Hi All
I just returned from a day of fun and frivolity in the Lerderderg State Park out behind
Bacchus Marsh here in Victoria.
I had my reasonably new lady friend with me she is a horse type person and enjoys the great outdoors, and had not been 4wd'ing to any great extent so was looking forward to it.
I was still testing out and learning the in's and out's of my diff locks fitted only recently. Anyway you all got the general idea.
So we where exploring some new tracks and gererally enjoying the bush when the track we were on split into 3 rejoining to one 100 meters further on with each avaliable track facing me filled with a lot of water filled ruts and mud puddles and split by groups of trees.
So I stopped and sized up the 3 tracks from the drivers
seat and picked the one that looked the shortest and easiest through the water. (It's only a water filled rut/puddle after all)
I picked the right hand side of this particular track with the view to trying to keep the right hand wheels on as much dry as I could so that I would have some traction, with the left in the mud/ruts. Sounds Good so far eh !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well I approched the track I wanted and drove in and suddenly found the front wheels slide to the left and buried themselves up the the bottom of the bull bar.
At the same time the rear also went to the left with the rear left wheel also sunk to the top of the wheel arch and the rear right slide and sunk down between two logs that suddenly appeared under the mud.
No problem I will just stick it in reverse and she will be right, as you can guess the diff locks worked just great all four wheel spun in the mud with no traction at all and just burried me a little deeper in the mud and going no where.
So I finally get out of the car and have a look at my situation and realise that I am now buried on 3 wheels to the body and the 4th not much better.
No worries I have a warn on the front and my recovery gear so I will just winch her out forwards.
So I Crawl over the bonnet so I wouldn't get my shoes wet or muddy, release the winch, strip of some cable and throw it to dry ground jump of the 4by hook up the winch and off we go. No problems.
The winch pulled me forward and slide further to the left where you guessed it the mud puddle was about 4 ft deep.
Now I have a Landcrusier troopy on a 45 degree angle to the left and getting worse by the second. My heart was now beating a little faster as I could picture my near new 78 series (with diff locks) on it's side in the mud. It was that close.
So realising that I now had to try to pack the wheels with timbers to try and give it some traction and stop it sliding futher left and over on it's side.
My new lady to the rescue she strips of her shoes and jeans without me asking and in her t - shirt and panties steps onto the puddle to render assistance and this is how we found out the puddle was 4 ft deep when she almost disapeared from sight. (No croc's in Victoria thankfully)
Anyway after a hour or so of heart in the mouth and I need a good panel beater and how do I explain this to the insurance company type feelings and shifting the the winch point a number of times to get the right angle of pull we finally got it out.
Afterwards we had a drink and cleaned my jocks if you know what I mean to calm down and we discussed it I realised that I made a very grave mistake in assuming that the puddle was shallow and not getting out to
check it on foot first even probing with a stick would have told me it was a hell of a lot deeper than I first thought. And saved me a lot of heart ach.
My second mistake was not having the ability to winch backwards, if I had done this first by using say a Tifor or a second vehicle I would only have had to winch backwards 2 to 3 meters to get the rear wheels back on dry ground and would probably been able to the drive out backwards.
So in the end I scared the crap out of myself and learned a hell of lot about not assuming anything in this business, I also am going to buy a Tifor to add to the recovery gear.
One last thing I did not have to take my shoes of or get wet she did all the wet/muddy work. I knew I brought her for a reason, great bit of recovery gear she is.