The Morrvair Takes On The Rubicon Trail

good morning it is the first day of our week-long adventure going to the rubicon we were invited by paul from fab rats it is about 6 30 in the morning we are heading out from our shop right now we're going to be meeting paul and the rest of the gang at burl junction just kind of out in the middle of the desert there so first stop is going to be fuel but we're going to do that in hamilton fort and we are on our way [Music] all right so we're headed down the road you can see we're loaded pretty heavy we've got everything we need to take care of a family of six for a week of camping a couple of motel rooms sprinkled in okay so here's the plan rudy went on a road trip a week ago and he's going to be meeting us in ely nevada we have friends there that we can leave a vehicle out so jamie's driving her car and that's when we're gonna put all the gear uh split the gear between the more of air and rudy's jeep and then continue on over to tahoe so figure about 10 or 11 hours of driving today well there it is we're putting gas in it the way it's supposed to be all right instead of all that other way we used to do oh i see what's happening maybe i need to go down like this no okay we're gonna go get some breakfast and then we're gonna hit the road again and meet to meet the rest of the gang at burl junction so we're here at the rendezvous point and paul and michelle are not here which is uncharacteristic for paul but possibly characteristic for michelle have you heard from paul i've been trying to call both of you for the last hour i thought you might have broke down yeah we're going jeeping okay who's leader of this outfit you want to set the pace you can we'll cruise behind you i don't have a speedometer so all right it works sometimes sometimes it doesn't work my fuel gauge works sometimes sometimes it doesn't so all right sounded more and more like a jeep we're about to head off right here this is the group i started waiting before it got too deep and then we're picking up rudy in the next stop and i think we're getting ready to head on out driving impressions it drives really nice like you could qualify that and say it drives really nice for a homemade off-road vehicle with 40-inch tires but it really is a nice ride it's nice to drive we're a couple hours into this we got a lot of hours to go so we're here at the ranch the cattle ranch to meet yeah i know i do it grows the plan is to get all the gear out of jamie's car into rudy's jeep and whatever won't fit there we'll cram in the more of air okay everybody's loaded up we're headed to the gas station to fuel up because [Music] we must be getting terrible fuel mileage i promised you adventure right jamie right nothing new to me anyway i might uh i might need to be towed into ely i'm just going to keep a steady pedal here at 67 miles an all hour everybody's in trouble everybody's in trouble well what's up carter we're out of gas how'd you run out of gas why didn't you say you needed some there's there was gas at the ranch well i didn't know we needed something can't believe you ran out of gas where's paul he pulled over back there he's out here and brad's about out of gas everybody's out of gas do we have gas tanks no i've got a cooler you have a bag everybody okay i'm just have rudy hook up to being pulled me out okay i don't have any gear you do i brought my gear follow me at the gas station it's supposed to be the other way around wasn't it talk about the drive of shame we've got about eight miles oh man i'd like to be able to tell you that i'm usually not this irresponsible but when i'm on vacation you never know what you're gonna get so this is the third time i've ran out of fuel and what makes it even more ridiculous is the first two times i didn't have a working fuel gauge or a good way to put gas in this time i've got both and i still ran out because i miscalculated some distances i didn't factor in the leg of going down to pick up rudy and drop off jamie's car and coming back that was an extra 40 [Music] miles he's the chef i'm the sous chef apparently yeah so what kind of one were you getting i got 11.5 i don't know the fuel gauge is faster than the rpm gauge all right so now that we have our base fuel mileage for driving on the highway of 11 and a half miles to the gallon we are plotting our next fuel stop and a shorter interval and that way that should give us plenty of fuel in case something happens and we won't roll into town on fumes again this is what it's like driving across nevada you drive across a super straight road looks like it just drives straight into a mountain and you just do that about 20 times and it'll be across the state of nevada we're here at the walmart in fallon nevada we're just getting some supplies anyway i don't know where paul is or brad for that we know we actually do know where brad is brad's having some sort of fueling problem like if bad fuel pump it's going out or he's got a filter that's being that's plugged he told us just go ahead um get all this stuff done and then when he gets here we'll figure out what uh what's going on with that get some parts see if we can get him back up on the road so we got the goods and we got the bads there's the bads brad's been losing the fuel pump all day long [Music] this thing's gonna run so much better it was like 60 50 40. just dying all right well this is what we're gonna be doing for the next little bit we'll let you know how it turns out so after what three or four hours of messing around we finally got the jeep fixed we messed with coil packs spark plugs cam sensor um intake intake manifold the whole jeep so we are