Your 'Oh f^ck' moments
Discussion
My friend in a Mitsubishi Pajero had a problem climbing a very steep slippery muddy slope with high banked sides, about sixty or seventy metres long. He tried and tried but failed every time, sliding back down again. 'Why don't I see if I can get up in my Defender', said I, and then I can tow you up from the top.' Good plan.
He reversed his Misubishi off the slope and I moved forward in my Defender. Selected third gear, low range, diff lock on. 'OK here i go' I said on the radio.
'OK.' Came the reply back from the hand-held VHF radio in the other car.
I gunned the engine and went charging up the hill, bouncing over some rocks and slewing from side to side on the hard packed clay mud, glancing blows on both sides from the high banks. Up, up, up and the brow of the slope was in sight. Near the top was a section where the Mitsubishi had become cross axled. There was no room to take a different line, the only option was to try to bounce over with a bit of momentum. Over one set of holes, the top just a couple of metres away, and, s
t, wheel spin. Going nowhere. No problem, into reverse, back down a bit and try again. Here it where it went tits.
Reversed down slowly, but WOULD NOT STOP. Every touch on the brakes locked the wheels and caused a slide. No problem, I could reverse down the whole way to the bottom. Except that, to my horror, the Mitsubishi had lined up the bottom to follow me. 'MOVE YOUR CAR!' I yell on the radio. I am moving backwards and nothing would stop me. OH F^CK!
There is no reply.
I try the brakes - no, they have become a 'go faster' pedal. I try to steer into the bank - no, the Defender doesn't respond. I have no option but to reverse directly at my mate's Mitsubishi. I hit the brakes at the last moment because it seems wrong not to somehow and smash my rear corner into his wing.
'Er, mate, why didn't you move your car back?' I ask calmly.
'It was stuck' was the reasonable answer..
F^ck!!!!!!!!
Lessons learned:
make sure the bottom of a slope is clear before beginning a climb.
Make sure both cars have radios - the hand held radio in the Mitsubishi been handed to an observer so there was no car to car comms.
Always buy a Defender over Japanese - my car sustained minimal damage, his Mitsubishi quite a lot.
(I did try the slope again, made it up, then used a kinetic strap to haul the Mitsubishi over the last rough bits in the end)
Any more OH F^CK offroading tales?
He reversed his Misubishi off the slope and I moved forward in my Defender. Selected third gear, low range, diff lock on. 'OK here i go' I said on the radio.
'OK.' Came the reply back from the hand-held VHF radio in the other car.
I gunned the engine and went charging up the hill, bouncing over some rocks and slewing from side to side on the hard packed clay mud, glancing blows on both sides from the high banks. Up, up, up and the brow of the slope was in sight. Near the top was a section where the Mitsubishi had become cross axled. There was no room to take a different line, the only option was to try to bounce over with a bit of momentum. Over one set of holes, the top just a couple of metres away, and, s
t, wheel spin. Going nowhere. No problem, into reverse, back down a bit and try again. Here it where it went tits. Reversed down slowly, but WOULD NOT STOP. Every touch on the brakes locked the wheels and caused a slide. No problem, I could reverse down the whole way to the bottom. Except that, to my horror, the Mitsubishi had lined up the bottom to follow me. 'MOVE YOUR CAR!' I yell on the radio. I am moving backwards and nothing would stop me. OH F^CK!
There is no reply.
I try the brakes - no, they have become a 'go faster' pedal. I try to steer into the bank - no, the Defender doesn't respond. I have no option but to reverse directly at my mate's Mitsubishi. I hit the brakes at the last moment because it seems wrong not to somehow and smash my rear corner into his wing.
'Er, mate, why didn't you move your car back?' I ask calmly.
'It was stuck' was the reasonable answer..
F^ck!!!!!!!!
Lessons learned:
make sure the bottom of a slope is clear before beginning a climb.
Make sure both cars have radios - the hand held radio in the Mitsubishi been handed to an observer so there was no car to car comms.
Always buy a Defender over Japanese - my car sustained minimal damage, his Mitsubishi quite a lot.
(I did try the slope again, made it up, then used a kinetic strap to haul the Mitsubishi over the last rough bits in the end)
Any more OH F^CK offroading tales?
Going up fairly steep grassy hill, 2nd gear low range. Right on the steepest part there is a small bump which breaks traction and it decides to take off backwards. Reflex grabbed reverse, still sliding with engine braking. Gave it some gas to back out of it and... it wouldn't turn, just carried on sliding backwards down the hill. Hmmm.
Eventually managed to swing the nose around with a dab on the brakes, then back on the gas to reverse it across the face and stop. Which was good, because 20m further would have seen us rolled by some large rocks.
This was at work, with the boss in the passenger seat... funny enough after that he decided I had been right a week earlier about the rear tyres getting a bit low on tread.
Similar story for me - attempting a long and steep hill climb in my 2.25lt diesel S3, just ran out of steam a couple of metres from the top. No problem thinks I, quickly stamps on the brakes and clutch to do a failed hill climb reverse, unfortunately the drum brakes were full of mud so completely failed to hold me on the slope. As I started to rapidly gain speed back down the hill I couldn't get it into reverse as there's no syncro so my efforts were rewarded with massive gear grinding noises. I was frantically pumping the brakes in an effort to slow my completely out of control descent. All I could do was hold on for dear life and try and keep it straight down the hill. Luckily there was a bog at the bottom of the hill which stopped me and prevented a full speed crash into a stone wall. The joys of off roading!
