Well it was an interesting year for the Explorer. Went to Moab for a quick trip. Tried to do a trail way south of town to some old dwellings but we turned around early due to the driver of the Jeep in the group being concerned about the health of his Jeep.
The next day we did Hell’s Revenge. I’ve done this trail about 5 times before and the addition of the 35s made it nice. Didn’t get many pictures.
Later I took another friend 4wheeling close to home. This was supposed to be a quick trip: leave in the morning and back mid afternoon. It was almost midnight when I got dropped off.....
The trail descends down to a river. The plan was to eat lunch at the river and head back.
When we got to the river, I saw this across the river:
Long story short, this 2017 4Runner sat in the river with water over its dashboard for a couple hours before getting pulled out to this location. Unfortunately, it’s on the wrong side of the river. We tried to get it started, but the electrical system was hosed and engine was pumping out gallons water out the exhaust pipe.
Decided to try to pull him out but I knew it would be tough. It’s very steep and the trail is fill of crushed granite- basically ball bearings.
But it wasn’t long before I was no longer to produce wheel spin. With my 4.56 gears and the loose surface, I should have been able to spin easily. The only forward motion I could manage with this flooded anchor attached to me was via my winch. It took a long time to get him clear of a narrow section of the trail but just short of making the steep climb away from the river. My transmission was getting hot (210+) and we kept having to take breaks to let it cool back down (to 190 or so). We decided to leave his rig and head out in the Explorer. But midway up the steep climb, the Explorer came to a stop. After some figuring, I discovered that it was my transfercase binding up and preventing the truck from moving- which is why my winch was the only thing that allowed me to move while towing him. Once I forced the tcase out of 4lo, I was able to drive out. I stopped midway out to let my buddy catch up and I pulled the fill plug on the tcase, the fluid that came out was dark and scalding hot (this was the next day):
Once up to the road, we met the sherrif that was apparently out looking for the 4Runner driver, we started to head home. But it wasn’t long before the entire tcase just grenaded and I coasted to a stop. I had to get strap towed into town by my buddy. I left it there overnight and got it towed the next day.
Photobucket is being a bigger PITA than usual. Maybe I’ll get around to updating the pics.
