Getting Unstuck 101

Reminds me years back, setting out roadworks.
Drove on site and the vehicle immediately sank in mud above the bottom of the doors.
Only escape was the windows.
Thankfully with all the machinery about it didn't stay there long.

#1 way to destroy your truck.......have someone you don't know pull you out.

I have witnessed some major destruction every year when we go play in the snow. I'm familiar enough that I can see it coming before the slack is taken out of the chain. Some people just deserve it and in those cases it is fun to sit back on the side lines and enjoy the show.

Years ago we had a developer that would drive his Caddy all over the construction sites because his time was worth more than the car. One day he got the Caddy stuck and asked the guy operating the Michigan end loader to slide the bucket under the rear bumper and lift him out. Operator kept telling him it would wreck the car but the developer wouldn't take no for an answer. He drove home with the bumper in the trunk, but never complained about it.

ontarget1, post: 392800, member: 9989 wrote: Years ago we had a developer that would drive his Caddy all over the construction sites because his time was worth more than the car. One day he got the Caddy stuck and asked the guy operating the Michigan end loader to slide the bucket under the rear bumper and lift him out. Operator kept telling him it would wreck the car but the developer wouldn't take no for an answer. He drove home with the bumper in the trunk, but never complained about it.

I had a 1/2 t. pickup start to slide (rear driver side first) down the 1:1 back slope on a 30' deep drainage channel we were staking. It was scary. The more I spun the tires, the further over the edge I went. I was close to rolling it down the slope and crawled out the passenger side. A track hoe operator brought a couple of old wooden pallets and some used tires. With the boom and bucket directly over the truck, we placed the pallets and tires under the driver's side of the truck and the track hoe was able to wiggle the truck back up on flat ground. There was no damage to the truck that we could see....not that I would have cared at that point.

Here in Maine the weeks from mid-March till May are known as "mud season" and sights like this are common -- after you've lived here a few years you wise up.

I had a buddy get stuck once. The guy that pulled us out had a chain, not a tow rope or strap. This chain seemed like it was about 100 feet long but was probably only 30 feet long. The guy got close to my buddys vehicle and hooked them up. I then figured he would ease it out and take the slack out. Noooo! This guy floored it and it seemed like he was going about 30 mph when the chain grabbed. Not cool but he did get unstuck. I've since learned just try and ease the stuck vehicle out and a chain is better than nothing but a strap or rope is the way to go.

When initially reading the title, my first thought was that the very first comment would be along the lines of "If it looks messy, Don't Go There!"

Oh well, some lessons are learned the hard way.....:laughing:

ontarget1, post: 392800, member: 9989 wrote: Years ago we had a developer that would drive his Caddy all over the construction sites because his time was worth more than the car. One day he got the Caddy stuck and asked the guy operating the Michigan end loader to slide the bucket under the rear bumper and lift him out. Operator kept telling him it would wreck the car but the developer wouldn't take no for an answer. He drove home with the bumper in the trunk, but never complained about it.

Reminds me of the story about the old farmer driving his John Deere down a dirt road and seeing a "city feller" with his Cadillac stuck in a ditch. The old farmer backed up to the front and started hooking his chain to the bumper. The city fellow jumped out hollering "You're not going to hook that tractor to my $80,000 Cadillac are you?" The old farmer just unhooked his tractor and said, "No sir, I ain't hooking my $250,000 tractor to your Cadillac." and drove off.
Andy

Here is my 85 f150 stuck in a hole about 10 or 12 years ago. Checking fence after
a storm turned into a long walk. We had to go get the 4020 to get her out.

Had a boss once who refused to get trucks w/4wd. He said that if we had it, we would use it to get into trouble. I hated that at the time, but he was right. Use 4wd only to get out of the trouble that 2wd got you into. Most of the time trucks are getting stuck because the driver is trying to save himself 200 feet of walking.

About 40 years ago one of the crews came back to the office about 5:30 P.M. and said they had gotten the truck stuck. It was mid-winter, dark, and cold, so after determining that they had locked it up, he said "We'll get it in the morning". Morning came - about 12å¡ F... The boss sent two of the least bright fellows out to retrieve the mired vehicle. When our crew arrived back at the office that evening we learned that that the "recovery crew" had pulled the body off the frame, and that it was still stuck! The following day the boss sent the same two out to remove the license plate and VIN number!! I was in the vicinity about 5 years later, and there was no trace...

I bought one of these for me and one for my wife:
http://www.bubbarope.com/professional-recovery-rope

It really helps when the vehicle doing the pulling is on the same slick stuff that caused the other to slide off the road. Around here it is red clay mud.

