Nullifier
Expedition Leader
Well guys I have to say that after saturdays night ride in the areas wettest wheeling spot, I can say the snorkel and water proofing of the electronics not only worked but totally saved my Butt!
29 rigs headed for our infamous local play area. The area is loaded with tight heavily wooded trails (could barely open doors to get out from debris) that have alot of deep standing water. I was second in line and after diving into the first hole on 31"s 4 rigs decided to bail right then LOL!
Myself along with rig after rig found ourself stuck in 3-4' of water on several occasions. I got my self buried so bad in one hole it took 2 winches to get me out! It didn't matter if you were on 31" or 40"s you were stuck. . After 7 hours we had only made it 3 miles! At midnight we started to access our situation. We had 5 more holes to travers between the leaders and the next maintained road out. However we were working our way through a real bad hole where 6 of the first 8 rigs were toast. We had 2 electrical problems, 2 trannies, a motor and a grenaded diff. Mine was running poory since I got some water into he distributor (fixed in ten minutes) and the other running rig had a bad stater and no winch to pull out the now buried XJ on 38"s! We tried to use xj's winch but the line snapped, go figure. After I got mine back up and pulled out the xj we found a small overgrown bypass. We cleaned it up and brought the remaining 18 or so rigs around.
I was on point and had cleared 4 of the 5 remaining crossing when "it happened". For the first time I actually thought to myself wheel this is the end of the yota! The last 3 holes were back to back to back. Maybe 5' of dry ground in between each one. The first 2 were only tire deep. The third however I got in about 4' and there was a straight down drop! I was almost straight down and the water was on my windshield! I floored it and when the rear axle left the ground the bed was floating for abit. The front tires were barely pulling me along. Then the bed went down like the titanic and all 4 wheels were down on hard packed sand. Just as I found traction the water hit the tint strip on my windshield!!! The next thing I new the truck was climbing up and out the other side. I made it!
I guess in the end I was lucky. I know better then to forge ahead but it was late. We had hours of work to get rigs patched back together. It was in the high 30's and raining the whole time. I wanted to get out and thought based on the 2 preceding holes the worst was over. Sure enought there was an overgrown bypass that we cleaned up and brought everyone around.
Once we were out everyone left, exept the rover with the bad diff. Myself and 4 others stayed to help him. We had left his on the trail so we went back in and then pulled him out. I am not familiar with rovers and the owner had only basic knowledge of his D-90. We opted to take off the outer hub assembly and remove the front drive shaft so he could get him home under his own power. There was so much crap in the diff it was locking up with metal in the gears!
Bottome line we met up at 3:45pm saturday and I left for home at 4:15 am sunday! We only covered 3 miles. I got home at 5:30 got a shower and hit the sack for 3 hours before I got up to spend the day with the wife LOL! Today was an up and adam morning too, since I had hours of work to start cleaning and servicing the rig. It was worth it though. There are some great stories that came out of this ride lol, and once again the yota got through despite the stupidity of its driver LOL! I'm out time to get some sleep!
29 rigs headed for our infamous local play area. The area is loaded with tight heavily wooded trails (could barely open doors to get out from debris) that have alot of deep standing water. I was second in line and after diving into the first hole on 31"s 4 rigs decided to bail right then LOL!
Myself along with rig after rig found ourself stuck in 3-4' of water on several occasions. I got my self buried so bad in one hole it took 2 winches to get me out! It didn't matter if you were on 31" or 40"s you were stuck. . After 7 hours we had only made it 3 miles! At midnight we started to access our situation. We had 5 more holes to travers between the leaders and the next maintained road out. However we were working our way through a real bad hole where 6 of the first 8 rigs were toast. We had 2 electrical problems, 2 trannies, a motor and a grenaded diff. Mine was running poory since I got some water into he distributor (fixed in ten minutes) and the other running rig had a bad stater and no winch to pull out the now buried XJ on 38"s! We tried to use xj's winch but the line snapped, go figure. After I got mine back up and pulled out the xj we found a small overgrown bypass. We cleaned it up and brought the remaining 18 or so rigs around.
I was on point and had cleared 4 of the 5 remaining crossing when "it happened". For the first time I actually thought to myself wheel this is the end of the yota! The last 3 holes were back to back to back. Maybe 5' of dry ground in between each one. The first 2 were only tire deep. The third however I got in about 4' and there was a straight down drop! I was almost straight down and the water was on my windshield! I floored it and when the rear axle left the ground the bed was floating for abit. The front tires were barely pulling me along. Then the bed went down like the titanic and all 4 wheels were down on hard packed sand. Just as I found traction the water hit the tint strip on my windshield!!! The next thing I new the truck was climbing up and out the other side. I made it!
I guess in the end I was lucky. I know better then to forge ahead but it was late. We had hours of work to get rigs patched back together. It was in the high 30's and raining the whole time. I wanted to get out and thought based on the 2 preceding holes the worst was over. Sure enought there was an overgrown bypass that we cleaned up and brought everyone around.
Once we were out everyone left, exept the rover with the bad diff. Myself and 4 others stayed to help him. We had left his on the trail so we went back in and then pulled him out. I am not familiar with rovers and the owner had only basic knowledge of his D-90. We opted to take off the outer hub assembly and remove the front drive shaft so he could get him home under his own power. There was so much crap in the diff it was locking up with metal in the gears!
Bottome line we met up at 3:45pm saturday and I left for home at 4:15 am sunday! We only covered 3 miles. I got home at 5:30 got a shower and hit the sack for 3 hours before I got up to spend the day with the wife LOL! Today was an up and adam morning too, since I had hours of work to start cleaning and servicing the rig. It was worth it though. There are some great stories that came out of this ride lol, and once again the yota got through despite the stupidity of its driver LOL! I'm out time to get some sleep!
