not a bad installation – this kit is even the no-drill version – but you only want to do this once.

Here’s the original setup. The bump stop that will go away is the tan stub projecting down from the frame.

The kit as supplied mounts a couple of rubber bladders that push the axle tubes away from the chassis above. The bracketry is such that each end of the bladder is fastened firmly to its mount. This can overextend and ruin the air spring when the vehicle is lifted by its frame, or rough terrain causes one wheel to drop fully. The suspension generally has more travel available than the air spring can accommodate. Given the cost of the kit and installation – something I don’t care to repeat – AutoFab offered a special lower mount which isn’t a mount at all – it’s a shallow cup that the untethered lower end of the air bag can nestle into under load.

This is the lower “mount”, or receiving cup for the air spring.

The end of the bag is always in there pushing – until the suspension is fully extended, in which case the bag stays with the frame above. When things get better, back into the dish it goes. Clever. This is one of those items you hope never comes into play, but if it does even once, you just saved a kaboodle of money. There’s one spot crossing a dry wash in Chino Valley just north of here that I went through last year, and by the looks of it, it managed to get nearly full range out of the rear axle. There’s an air valve line to monitor pressure in each bag, and AutoFab mounted those on either side of the license plate cutout/ bumper step, where I’m not too likely to step on them.

Here, the original bump stop has been replaced by the air spring, and the cup on the axle (hidden from your view) is below the bottom end of the air spring, which is fully extended.

At any rate, the Mighty Furd is now level again, the aim of the headlights is correct, there’s significantly more ground clearance under the cargo box, and a slight vagueness in the steering is gone. Predictably, the effective raise in rear spring rates magnifies most types of bumps slightly. Not so predictably, it smooths others. I haven’t yet figured out the pattern.

The two white stems are the air fill valves for the air springs. Normal location for Jeeps is to replace the license plate mounts with them, but I’m backing out of the trailer blind and hunting for a step, so he put them out where an errand foot is less likely to go.

Once I got out of the shop, I headed south to find a camping spot in what’s called the Marapai area. This is within the Prescott Valley Basin, which limits camping in such areas to 7 days, and camping is limited to designated campsites only. This being a Wednesday, I figured that some of its sites would be open. Wrong. They were all occupied but one, and that one was tilted enough to make a week’s stay a nuisance. The deal breaker for that one was that there was a very nice young couple camping directly across from it in another numbered site. They had a very large dog which did not bark as I idled past on the way in. Yay! However, it did start forward and the man beside it immediately grabbed its collar and pulled back. I saw no leash or rope. Fabulous. That would be a fun week of exploring on foot or by bike. Yes, there is signage that the county leash laws are enforced, but locals indicate the level of enforcement.

So confident was I of finding a workable spot here that I’d arranged no Plan B alternate. It being the end of the day, I cracked out my iPad with it’s interactive maps of Prescott National Forest, and continued on south through a very early settlement nestled in the climbing woods called Ponderosa Park. No sprawling homes here! Its twenty shacks to a sardine can, given the rugged terrain, and they’re proud to be where they are. It’s like vacation cottages out away from it all, and yet they’re maybe 3 miles from Prescott. At the south end, a graded dirt road is carved into the sides of low mountains, with no guard rails along the edges of the dirt drop-offs. The Intrepid’s total weight kept going through my mind on this stretch, mainly since the beautiful scenery made it very easy to get too close for comfort to the unsupported edge. Very pretty, mind you, but I was hoping another vehicle would not come from the opposite direction.

With vacuum-operated front hubs, you get out and look to gauge how deep the water is.

