Silverado ZR2 Suffered a Major Failure on Metal Masher

What's going on guys? We are back with another video. My name is Armando. And I'm Nicole. And in today's video, we are doing Metal Masher. And joining us on this trip, as you can see the convoy of vehicles behind us, are these fine gentlemen over here. Hey, I'm Dewey! I'm Big Daddy ZR2. I'm just Drew. I'm a Colorado Moth Crawler. Dewey's driving the 2-door Rubicon. Drew's driving the Xterra. And then Ali here is driving the big boy full-size ZR2. That's what we're going to be doing today. We're going to be hitting Metal Masher. And more importantly, if you see a lot of Jeeps in this video, it's because we're invading Easter Jeep Safari this year. Hey, don't worry. I brought a Jeep. So we're kosher with the group. We're good. So we're allowed to be here this week. We have a Jeep with us. So let's go see how this trail is. Well, we have arrived at our first major obstacle along Metal Masher. And there's a little bit of a traffic jam because this Jeep broke down after the first obstacle here. So they're currently in the process of trying to move him out of the way. And there's still a couple more Jeeps in front of us before we get our turn to tackle this first major obstacle. You're on your front diff! All right, we got our first major obstacle. The Jeeps have been cleared, as you saw there. And it's pretty straightforward. It's just inch and a pinch. Don't cut me down today. You're representing my channel out here. You need to show up the other seven. Well, we have caught up to the Jeep group, the other second half of the Jeep group, that they were attached to. And they're at the next major obstacle, which is, I think they're called the Ledges. And you can see one of the Jeeps going up it right now. There's a series of ledges all in various difficulty, basically starting from left side easy, medium, to the hardest. And that's what's cool about this trail. This trail has a lot of variation of line choices. So if you have a group that you're riding with that has a lot of more novice versus more experienced and more capable rigs, this trail has kind of it all. I just want to showcase this along the trail. There's these two optional ledges here. We don't have the approach angle for them, let alone they're really steep. But there's also what we're currently taking is the bypass. But if you do have up for the challenge, there are these two steep ledges along the way. If you're liking the video so far, make sure to leave a like and subscribe to the channel. If you aren't, it helps me out a ton. And that way, if you're subscribed, you don't miss out on any future videos. So I decided to take the easier line here since I didn't think I had the approach angle to tackle the obstacle on the right. Up next is Drew, and he decides to take it head on. At this point, Drew is asking me to make sure his driveshaft isn't hitting the rock. I was able to get a good look underneath and gave him the all clear to send it. There it goes. You're good, you're good, you're good. Did not want him nailing that tree branch. No. No. I'm doing it on purpose. Alright, we're doing the next obstacle which is supposedly Hey Rick, didn't really have any problems in this little section, just be careful of your side. Yeah, and it is a little bit of a tight squeeze. You heard Dewey just saying over the radio who he was referring to was a guy in a power wagon. He said he was able to do this just fine. Get those front tires up and then just drive straight. All I'm seeing is blue sky. Might have to go locked. And I'm going to go rear locker. And a little bit of a bump. It'd be front lockers. We're going front and rear now. Might have to bump it even harder. But for that I'm not going to go locked. I'm going to bump it hard. So we're unlocked again, but we're going to go bump it a little more. There it is. I did not want anything to go kaboom if I had it locked. Luckily we made it through relatively drama free. Rick did it. Little friendly camaraderie. This obstacle really shows the challenges that come with different wheelbase lengths and vehicle weight. On this side nothing. I'm not sure on this side if he's hitting something. This was the final nail in the coffin for the damage to be done. As he climbs up this rock ledge take a look at his axle. So we have a bit of a situation with Ali's ZR2. If you can see how his rear differential is it has basically instead of being horizontal and level with the ground it has come up like this so you can see how much of an off angle that is for his driveshaft. Luckily his driveshaft looks like a two piece driveshaft these Silverados have. So it's still drivable but it is obviously I think binding on those knuckles. You can see a better angle. This leaf spring is like an S. I don't see any cracks. You can see where it shifted there I guess. It's on that one over there. This is the perch that shifted. Our game plan right now is to try to get the Silverado on more flat ground so that way we can actually work on it. I'm sure the video probably doesn't look like much but we are on a pretty steep incline here. There is one more ledge that we have to conquer here. Obviously with him having the issue you can't really push it. We are thinking about winching off of one of those trees up there at the base of it so that way we are able to get him up here and then potentially that little flat spot right there we could actually service and potentially get a trail fix going so that way we can make it off the trail tonight. These are best trail mechanic right there. Come on Drew. You need me to hold the kid? Who did your lift? Someone over tightened some ----. You bent your whole spring perches on your axle. You need to cut those off and renew them. If you look at the whole spring perch where it stands up to the block on it they are U shaped. Is that common in these? That's either impacted too much or you are carrying so much weight with the lift block, the big lift block My lift block is an extra 4 inches of force on it. Then you have the weight spring on top of it so it's putting a lot of force on it. You can see I bent the ear pop so your whole block moved backwards. Change of plan, we are actually going to go up a slightly different line and I am working my truck back down so that way we can use my truck as a winching point because I am the heaviest in the group, obviously outside of the Silverado so I am going to be a much better winching point than the Xterra or the 2 door Rubicon. Working our way back down a little bit so that way we can get to his level and be able to hopefully winch him up to get to a flat spot so we can better diagnose the drive shaft and rear axle situation. After a successful winch, it was time to come up with a game plan for how we were going to get out of this situation. But you will have to wait until the next episode to see how it all plays out. So the plan is to winch him up, use my truck as a winch point and winch him up so that way we are not putting stress on the drive train. It's twisted like keep it twisted.