Stuck Tacomas! Pics and Stories

The main ecu is right behind/next to the glove box...

 

I was curious about this because I had it in my head it was behind the passenger side fuse panel, but I was wrong. Here's a list of locations I found in case you or anyone else is curious.

The body ECU is behind the dash on the left side.
The ECM is behind the glove box.
The 4wd ECU is next to the ECM
The shift lock ECU is under the center console.
The transponder ECU is behind the gauge cluster.
The TPMS ECU is behind the A/C controls
The Occupant classification ECU is under the passenger seat

 

See it being I just went through all this, I can tell you what won't be affected by water.
Occupancy computer
Yaw sensor
My ECM was coated in wax, mine was under but was fine. You have an earlier model so it may not be fine.
There is a jumper bus right beside the ECU that is not coated, that will cause all sorts of havoc. All the other computers are unprotected. If water hit them they will have to be cleaned. I wouldn't think twice about buying it back, it can be saved

 

Yep. Another one.

 

I know that truck!

 

No pictures of the actual event, sorry.

This, of course is not as intense as the other stories out there but clay trails are seriously humbling.
No rig was damaged, no one flipped.

But the stuck factor was real and with only 1 winch on my cousin's Wrangler -- needless to say, I'll be ordering my winch very very soon. It would have gotten me out of some very slicky situations.
Location: Los Padres National Park (North end)
Rigs: My 02' DCOR (Double-cab Off-Road) w/2" Icons and 265/75 Nitto Ridge-grapplers.
My Cousin's 88" Wrangler, 5+inch lift, straight axles, custom diff/gearing 35" Wranglers.


The Experience: We found a fun steep hill trail that ran a few miles along the ridge-line of a mountain range. The track had some rock corner hill climbs and the rest was clay. At the time, that didn't bother us at all.

After a few miles of some excellent hills, we hit the end of the trail with clay-caked wheels. We felt like we were trying to drive on ice with slicks.
As we jumped out to read and have a beer---the weather loomed with a massive rain cloud heading our way. Although the weather said the afternoon would be dry, we were faced with some heavy rain coming right for the trail.
We jumped back in the trucks, and high-tailed it back down the ridge trail.
(Felt like Rainbow Road on Mario Cart N64)
Sadly, the clay was already getting sprinkles and we knew that, at minimum, we faced 4 massive hills that could be near impossible if the rain hits.

The Jeep ripped up the first hill and struggled up the first hill with a slight fishhook at the top of the 150 yard climb.
I took a breathe, put it in gear slowly... lost... traction... Coming to a stand-still momentarily, I started to slide backwards.
Keeping as cool as I could be I attempted to keep the truck straight as I went backwards. The track was so slick, I had no traction whatsoever so the drivers side started to drift to the berm before the ditch.
The truck was now drifting sideways, backwards down the hill--as the left side plowed through the berm (slowly) stacking clay over the wheels. Completely engulfing the left side of the truck to the rails, I got enough traction in reverse to crawl out of the ditch and straighten out at the bottom of the hill (still in reverse, heading backward).
My cousin started to walk back down the hill to come assist and was soon sliding down the slip-n-slide track/hill.

We dropped pressure, changed up gears, and got the MaxTrax out so we could straighten out the truck for another (few) attempt(s). With no success , we decided to risk the over-grown dead grass on the side of the trail, with the risk of punctures, unknown ditches, collapsible run-offs, and possible cliffs.
After a few more attempts at gaining traction, we finally got the truck up and out.
While we felt like king of the hill, we were just that; just one of many left to go.
The rain was more of a sprinkle still but more than enough to make the tracks slick and seemingly impossible at the time. Somehow, we climbed and descended each hill.
We kept moving, kept the momentum and kept working through each hill, one after another. All the following hills had similar stories of struggle, getting stuck, somehow (seemingly impossible at the time) we barely made it out and to the next hill.
What took us 45min to cover going in, took well over 4 hours going out.

