Hardboater
03-08-2008, 08:19 PM
What started out as a short Saturday 4WD trip to enjoy the blooming desert quickly transformed into a six hour series of recoveries and oops.
First, maybe a lesson learned, at least to consider is when using a high lift jack to tie it to the vehicle so should it slip it doesn’t become a deadly ballistic missile of sorts. We didn’t do this. Anyone have comments on this matter? Another lesson would be if there is something vibrating keep looking for the problem. In my case it was a failing U-joint at the rear differential that no standard car shop diagnosed.
The U-joint failed as we were climbing a badly eroded FT -1333 going to the pink quartzite hills north from Beeline and the Sycamore creek bridge. Jack and Chris in their Jeep and me suddenly found ourselves in a recovery situation. After a little “putzing” we figured out to pull the drive shaft out of the slip joint. A little lesson learned in car mechanics here. I then backed down the incline with Chris’ expert spotting to an area to make a Y-style turnaround with minimal damage to the desert-scape.
Coming out of the turn, heading down the incline my turning radius didn’t line up to straddle the erosion trench in the trail, due to no fault of the spotter, as both right wheels slipped into the knee deep trench, Oops number two! We tried a high lift jack to get the rear wheel up only to realize that it would take a lot of rocks to build a ramp or platform for the rear tire and, as yet, nothing was thought out for the front wheel.
So we took stock of the situation deciding to winch my Jeep back up the hill out of the trench. Using Jack’s winch this worked nicely. Chris then got me lined up and spotted me through the trench area. My nerves were a little shaken now so her help was more than welcome.
Part way back to the Beeline we encountered a slight incline again with some erosion on the right side of the trail. With 4WD and lockers this situation would not be an issue. With only front wheel drive and not using the ARB lockers, my Jeep lost traction and couldn’t get up the incline. After the third try, backing down, the front right tire was stuck in the eroded portion of the trail. This forced the backend of the Jeep to veer to the left and a precipitous drop. Now I could go neither forward nor backwards. Oops number three!
Again Jack, his Jeep and winch solved the problem. Used the winch to pull slightly laterally plus Chris and I tugging at the Jeep we got the rear end to slide about six inches toward trail center. BTW we were tugging on a custom frame Hunter Off-road designed and build for me some years back, Also the winch was attached to one of the brackets holding the bumper John Hunter made for me. This frame was added to the Jeep to carry canoes, kayaks and stuff above my soft top TJ. Thanks JH.
We got Jacks’ Jeep in front of mine after some maneuvering and using two recovery straps looped together pull my Jeep up the incline. From here we just ease on out the rest of the trail, aired up and called it a day. Jack runs a Jeep with quite a few mods whereas mine is a mostly stock TJ with 2 inches lift, 31X10.5 tires and ARB lockers. Special thanks to Jack and Chris for their help and patience. This is as best I remember today. Please excuse any error or omissions. Epilog: By mid-week 4-Wheelers Supply should have back up and running.
First, maybe a lesson learned, at least to consider is when using a high lift jack to tie it to the vehicle so should it slip it doesn’t become a deadly ballistic missile of sorts. We didn’t do this. Anyone have comments on this matter? Another lesson would be if there is something vibrating keep looking for the problem. In my case it was a failing U-joint at the rear differential that no standard car shop diagnosed.
The U-joint failed as we were climbing a badly eroded FT -1333 going to the pink quartzite hills north from Beeline and the Sycamore creek bridge. Jack and Chris in their Jeep and me suddenly found ourselves in a recovery situation. After a little “putzing” we figured out to pull the drive shaft out of the slip joint. A little lesson learned in car mechanics here. I then backed down the incline with Chris’ expert spotting to an area to make a Y-style turnaround with minimal damage to the desert-scape.
Coming out of the turn, heading down the incline my turning radius didn’t line up to straddle the erosion trench in the trail, due to no fault of the spotter, as both right wheels slipped into the knee deep trench, Oops number two! We tried a high lift jack to get the rear wheel up only to realize that it would take a lot of rocks to build a ramp or platform for the rear tire and, as yet, nothing was thought out for the front wheel.
So we took stock of the situation deciding to winch my Jeep back up the hill out of the trench. Using Jack’s winch this worked nicely. Chris then got me lined up and spotted me through the trench area. My nerves were a little shaken now so her help was more than welcome.
Part way back to the Beeline we encountered a slight incline again with some erosion on the right side of the trail. With 4WD and lockers this situation would not be an issue. With only front wheel drive and not using the ARB lockers, my Jeep lost traction and couldn’t get up the incline. After the third try, backing down, the front right tire was stuck in the eroded portion of the trail. This forced the backend of the Jeep to veer to the left and a precipitous drop. Now I could go neither forward nor backwards. Oops number three!
Again Jack, his Jeep and winch solved the problem. Used the winch to pull slightly laterally plus Chris and I tugging at the Jeep we got the rear end to slide about six inches toward trail center. BTW we were tugging on a custom frame Hunter Off-road designed and build for me some years back, Also the winch was attached to one of the brackets holding the bumper John Hunter made for me. This frame was added to the Jeep to carry canoes, kayaks and stuff above my soft top TJ. Thanks JH.
We got Jacks’ Jeep in front of mine after some maneuvering and using two recovery straps looped together pull my Jeep up the incline. From here we just ease on out the rest of the trail, aired up and called it a day. Jack runs a Jeep with quite a few mods whereas mine is a mostly stock TJ with 2 inches lift, 31X10.5 tires and ARB lockers. Special thanks to Jack and Chris for their help and patience. This is as best I remember today. Please excuse any error or omissions. Epilog: By mid-week 4-Wheelers Supply should have back up and running.