James

Hate that "snatch rope" term. When I was a boy I was out with my Dad and we came across a construction accident. A scraper had become stuck and they were trying to pull it out with a bulldozer, apparently by "snatching" it. The steel cable had snapped and went right through the CAT operator's chest. First time I had ever seen a dead man. Ever since then I have tried to stay out of sight of "getting unstuck" activities.

Norman Oklahoma, post: 394643, member: 9981 wrote: Most of the time trucks are getting stuck because the driver is trying to save himself 200 feet of walking.

That's a lesson I learned multiple times working for others. When I started my own business, I bought a 2WD truck. I think I've only been stuck once in the last 23 years.

Some years ago, in the middle of a snowstorm in the hilly city of Duluth MN, I ran the right front wheel of my 1954 Olds into a shallow roadside ditch. It was on a steep downgrade and the wheel stopped against a driveway embankment. My tires were bald. There was no way I could get enough traction to back out. I knew it might take half a day to get a tow truck, and would cost more than I could afford.

As I stood there looking at the stuck wheel, a thin and rather shaky-looking man walked up. I think he might have been one of the inhabitants of a shelter for homeless alcoholics that stood about half a block down the hill. "You got a jack?" he said, "We can get 'er out."

My Olds had a bumper jack like most cars did in those days. The shaky guy directed me to set it up in the center of the front bumper, and to turn the jack base upside down so the post was teetering precariously on a flat surface instead of being held by a socket.

I jacked up the car while the shaky guy steadied it. When both front wheels were about a foot off the ground he warned me to step out of the way. Then he pushed the car over to the left. The jack post tipped and popped out sideways, and the front of the car moved left, away from the ditch. We did that two or three times more, and I was on the road again.

Jim Frame, post: 394691, member: 10 wrote: That's a lesson I learned multiple times working for others. When I started my own business, I bought a 2WD truck. I think I've only been stuck once in the last 23 years.

You don't spend much time driving on ice or snow do you. Without 4WD I doubt you could make it out of my driveway for about half the year. 😉 You can always tell the 2WD folks come the first snow fall. They're the ones doing 360's while going down the road with eyes big as silver dollars.
Around these parts having a tow strap behind the seat is just as necessary as jumper cables.

I've seen too many vehicles broken to pieces by big powered trucks chained to something and they leave alot of slack and hit it as hard as they can while hooked to weak place and !!!! BANG !!!! another disaster.
I actually know people that love to jerk the lips off of their friends stuck vehicles and laugh at them afterwards.
I carry a 3/8in 100ft braided nylon rope and an assortment of rings, J bolts and clips to be able to hook safely to the stuck my ATV when it finds its way in a creek bed it won't climb out of and hook it up with a series of pulleys if needed.
Since I have had the ATV no trucks have been sunk to their frame.
Have had the truck to be on too slick of land to not move anymore, it just has not sank yet.
When that happens I roll the rope into a 12ft or 25ft. and hit it hard and snatch the Tacoma with the ATV until it moves on its own.
I really like the concept of a big rubber band like strap that will turn a 20ft into a 30ft and you pull hit it and pull to where the vehicle won't go any farther and then lock the brakes and the power of the strap actually pulls the stuck vehicle out of the hole.
The hookup and strap are very safe and the whole action is smooth and hardly any damage is done when hooked properly to a strong place.

As a control surveyor, I have been in lots of situations like that, as we are always going to inaccessible places to set control. I was stuck in Idaho, about 20 miles from the paved road, no cell service, and the other guys I was working with were out of radio range. We were doing quad control, getting photo ID's at 7.5' quad corners, and it had to be close to the actual corner of the quad, so some places took hours to get to. I got out, and saw a HUGE cat print in the mud (mountain lion). I had my 9 mm, water, and some crackers. I started walking, and walked about 6 hours, figured I would walk until it was dark and then bed down. A cloud of dust appeared on the horizon, and kept getting closer. It was two older couples in a quad cab pickup truck heading up to see if the pass was clear of snow yet (in June). They got me out.

Another time in El Salvador I got high centered on a rutted jungle road, and we sat there for a while wondering what we were going to do until a guy came along with a team of oxen pulling a cart. We hooked them up and pulled me out.

back in the day with a 3 man crew we use to have a chevy astro van that was pretty decent off road for a 2 wheel drive. When it did get stuck, we had it down to a science usually taking less than an 1/2 hour to get out.
One guy would go cut a 20' long by 4" min dia hardwood. second guy would cut or find a nice fulcrum like 24" x 36". Third guy would dig out as much as possible and line the path with our stakes. Set fulcrum behind rear bumber, insert pole, put all 3 guys on the other end and lift the van up and out swinging to one side or another, repeat for front end if needed. away we went.