It was driving around in Purificación
that prompted many of us to start carrying two
spare tires. Many times people got sidewall cuts
that could not be repaired. I remember a trip
when Dale Pate had an explosive blow out and when
we stopped to change the tire, we found a long
blade of rock _inside_ the tire! One time Yvonne
Droms and I limped out of the mountains on a
badly sliced tire that I stuffed three tire plugs
into side by side. It still leaked slowly, but I
had a compressor and had to stop every hour or so
and pump it back up. We made it out on our own
after a whole series of travails.
Interesting fix for the broken
U-bolt! I never heard of that failing
before. Bill Farr did a comparably novel fix one
time up at Cheve in Oaxaca. He broke some part
of his front suspension such that one wheel would
no longer stay in the proper position to
drive. He used his winch to capture the broken
parts and/or the axle and tension them back into
a usable position. He made it out on his
own. Cavers are definitely inventive when it
comes to getting out of the wilderness!
Mark Minton
At 10:56 PM 10/27/2010, James McLane wrote:
The roads also feature incredibly sharp rocks
that can slice up your tires. I had many
adventures fixing vehicles up there. Once I
sheared off the "U" bolts that attach the front
axle to the leaf springs on one side of an
International Scout. I was able to reattach the
axle by tying it to the springs with a
chain. The motorcycles were a much faster and
smoother way to travel in those mountains than
trucks, but the long distances made you worry about running out of gas.
Jim McLane
> Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 19:51:20 -0500
> From: gi...@att.net
> To: tinker_bucksn...@live.com
> CC: mmin...@caver.net; texascavers@texascavers.com
> Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Re: Ralph Batsche -Mexico 1974
>
> The roads were almost always bad in spots, but they've been the worst
> I've ever seen them the past few years. I remember driving
> substantially faster back in the '70s than we do now. There are only 3
> or 4 ejidos still logging so the roads get minimal maintenance. Until
> the '90s I didn't have a 4-WD vehicle but my 3/4T GMC (with granny
> gear) and later a Chevy, always made it just fine--with one notably
> muddy hairpin turn one rainy night. I had plenty of clearance. Any
> bumping I did always occurred coming down. The front suspension was
> sorta soft and the front-end cross member banged on a few rocks when
> braking was done at the wrong time. I still see 2-wd trucks up at CC
> fairly often.
> It was a great thing, by the way, that you guys did, Jim, in
> scouting that area out at that early date. Trouble now is that there
> are thousands of acres of limestone mountains up there that'll never
> have enough cavers or time to get properly checked. There could be
> dozens of cave systems like Purificacíon.
> --Ediger
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Permanent email address is mmin...@illinoisalumni.org
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