It’s been a real struggle all season figuring out where to put plants and hauling pay long distance,
and just on and on and on.

So, it’s been hard overall.

The gold —
it’s been very consistent,
consistently poor.

We need to figure out how to do close to 1,000 ounces every week.

He’s already reduced his season goal from 10,000 ounces to 8,000.

The problem [music] is this week we only have two wash plants running.

Sad.

I’m starting to get [music] used to having three plants running and having a lot of nice big cleanups.

Right.

Parker had been running three wash plants,
but last week the operation on Sulfur Creek ran out of stockpiled pay dirt,
shutting it down.

[music]

Right now, we are pulling the pay from the downstream end of the long cut,
and we got a lot of material that’s got to make it up to Roxan to keep it running.

The long cut has produced inconsistent gold all season,
but Mitch Blaschke is on a mission to deliver a big week.

Just trying to get as much gold out of this long cut as possible.

Parker doesn’t want to pull anything from any other project.

And there’s no spares,
which means to keep Roxan running 24/7,
these 60-ton trucks have to be hustling here.

To increase the gold haul with a limited crew,
Mitch is using two giant A60 rock trucks.

Together, this mega-truck duo can deliver 600 yards of dirt an hour.

Those A60s have been just [music] lifesavers.

They’re packing around almost double what some of the other trucks are packing.

In order to keep up,
we’re overloading them quite a bit,
and it’s very impressive what they’ll handle.

I’ve talked to my dad a lot about loading trucks.

Like, do you get greedy and overload them a lot,
or do you go with what they’re rated for?

And my dad’s like,
“No, just go with what they’re rated for.”

Maybe it’s ’cause my dad says not to do it
is why I do it.

This season, we have a bunch of new operators,
and this is going to be a big test here.

We are going as fast as we can.

Uh, me and the boys are flying today.

Operating one of the A60s is 22-year-old new hire James Curts.

Definitely a good learning lesson,
for being my first time ever working out of mine before
and running equipment.

Oh, what was that noise?

That didn’t sound good.

Uh, it’s beeping at me.

Hey, Mitch, you got a copy?

We got a problem.

I’m pretty sure this truck just went down.

Oh, man.

That’s not what we need right now.

Okay, dude.

Just, uh, park that thing.

Let me pull up out of the way for everybody.

Oh, that sounded worse than that.

Okay, I’m gonna park it here, I guess.

Hey, uh, Mitch,
I’ve got like four error codes flashing at me.

Hoses are all —
it’s a hell of a mess.

This is the companion flange
that the drive [music] shaft mounts to.

Uh, this must have been cracked,
and it snapped.

As soon as he backed down the ramp,
the wheels are driving the broken drive shaft,
and it’s just blenderizing everything.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, it’s heavy.

It’s probably the worst one I’ve seen.

Actually, it’s in a tough spot,
with 60 tons in the back.

The flange connecting the drive shaft to the rear wheels has snapped,
destroying the brake lines and hydraulic hoses
that power the dump box.

Um, there’s a drive shaft that goes to the front axle.

Obviously, we need to get the pay out of the back
and then, uh, limp this thing back to the yard.

All of this does something.

Um, these hoses are okay, [snorts]
but everything that these attach to outward —
the lift cylinders don’t function properly.

So, we can’t even dump the box.

Let’s just start yanking everything out
and run new.

Taylor Matika plans to replace the hoses
so he can work [music] the box
and dump the 60 tons of pay inside.

Then, using only the front two-wheel drive,
limp the truck back to the yard for a full repair.

The other half of this hose — [laughter]
she does a lot of damage when a driveline breaks like that.

Here’s our new harness.

Um, we need to lay it into the machine.

Taylor’s first step is to replace all the destroyed brake lines
and electrical wires
before fitting and installing a new drive shaft.

Okay, we can start feeding it through.

Eh.

Yeah, they are screaming to have this truck back in the cut.

Uh, so we’re busting our ass to get it back out there.

So, we’ve just put the harness in.

Everything’s pretty secured.

Jenko’s just jumped in the skid steer
to go grab our drive shaft.

So, next step is to crane our drive shaft in here.

All right.

The final step to this job, eh?

Send this thing back to work.

These are the ways they’re supposed to look.

Undamaged.

Swing it into position.

All right, we got a drive shaft in the air.

It’s go time.

Look at that bad boy.

Yeah, this has to line up perfectly
because these grooves have to mate
with the companion flange.

We’re just throwing some bolts here
in this drive shaft on the diff side,
and then we can line up the park brake side.

The transmission’s in neutral.

It can sit there and freewheel right now
with the engine running there.

It wants to do it on its own.

It could go sideways,
but it’s really dangerous.

I have pressure on it right now with my pry bar.

So, I’m pushing the brake pad against the rotor.

So, I’m just bouncing it a little bit
to release pressure
to get everything lined up.

As soon as we get the bolts in there,
uh, we can shut the machine off.

All right, release.

How much?

We got to go about, uh, 30 degrees.

Little more.

Little more.

Okay, hold it right there.

That’s one installed drive shaft.

Okay, Mitch will be stoked
we got this thing done.

Uh, we can give him a shout
and he can come pick it up.

Yeah, be nice, buddy.

All right, bro.

I’m glad I could start trucking again,
moving more pay for the boys.

We’re back to hauling as fast as we can.

Taylor is a wizard at what he does,
so he got it back up
in only a couple of hours.

And hopefully,
she doesn’t break down anytime soon again.