on the road i think and we're gonna be able to do this final two hours yeah to the place see you there good morning it is day two of the rubicon trip and we are in south tahoe i think is the designation we're gonna load up grab some breakfast and then we're going to be meeting paul and the rest of them at the trailhead or somewhere else so we just got pulled over and they just wanted to say hi and shake her hand like full-on cut-off cars like the officer yeah he cut me off and another car off to get to him well we got yelled at by a cop is all we got today because we were stopped and he's like this is not somewhere to park all right so jd is leaving his truck and trailer right here here's our tour guide here because he's the only one that's been across there yet i'll see who i get stuck and where all right we're going to we're going to make it to buck island today it's probably going to be a eight-hour drive to the rocks those things running good now oh yeah it feels like five hours of shop time yesterday did it yeah all we needed was a pry bar and some cool all right we're heading out we're about to buckle up kids about getting crazy you are in so much trouble i think i'll be fine i'll be fine what kind of locker do you have in the front um so about that i left the locker at home yeah so he's right on an open diff in the front and a factory paws attraction in the rear we're not even a mile into this yet and uh we're at a standstill oh [Music] drivers [Music] so i picked a bad line and i'm in a bad spot [Music] that's a big hole i'm like oh that looks interesting let's just crawl through that i did it i didn't crawl through it [Music] [Music] now [Music] [Music] looking pretty good [Music] [Music] oh that looks like you just pinched the oh it's right there oh yeah paul push cone i'm uh i i'm too narrow for for that obstacle it would like pop me out one way and the other and one time it just came down all right so we finally made it to camp here we're just really close to buck island lake i guess it's a popular stopping point jd and michelle are getting dinner ready let's cook in the bacon cook bacon and then a little more bacon and then we'll add some bacon to it and it'll be perfect oh yeah there's bears there's beers bears i hear they really like peanut butter and kool-aid michelle you smell like peanut butter and kool-aid you're in you're in big trouble i've actually never seen one and i've never i've watched the great outdoors and i've seen some significant amounts of bear what would you call it yeah you're on tv you're worried about stuff that you've seen in the movies yes oh yeah cause the movies are all youtube videos they're always true to life right yeah that's what i thought yes well it is day three on the rubicon trail wait wait it's day three on our trip day two on the rubicon trail good thing we cleared that up jd came through again delicious burrito he calls it the heart attack worst sleep of my life so i slept pretty good yeah you did no i know we all heard you a couple other people slept pretty good but some some people had the worst sleep of their life we need a damage report so rudy what do you got to fix on your jeep before we get heading again nothing i just have to fill up my power steering reservoir all right he's leaking fluid dad we've got to fix the leaf spring broke the eye off the leaf spring check it over i think that's our only real damage that's the only known damage that needs to be fixed before we leave anything on the yoda that can be fixed i haven't looked at it super close but i don't think so i'm going to tighten some bolts up i think what do we got on your jeep um after the full rebuild on the way up here i've got to add some more differential fluid from the axle still puking but the full rebuild we did is fresh yeah it's a fresh jeep ready to go what you're setting up my welder i gotta turn around though i don't think my leads are gonna reach and there it is trail fix next what's your impressions on the rubicon trail having this been your first trip across it um because there's less mosquitoes there too it's rougher than i anticipated but like difficulty level is i won't say like average if you're if you're any kind of a wheel man at all or will woman if you're any kind of a wheel person you're gonna you're not gonna flop you there the chance of bashing in your differential or bending a tie rod that's where the danger is [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] you're gone holy smokes i just want to keep my tire on there you want to keep it on there so okay keep coming okay passenger okay keep coming keep coming okay driver okay passenger oh this exhaust pipe is bent look at it no i don't see it see what i'm going to drop the front dip into here it's not horrible all right okay [Music] the camera okay hard passenger and roll around you got it you're good on this side all right so that was an ordeal jd and tracy and i think tracy was driving got wedged up in there snapped an axle one of their outer stubs is broke so they're in three-wheel drive at least they've got a good solid lock or arb in the front we're gonna head on down my [Music] so we're here at rubicon springs we're going to be spending the night kind of taking it easy today that was a lot of hard trail though is a little bit of a lot of hard unloading i'm going swimming there's no way i'll wash my feet one more foot really bad [Applause] [Laughter] i'm trying you're not trying very hard all right turn off the cameras this is [Laughter] obscene good morning it is day three on the rubicon trail day four for this trip we decided to sleep out under the stars last night good