Matt’s Off Road Recovery

You guys probably already know about this channel, but it is awesome. Wholesome dude recovering off road vehicles. Check it out.

 

WTF is a wholesome dude?

 

He’s just a very patient, down to earth guy who constantly apologizes for not being good at YT.

 

No ego, no drama, kind and patient to everyone. They're rare. He pulls out people who have gotten their rentals stuck in ridiculous situations with a chuckle and a yellow Cherokee.

 

Is there a link involved or are we to search the interwebs ourself?

 

I assume you can find the channel on youtube, I believe I've seen some of his videos.

 

One would, but it would be better if there was a link. Unless, of course there has been drama on here over it in the past.

 

I kill many hours at work watching this channel

 

You left out the rest:


whole·some
/ˈhōlsəm/
Learn to pronounce

adjective
2. conducive to or promoting moral well-being.
"good wholesome fun"

 

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/c/MattsOffRoadRecovery/videos

I watch it from time to time.

 

“So we got a call...”

 

It’s on YouTube. He has lots of videos.

 

Yeah, it's an interesting channel. I love the "you got your Prius WHERE?" type videos.

He's a neat guy, but quite honestly some of his recoveries are, at best, scary as shit. You can tell he's a tow truck driver who bought a 4x4 and decided to try off-road recoveries.

He does tons of dynamic recoveries using chains and those steel "tow truck driver" hooks which is just insanely dangerous.

So many of his jobs would have been immensely easier with a $800 winch, too.

 

Lots of neat clips there.........I like that snow cat thing, sweet!

 

They’re J hooks on the end of a bridle and there is nothing dangerous about how he does it. That would be totally different story if the vehicle were stuck different than 99% of them are and if he were shock loading the chain and J hooks. That’s kinda the point of the Kinetic Recovery Ropes and he used them absolutely perfectly

 

Then why don't you see *any* other off road recovery using them? He's a tow truck driver and does what he does, but you never see hooks or chains being used (if done properly) off road.

 

You’re going to have to be more specific about your question here. But I’ll throw a couple guesses at what I think you’re asking.
IF you’re asking why you don’t see people in the Offroad leisure hobby not using j hook and chains, its for 2 reasons, 1)it’s not the best tool for what they’re doing, and 2)95% of what hobbiests do is monkey see monkey do perpetuated. If you just starting wheeling yesterday and saw a group of people using straps and shackles on bumpers specifically designed for those recovery tools, would you call up your local tow equipment supplier and buy something else you’ve never seen used and have no idea how to use?
I’ll take a different guess at the question you’re asking now and assume it was more along the lines of “why is he the only videos you see on YouTube using these tools” and I’ll give you a very simple answer, I (as do 99% of the other tow/recovery professionals) don’t usually find ourselves working with a film crew or take our phones out to video our recovery efforts for the whole world to see. I get in, size up the scene, figure out a solution, rig the job, double check it and execute. I don’t video it for people on the internet to complain about the chains and hooks I used, I just do it and move on to the next job.

He isn’t shocking loading the chain in the bridle or J hooks when using a kinetic recovery rope (KRR for short) because it stretches, there for there is no impact to damage anything. It loads it just the way winching just, just faster, but never shock loads it because the KRR has give. If he were just running a chain and j hooks to the vehicle being towed and then flooring his Jeep and driving away, he’d be shock loading the chain and that’s what breaks chain. Chain isn’t the enemy, but it also isn’t the best tool for the job most cases off-roading. I have well more than 100’ of straps, winch extensions and KRR in just my truck alone and it weights probably less than 20 pounds, I wouldn’t ever load 100’ of 3/8” chain into my truck for a trip because I don’t need to carry around 200 lbs when I could carry 20. But if you told me I was going out to pull a stuck vehicle from the mud that I can 100% guarantee has no recovery points cause it’s a Hyundai Sonata, I would bring the exact same tools he used and probably do it the same way he does.

 

And just to throw some numbers out there past the shock loading discussion, a single chain on that bridle (there are 2 chains and 2 hooks tho), if it’s the same as all the ones we use, which are what the trucks come with when spec’d and ordered, is grade 70 5/16 and the J hook has a WLL to match the chain, which is somewhere in the mid 4K lb range off the top of my head (I think 4700 but don’t quote me on that). A vehicle stuck the way all of the ones I’ve seen him pulling out has a load of approximately .15 the vehicle’s total actual weight because it has just lost traction and become stuck, it’s not swamped down to the frame or past the hubs or anything major. So he is no where near overloading anything in that system, and as I explained above, he isn’t shock loading anything either because of how he is doing it.

 

New video of matt recovering a tacoma, maybe a 2017 trd or. What was going on with the transmission near the end? Do you need to turn off active traction in the sand yo yo fix it?

https://youtu.be/uo74Q_T274g

 

He's talked about the winch before because lots of people ask him about it. He doesn't have one primarily for the weight savings, bit I think I heard him talk about maybe getting one. When he actually needs a winch, he brings someone with a winch. He definitely isn't opposed to it.