Just got back- we had an awesome trip. Close to 1800 miles, about 500 of it dirt. We did most of the "smoother" sections of the Baja 1000 course, skipping the really whooped out sections which are just way too rough for a van. My buddy Crash and I went in the van (along with my Vizsla and his German Shepard), and we met up with several other vehicles in Mexicali early Sat morning the 10th. We all had different agendas/speeds for the trip, so we would let the faster vehicles take off throughout the day and meet up with them at different points. This worked out great until day 4 when we lost our race radio antenna to an overhanging tree branch, and we were on our own the rest of the trip.
Overall the van did really well. Like any Baja trip there were a few "casualties"- aside from the loss of the radio antenna, I also lost both front upper shock mounts, and had a weird issue with my shift lever lock. Before I left I knew it was very possible I would have an issue with the shock mounts, but I was hopefull they would hold. After I got the new front springs on (which worked great on the trip) the upper shock mounts were too low for the longer shocks that Chris sent me. I was running out of time and had to cut the U-Joint mounts out of the coil buckets and weld new ones on, and had to do it at night in the rain 2 nights before I left, and I wasn't able to gusset it as much as I wanted. A couple of hundred miles of washboard roads proved too much, and I lost the pass side on day 3 and the drivers side on day 4. Luckily with leaf springs the shocks aren't essential, and other than a more bouncy ride it didn't slow us down too much. The next plan is to cut the coil buckets out and add a real shock hoop, and probaly some 2" or 2.5" bypass shocks- the van is just way too heavy for the Billsteins on the types of roads I like to run- they are overheated and useless within a few miles of high speed bumps.
The other issue I had was on day 4, in the middle of nowhere, we came to a gate at a ranch- after opening the gate I went to put the van in drive and the shift lever would not move. I turned off the key, and then back on, and still it wouldn't move. We tried everything we could think of, but eventually I had to disconnect the cable at the transmission and move the trans lever by hand- luckily it seemed to work fine and confirmed the issue was at the shift lever, not the trans. That was a huge relief since we were 60 miles from pavement in either direction. For the rest of that day my buddy had to crawl under the van anytime we needed to reverse or park- a pain in the *** but at least we could keep going. The next morning we ran into a motorcyle chase team in town with an E350, and he mentioned that the shift lever lock (when you press on the brake) is electrically activated by a solenoid, and I should try checking the fuse- the fuse was blown, so it ended up being a quick easy fix.
I also learned a lot about the functionality of my storage platform- most of it worked great but there are a few changes I want to make so it is easier to access some things and a few other additions I want to make. More on that later. Here are a few pics from the trip.