My MVUM map indicated that FS97b allowed conventional dispersed camping. Someone was camping at a pull-off at the start of it, so I eased on down a narrow and somewhat steep, rocky descent. There was a water crossing at the bottom of it, so I got out to check depth and the surface at the bottom. Very shallow, pebbles over what may well have been concrete. Still, I flicked the Ford into 4WD just in case it was just silty mud, and the system didn’t respond. Hmm. Indicator lights are supposed to confirm whatever you set the dash knob to, because it’s a vacuum-operated system. Options? This was a very narrow area, and I doubt I’d have the traction to back up the steep hill in rear-wheel drive. In for a penny, in for a pound. I stepped back out and rotated a knob on each front hub to manually lock it. Both were reluctant to turn. Back inside, I set the knob back into 4WD, and eased the Mighty Furd through its first adventurous water crossing. Two things made it odd. First, after I rolled a few feet, the indicator lights suddenly popped back to life. If it wants to hunt for splines first, this is the first time it’s let on. Second, judging by the wet tires, the water hadn’t been much over an inch deep. High Adventure!! I set the front hubs back to automatic, and the knobs were freer this time. Lights normal. The system hasn’t been used in quite a while, I guess.

Arrival just before sunset. A few mosquitoes welcomed me, but not nearly enough to make camp setup any kind of ordeal.

97b is quite a trail. Picture a rough, narrow trail winding up, down and around steep, thickly wooded hills. Water either crosses or runs down the trail at several points, so this is no place to go during monsoon season. It’s also no place to go without high clearance and 4WD, just to be safe. A few of the loose-rock climbs up from low spots threatened to lose traction in 2WD, and that’s with a heavy load over my rear tires. As is common with most MVUM trails marked as being open to dispersed camping, places to pull off and camp – workable or not – are far and few between. I idled in way too far for my taste, which is still only a small fraction of 97b’s total length, before I came across a narrow spur to the right. It’s a bit tight for something as large as the Intrepid, but I made it work. This stubby offshoot bends and actually climbs up past me to what’s left of a small concrete slab where a shack once was. I know that not because of my spidey senses, but because a few decayed remnants of the structure still lay where they had been blown off to the side, in the trees.

This is the view up the “L”, which I declined to climb with the camper because it’s not as level up there, and the available space is too small to turn around in. Lacking a spotter, I prefer not to back down something like this.

If you like isolated campsites where few go, this is the place. Going in blind so late in the day, it felt like quite the adventure, since although it’s not a nasty trail, it does plunge and twist a lot as it occasionally presents its obstacles to negotiate. And there isn’t the width for two vehicles to pass. The fear is that at some point, it will turn into a Jeep trail, as the Marapai camp road does. It’s a fun drive, but I’m much further down the rough trail than I’m comfortable with. There’s some vague line between very secluded and stupidly remote that traveling solo begs an answer to. It’s very secluded when you are able to stay the week and then return back to the starting point in order to continue on with your travels. It’s stupidly remote when the starter decides it has closed the curtain on its service life, and there you are. The cellphone says “no service”, and the Jetpack cellular data gizmo shows one bar out of five. How I’m getting data and am able to post this is a mystery to me, except that unless I prop the Jetpack on top of a tall drinking glass and a measuring cup to get it almost even with the camper’s flexible walls, there is no Internet at all, period.

Walking a few feet up the “L” shows what a little cubby the Intrepid is backed into.

I’d planned a week here, but the jury is still out on whether I’ll stick it out. Overall, the thick forest is such a nice change of pace from the usual scrub desert that I’d prefer to stay put. Thanks to meds, I’m finding out what people with low blood pressure have to live with, which, with this up-and-down terrain at this moderate elevation, gives constant tiredness a new basement. However, I’m here, it’s a nice spot with just enough sun to percolate the solar, and the propane furnace works great at enforcing a minimum temperature at night. It’s just 70 or so during the day, which is just a touch over my fav outdoor temperature to be active in.

Top o’ the “L”. A fire ring of stones on a broken concrete slab, a few weathered boards to the right of the tree, and a magnificent view. I can’t imagine the effort it must have taken to haul that much concrete mix here, and the water needed.

This is very similar to the view out the Four Wheel’s windows, except that the most distant point stands out in 3D as a very steep and high hill.

Exit the camper, take three steps, look left, and this is what you see.

If I’d gone a couple yards further down 97b, I’d have a decision to make about how best to get down this partially-McGyvered step. On the right side, the drop is enough to contact a running board.

Beyond the step-down, the inviting but slightly intimidating trail continues by diving downward.

Actually, the climb into the “driveway” is quite a hop up from the trail.