NJ B.S. Thread

Apparently, according to my wife.

I go home.

 

Someone went big before we went home last night.

I'll let them tell the story before posting anything more..

To be honest that will happen to all the plastic self recovery ramps. I have TREDs and have burned some nubs off from tire spin. Also Maxtrax sells an upgraded metal nub to replace the burnt nubs on theres. Though plastic quality could make a difference its a common occurrence. The trick is to try to get them properly set under the tire as much as possible and not set in front of the tire. Also keep in mind to keep tire spin to a minimum, you wanna crawl out to get unstuck. This picture is actually one of the reasons I'm weary of using my TREDs to recover other vehicles.

Me driving. Proper tire rotation till you feel the trax grip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_Gc6iL0Opg


Wife driving. Monkey covering eyes emoji face

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiNg895UOLc

 

How about a nice Tuk Tuk?

 

Like @Chux said same thing would have happened to maxtrax. Don’t feel bad for saving money, buy not getting maxtrax you didn’t have to pay the extra “overland” tax to be part of the popularity contest

 

The only thing that makes me feel bad is I wasn’t recovering my truck. Was helping someone else.

 

That’s always what happens.

 

^^^this. Whether it be they don’t know (most likely) or they don’t care, most damage I’ve seen to traction boards is from other people using them.

 

^^ This.

I saw first hand at Rausch @V5ioV tried to help someone out stuck on trail with his TREDs brand new never used. Regardless of the stuck being hung up high sentered on a stump, the driver continually tried to gun it burning up quiet a few of the nubs on the TREDs.

 

Well that sucks.. don't they have a warranty of some sort?

 

I think I paid like $85 over a year ago. If I had to ship them back it wouldn't be worth it. I don't plan on getting stuck anyway.

 

I have been thinking about getting these. Anybody here has experience with them?

$72 TRACGRABBER Tire Traction Device for Trucks & Large SUVs, Set of 2 -Made in the USA, Anti Skid Emergency Tire Straps to Get Unstuck from Snow, Mud, & Sand -Snow Traction Mat or Tire Chain Alternative

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00O5BVMJI/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I1LQ8JMJZXA9PD&colid=3LRNUW2OB1MJJ&psc=1

 

A little salt on the popcorn to the story of snow wheeling last night. This is 2/3 of recovery straps daisy chained together to finish recovery.

 

Little trip report from yesterday:
Went wheeling with @bski22 @Subway4X4 and @JCjeeper
We met up at around 8:30, lloyd had just got an alignment done so we had to wait on him putting his LCA skids on in the parking lot and departed.


We decided to do the same trails Lloyd, Jeremy, and I had mapped out recently which were relatively tame with a few obstacles here and there.
Not far into the trek we ran into a decent sized rock face that @bski22 was having trouble getting up, mostly due to poor traction on loose dirt/mud. Lloyd, jeremy, and I spotted him up and he crawled up pretty easily. lloyd followed robs line and we got through no problem. The trails were pretty tight from then on, nothing we couldn't handle but tighter than we'd all prefer for sure. We were lucky we didnt have snow at this point.


We ascended a small hill and came down the other side to an open area where @JCjeeper had noticed I was leaking something out the front diff.


I quickly noticed my CV had pulled out of the front diff a little bit allowing a small amount of gear oil to leak out. Frankly I was happy to see it was just this and I didnt break something in the diff, as I had heard a few loud bangs earlier when I came down hard on some rocks. I parked on a level area and we attempted a trail repair. Meanwhile it finally decided to start snowing and it was accumulating pretty quick. I first attempted to bang the shaft back into the diff with a long screwdriver and a hammer in one of the notches on the diff side of the CV, no dice.


Lloyd decided to make lunch since it was pretty clear we'd be here awhile, despite the fact it was only about 10:30. We then tried taking the nut off the lower ball joint, pulling the spindle up and then banging the CV back in with the weight of the spindle. Still no good. I decided it'd be best to just park it and hop in with jeremy to finish up the trip.


We set off again at about 12:30 and now the trails got a little more challenging. The rocks became noticeably harder to crawl over and we found ourselves sliding around quite a bit, especially towards trees, as if those things weren't magnets already.


We came to a choice between the rocky bypass or the water crossing. The only real reason we were even debating this was because it wasn't easy to tell how deep the water was. If we did have to take the rocky bypass I have a feeling it would have been a mess. Turns out it was just a shallow puddle but past experience told both lloyd and I it could be way deeper at times.


https://youtu.be/4FqR_ffUW08

The rest of the trail was tame and not too tight, we decided to loop around when we came to a fork and headed down a pretty steep hill that we all know and, well, used to love . I was concerned about how slippery it'd be going down but we all came down pretty easily. Rob noticed about halfway down the hill that something was making noise in the front end, not sure what it could have been but if I was to guess Id say it was something in that nasty water we crossed earlier that got into the brakes. We looped around and went back up towards my truck down about a mile and a half long trail. No issues besides some slipping on a handful of small hills.





We got to my truck, took a group picture and departed. The only snow wheeling my truck saw was on the short trails out




Overall had a good time and hope to get out again soon! Was nice meeting you @bski22 hopefully you'll get a lot more trips under your belt this year.

 

@Lux Nice write up brotha. Some of that area including the water crossing seems familiar. Last time we went thru there the water was headlight deep

 

Did @bski22 air down to help with traction?

 

yea, not sure what he was at, I think I mistakenly said it was traction but I think in reality his sway bar was limiting his down travel.

 

Ahh thats makes sense