F
Former User
Guest
Well, first off i'm not too happy with the Alpha right now, granted it's treated me very well in the history of owning it, just not recently and it might be time to build a street legal trail rig and get a chevy cruze to run around in.
Friday night after work I decided to do a short snow trail up in the hills north of my house, i have done this trail dozens of times, it's short and fun. Well I made it half way through the trail when **** hit the fan. I drove over this same spot wednesday with no problem, friday's adventure didn't fair as well. It was about 8:30 pm, the front end broke through the ice first, left front cv snapped instantly leaving me with 2wd. The rear pumpkin was hung up on the center ice slab, the gas tank and tcase cross member were also hung up, and i wasn't going anywhere. My brother came out in his truck to try and tow me out of it, wasn't budging. Hooked the rhino up to his truck for a train yank, still nothing. I tried jacking up the rear axle off the ice, then yanking it back, got maybe 2" doing that. So i finally called it quits about 11:50pm when the temp read 6*. I got up there saturday morning about 10am, and the whole thing had turned to ice, the 3 was "one" with nature, frozen solid in there with over half the left rear tire frozen solid in mud/ice. So i started chipping away ice and frozen mud till 4:30, when my friend came up with his 98' SAS 4runner on 37's to try and yank me out, still nothing. At this point i'm thinking great, it's going to re freeze tonight and i'm going to be back to square one. Just as i was about to call it quits, a guy comes over the hill in a well built 80 series toyota land cruiser with a 12k lb winch, he offers his help, and if i didn't know better i would have thought it was god himself. He gets up on the flats, anchors himself well, and tries to winch me out, the whole ice hole seemed to want to come with me, it wasn't budging. So my friend in the 4runner trains up to the back of him, they both hammer down and finally she breaks loose. About half way out of the ice hole, something got wedged between the front left caliper and wheel, broke the inside of the wheel. My left rear tire was still frozen solid as it was one chunk of ice from the outside of the wheel to the leaf spring. My only tire with power was the right rear. Needless to say, he winched me up that hill as dead weight, got me to the flats and i left her there saturday night so i could go back up sunday, swap the left front tire out, and thaw out the left rear. He said he's never seen his winch get worked so hard recovering someone or himself, and wondered how much the 3 weighed haha. It took us about 45 min to get it up a 20-30* sloped hill maybe 75 yards long, i thought his winch was going to burn up, luckily it didnt. So i go up sunday, get the spair on the front, 3-4 trips with 5 gal of hot water each time and lots of chipping away ice, i finally broke the left rear tire free. Now it came time to see if i could even get out of the hills in 2wd with that awesome open rear end
. Nope, I get stuck on the last hill and can't back down in 2wd because i kept sliding off the trail almost ending up in a ravine. I thought for sure that was going to be it's final resting place until the snow melted or i went up and replaced the cv in the hills. We finally got it up the hill with our rhino hooked 10ft in front of me, and that hooked to my friends 4runner 100ft in front of it up on the flats. I still can't believe we got it up that last hill, it was a miracle. Especially because it was starting to snow badly and it was dark by this time. So i get it to work monday, broken left front cv, bent stabilizer link, get her fixed and back on the road. Drove fine, thought it was over other than the broken wheel. Well merging off the freeway monday night, the steering wheel got real loose, then jerked to the right really hard, then to the left, then right, did that 4-5 times, i'm super lucky i didn't end up in the barrier or on my lid, so i think great i'll look at it in the next parking lot, go to take off from the first stop light, "bang, pow, snap, pop, grind, wuh wuh wuh, rpm's go up, no movement" put it in 4hi, pull into the parking lot, sure enough, rt side cv destroyed at hub side joint. Possibly hub too, haven't torn it apart yet. Might be something up with the steering gear as well not sure. But luckily i was able to limp it home and to work, where the adventure continues. I must give huge thanks to the guy with the land cruiser, my friend colton with his 4 runner, my friend taylor for being there the whole time diggin her out with me chipping away ice for what seemed like weeks, and driving the rhino. It's a great feeling to have been helped out so much, with out them it would still be in that ice hole waiting for the snow to melt. So HUGE thanks to them, i won't ever be able to repay them, but hopefully i'll be able to help them out if they ever need it, or anyone else for that matter.
None of this mud/dirt was showing before i approached it.
This is where i got winched/towd to. Didn't get any other pictures...
