Moab Trip Report

[2scoops]

Memorial weekend in Moab went great. Trooper did well and climbed all the obsticals in my path while the RZR's watched. I even did a climb my wife didn't make in the Wildcat. I could blame it on driver error, but my story is the Trooper kicked its but.

I did have one crazy thing happen with the Trooper. I wanted to have a drag race with the rigs on the trail one day. That particular day all that was with me was a Honda 4wheeler 450 and my wifes Wildcat. Well, the Trooper jumped everyone off the line and beat hands down the 4 wheeler, but as expected the Wildcat quickly jumped 2, then 3 car lengths ahead of me and never looked back. Now in my defense, I am running 30" 45lb tires and had 3 kids in the back seat. I think with the stock 27" tires and no rear seat I would have held my own or even better.

For the weird thing. Right after the race I turned on the last turn and felt and heard a clunking in the rear end. I stopped the trooper and notice the rear wheel was leaning way inboard. I found that the cotter pin sheared, fell out, and the nut began backing off. I don't know if this happened in the race or if it happened in earlier rides. What do you think? I put everything back together and continued riding with no issues. I didn't feel or hear any wheel bearing noises, nor is there alot of play in the bearings.

Pic of our group:

[charlie]

Sounds like u had a great time I saw this happen on a Nissan frontier and I rechecked everything put it all back together and there was never any issue let me know how it goes

[Guest Lenny]

I had the same thing happen so I replaces the nut and pin to a modified approach that will never come loose. The problem started when the corners of the hex on the nut started to round off so the socket would slip off when I tried to tighten it real hard. These nuts want to be tightened quite tight. Because of it being rounded, it didn't get as tight as I like and it worked loose shearing the cotter key. Same thing, the wheel fell off and was running at a severe angle, tipped in at the top. Glad it didn't do more damage but everything was fine. I to bolted it back up out the trail and drove back ok. Once back in the shop, I solved the problem for once and for all. I machined a 1" hex nut and the stock nut so I could join and weld them together. This gave me a much better hex to get a hold of for tightening. Then I replaced the cotter key with a piece of spring steel, welding a head on one end and cutting groves for triple circlips to guarantee no coming out on the other end. No problems since and doubt I ever will have this problem again.

[2scoops]

Well, I am glad it is not sounding like a major issue. I will tighten the hell out of then, locktite, & recotter pin. Is there a torque range for this?

[Kinarfi]

Breaker bar with 5' pipe and stand on it.