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Ken Cooke
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8923
Registered: 2-9-2004
Location: Riverside, CA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Its Pole Line Road time
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Quote: | Originally posted by bonanza buckoThere ain't nothing totally "Made in the USA" anymore unless it's Corn Flakes and I got my doubts about
that. |
Unless, you are talking about me! I am 100% from the Inland Empire! Born in Fontana, CA. Raised in Mira Loma, CA on a small farm! YEA!
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Roberto
Banned
Posts: 2162
Registered: 9-5-2003
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I don't see no shocks in that picture, Ken. How will YOU perform on That road?
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bonanza bucko
Senior Nomad
Posts: 587
Registered: 8-31-2003
Location: San Diego
Member Is Offline
Mood: Airport Bum
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t
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bonanza bucko
Senior Nomad
Posts: 587
Registered: 8-31-2003
Location: San Diego
Member Is Offline
Mood: Airport Bum
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That Road
Baja is magic!
I met some of Papa Fernandez's family on the grade up the most southerly of the Tres Marias on "That Road" the day after Papa died in 2001. He was
103+/-. They had broken down in an old F150 and needed a pliers to rewire the coil and distributor...I had one. We had a cerveza and remembered Papa
with jokes and laughter....he was a great man! The gulls and frigate birds wheeled in the sun and wind off the sea against the cliffs, the dirt in
the road was clealn and the friends were better than in The Bankers' Club or The Ritz.
I could lay a $100 bill on my porch down there at Alfy's and it would be there a year from now.....maybe with interest if someone needed it. (That's
gonna change fast when the new road is finished).
About 15 years ago my buddy's son went fishing in our 14 foot skiff with a brand new Yamaha 9.5 hp engine. He had a few Pacificos and pulled the boat
up on the beach in front of the house and had a nap. The tide came up about 15 feet and when it wet his feet he woke up...boat gone to sea on a west
wind. We wrote it off.
Two weeks later I was sitting in my office in San Francisco and a guy from Riverside called to say that a fisherman had found the boat half way to
Topolobampo in the middle of the sea. He had spent four days walking up and down beaches to see to whom it belonged. Somebody remembered we had lost
ours. When we got back to Alfy's it was stowed, upside down in the sand in front of the house, engine on the porch. We never even knew his name!
Try that in USA just about anywhere except Nebraska a long time ago and you are gonna lose the boat and motor and get a bill from somebody for
liability and some buttcrack polititcian is gonna try to pass a law against having a beer and falling asleep on the beach....with extra taxes to pay
a worthless flake who can't get a job anywhere else to enforce it....and drink the beer.
We need more Mexicans up here! We just need a federal gummint with the balls and the brains to manage the influx of people a lot better than we are
and without some self serving agendae to it. .
When we are about 100 miles south of the border we are in a country that is full of the best people I have met on earth... and I have been almost
everywhere on earth at least twice!...no kidding. The honesty, reverence, family, friends, work and wholesome play of those beautiful people will
make Hollywierd, politicoturds of both parties and our newsholes look stupid any time they are compared....one little ten year old Mexican kid in bare
feet, a big smile and floppy hat has more moral power than CNN or FOX can put on TV any day.
If we had a brain more American kids would have that too....and more American families would stop half way up our version of the Tres Marias to tell
a Gringo/Mexican in a truck worth two years' pay how great Grand Papa was.
His shrine and ashes are behind the cantina at Papa Fernandez's town now. (www.papafernandez.com) His great, great grand daughters cook the best food on earth...better, again, than the Banker's Club and The Ritz by a lot.
The only thing wrong with Mexico is the gummint and the only thing wrong with the USA is that we put up with gross incompetence in ours. I'd love to
turn WASHDC into a museum/mausoleum and move the capitol to someplace hard to live in...like Baja.... after fireing everyone currently in
WASHDC....I'm sure none of those creeps would move.
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Roberto
Banned
Posts: 2162
Registered: 9-5-2003
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Thanks for that, BB - I think that is the longest post I have ever seen from you anywhere. Did we get your blood flowing?
Seriously, I understand where you are coming from. Call Jason at SKG about those shocks - he will set you up.
Saludos,
Roberto
[Edited on 9-18-2007 by Roberto]
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Ken Cooke
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8923
Registered: 2-9-2004
Location: Riverside, CA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Its Pole Line Road time
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Not sure if anyone touched on this, but your shock failure was most likely due to the shock absorber over-compressing due to the vehicle being
overloaded, and the leaf springs not being able to fend off the extreme load you placed upon the rear axle. This was no fault of the shock absorber
or its manufacturer. The shock was simply asked to compress more than it was engineered to do so. Hope this helps...
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Skipjack Joe
Elite Nomad
Posts: 8084
Registered: 7-12-2004
Location: Bahia Asuncion
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You've said a mouthful, bonanza bucko. And you've said it about as well as the best of them here.
Thanks amigo
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Paulina
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3810
Registered: 8-31-2002
Location: BCN
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Bonanza Bucko, the relationship you have with the Mexican community is priceless. You give respect and get it in return. I can tell that you have
found yourself a 'home'. It is to be envied.
