There’s a star man, waiting in the sky

Yesterday was primarily a driving day crossing from Arizona to New Mexico after a stop at the Petrified Forest National Park. The route took us along Route  666 191, the Coronado Scenic Trail, 100 miles, 460 corners and elevation up to 9000ft. It is also one of the least traveled federal highways so our convoy of 11 cars skewed the average for the day. We had a short stop at the Red Mountain overlook to regroup and catch our breaths before continuing the second half that winds up running through a massive copper mine at the town of Morenci. I have GoPro video of the entire route so eventually the highlights will make it to YouTube.

Today we started with a drive to the City of Rocks park for some short hikes through the volcanic formations. That was followed by some more entertaining roads to Hatch for our lunch stop. The afternoon excursion was to the White Sands Missile Range Museum but due to a minor legal issue I was not permitted to enter the site. Given this is an operational military base I thought it wise to not protest and instead headed to the History of Space museum in nearby Alamogordo. This turned out to be a really nice museum with some great exhibits showcasing the early days of the space program and it looks like they are expanding some of the exhibits. Definitely worth a stop if you are in the area.

Tomorrow we’re off to White Sands National Monument, where they do not require a RealID license for entry, and then a driving tour of some of the other local sights, including a search for the pistachio farm we keep seeing signs for.

Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy

Nearly 2000 miles in now and I think my sanity is intact. Also, I can now say that I’ve stood on a corner in Winslow, Arizona but nothing particularly interesting happened. It has been a fun few days here though. The TT West event officially started today with drives to the ruins at Montezuma Castle, an attempted lunch in Sedona and finishing off the loop with a stop at the Meteor Crater. Sunday we took things a little easier with a short loop drive to the Hopi reservation to get a tour of the Walpi village which dates back to 900 ad.

Tomorrow is mostly a transit day with the group of 11 cars migrating east to Silver City, NM, by way of some of entertaining highways.

I have not kept track of driving stats over the last two days other than there’s been a lot of seat time and a lot of unhealthy fuel consumption and we’ll just forget the average speeds 😁

Speeding 72, We're faster getting nowhere

Today’s title is a bit more accurate with the lower speed limits on the state highways I had the cruise set at 72 for most of the day. A few brief excursions to redacted mph to pass slower traffic although there really wasn’t too much of that to deal with.

The day started very chilly in Beaver, 33° when I started the car and dropping to 28° as I motored down Hwy20. The rainstorm I drove through yesterday evening left a fresh dusting of snow across the landscape but thankfully the roads were clear and dry. Once I turned south on Hwy89 the skies cleared, temps came up to a more reasonable mid-40s and the views continued to improve the further south I got. 89 runs between Bryce and Zion so I was able to catch some glimpses of the “outside” edge of the Zion canyons, a teaser for next week. 

Eventually 89 turns east and runs along the Utah/Arizona border before finally crossing just north of Page. My first stop of the day was just south of Page, at the Horseshoe Bend overlook. My first time touring this area in 2007 I ran into a hiker in Capitol Reef that suggested I stop here as I was going to be in the area to see Antelope Canyon. It seems far more popular now, a proper visitor center and parking lot. Lots more people now too but there’s plenty of room along the length of the rim to get good pictures. I didn’t spend too much time here as I was eager to get back on the road.

Stop number two, after a quick refuel in Cameron, was the south rim of the Grand Canyon. The last time I was here in 2013 we stopped at the north rim but it seemed like the south rim had more spots to stop. It was also more on the way, sort of. It was also much less crowded than I expected so I stopped at several of the view points which get you slightly different views into the canyon as you head further west.

Eventually Hwy64 turned back south and it was a short drive to I-40 for the final leg into Winslow. It doesn’t seem like I’ve only been on the road for three days. The change in weather and scenery break the days into their own segments with something new around every bend. Except for I-40. I think that looks the same all the way across Texas.

Stats for the day:

460 miles
59 mph
28 mpg, much better than I expected with all of the climbing
7:48 total drive time

Imagine myself in an automobile A hundred miles an hour, only me at the wheel

Ok well maybe not 100mph but speed limits did kick up to 80mph for most of the day which helped shrink the 540 mile drive. Today was the highest mileage day of the trip and was expected to be the most boring with not much scenery through eastern Idaho and the many cities on I-15 through Utah. Lots of rain throughout the day and way more traffic than yesterday.

Tomorrow the weather is supposed to start out better and I’ll be off of the interstate pretty early and headed down Hwy 89 which threads through several national parks and forests so I expect the scenery to improve. Also on the agenda are stops at the Horseshoe Bend overlook and the south rim of the Grand Canyon and whatever else looks interesting along the way.

Some pics from the road today. I was worried that leaving the Elph at home would be a mistake but the iPhone has filled the role of getting quick snapshots quite nicely.

 

Stats for the day:

540 miles
72 mph
26 mpg
7:26 drive time

I had the radio on, I was drivin’

The day didnt start with the sun beating down but it did feel great to be back on the road. I left after the morning rush so it wasnt too bad getting through town and had light traffic all the way to Idaho. 

