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Recovery Stories?

elicriffield

NAXJA Forum User
Location
omaha, nebraska
I love watching youtube videos of wheeling and they often have parts breaking, roll overs that leave the truck all messed up and such. But right after something bad breaks the video stops. I want to know what they did after, especially if it wasn't something they could fix on the trail. How did they get that thing off the trail? How did they get home? (Assuming they didn't trailer it, even if they did how did they get it back to the trailer?)


I'm pretty new to wheeling, I haven't broken anything far away from home on the trail yet. But what do you do if you break something you can't fix on the trail? Even if it is something you can fix, how do you fix it 1/2 way up a rock wall. If you can't how do you get it back to somewhere you can fix it.

Thanks

Eli
 
You can't possibly have spares for everything and isn't it hard to fix it mid trail?

And when you can't fix it it seems like it would be hard for a tow truck to get to the places your most likely to break. The trails around here are at least a couple hours from home. Will a tow truck take you that far?

No one has stories of breaking on the trail ?

Thanks

Carry lots of spare parts, think out repairs for what you would need and dont go alone and have some back up cash to get it recoverd/ towed out.
 
Here's one for ya...

One time i got stuck, didnt have a tow strap nor shovel.
Left the jeep overnight, came back with a shovel and got it out.

Boring no?
 
last time i had an epic fail, my upper control arm bracket ripped off the body on a gnarly line and the front axle rotated forward and took out the driveshaft. we used ratchet straps to center the axle the best we could but on a steep downhill section, the straps failed and the axle rotated hard and snapped the eyelets off my coilovers. the jeep dropped down and was basically just resting on the steering and track bar with the axle's pinion pointing in the air. it was like 9 or 10pm at this point so i left it there and came back the next day with a friend's jeep, large generator, welder, scrap metal, spare coilovers etc. took 3 hours getting the generator started and took another 2 hours to fix the jeep on the trail. fixed it the best we could and limped it off the trailer and onto the trailer at about 9pm. LONG 2 days.....
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Fall 2010 I tore the driver LCA mount and passenger UCA mount off the front axle, blew a bead on the tire, and shredded the pinion yoke and ujoint. Managed to get it mostly aligned with the jeep again, put my spare tire on, limped/dragged it out to the road (fortunately this happened maybe 1000 feet from pavement) and got flatbedded home.

Summer 2011 (iirc) I buckled both upper control arms. Was running stock ones, but fortunately I wasn't a retard and had a full set of spares with me, so I spent 20 minutes installing the uppers while everyone else ate lunch.

Fall 2011 I had a ujoint fail in the passenger side of my front axle, bent the upper balljoint stud and separated the lower balljoint. Pulled it all apart on the trail, removed the inner axleshaft, forced the balljoints back together with a high lift, hammer, and bottle jack, then limped it back to pavement (with a strap on hard parts), very gingerly drove it back ~10 miles to camp. I had a whole spare front axle at camp (long story... different gear ratio, bought it the day before and was going to regear it and install it, had been too busy to take it out of the bed of the truck till I left for the trail that morning) so I "borrowed" the balljoints out of that axle and put them in my axle. The next day, went wheeling again, thermostat stuck shut and/or radiator fan clutch failed, jeep overheated so badly it blew up the upper radiator hose. Caught a ride to the parts store (again, luckily only around half a mile from pavement at that point) and got parts, came back, put it together, drove it home.

Summer 2012 I spit a ujoint cap on the passenger side, but fortunately stopped before it completely shredded the shaft. Pulled it all apart, welded the cap back in (ears were egged, and I didn't have a spare shaft for that side with me... lesson learned, check spares before leaving) with baling wire, newspaper, sunglasses, jumper cables, and two car batteries, then discovered the balljoints were quite literally hand-loose in the axle housing. Had my balljoint press and a full set of brand new spare balljoints on hand so I pressed new balljoints in, slapped it all back together. Broke a rear driveshaft ujoint + driveshaft ears + damaged the pinion yoke a while later, and bent my drag link, so I headed out to the parking lot, threw a spare drag link on it, pulled the ghetto welded shaft out, put a stub/hub in, then drove it back to camp. The next day I hit a local junkyard for new shafts and materials to repair the driveshaft, came back to camp, borrowed a welder, and put it back together. That whole trip was a disaster.

Haven't had any horrible breaks since then, haven't wheeled much since then either.

