If you want the short story (in the words of my generation, TL;DR), scroll to the bottom.
Long Story:
We headed out from the house at 3am to make as much of daylight as we could on the way back (my brother insisted on driving the way there). Sunrise came somewhere 40+ miles east from Bend. PURE DESERT! A whopping 27 degrees too!
And here people think Oregon is all green!
Anyways, we trucked on thru, gassed up in Burns and kept goin. Plenty o steep grades east of Burns once you cross the plateau! My brother kept ignoring me when I said to slow it to a good speed and let the trans coast down the hills, he kept using the brakes, and I'll touch on this again in a minute. After a couple more hours we passed Vale and came to the canyons that dropped us down into Ontario
From Ontario it was a straight shot on I-84 to Boise.
We go check out the car, here it is in his garage
Checked it out, all appeared in order, nothing that wasn't shown in the pics. We go and come back with the dolly and cash in hand, and work on loading it on the dolly. He reminds me it runs, cranks it up and it fires immediately, so we drive it on up and strap it in. I couldn't find anything underneath to wire up the driveshaft to, so I decide little option but to pull it all. Prepared with drain pan for a waterfall, just a little trickle, so I just plugged the hole and put the shaft in the pickup and off we went.
Made it back west of Ontario, stopped short of the canyons to eat lunch and let it cool off before the real trials began
With the trans OD off it had no problems climbing the canyon. Once we got to the grades 40 or 50 miles from Burns, however, that was a different story. Made it up to the top, had to stop and let the engine cool off (checked the trans fluid and trans lines, they were gettin toasty but nothing bad thanks to that trans cooler). After cooling down and dropping down the grade, it was much happier. It being almost freezing out and having the heater goin helped too. Found out that thanks to my brother riding the brakes on the way, they were pretty faded on the way down, luckily low gear made the engine slow it down and dropping into 2 under 45mph was an option too. Gassed up again in Burns, once on the desert plateau, the dolly says 55mph max but the OD had no problem cruising a modest 60 (dropped gear obviously for the few small hils before Bend). Few hours of pitch black desert, then Bend then Sisters. Had to stop and let it cool again after the grade this side of Sisters. Once past that it was a straight shot to Sweet Home then ACTUAL home. Bolted the driveshaft back on, parked it in the garage, then turned the dolly in to uhaul the next day (today).
Short Story: The Dakota got worked over a bit on the hills, but we got the car back home.
*Here it is in my garage