Layers


What Did I Learn?
1) You can never have too much recovery gear.
2) A Winch would have been the assurance for a lot of this trip.
3) I was very thankful for my MaxTrax and mobile air compressor.
The End

 

Its almost 2 am. Out hog hunting. Stuck in the middle of a field. Winch on front and back and nothing to winch to for 500 yards. FML

 

Leave it and come back with a tractor? I don't see too many other options.

 

Hook the winch to your spare tire, bury it in the mud and hope it holds enough to pull you out to where you get traction.

 

I got it out, I have a universal CAT key and stole a log skidder from a few miles up the road. God it was cold. Returned it with a $20 bill under a rock on the seat

 

Nice work -- would a MaxTrax (or 4) would have gotten you out in this case? (if you had 'em on board)?

 

Definitely. MAJOR changes are coming for this truck. Frame and engine swap to 127 inch v6 frame, axle swap to keep the 4.10 ratio, 255 85 16 tire, original bed modified to full 8 foot by body shop, lietner designs rack, deckd drawers, 40 gallon aux tank in bed in front of drawers 120w solar panel and MaxTrax on top, and add another air locker in front.

 

Sounds like an impressive list! #BuildThread!

 

When I tried to use crawl mode in mud...

 

iconic story! thanks for sharing! gave me many lulz!

 

Paging @ItalynStylion

 

My story isn't too different from the one above. Had the truck for just a little while and wanted to tool around off road a bit. We were at a friend's parent's ranch, just had some rain the day before, and were ready to ROCK! This ranch has some fields that are dead flat and are typically used to grow some crops but this year, nada. The rain had left some good shallow (1-2" tops) puddles for us to tromp through which was fun. My friend had a Land Rover LR3 and we were just having a blast. Then, the unthinkable.

The front end of my truck just immediately SANK into VERY VERY deep water. 5+ ft deep with zero roll in. Destination fucked juuuuust doesn't quite say it. See, what happened was my friend's uncle, unbeknownst to us, had been using the tractor to dig 6ft deep irrigation trenches. The trench has filled up with water and looked like level ground. So I swan dive my shit right in there and the whole front end is submerged. Keep in mind, I'm open diffs at this point in my truck's career. Intake is under water so I tried for about 2 seconds to get out and then turned off the truck. My buddy JT was in the passenger seat white as a ghost when I told him, "Unbuckle, we're climbing out the back doors."

The whole front of the truck was flooded. Got winched out by his uncle's F250. I pulled the intake and made sure it was dry; then fired it up and drove it 2 hours back home. I stripped the whole interior and pulled the carpet so I could clean it. Only thing that broke was a DRL bulb because the headlights filled with water.

PS: The picture doesn't do it justice since the truck is severely leaning to the left.

 

These poor trucks haha!

 

Question on a recent sticky situation OR vs Sport experts. I really just want expert analysis. Im not an experienced offroader. Which is obvious here
I was stuck up in Tehachapi mountains 2 weekends ago in my Wifes Sport, which I had swapped OR OEM wheels/tires onto recently. So slightly more aggressive tires.
My right side was on icy asphalt, left side in snow covered mud(which i didnt realize at the time I parked). Homeowner directed me there unfortunately. Anywho, I got stuck, left side spinning freely, ride side did not move. I have a basic understanding of the TCS systems, but in 4wd Low I TRULY expected this rig to unstick itself easily. Just kept spinning. Wood under tires finally got me out. I live in valley, no snow ever. I provide healthcare to my patients in mountains tho. Rarely adverse weather
1. What happened here with the trucks system?
2. OR truck with locking diff would have walked it out easily?

(Yes, I wouldve gotten an OR, but I got $3500 off this rig; it is my wifes, and it will NOT be offroaded! And finally, she wanted scoop. Haha My attempt at Troll prevention here...)

 

Sounds a lot like the locker on an OR would have got you out. I’m not that familiar with the tech on 3 gems, probably the crawl control on an OR would have done it to. I don’t think the sports have any aggressive tech to get you unstuck, maybe someone else could chime in that knows more. Also, traction board would probably have done it too.