morning jamie so it's a little bit later everybody's up a little more bright-eyed bushy-tailed is that so defined bright island jd's down there cooking breakfast we're kind of breaking camp told you breakfast was next what are you eating there pancakes and sausage and i'm eating the sausage taco it's a lovely day [Music] we saw it we saw a bear michelle are you okay because there's he was moving and i'd like to know these are a lot he's a lot bigger than i was expecting the bears we have around us that live in the co-lab and cedar mountain area east zion they're a lot smaller so michelle i need your honest answer here if we'd have spotted that bear last night would it have been different yes but it was far enough away that i feel safe that we could have made enough noise that it wouldn't come into camp what about you slept outside if you just saw that bear last night sure i wasn't working all right so we have just broke camp and we're headed back on the trail yeah we're going to climb cadillac hill that's the next day cadillac hill that's our next stop like obstacle we're going to stop at the top and get some pictures at observation point [Music] [Music] i think there's trees there to catch us eventually huh oh this is an obstacle the whole hill is kind of an obstacle is this the first corvair across the rubicon trail comment your answers i'd like to and if anybody knows of any corvairs that have got on the rubicon trail i'd love to hear that story there were three corvairs that they took from north america to south america across the darien gap they drove from detroit to somewhere brazil or something and two of the three corvairs made it that was the first vehicle to actually go from north to south america me and rudy noticed that the shock came off it's been a while but i didn't think anything of it i always thought you were just parked at a weird angle jd having trouble no he's got him i wonder if this shocks any good still it just unscrewed that wow that's incredible so we're here at observation point we parked our rigs there to get a nice photo [Music] with this is basically oh i guess this is the top of cadillac hill and everybody missed the cadillac but jace so i'm gonna have to go do some research so go over to michelle's channel to find out about the cadillac in cadillac hill there see if that works well i think you're right i think we should just get to town that way we're working on everything at once yeah okay so that was the plan that's the plan we're gonna bounce out of here pun intended [Music] happy i've seen it we'll do it again in another how many years next year next year tell us about the it's going to be 102 degrees 10 hours and we have no ac so our group kind of got broke up paul and brad went on the 80 and we decided to take a more scenic route so we got us and rudy and then the other two are on the 80. we'll see who makes it to fallon is that where we're going to meet we're going to actually meet him oh or east east so here we are in virginia city it's an old mining town they have a museum here i'm wondering if we have time to stop and look around it's all built up on the hill as most mining towns are okay this is going to be a quick museum trip all right so that concludes our lightning quick tour of the way it was museum in virginia city matt is going to make me have indulging me and letting us drive down the main street because it just looks super awesome and we're probably gonna get left but it's okay candy when this town was designed by the founding fathers of whoever designed it it was not designed for tourist traffic and it's a tight squeeze it is awesome they got a winch if you need it here we go what's that oh i'll show you i do this i do this for a living [Music] okay go ahead and put it back in the park you guys want to go see a steam locomotive for the railroad maybe yeah let's do it what what do you want to do see a steam locomotive let's do it so apparently they work for the railroad they want to take us to see some old steam engine which would be awesome i'm excited to go do so this is a railroad yard a rail yard and so this is where they were getting supplies in and and ore out just for the mines yeah look at the size of that oh engineer sits over here the fireman sits over there and i'll pull you up neat stuff holy crap so they used to fill all this with the water right the bottom one is the bottom ones was dry so they would fill this all with water that water gets converted to steam by some sort of heat source and now they're fueling it off of fuel oil or drain oil this is the oil panama expedition 1916. that's this engine's claim to flame came to something claim to we are fame excited right now because we have some raindrops coming down and it's a little bit of cloud cover and it is giving us some much needed relief for this super super warm drive home you get to try out my wiper we are going to make it home today well we are here in eureka this is what it looks like when our bellies are full and we've got five more hours of driving to do so paul's got a little bit of a driveline vibration from a slightly tweaked drive shaft happening on the trail so he's gonna set the pace we're just gonna try to keep up you're gonna try to keep up with paul as long as it's more downhill than uphill rudy's gonna impatiently ride your bumper yeah i don't impatiently and then i'm gonna i'm going to clean up and then i'll radio ahead uh when i run out of fuel and you guys come back and get me this is the last fuel up as a group paul's going to be heading out we've got to pick up jamie's car it's been a fantastic trip i want to do this again thanks for watching

