Back in the parking area, we met Dave and his truggy, which started as an 88 runner. He hangs with Mike Casky and Christo Slee, and was at Cruise Moab with us earlier this year. He's got dual cases, 5.29s, 37s, etc.
It was a beautiful day for wheeling, and a great shakedown for my freshened engine/4-speed conversion. I really like having gears and compression to be able to go down hills without having to brake, and was in second and even third much of the day. First is an awesome improvement over the old 3-speed, especially with the 3-speed case. My only issue is that the 2F valve cover gasket doesn't work with the F valve cover, and there's a pretty good leak going on there. But by the time I got home I now have 100 miles on the clock with no major issues.
When we got back down to the reservoir at the trailhead, a couple in a 2004 runner had a bad flat and didn't have the special head to get the lug nut off so they could put their spare on. We ended up using Matt's plug kit and compressor to fix their tire. It was a pretty good sidewall gash and took three plugs to stuff it. Then, along with a couple in a Disco, we followed them down to potato springs. The Disco had the following on their license plate: "Group W". Bonus points to those of us old enough to know exactly what that means
The traffic on I-70 was brutal, so we took the frontage roads back. They were marginally better except for the stop sign in Downieville. All in all, an excellent day!