So many previous drives have started off this direction; the usual lunch and gas in Pendleton, first stop in Boise. Lots of familiar sights along the way that make the drive feel so much shorter. The climb up Cabbage Hill was fun as always, and the twisty bits after that, following the Grand Ronde River are always a fun spot before hitting the straighter segments of I-84. 

Tomorrow is the longest drive of the trip at 540 miles but the scenery should start to get more interesting once I am past SLC. 

Stats for today: 

432 miles

~7 hours driving

One fuel stop, averaging 28mpg on the first tank. That dropped a bit after lunch with the mountain passes and higher speeds but still better than I was expecting.

Sabbatical !!!

No, not a very loud sabbatical, the third sabbatical. It's been several years since I've done a proper roadtrip and I've been wanting to get back to Utah for quite some time so this seemed like a good opportunity to hit the road. The plan is for about three weeks and 4500 miles covering Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and California. I'll be posting updates and some pictures here, hopefully each night if I have time.

As is tradition I have to at least start out with a clean car, even though the forecast is for rain for most of the drive out of Oregon. Hoping that stays rain and I don't get snow like has happened in past years. So then, it will be awhile before the RS is this clean again.

And since it's getting on in years I figured I should pack some tools and spares this time around. Packing many of the same tools as I had for the cross-country trip in the mk1. Spares this time around are the usual spark plugs and coilpacks and an oil pressure sensor, which seems to be this car's version of the MAF from the mk1.

A word of caution for folks using C5 RS6 rear rotors, I've had another case of broken lugs

A couple of weeks ago I had another instance of broken lugs on my car. One sheared completely while torquing it, one with hairline cracks and two more that were hanging on by a single thread. The first time this occurred a couple of years ago it was also 3 broken lugs. It's worth noting that another TTRS owner has had the exact same failure, the broken lugs looked identical to mine. Has anyone else seen this problem?

Install history of 034 C5 RS6 rear rotor upgrade on my car:

3-23-2014, 30000 miles, installed 034 C5 RS6 upgrade
4-30-2014, 31000 miles, installed motorsporthardware.com studs
10-6-2016, 56000 miles, discovered multiple sheared studs, replaced with factory lug bolts
3-10-2018, 69000 miles, JHM C5 RS6 rear rotors installed 
2-26-2019, 78000 miles, discovered sheared factory lug bolts

Time and mileage between failures... Note this is just when I noticed the broken lugs, I have no way to verify when they actually broke. The first time seemed to have been broken for some time before discovery given oxidation on the exposed metal. This more recent time only one lug had broken all the way and the metal was cleaner. Two other lugs were hanging on by a single thread and another was showing hairline cracks so I believe I caught it closer to the actual failure point.

873 days, 25k miles between installing C5 RS6 rotor upgrade and discovering broken studs
890 days, 23k miles between replacing studs with bolts and finding broken bolts

This failure has happened with OEM C5 RS6 rotors as well as JHM manufactured C5 RS6 replacement rotors. The failure has occurred with aftermarket studs as well as the factory provided lug bolts. After the first time I assumed it was due to poor quality aftermarket studs but with the factory bolts also shearing I can only presume this is an issue with the fitment of the C5 RS6 rotors on the 8J hubs. In 78000 miles I've never had a single issue with the studs or lug bolts on the front axle.

I tend to be very careful about torquing lugs on my car since my summer Neuspeed wheels require hub-centering rings and I am used to having spacers installed (although never on my TTRS). For those reasons I torque my wheels to ~70ft lb with effectively no weight on the wheel and then follow with a second pass to 90 ft lb. I rarely use an impact gun to remove and never to install. If a shop works on my car and removes the wheels during service I always retorque lugs once I get the car home. I do not believe that any of the lug failures I have had are related to a material defect in the lugs or a result of over torquing.

After examining the differences between the OEM RS6 rotors, the JHM replacements and the Girodisc equivalent (I no longer have my factory TTRS rotors) my theory is that the C5 RS6 hub must be slightly smaller in diameter than the 8J TTRS hub. The TTRS hub comes in contact with either the ridge on the hat (OEM RS6 rotor) or the angled part of the hat (JHM) and in either case the hat does not sit flush against the hub allowing for some movement which over time is compromising the lugs. The Girodisc hat has a flat inner face which should allow it to seat properly across the entire area of the hub surface which I am hoping fixes the problem. I guess I will know for sure in about 880 days.

The JHM rotors seem much worse in fitment but the time and mileage between failures was incredibly similar to the OEM RS6 rotors. Maybe the factory lugs are built to higher spec? In any event I believe the OEM C5 RS6 rotors are not a proper fit for the TTRS and the JHM replacements are potentially even more dangerous.

I've shared all of the above with 034 and they're looking into the issue too but they have only heard of mine and the one other failure.

Lots of pics of the lugs and rotors with some annotations on the pictures