That's my latest "adventure" :no:
It's now lunch time, which means getting it in the shop and doing a tear down.
Friday night after work I decided to do a short snow trail up in the hills north of my house, i have done this trail dozens of times, it's short and fun. Well I made it half way through the trail when **** hit the fan. I drove over this same spot wednesday with no problem, friday's adventure didn't fair as well. It was about 8:30 pm, the front end broke through the ice first, left front cv snapped instantly leaving me with 2wd. The rear pumpkin was hung up on the center ice slab, the gas tank and tcase cross member were also hung up, and i wasn't going anywhere. My brother came out in his truck to try and tow me out of it, wasn't budging. Hooked the rhino up to his truck for a train yank, still nothing. I tried jacking up the rear axle off the ice, then yanking it back, got maybe 2" doing that. So i finally called it quits about 11:50pm when the temp read 6*. I got up there saturday morning about 10am, and the whole thing had turned to ice, the 3 was "one" with nature, frozen solid in there with over half the left rear tire frozen solid in mud/ice. So i started chipping away ice and frozen mud till 4:30, when my friend came up with his 98' SAS 4runner on 37's to try and yank me out, still nothing. At this point i'm thinking great, it's going to re freeze tonight and i'm going to be back to square one. Just as i was about to call it quits, a guy comes over the hill in a well built 80 series toyota land cruiser with a 12k lb winch, he offers his help, and if i didn't know better i would have thought it was god himself. He gets up on the flats, anchors himself well, and tries to winch me out, the whole ice hole seemed to want to come with me, it wasn't budging. So my friend in the 4runner trains up to the back of him, they both hammer down and finally she breaks loose. About half way out of the ice hole, something got wedged between the front left caliper and wheel, broke the inside of the wheel. My left rear tire was still frozen solid as it was one chunk of ice from the outside of the wheel to the leaf spring. My only tire with power was the right rear. Needless to say, he winched me up that hill as dead weight, got me to the flats and i left her there saturday night so i could go back up sunday, swap the left front tire out, and thaw out the left rear. He said he's never seen his winch get worked so hard recovering someone or himself, and wondered how much the 3 weighed haha. It took us about 45 min to get it up a 20-30* sloped hill maybe 75 yards long, i thought his winch was going to burn up, luckily it didnt. So i go up sunday, get the spair on the front, 3-4 trips with 5 gal of hot water each time and lots of chipping away ice, i finally broke the left rear tire free. Now it came time to see if i could even get out of the hills in 2wd with that awesome open rear end
. Nope, I get stuck on the last hill and can't back down in 2wd because i kept sliding off the trail almost ending up in a ravine. I thought for sure that was going to be it's final resting place until the snow melted or i went up and replaced the cv in the hills. We finally got it up the hill with our rhino hooked 10ft in front of me, and that hooked to my friends 4runner 100ft in front of it up on the flats. I still can't believe we got it up that last hill, it was a miracle. Especially because it was starting to snow badly and it was dark by this time. So i get it to work monday, broken left front cv, bent stabilizer link, get her fixed and back on the road. Drove fine, thought it was over other than the broken wheel. Well merging off the freeway monday night, the steering wheel got real loose, then jerked to the right really hard, then to the left, then right, did that 4-5 times, i'm super lucky i didn't end up in the barrier or on my lid, so i think great i'll look at it in the next parking lot, go to take off from the first stop light, "bang, pow, snap, pop, grind, wuh wuh wuh, rpm's go up, no movement" put it in 4hi, pull into the parking lot, sure enough, rt side cv destroyed at hub side joint. Possibly hub too, haven't torn it apart yet. Might be something up with the steering gear as well not sure. But luckily i was able to limp it home and to work, where the adventure continues. I must give huge thanks to the guy with the land cruiser, my friend colton with his 4 runner, my friend taylor for being there the whole time diggin her out with me chipping away ice for what seemed like weeks, and driving the rhino. It's a great feeling to have been helped out so much, with out them it would still be in that ice hole waiting for the snow to melt. So HUGE thanks to them, i won't ever be able to repay them, but hopefully i'll be able to help them out if they ever need it, or anyone else for that matter. None of this mud/dirt was showing before i approached it.
This is where i got winched/towd to. Didn't get any other pictures...
That's my latest "adventure" :no:
It's now lunch time, which means getting it in the shop and doing a tear down.
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