reason not to wheel at night
05-10-2011, 05:18 PM
#1
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Thread Starter
reason not to wheel at night
well i decided i wanted to have a little bonfire out in a little sandy area in some local trails. i was pulling a trailer loaded down with pallets. my buddy was in front of me. well he was going up this washout and flexed out really bad, i didnt want to do that considering i was pulling a trailer and also running a 35" tire. so i decide to around the washout not knowing that the little trees i was hitting along the were right on the edge of a 10 foot ditch. my front passenger tire fell off the edge so i stopped and got everyone out. then hooked my buddys truck up to the trailer and he started pulling me back. needless to say, when he pulled me back i hit an even bigger washout of the ditch and rolled right in it. tried all till about 3 in the morning to get it out with no success, so we just left it and come back the next day with a tow truck. it took the tow truck 45 minutes to get me out of the ditch using two winches. we got it home. and in the next two days had it running after it had set upside down for more than 15 hours. no more wheeling at night.............[
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here are pictures
http://s1047.photobucket.com/albums/...urrent=774.jpg
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here are pictures
http://s1047.photobucket.com/albums/...urrent=774.jpg
Last edited by southernyota90; 05-10-2011 at 05:46 PM.
05-10-2011, 06:21 PM
#4
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the trailer had nothing to do with it really. it was mainly because i didn't want to flex out so bad that i would have ripped my fender off with my tire or blew a tire with my fender from flexing out so bad with 35s and only a body lift with no torsion lift. it was clearly a visibility problem. the trees were blocking the view of the cliff and i didn't know it was there till i found it the hard way..
05-10-2011, 06:50 PM
#6
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everytime we have a bonfire im the one that always pulls the trailer cause everyone of my friends drive chevys and can barely make it trhough the mud by themselves muchless pulling a trailer.
05-11-2011, 03:56 AM
#7
Registered User
Sounds more like clearance your body for your 35's problem to me. If they were, you wouldn't have been worried about flexing it out. And get yourself some good off-road lights. I see the hint of 1 light, not sure what they are, but more may be in order. 
Sucks about the roll over though.
Sucks about the roll over though.
Last edited by xxxtreme22r; 05-11-2011 at 03:58 AM.
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05-11-2011, 08:52 AM
#10
I was thinking that too. But I've got no room to talk. I've had trouble staying on trails in broad daylight. So I chose the other obvious poor choice, the trailer(loaded no less).
05-11-2011, 08:50 PM
#13
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Thread Starter
i had just installed two long range hella lights earlier that day. i know the trails very well but i guess i never really notice hat the ditch was so close to the edge. the wash out is not normalythat bad but it had just rained. just a buch of small mistakes all added up. but in the end i got very lucky with only $430 woth the damage. well 200 was for the tow truck. and 75 for the windshield (good friend in windshield business) and new cold air intake cause i ripped one of the stock hoses trying to get it off to get to the spark plugs to blow the oil out.
11-06-2012, 06:17 PM
#17
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Directional Hellas really don't help. If you expect to go out at night, you should get a roll bar, and have two long range lights in the middle and on each side a more broad light to see where the wheels are headed. If you can't see the light hitting the ground, stop.
03-20-2017, 05:45 PM
#18
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I was wheeling my FJ one night and decided to cross the Gila river in AZ in a place where I had crossed many times. I wasn't aware that they had stopped the irrigation water causing the river to rise about 2 feet. I entered the river and noticed the water was about halfway up my door. I thought I may have been in a deeper channel of the river since I was driving down it instead of straight across. I made it across just fine. I had to cross one more time to hit a popular trail to get home. As I was crossing I noticed the water was getting really deep and then my headlights were gone. Luckily I had my rack lights on. There were two jeeps on the opposite bank and all I could think was I don't want to jump out the window to pass off my tow strap, and I'll be damned if a jeep is going to pull out this Toyota. It was then water came over the hood and splashed my windshield. Knowing the air intake is on the forward side of the passenger wheel well I punched it to create space at the intake. I made it across with no incident, rolled down my window and uttered one word with pride and confidence. "TOYOTA!" Everyone who was watching cheered and I drove home to scrub the brown ring out of my seat. Had it been daytime I would have thought twice about crossing. Good times.
11-01-2018, 09:36 AM
#19
...i hit an even bigger washout of the ditch and rolled right in it. tried all till about 3 in the morning to get it out with no success, so we just left it and come back the next day with a tow truck. it took the tow truck 45 minutes to get me out of the ditch using two winches. we got it home. and in the next two days had it running after it had set upside down for more than 15 hours. no more wheeling at night.............
I don't do much wheeling at night because visibility is so important and I don't feel comfortable without being able to see everything. Plus, if I got into a mess I'd never hear the end of it.
I have plenty of extra KC lights installed but they are primarily for on-road use when nobody else is around. Some of the roads I drive often have wildlife attempting crossings.
Last edited by Brock Lee; 11-01-2018 at 09:40 AM.
11-02-2018, 06:57 AM
#20
Lightbars before lockers 
