Yes, your kinder/gentler method works in some situations, but in the black bog holes we get up here, that just ain't gonna cut it most of the time. It took me one hell of a snatch to get my buddy Phil out of this black mud hole you see him in below. The tow strap is still in one piece too, by the way, even after several hundred such recoveries...



03 Rubicon, Silver, Lots of aftermarket armor.

quote:

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Originally posted by Yuri:
That's a good way to break tow straps! Not very safe neither. Then again, I don't have a stick. With the auto, I slowly tighten up the strap. When the strap is tight between the two vehicles, I give it a little gas. This usually works well.

BTW... I have a 30 ft strap.

Mark Yurescko
AKA: "no_hang"

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A recovery strap has some elasticity to it and is intended for using a bit of momentum. If you can pull gently that's great, but you will never pull a rig with more resistance than the traction you have that way.

Bouncing at the end of a strap at 30 mph is a bad idea as well, as is shackling two strap together, but hitting the end of the strap rolling is considered the right way to do it for bad stucks.

Agreed on both counts. It is the elasticity of the strap that both gives you the plucking power youi need, and it's what helps you avoid breaking off recovery points, too.

And for the record... My shackle only comes out to join two straps as an absolute last resort.

03 Rubicon, Silver, Lots of aftermarket armor.

I'm not sure about snatching with lockers locked. I would think a locked rear is OK, but I would avoid locked front.

03 Rubicon, Silver, XD9000I winch, York onboard air, and lots of cool stickers.

Yes...

That has been my way thinking too, even though I have used the front locker to give me that little added traction edge for a tough snatch, a few times since having owned my Con.

I'd love to hear more input form others about whether using the lockers for recoveries is real a bad idea or not.

03 Rubicon, Silver, Lots of aftermarket armor.

why put all the strain on the drivetrain?
Get a winch for slow(er), but smooth(er) recovery ....


-----------
'pay peanuts and you get monkeys'
'00 TJ

Hey TX, that shot of the Rubi in front of the RAVE was kind of strange. I had to drive by the RAVE here in Pensacola and it looks exactly the same. Cue X-files music.

Ron

"Remember never grow up just own a Jeep!"
03 Rubicon Patriot Blue, Warn xd9000i winch, Hi-lift jack, K&N Filter, Cobra CB, old tomken bumpers, Tuffy products, JKS BL, MORE MML, JKS Quicker Disconnects, OYR Corner Guards, Kilby Steering Skid, Warn D44 Diff Skids.
My Website Updated 18Mar03

hehehe I swear I wasn't in Florida!


Editor, Rockcrawler.com, Owner, 4x4Rockshop.com

I agree with y'all about the tow strap thing. I've had to use a little bump every now and then. When I read the original post, I envisioned a hammer-down tightening of a tow strap, a big snap, and people's legs cut clear off. My bad. In reality, we are thinking the same way.

Mark Yurescko
AKA: "no_hang"
Member: Southern Illinois Jeep Association
2001 TJ Sport

quote:

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Originally posted by Rubicon03:
Hey TX, that shot of the Rubi in front of the RAVE was kind of strange. I had to drive by the RAVE here in Pensacola and it looks exactly the same. Cue X-files music.

Ron

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Got one close to whre I live. And.....you guessed it, it looks the same too! ( Cue "Twilight Zone" theme, and slowly bring up volume as Rod Serling starts to speak. )

Dennis "The Menace" Mitchell
'95 YJ
"OK, who's idea was this?"
http://www.dennismitchell.rockcrawler.com

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rubiconvict:
Yes, your kinder/gentler method works in some situations, but in the black bog holes we get up here, that just ain't gonna cut it most of the time.
http://www.nova4x4.com/html/trails/nov242002/nov24th08.jpg

03 Rubicon, Silver, Lots of aftermarket armor.

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That looks like a cross between a tar pit, and some of the "black gumbo" mud we have here in Texas! Pretty nasty lookin' stuff.

Dennis "The Menace" Mitchell
'95 YJ
"OK, who's idea was this?"
http://www.dennismitchell.rockcrawler.com

Yeah, Dennis...that pretty much describes the black goop we get up here to a tee, brutha!

Back to the recovery strap subject again for a minute, if you'll humor me...

Here's a video clip that shows the kinder/gentler type of pluck, versus the harder kind of tug I am talking about. This is kind of the perfect video clip to show what I mean. It's shot from the cab of my Rubicon in deep snow. The red Jeep I first recover, comes out with one of those nice gentle tugs, but the blue I try to recover right next to red one, requires a MUCH harder tug to get it out of the snow bank, as you'll see in the clip...

http://www.nova4x4.com/html/trails/movies/TwoPlucksFromRubicon.wmv

03 Rubicon, Silver, Lots of aftermarket armor.

hmm, nice vroom vroom's but no video for me.

03 Rubicon, Silver, XD9000I winch, York onboard air, and lots of cool stickers.

Should play fine on a Windows Media Player. And you can always download one of those online, for free.

I guess the "vroom, vroom" audio doesn't tell you much, huh?!



03 Rubicon, Silver, Lots of aftermarket armor.

Oh and...

If you have the patience to download a longer video file, here's one of the local boys playing in the snow, and put to music...

http://www.nova4x4.com/html/trails/movies/snowrunmarch82003high.wmv



03 Rubicon, Silver, Lots of aftermarket armor.

Ok, it seems that both of those videos require a minimum of MP9.0 which I had been avoiding for a long time here at work as our 7.1 is quite stable and works for everything up until now. My hats off to the editor. A truly outstanding work of art.

03 Rubicon, Silver, XD9000I winch, York onboard air, and lots of cool stickers.

And now to move from one type of mud to another. On the Rubi's stereo issues. With most of todays *popular* ( well, not with me! ) music, it's all about muddy, thumpy bass. And with that, much of the music is recorded with a serious overkill on the bottom end EQ, and the stereos are designed to *enhance* the low end frequencies to an excess. Great if your into rap and hip-hop stuff, bites the big one if you like more complex and melodic forms of music. Including 70's rock-n-roll!

Clutch wear? 108,000 miles and counting on the original. With about 70,000 of that turning 33" tires and stock 4.10 gears. ( I know...shame on me for not re-gearing it yet. Please send donations! )

Dennis "The Menace" Mitchell
'95 YJ
"OK, who's idea was this?"
http://www.dennismitchell.rockcrawler.com

I am a professional musician (bass player), and I have my own small recording studio, so I do have a pretty good ear for hearing the bumps and humps in a system's response curve.

I have found that the stereo in my early production Rubicon sounds just fine with the bass slider pulled down to the all the way off position, when I have my hardtop 'on', but the really surprising thing is how that over EQed subwoofer sounds 'with the top off'...

I was always so disappointed with how bad and lacking in bottom end the stereo sounded in my old TJ, when driving topless. But with the Rubicon, what sounds terrible with the hardtop on, sounds perfect when topless.

Any of you other Rubicon owners tried the stereo while topless, yet?



03 Rubicon, Silver, Lots of aftermarket armor.

I have terriblew hearing but I have to say it does sound best with the soft top. Topless gets too little bass and hard top has too much.

03 Rubicon, Silver, XD9000I winch, York onboard air, and lots of cool stickers.

I sat here for a few minutes trying to think how the stereo sounds with the top down. I finally concluded I've never tried it !

I reckon having the top down is such an enjoyable experience that I never thought of trying to "enhance" it with music.



______________________________________
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- Robert Frost