Darky
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- 29 Palms, CA
I pulled 2 Fords out of the mud Tuesday. This brings my total to 5. Sure, two were Focuses, and one of those was mine, stuck in a sandy parking lot, but still. 
This is my brothers 86ish F350 4x4 w/460, stock bumper deep. Tis truck sits probably 6'6" at the roof, running close to 33" tires.
The "dry" lakebed out here (Sunfair Dry lake) was too soft for the truck. My Smittybilt XRC10 got a good workout. I winched im around 90 degrees off the rear bumper and drug the truck a good 40 feet or so, but it was just digging trenches, wouldn't come up out of the muck. So, we gave up for the night. ere are those trenches in his headlights:
As we're leaving, I sunk my Jeep in some very deceptive mud. Looked solid right until I sank up to my diffs. Winched off of a telephone pole, but it was only maybe 6 feet away, and I couldn't get out. So we abandoned both vehicles for the night.
Came back the next morning, and this is where I left the Jeep.
I winched off the telephone pole again, and was able to lift the nose out enough to get traction and pull out of the mud....only to sink again 6 feet later. This time there was no possible anchor point. Except a single, solitary fencepost...we looked at it a few times, and kept saying, "Nah..no way would that hold..." Finally we decide to just go for it. My brother and a buddy strap the winch cable to the post, and hold on to the post with everything they have. I start pulling in the winch rope, and slowly but surely, the Jeep starts creeping forward, and before you know it, I'm out!
The holes left behind
Unfortunately, this is where the pictures stop as my phone battery was dying. After getting out, we turned back to my brother's truck. We took a different tack this time. I hooked to the nose of the truck and winched him 90 degrees further, making it a full 180 from where he started last night. Mind you, this is a big, heavy truck, sunk to it's bumpers in heavy, sticky clay mud. After moving him a few feet, he gains traction and the truck pulls itself out the rest of the way.
Where did this other Ford come from? The Focus? A couple younger friends decided they want to help and so they come out onto the lakebed (again, in their Focus) and promptly get stuck. In mud nasty enough that my XJ w/5.5" of lift and 33x12.5" tires bogs down in 4high. I had to slam it into 4low and reverse immediately to avoid getting completely stuck. It took me probably 15 changes of direction to get back out of the slop they'd skated across before sinking. I pull back out on some drier land and winch them back out of there. Being young kids, they yell thanks and immediately leave. Anyways, good times.
This is my brothers 86ish F350 4x4 w/460, stock bumper deep. Tis truck sits probably 6'6" at the roof, running close to 33" tires.
The "dry" lakebed out here (Sunfair Dry lake) was too soft for the truck. My Smittybilt XRC10 got a good workout. I winched im around 90 degrees off the rear bumper and drug the truck a good 40 feet or so, but it was just digging trenches, wouldn't come up out of the muck. So, we gave up for the night. ere are those trenches in his headlights:
As we're leaving, I sunk my Jeep in some very deceptive mud. Looked solid right until I sank up to my diffs. Winched off of a telephone pole, but it was only maybe 6 feet away, and I couldn't get out. So we abandoned both vehicles for the night.
Came back the next morning, and this is where I left the Jeep.
I winched off the telephone pole again, and was able to lift the nose out enough to get traction and pull out of the mud....only to sink again 6 feet later. This time there was no possible anchor point. Except a single, solitary fencepost...we looked at it a few times, and kept saying, "Nah..no way would that hold..." Finally we decide to just go for it. My brother and a buddy strap the winch cable to the post, and hold on to the post with everything they have. I start pulling in the winch rope, and slowly but surely, the Jeep starts creeping forward, and before you know it, I'm out!
The holes left behind
Unfortunately, this is where the pictures stop as my phone battery was dying. After getting out, we turned back to my brother's truck. We took a different tack this time. I hooked to the nose of the truck and winched him 90 degrees further, making it a full 180 from where he started last night. Mind you, this is a big, heavy truck, sunk to it's bumpers in heavy, sticky clay mud. After moving him a few feet, he gains traction and the truck pulls itself out the rest of the way.
Where did this other Ford come from? The Focus? A couple younger friends decided they want to help and so they come out onto the lakebed (again, in their Focus) and promptly get stuck. In mud nasty enough that my XJ w/5.5" of lift and 33x12.5" tires bogs down in 4high. I had to slam it into 4low and reverse immediately to avoid getting completely stuck. It took me probably 15 changes of direction to get back out of the slop they'd skated across before sinking. I pull back out on some drier land and winch them back out of there. Being young kids, they yell thanks and immediately leave. Anyways, good times.