Channel: Matt's Off Road Recovery

Views: 1,158,266

Rating: 4.9541917 out of 5

Keywords: Off road recovery, Rescue, Matts off road recovery, Sand Trap, road recovery, Recovery, Difficult rescue, Winder Towing, Towing, Sand dunes, dunes, Sand Hollow, utah, off road recovery fails, off road recovery truck, Rescuing, banana, shop work, new project, shop build, off road recovery, matts off road recovery, jeep recovery, off road towing, off road fails, morrvair, rubicon trail, fabrats, fab rats

Id: GS6eVDWcUZM

Length: 33min 20sec (2000 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 13 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/NKLASHORT]

Just driving a vehicle on tons/40’s that far on the street is in itself a challenge. Huge props to these guys, easily one of the coolest off road builds on the planet.

[u/Partyharder171]

Gotta say, I love that they started with a Corvair for the build. Lots of vehicles probably would have been easier starting points. Hell, using a frame and fitting the body would have been easier, but no. They made a unibody Corvair into an off-road behemoth. Mad respect.

[u/ownyourhorizon]

I watch Matt's offroad recovery on YouTube. great channel. the things he does with the work horse, a yellow jeep Cherokee, named the banana, are incredible. massive skill

[u/Medical_Cake]

That type of channel is the heart of YouTube.

[u/TC_Pearl]

Great channel. Showed it to my buddy, and a few weeks later he ordered ed shirts for both of us haha

[u/AmericanKamikaze]

Yea! His video as are amazing. I watched his entire backlog after my first was born.

[u/impulsivetobias]

Loved watching the journey! Was worried CHP was gonna haggle Matt but turned out they were just fans!

[u/InsertBluescreenHere]

Love this channel altho i wonder if Casey and him had a falling out. Early on he would call Casey for help or drop customer cars off to him but last few years nothin. I watch Caseys channel too so maybe they dont want to compete? But Matt and Fabrats have cameos all the time so i dunno...

[u/blackjesus75]

Good to see some Utah boys get some recognition on YouTube! MORR and Fabrats are both awesome, great content.

I don’t know why anyone would watch cable tv with stuff like this around.