Saludos,
P<*)))><
\"Well behaved women rarely make history.\" Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
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wakemall
Nomad
Posts: 183
Registered: 7-17-2006
Member Is Offline
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What about KYBs
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bonanza bucko
Senior Nomad
Posts: 587
Registered: 8-31-2003
Location: San Diego
Member Is Offline
Mood: Airport Bum
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Quote: | Originally posted by Ken Cooke
Not sure if anyone touched on this, but your shock failure was most likely due to the shock absorber over-compressing due to the vehicle being
overloaded, and the leaf springs not being able to fend off the extreme load you placed upon the rear axle. This was no fault of the shock absorber
or its manufacturer. The shock was simply asked to compress more than it was engineered to do so. Hope this helps... |
Ken:
That is exactly true. I had 1100# of solar system batteries on board plus another guy and my wife plus food and booze..I was probably about 600#
pounds over the half ton the truck is supposed to haul. It was 111 degrees F out and the washboard down there is 4 inches high when it's
washboard...when it's not it is just bare rock and boulders. I am surprised I made it as far as I did and I probably could have made it all the way
had I slowed down...I was running about 25-30 mph on washbord when the shock failed. But after 45 miles and three hours I had a case of "I need to
get there and have a cold beeritis."
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David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 64617
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
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Thanks BB for the post... I wish there was a 'way back' machine to let us re visit Baja before graders and pavers came!
Here's a photo of Desert Rat and Papa Fernandez taken in 1994...
Here is a couple photos of the road south of Puertecitos, before 1985, when the new one was built...
[Edited on 9-18-2007 by David K]
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bonanza bucko
Senior Nomad
Posts: 587
Registered: 8-31-2003
Location: San Diego
Member Is Offline
Mood: Airport Bum
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That Road
David:
Thanks. Nice words.
Papa hadn't changed much from that to the day he died..alsways looked the same. Spoke so slowly that even with little Spanish we could understand.
Tended his trees every day. I think the picture of him and John Wayne in the cantina and on Papa's web page needs to be seen a lot more than it is
and it's fading with sun and age....probably by getting splashed with Pacifico and taco sauce a few tiime too.
I first met him in 1979.
That Road is worse now than it looks in your picture..there is no gravel left. They haven't graded it since BEFORE the Baja 1000..not after. There
are pot holes and washout holes bigger than my truck. In a couple of places someone has stacked rocks around the holes so nobody falls in...if
someone hit one of them above about five miles an hour they'd get hurt. There are lots of stair step climbs that require about 2MPH and 4X4 is handy
although not required .....yet. It'll soon be such that only a 4X4 is gonna make it in some spots. They are starting to survey for the paving south
of Puergtecitos...white painted lines on the ground about two miles south as of last Friday. Because of the impending construction I don't think they
will spend any money on That Road until the paving is done.
We probably need to set up a memorial to "That Road" once it's gone...pictures like yours..... maybe we should preserve a small stretch so people in
20 years can see why we were "wusses" so often trying to make it through it.
Alfonsina and Rodriguez at Gonzaga Bay have already started to plan for and discount the new road. That big new Pemex that she borrow our money to
help build ten years ago is gonna pay off and so is Rodriguez's big investment in big city runways down there. Prices are going up. We even have a
bootleg WiFi on the beach now....a couple of Sat internet set ups with wireless routers with outdoor antennae.
We also probably need a press and PR campaign to convince people in big cities with camper shells that there are dangerous wolves and coyotes,
bandidos and rare latin diseases to be caught on that new road.
We saw two mountain sheep on it last week....they better not be there when it's a freeway.
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baitcast
Super Nomad
Posts: 1785
Registered: 8-31-2003
Location: kingman AZ.
Member Is Offline
Mood: good
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Fun times at PAPA,s
PAPA,s turtle rodeo mid 60.s,my daughters first turtle ride in front of PAPA,s casa.......Fun times
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baitcast
Super Nomad
Posts: 1785
Registered: 8-31-2003
Location: kingman AZ.
Member Is Offline
Mood: good
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BB sorry I got off the subject but when you wrote about the old man I got a rush!......Hadn,t thought of him in a long time,we all loved him to death.
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wakemall
Nomad
Posts: 183
Registered: 7-17-2006
Member Is Offline
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Sorry to respond late to this shock subject..... But I worked at an off road shop years ago and our baja 1000 rig ran KYB shocks. Actually four on
each side in the rear and two up front. They were the only shocks that did not break. Again that was years ago. One of my best friends has an auto
shop and KYB is what he uses for all his replacement shocks. Please do not get me wrong, my Pismo buddies run those fancy shocks with the external
gas cylinder. But what are we talking here? Great replacement shocks or off road racing shocks. KYB has always had a good name and they are
reliable and less expensive than a racing shock. My Ford Powerstroke has Rancho's that came stock. Once they are worn out, I will replace them with
KYB's...
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markshark
Newbie
Posts: 13
Registered: 5-22-2007
Member Is Offline
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cant help but add this picture of papa
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