Florida B.S. Thread

@allenfab and @GuyHuey have winches if they go. The truth is though, I haven't seen winches be all that effective in these sort of situations. Another truck and a snatch strap usually do better.

 

BTW, here's the link for the Richloam expedition for those that are interested in going...

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/richloam-wma-info-meet-thread.295606/page-17#post-17839065

 

I texted him. He's in.

 

A snorkel isn't necessary as long as you still have your right side wheel well liner intact (still don't know why Frank took his out when his truck was stock ). My rule of thumb is that if the water reaches the top of my tire, I back out and try a different line. That keeps my breather above the waterline and the door seals will usually keep the water out as long as you don't spend a lot of time sitting still in the water.

The only time I've gotten water in the truck was when I got stuck (being a smartass) in that bulldozer hole at Citrus that I think @FlyinRyan893 pulled me out of.

 

There is this nasty mud down here in south Fl we call mashed taters. It creates a suction around the tires it sometimes is a pain in the arse to get traction to do a good OL TUG JOB. In these type of scenarios I think a winch would do better. I do believe the kinetic rope will come in handy it did well pulling Frank over the culvert pipes at Hardrock.

 

I've got a snatch strap as well as tree savers, snatch blocks, and shackles just in case any off line pulls are necessary.

 

Well, winch technology might have improved a bit over the last 25 years or so, but in my experience, in thick nasty swamp mud, that like John said, creates a suction around the tires, I've seen so many people burn up their 12k lb winches trying to winch themselves out, only to end up getting snatched out. I've actually been a party to two events like that. The first time is was an old late 70s era Ford with a 12.5K lb winch on the front. He ended up getting stuck and while all his friends were laughing at him on the other side of the hole, I offered to dig my rear axle down so he could use my truck (an '89 F150 std cab long bed on 38s) as an anchor to hook his cable to and pull himself out. He thanked me and accepted...and proceeded to burn his winch up attempting to pull himself out. I ended up snatching him out. (The really neat, but hilarious part was when I got stuck later on that day, the dude RAN to his truck and RACED around the hole so he could return the favor and pull me out.)

The other event was one of those crowning moments of awesome for me. There was this drunk wrecker driver with an F-superduty boom truck wrecker out at the mud hole we were partying at one night telling everyone he'd pull anyone out for a case of beer, which wasn't cool with out group. If you're out there partying and playing, you help a brother out whether you know him or not and don't expect anything in return. Any way the dude screwed around and got himself stuck. A guy in our group had an F250 crew cab diesel long bed 2WD. It was a big heavy truck so after we let the jerk sit out there for about a half hour (he never even got out of the truck, had a do-boy slogging through the mud for him) my buddy offered to dig his rear axle down and let the wrecker attempt to pull himself out. The end result was that the wrecker burned up both his HYDRAULIC winches and remained stuck.

Now I had an '81 Toyota HiLux with a diamond plate flat bed on half bald 29" Goodyear Wrangler street tires. After we watched the guy sit out there for about 3 hours, I finally went up to him. the truck didn't have any recovery points on the front, but I told the guy if he wrapped a chain around his front leaf spring shackle and hooked the other end to my strap, I'd see what I could do. Now our group had this massive 40' long strap that made my big strap look like a joke so his do-boy hooked a chain around the spring shackle and the other end to the strap. I took the slack out to see where the hit was going to come and gave him a little courtesy dead tug, then I backed up about 35', wrapped that 20R up to 5500 RPMs, 1st gear, low range, and dumped the clutch. That's when the crowning moment of awesome happened. When I hit the end of the strap, I yanked that heavy ass wrecker clean out of the hole in one shot with my little light ass Yota. Everybody at the mudhole was cheering for me. It was great.

Anyway, that's my experience with winches and swamp mud.

 

Awesome story those old yotas and samurais would float over some flag ponds lol the good ol days when Fl wasnt so developed with new homes and condos.

 

Thanks John...

 

No better way to spend Christmas than with family lol. Your truck was pretty much stock back than. Im sure you would make it through there now

 

True!

 

Are all of the newer homes in that area in gated communities? Seems like my girl keeps finding homes with an HOA.

 

I have a kinetic recovery rope too. But we'll be fine, this group has enough experience to get into and out of a ton of trouble...

 

Amen to that, Brother.

 

I need to get a tree saver strap, a soft shackle, and another 3/4" shackle, so I can use both my new front recovery points at the same time. Meaning, hooking the tree saver to the 3/4" shackles at the recovery points and then using the soft shackle to hook a recovery strap/winch line/whatever to the tree saver strap so the load is distributed across both recovery points. With the added benefit that I could just loop the tree saver strap over my bumper hoop instead of having to hook it up every time. The soft shackle would be in case something breaks there isn't a couple pounds of steel flying towards someone or another truck.

 

I want to go to the soft shackles too. Have you looked into who's making good ones for not a ton of money?

 

I haven't yet. @Trident904 might have some info. I think he has some. I was going to check out Bubba Rope and see how much those are. I'll probably get my other 3/4" shackle and tree saver from US Cargo Control. They have the most reasonably priced straps and steel shackles I've found.

 

Looks like Ebay has 2 for around $50 gator jaws that is a bubba rope brand with a 11,000 breaking point I'll do some more re-search.
Edit:I have one that came with my kinetic that anybody is more than welcome to use in the time of need.

 

Actually looks like the ones that are for vehicles should have a breaking strength of 20000 lbs and up here is a Amazon link $65 for 2
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BP7KV37?aaxitk=130CIY9ZxUaATmh9a4aUiA

 

Hmm...interesting. Considering most of our straps and kinetic ropes (and probably winch lines) have a breaking strength of ~20K lbs, it looks like you could go with the smaller cheaper ones and still not have the shackle be the weak link.