At this point I carry spare driveshafts, axleshafts, unit bearings, brake lines, radiator hoses, thermostat, CPS, TPS (several), fuses, ECU, tire, an assortment of recovery gear, a few axle and driveshaft ujoints, ujoint straps, ujoint strap bolts, driveshaft yokes, CV joint bolts, pinion yokes, lug nuts, steering links, balljoints (not sure I have a spare upper atm, but I have a spare lower for sure), plus whatever happens to be along for the ride. And all the tools I need to install any of it, hell I have two torque wrenches behind the drivers seat.
 

Whew, that looks sketchy.

I had something similar happen but I was hard on the brakes from 55 mph down the road when my single upper mount let go. The springs, shocks, driveshaft, oil pan, track bar and all the steering suffered an immediate death.

Needless to say, it rode home on a roll back that day.


The only other long day I can think of was breaking a shaft. I broke the shaft then made the dumb move to back up 3 feet to get on level ground to fix it. As soon as I backed up I separated the ball joints.

It would have been a quick fix but everything was covered in mud and I was sitting in about 6 inches of sloppy mud.

That issue took 4 hours straight to fix.

Removed the inner shaft, put the ball joints back in it and put it all back together. Drove it home.

I missed most of the Super Bowl that year because of it.
 
all when i got my first jeep... my 93. not dumb enough anymore to not be prepared, but you cant prepare for everything... anyway, i'm smarter now than to wheel alone and stuff.

First time I got really stuck in a state park in the blizzard of 2006. walked a mile to get cell reception, called a buddy with a jeep and he brought me a shovel and i dug myself out. that was in high school, my 93 was completely stock. good memories bc of it.

second time i was on 31s, open/open, stuck on a power line trail with some buddies in college. got high centered BAD in the mud and was laying on the frame rails. walked a mile or so to a house, knocked on the front door and borrowed two shovels from the nicest guy ever. dug it out, shoved logs under the tires and was able to get out of there before dark... also good memories. i ended up getting stuck in the same spot AGAIN a few months later after wheeling RC twice thinking i was way more awesome and could throttle through... nope. called a guy who i met no more than a week earlier who had a rubicon TJ and a winch and he came to get me out of there. he ended up being a good wheeling buddy for the 4 years i was in college.

the worst "trail fix" i had to do was in moab. jeep was making a very unfamiliar noise going around corners in the slickrock, i figured it was the high traction and my autolocker... nope. it was my transfer case eating away at my floor bc it somehow sheared 4 out of the 6 bolts holding it onto the transmission. pulled the belly skid and tcase in the hotel parking lot and drilled out the studs and replaced with new. the tcase was never removed since the factory put it in, so idk how it happened. luckily the moab hardware store had the exact studs i needed... and pretty much everything else for any broken 4x4 on the planet. i ended up limping the jeep home after finishing that trip but it was bc i wheeled the bejeesus out of it, not bc it got stuck/broke.

edit: here are some pics from when i was stuck on that powerline trail. i believe this was the second time... i dont remember having sliders the first time bc i jacked the rear end up from the stock bumper and creased it pretty good.

DSCF3305.jpg


DSCF3302.jpg


and two from the snow...

before stuck
DSCF1769.jpg


stuck
DSCF1770.jpg
 
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Whew, that looks sketchy.
looks worse than it was. we had a winch connected from Ocean Jet's jeep up above to keep it from rolling forward as seen in the second picture. the 2 hilifts werent actually doing much, just there "just in case". the jeep was actually resting on the steering and lower control arm/frame contact. It still sucked though.
 
looks worse than it was. we had a winch connected from Ocean Jet's jeep up above to keep it from rolling forward as seen in the second picture. the 2 hilifts werent actually doing much, just there "just in case". the jeep was actually resting on the steering and lower control arm/frame contact. It still sucked though.

i like how you pulled the drive slugs so you could rotate the axle freely lol
 
Blew a wheel joint going up a hill and it separated the drivers side lower ball joint and rolled the drivers side tire under the Jeep a small ways bending the fender.

Shored up the machine so it wouldn't roll, Removed the unit bearing with the remains of the stub still in it. Removed the axle half and stuffed a rag in there.

From that point, I got another jack, lined up the outer "C" with the lower ball joint, put the jack under the lower ball joint, and used the jack on the frame to press the lower ball joint back together by lowering the Jeep.

Put the hub and wheel back on, removed the jack from under the ball joint, and in 2WD, got some assist with a winch up the hill.

Drove it home ( 5 hours later at interstate speeds).
 
Few I have been involved with...

Craziest one is my buddies atlas adapter plate seperated from the trans on this "waterfall" climb. (Front shaft was too long). This ordeal took many hours. The spot he was at was very difficult to get too so towing him out wouldn't have worked. So we decided to finish going up, which lead to an acess road where he had his truck and trailer. We tried on our own for hours before going for help, luckly the guy that runs the off road park had crazy recovery rigs and pulled him out for 50 bucks!

