Big Acre - Hijack
>by Big Acre, SW MS, Monday, February 02, 2015, 07:25
Where in SW MS? My mom's family is from as far south and west as you can get.
I stuck untold amounts of vehicles, on and off the job, until I was about 22. I got my first 4WD when I was 25. Since then, I'm on my second one and I've stuck them both, collectively, 4 times. The trick to learning to drive in the mud is walk it first. If you sink very much, then so will your truck. Also, WHEN you get stuck, STOP. Don't romp on it or try to rock the damn thing. A 4 wheel DIG vehicle can get TWICE as stuck.
We have 6k# winches on all of the trucks that fit in the tool box and can go fore or aft on the vehicle in a receiver hitch. This makes life awesome. The come-a-long is not reserved for simply building fence and not getting the hell out of a place I probably shouldn't have been in the first place.
The truck I learned to drive in the mud with was a 1990 Ford F150, extended cab, standard with a 300 in-line six and a ton of weight in the rear end. IF, you could find the bottom clay, it WOULD go through it. Tons of torque and power. Driving in the mud in a standard is a trick in and of itself.
My son learned to drive on the farm in the mud so he doesn't stick his truck very much because I taught him what I wouldn't learn for a while. Also, he has a 4wd, V8, 06 Dakota that will pretty much go anywhere. 🙂
We had a crew chief freshly moved to Ohio from the southwest get a Suburban buried but good. We had to finish laying out some storm sewer on a site they had already laid the sanitary on. The night before we got a little snow storm which layed 2 inches over the site. He didn't want to have to walk through the mud so he was going to drive the Sub out to the control point. Being the crew coordinator and just being there to see how he was working out I gave some advise but let him make the final call, I said it was a bad idea, it had rained for two days before and the ground wouldn't be froze yet. He said it'd be fine he knew how to drive a 4 wheel drive, like we didn't, and took off. I was watching from the back site, the truck screaming through the mud getting slower and slower and I looked at the rod man to say he was going to get stuck when the truck's back end suddenly dropped and the truck went from 15 mph to 0 mph in a heart beat. After getting his bearings back, he got out and looked and saw he'd drove into a sanitary trench. The front drove through the crust on the back fill but the rear just didn't make it. He was proud though, said the mud didn't stop him, he'd have made it if it wasn't for the trench. It was my fault, I should have stopped him but he would have done it if I wasn't there, but I was going to pay for the roll back (our policy was we buy you 4 wheel drive but it's up to you where to drive it, so if you get stuck you pay for the tow) but luckily a friend of mine showed up on an adjoining site to move his dozer and brought it over to get us out.
You win the big prize hands down
OMG and ROTFLMAO
This pic is just a couple of weeks after I got my current personal pickup, a 2004 Dodge 3/4 ton with a Cummins. Just a heads up, diesels work pretty well in the snow and on solid ground but they have a lot of weight over the front axle. This is the second time I was stuck in this same spot, the first time in a different truck. I had made it through this spot several times but this time I recalled the GPS was in the bed of the pick up the instant I hit this mud hole and I didn't want to hit any bumps hard. It took a John Deere backhoe to get my truck out this time.
Like so many others, I've been stuck, pulled out other stuck crews, I've lost track.
My "Wall of Shame" photo.
"This is the second time I was stuck in this same spot,..."
Isn't that kind of like marrying the same girl twice? (sorry, couldn't resist)
Lets just say it wasn't my finest moment.
Everybody that owns a diesel truck thinks they do good in the snow, but in reality, they kind of suck in anything more than 12" of snow. Very heavy front axle.
I have seen diesel trucks on Sand Mountain NV. that could go anywhere rolling black smoke the whole way.
Weights a funny thing, it can help the tires bite and get down to the pavement but if it gets too deep, than all the weight just holds you back. My truck weighs about 7400 lbs without anybody in it.
Big Acre - Hijack
My office is in Brookhaven
> My masterpiece was sinking a 1983 Volvo 240DL wagon into wet, heavy clay in March. I learned a lot from the guy with a monster truck that pulled me out. All to save a 15 minute hike out with the TS and tripod. This was back in the early 90s when I was just trying to survive.
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> Instrument setup up all day in the middle of a property we were shooting topo. At lunch time I walked along the dirt road thinking I could drive on this, no problem. The thing is there is a 1" crust on top of saturated clay below. You can drive on it once which pumps the water up and makes the crust collapse on the second trip. The recovery guy dragged that car 500' back to the gravel road. The irony is I probably could've gotten away with driving the rest of the way across the property to the street over there and a regular tow truck could've dragged me the last 20' or so.
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> I had to leave the car overnight in the rain wife harranguing me the whole time. What am I supposed to do? Fly over there in a helicopter. I finally yelled at her you are making it worse. It's not bad enough I sunk my car, I have to get constantly reminded what a dumb thing to do it was.
She was aggravated at you over something else, and as usual for a female, She used something else to harangue you about.
o.O
One of my mentors often said, "a 4x4 will only get you more stuck, especially when you're drunk!"
Miguel
NEVER been stuck.
Temporary delays many times, but never stuck.
I was doing a forest survey many years ago and was driving the 1978 3/4 ton 4x4 Suburban across a wide open park at about 9000 feet. As I got near the edge of the park the bottom suddenly dropped out right up to the floor boards and bumpers. I thought I was truly stuck that time, but my collection of chains and come-alongs barely reached the 8" Ponderosa at the edge of the woods.
A true surveyor, a better vehicle at avoiding getting stuck just means you try to take it more places you shouldn't. 😀
Haven't been stuck in a long time. I don't take to many risks when driving in the field. Would rather get out and walk that get buried far from a road. Used to carry a woods jack. Pretty handy tool. Would jack up a buried wheel and shove rocks, logs etc to get the wheel up out of the hole. Move from wheel to wheel until you could drive out.
Ditto me.
Got over well stuck in sand twice in different parts of the Province 40 plus years ago and used a method similar to yours to get out after much 'jacking and filling' with wood and rocks.
'T'was an object lesson.
4 wheel drive vehicles will get stuck more than rubber boots.
I learned to walk !!
Cheers,
Derek
An old timer taught me how to use 4WD."Drive in 2WD until you can't go no more. Then put it in 4WD and back out"
X2
4WD is useful in certain situations, you just have to know when to not go there.
Like climbing steep dirt roads. The ground clearance helps too.
My work truck is large and heavy and has AT tires so it isn't going to do well in soft ground or mud. Hard rocky roads that my 2WD pickup couldn't climb are no problem, though.
Steve Gardner's Father had a Brown Thunderbird they called the "Brown Jeep." Steve said his Dad took that car places others got buried in 4WD so there is something to be said about skill.
When I was an active pilot we had training for all sorts of different situations. You didn't just hand someone the keys and say go fly into that short field with no training. But we do that with 4WD all the time. Knowing how and when and when not is most of it. Mostly a light foot on the throttle is what's needed.