Also had a few moments whilst travelling along a 4WD only track in Australia. The track was around 70 kms long to Israelite Bay in WA, a couple of hours drive thinks I,well 10 hrs later with just one stop to eat we got back to our campsite!! I ended up driving the track at night with limited visibility due to wind blown dust and completely hopeless off road lights. The return track had numerous mud holes which were disguised by the dust so the first I knew of them was when the nose of the 110 dived into the mud, all I could do was floor it and hope the massively aired down A/T tyres would drag us through. Once whilst trying to avoid a mud hole the 110 slid into it and very nearly rolled over, although I told my wife and 4 year old daughter that we were in no danger of rolling!!No need to worry them too much. Boy was I glad to get back onto the "normal" dirt road. After that I had a new found respect for Australian 4WD tracks
https://www.facebook.com/andrew.kirkup1/media_set?...
Don't know if the link will work but its the photos of our 4WD adventure!
Andy
Also had a few moments whilst travelling along a 4WD only track in Australia. The track was around 70 kms long to Israelite Bay in WA, a couple of hours drive thinks I,well 10 hrs later with just one stop to eat we got back to our campsite!! I ended up driving the track at night with limited visibility due to wind blown dust and completely hopeless off road lights. The return track had numerous mud holes which were disguised by the dust so the first I knew of them was when the nose of the 110 dived into the mud, all I could do was floor it and hope the massively aired down A/T tyres would drag us through. Once whilst trying to avoid a mud hole the 110 slid into it and very nearly rolled over, although I told my wife and 4 year old daughter that we were in no danger of rolling!!No need to worry them too much. Boy was I glad to get back onto the "normal" dirt road. After that I had a new found respect for Australian 4WD tracks
https://www.facebook.com/andrew.kirkup1/media_set?...
Don't know if the link will work but its the photos of our 4WD adventure!
Andy
GravelBen said:
Going up fairly steep grassy hill, 2nd gear low range. Right on the steepest part there is a small bump which breaks traction and it decides to take off backwards. Reflex grabbed reverse, still sliding with engine braking. Gave it some gas to back out of it and... it wouldn't turn, just carried on sliding backwards down the hill. Hmmm.
Eventually managed to swing the nose around with a dab on the brakes, then back on the gas to reverse it across the face and stop. Which was good, because 20m further would have seen us rolled by some large rocks.
This was at work, with the boss in the passenger seat... funny enough after that he decided I had been right a week earlier about the rear tyres getting a bit low on tread.
2009 UAE Desert Challenge Day 2:
SWB Nissan Patrol with Denali V8 engine, 2 3" straight through exhausts and twin coil + bypass shocks on all corners.
Car caught fire going up a dune, driver & I bail out, car burning front to rear 30 seconds later (~200L of fuel on board). I have pics and video of the event, I might have been slightly emotional when speaking to the wife.
The burnt out shell, diffs, gearbox etc is still in the desert.
SWB Nissan Patrol with Denali V8 engine, 2 3" straight through exhausts and twin coil + bypass shocks on all corners.
Car caught fire going up a dune, driver & I bail out, car burning front to rear 30 seconds later (~200L of fuel on board). I have pics and video of the event, I might have been slightly emotional when speaking to the wife.
The burnt out shell, diffs, gearbox etc is still in the desert.
2012 showing a visitor the delights of Big Red dune outside Dubai in the wife's LR2 and on a fairly rapid descent I run along a crest with a plan to quickly turn left down into a bowl. Spot a stuck car where I'm planning to exit down to so quickly try to turn right but end up sliding on the belly along the knife edge at the top of the dune. Forward momentum stops, then sideways begins...car goes silent as we're all thinking we'll be barrel rolling out. Finally the weight of the engine pulls the front down and we drive out. Visitor exits car, I go back up!
Enthusiastic amateur doesn't even cover it.
Enthusiastic amateur doesn't even cover it.
I was doing some driving for a charity simulated game shoot, sponsored by the Mercedes garage I was working at. We took a fleet of newish M class to run the guns between pegs. The ground was quite wet and with some slippery side ascents the M classes with road tyres were slipping quite a lot. The only way to get them up was to turn the stability control off and wheelspin them up.
We'd had a slight incident we'd had to stop for and one of my colleagues jumped into my car, so I got into his and set off, with my chairman and some other guns in the car. We set off up an ascent with a fair sideways slope, on wet grass, and, had been the way all day, the car started to slip. This time though it wouldn't wheelspin up and we began to slide sideways towards a river. I fought and fought the car, the passengers thought it was great fun and I was doing it for effect. As we neared the river I saw the ESC light flashing wildly on the dash and realised I'd forgotten to switch it off in the new car. I hit the button, gave it some revs, and we were off, back up the hill.
The chairman thanked me for showing off the capabilities of the car so well
We'd had a slight incident we'd had to stop for and one of my colleagues jumped into my car, so I got into his and set off, with my chairman and some other guns in the car. We set off up an ascent with a fair sideways slope, on wet grass, and, had been the way all day, the car started to slip. This time though it wouldn't wheelspin up and we began to slide sideways towards a river. I fought and fought the car, the passengers thought it was great fun and I was doing it for effect. As we neared the river I saw the ESC light flashing wildly on the dash and realised I'd forgotten to switch it off in the new car. I hit the button, gave it some revs, and we were off, back up the hill.
The chairman thanked me for showing off the capabilities of the car so well
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