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DisneyOK11-17180782_zps46a7070d.jpg


DisneyOK-6.jpg


DisneyOK-15.jpg


Same day earlier, buddie blew his rear drive shaft up going up hill, lost traction and came flying back, lucky a tree stopped him. We winched him up and towed him back to camp. He ended up puttting in a new u joint and tacking the caps in.

DisneyOK-30.jpg
 
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At this point I carry spare driveshafts, axleshafts, unit bearings, brake lines, radiator hoses, thermostat, CPS, TPS (several), fuses, ECU, tire, an assortment of recovery gear, a few axle and driveshaft ujoints, ujoint straps, ujoint strap bolts, driveshaft yokes, CV joint bolts, pinion yokes, lug nuts, steering links, balljoints (not sure I have a spare upper atm, but I have a spare lower for sure), plus whatever happens to be along for the ride. And all the tools I need to install any of it, hell I have two torque wrenches behind the drivers seat.

I carry a spare TPS just to goto the grocery store.

But every JEEP is different.
 
June 2006 - I rolled my 96 XJ on the Rubicon Trail at Buck Island Lake. My friends kejtar, corbinafly, slowrider, nosigma, ruggedjeep, and cracker pulled my plugs to expel oil from the cylinders, busted out the rest of my windshield, and picked up all my crap. The hardest repair is they had to straighten my power steering pump pulley, which had folded over 90 degrees. At one point, I seriously thought that there was no way I was getting the Jeep off the trail.

The next day, we did finish the trail and drove into South Lake Tahoe in a rain shower. And me, with no windshield. Kejtar called his buddy Stebel, who lives in Tahoe and told him to go to the hardware store to get some plexiglass. We went to Stebel's house and my friends made a makeshift windshield. After spending the night in a motel, slowrider, corbinafly, and I headed home down highway 395.

It was actually an uneventful 500 mile drive home, although I did get a lot of weird looks from other people. After all that, I still say that this was the best trip of my life.

mikeh.jpg
 
That wasn't boring! Great story!
Thank you.

last time i had an epic fail, my upper control arm bracket ripped off the body on a gnarly line and the front axle rotated forward and took out the driveshaft. we used ratchet straps to center the axle the best we could but on a steep downhill section, the straps failed and the axle rotated hard and snapped the eyelets off my coilovers. the jeep dropped down and was basically just resting on the steering and track bar with the axle's pinion pointing in the air. it was like 9 or 10pm at this point so i left it there and came back the next day with a friend's jeep, large generator, welder, scrap metal, spare coilovers etc. took 3 hours getting the generator started and took another 2 hours to fix the jeep on the trail. fixed it the best we could and limped it off the trailer and onto the trailer at about 9pm. LONG 2 days.....
 
I love watching youtube videos of wheeling and they often have parts breaking, roll overs that leave the truck all messed up and such. But right after something bad breaks the video stops.
Yeah, the problem is it only takes about 30 seconds to trash a rig, but it could take hours to get it back off the trail. That's a pretty long, boring video.


I'm pretty new to wheeling, I haven't broken anything far away from home on the trail yet. But what do you do if you break something you can't fix on the trail? Even if it is something you can fix, how do you fix it 1/2 way up a rock wall. If you can't how do you get it back to somewhere you can fix it?
No, you can't carry all the spares you need. One thing I rarely see mentioned about wheeling: carry cash. Wreckers can move you around and get you home, but generally require a fist full of 20s to do it.

When you go out on a hard trip, be mentally prepared to leave you rig. A lot of times, you just can't get it out. Also(this part SUCKS)be prepared for the rig to be vandalized when you get back to it, especially if it's in a high use area.
 
Yeah, the problem is it only takes about 30 seconds to trash a rig, but it could take hours to get it back off the trail. That's a pretty long, boring video.


No, you can't carry all the spares you need. One thing I rarely see mentioned about wheeling: carry cash. Wreckers can move you around and get you home, but generally require a fist full of 20s to do it.

When you go out on a hard trip, be mentally prepared to leave you rig. A lot of times, you just can't get it out. Also(this part SUCKS)be prepared for the rig to be vandalized when you get back to it, especially if it's in a high use area.
Great wisdom for all to live by!

Nothing is more irritating then when someone in your group has a Problem, such as a rollover, Major failure etc.. and not a dime or resource to call on.. It's all of a sudden 100% on the group..

AAA is a Start.. and If you dont have a Credit card for emergency's, at-least Have backup funds..
 
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