I know you said it was steep, narrow and with rocks. Do you know the name of the trail?
the official name is "Hite Cove OHV trail", as far as I understand. It can be found in the books "SUV trails (western slope)" by Roger Mitchell and "Backcountry adventures (northern California)".
I know you said the montero owner is not on the wire. Do you mean both or just one of them?
both of them.
As for the 2002 Montero owner was he able to unlock the center dif?
not yet, as far as I know.
Have him post up on the monty tech forum if he hasn't already with this problem. I'm sure others can help him figure it out.
thanks, I'll tell him.
Did anyone actually overheat their engine during the trip?
Trooper's temp gauge was right on the red mark (normally it is in the middle). 2002 Monetro was complaining but I did not see his the gauge myself.
Others SUVs did not have any temp problems.
For those montero's if they have AC (likely they do) they can easily wire the AC fan on for the off road sections. The problem in many cases is simply lack of air flow to cool the engine/radiator so your engine can easily overheat even with a good cooling system but this only happens on steep inclines where the engine works hard (2-4k rpm) to climb slowly uphill.
The climb was so slow that the RPM was around 1.5K, and the ACs were on on the SUVs. My Axiom was perfectly fine about these conditions, but the guy in 2002 Montero was complaining that the truck just not able to go THAT slowly. Unfortunately, I could not go faster (due to the rocks and overall road conditions), and I could not let him pass by. This is why I had an impression that the engine power/gearing/vehicle mass are not perfectly matching each other on the 2002 Monteros.
Nice job helping the young couple out. I hope they made it to the end of the trail ok especially with bears roaming around looking for food.
the bears were shy - we could not see them at all, just the roaring.
BTW, did the 97SR have a locking rear differential?
yes, but he was trying not to use it - just for fun. I had my wife in the cabin, so I used my locker, becouse I wanted to present the trail to the wife as "business as usual" without any excitement.
Be careful with that Xterra off road. I've heard that many have complained because the front R&P's fail with off road use. Check with Lloyd Schwarz on that one. His have failed.
The underpinning of that truck actually look tremendous - more solid that anything I've seen on Isuzu and Mitsu SUVs. Too bad that the actual strength does not match the visual impression.
I have R&P on my Axiom, so I have to be careful also.
