The adventures of my former 1969 Patrol

[plateaucal]

THAT! Is the sh8t. Great post!

[L60Boerne]

Man and beast...in the wild!

[RiverPatrol]

River-I spent a couple of hours looking for pics of that trip but could not find them...if memory serves me most of the photos were of the Patrol parked with the hood open, lol.

I looked at my digital photos but didn't find any, I'm pretty sure I went and got a disposable camera for the day. I'll have to dig through my hard copy pics. I don't recall too much open hood time though, I remember steep narrow trails and being amazed that it still had the side steps. Pretty sure I was the one that suggested the fix for your old pressure problem that day, too.

[Daner]

If you do find any pics of that day, please post them, Id love to see them. And thanks for the advice on the oil pressure situation. Without it, I likely would have torn into the motor blindly looking for a cause, when all along it was an oil filter...I still don't understand the physics of how an oil filter effects the oil pressure that much...

After the Moab and Tucson trips, the red Patrol returned to use as more or less a daily driver. Truth be known, I felt pretty bad about using it on rougher trails, as, using the Aussie/British term, it was a shame to abuse a Patrol that was in such good nick. So a short while after the Moab trip, I vowed to stop abusing the old girl so much and began to prepare her for a new coat of paint as I really wasn't a fan of the red color. Of all of the colors Nissan offered on the Patrol, I preferred the green(s) and the funky light blue/turquoise color. I ended up going with the turquoise:

[moore_rb]

It did some wheelin' outside of Tucson at least once as well, out past Oracle.

Charouleau Gap? That's a fun trail... I think the last time I ran it would have been in the late 90's...

[plateaucal]

Oy mate, these nicer Patrols should be kept to some light green laning and not much more.

[Daner]

It did some wheelin' outside of Tucson at least once as well, out past Oracle.

Charouleau Gap? That's a fun trail... I think the last time I ran it would have been in the late 90's...

It was the Charouleau Gap trail. The summer monsoons seem to have made it a little rougher than I remember back in the day.

And this is how she looked after painting.

[Daner]

A little off topic, but have to post because I love this pic: Here my #2 adventure buddy and the recently painted Patrol are ready to hit the hills:

[Daner]

Now that I had all of the bugs worked out, we used the Patrol almost every weekend to go explore, and the Silver City area was a great place to explore as there were endless open trails in all directions, and since it was a small town without a highway, it really didn't matter if the Patrol only went 55mph. There just wasn't much traffic, and small town folks tend to be a little more patient.

Most of the local trails in SW New Mexico were mild, usually only requiring 4x4 low in a few places, but the good clearance and nimbleness of the Patrol made the trails a breeze. Here are a few pics of a trail that went down to some petroglyphs and the remains of a 13th century, Mogollon village that I had found while working as an archaeologist for the Gila National Forest. As a footnote, remember to always be respectful if and when you find historic sites or other ruins out there. There aren't many left that haven't been looted.

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[Daner]

Somewhere on one of my old computers or perhaps an old SD card, I have pics of my favorite adventures with the 69 Patrol. But, after looking high and low for them, I only found a couple that didn't really show the beautiful scenery of the places we visited in the Patrol. Hopefully I'll find the other pics and share them.

Part of the reason we had a Patrol, was to explore the Sierra Madre and deserts of Northern Mexico. The Patrol went anywhere there were tracks in front of it, and was super-well built, so we felt confident taking into remote places. The Frontera, as it is called in Mexico, is roughly the Mexican equivalent of the American West. Just like the American West, there were deep canyons, forest-covered mountains, ghost towns, abandoned railroad lines and cliff dwellings to explore, only it was a lot wilder and a less crowded than the American "wild west", which imho is overcrowded and overdeveloped.

So we loaded up the Patrol with tools and extra parts and followed an old Spanish trail ("Camino Real") that led from the copper mines near Silver City across the desert flats into Mexico as we could follow it. These were the days before Google Earth or quality GPS', so navigation was hit or miss. here is a segment of the trail on the US side of the border:

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