Vehicle Recovery

[slowz1k]

Last night I'm glancing out of my living room window and I notice my neighbors RV is sitting at a 70 degree angle in the ditch with about a foot of soil plowed up against the rear bumper. Seems he was backing out of his drive way and slipped it off of the shoulder. It looked like when he realized that the right rear was in the ditch he might have punched it rather than stopping and trying to pull back out. Regardless, with all of the rain we've had lately, and the weight of the RV, he wasn't going anywhere.
Point of the story is that this was a good time to put my recovery kit to the test. A high lift jack is a great tool to have when off-roading, but in this case, the RV's low ground clearance called for a common bottle jack. I managed to get the right rear tires off of the ground enough to get some broken up cinder blocks under it, and improve the attitude and angle. Still wasn't enough. The weight and angle where still too much and the open differential of the RV just burned the rubber against the blocks. I keep a 3 ton Come-A-Long in my kit, and there were plenty of large trees for anchor points, but even with doubling it back with block and tackle, the RV's 14,000+lbs would snap the cable like sting cheese. (I like cheese). I ended up using a 10,000lb tow strap hooked to my K2500 Suburban. Between my Sub in 4Low, the shored up tires, and the RV's own power, we managed to pull her out.

This was a simple situation made challenging by the size and weight of the stuck vehicle, and it made me feel pretty good about my recovery kit contents.
Whether you Off-Road or drive a Geo Metro... If you don't have a kit, I highly advise that you get one, especially with winter approaching.
A good kit, and the knowledge to use it, might mean the difference between sleeping in your bed on a cold snowy night, or sleeping in your vehicle waiting for rescue.

Just my opinion, and I'm usually wrong.

(I totally missed the boat on the photo ops last night. Sorry)

Do you have a recovery kit? What's in it? I'll try to post some pics of mine tonight.

[Sniper-T]

I have a decent kit, although most of it is tucked into different compartments in my truck.

I have 2 - 10,000 pound loop straps
1 - 5000 lb come-along with 2 snatchblocks (15,000)
1 - bottle jack (5000 lb)
1 farm jack - 4'
1 - 25' length of 3/8" grade 8 chain with hooks
and more... I'll add as I can think of them

[MegaCPC]

Recovery stuff I carry wheelin:

2 good straps, 30k and 55k ratings.
Some D rings
Hi lift jack
Big sheet of plywood
2 fullsize shovels (screw digging alone)
Genetically modified canola seed
Beer

[Gunfixr]

I got a rope, with eye on both ends. I think it's nylon, doesn't stretch much.
It's about 1 1/2" in diameter, I haven't been able break it yet, in over 10yrs.

Not as nice as the 1 1/4" tugboat rope I used to use, it stretched a bit, worked real nice.

[GunnerMax]

I have 1 bottle jack and a 10000 tow strap

[The Stig]

Kinda weak in this area. I have tow straps in the Stig-mobiles but that's it. The come-along and wire & hook thingy are in the garage. I don't have any bottle jacks.

Great practical thread. Good stuff.

[Kodiak]

This is a survival scenario that I havnt given much thought about, the ability to get myself un-stuck. I keep a tow strap in the truck and have a few straps and a logging chain in the garage, but those wont do me much good on a dark night in the middle of the boonies. Time to buy a come-along and a few snatch blocks for the rig.

Thanks for the reminder Slowz1k.

[FL-Jeeper]

This is crammed into a 19"x19"x15" custom Anvil case that gets a monster ratchet strap to the rear seat mounts in the back of the Jeep.

30' 3/8" shot peened chain w/ hooks
20' 3/8" swagged steel cable
Load Rated Screw Pin Shackles of various sizes. (Not Harbor Freight crap)
Various short lengths of smaller diameter chain with appropriately sizes screw pin shackles. These are useful for support rigging (non-load bearing) as well as makeshift repairs.
4 Ton snatch block
17,200lb 3"x10' basket strap
6,000lb recovery strap (20')
Tire repair kit with spare valve stems, Schrader valves, caps, HD plug kit & bead lube. There is also wire, cement & needle nose pliers for stitching torn sidewalls.
Spare handmike for the 10meter
SE US maps in a clear map bag
Roll of toilet paper in a zip lock
2 can coozies


The rest is strapped or bolted down somewhere on the Heep.

Delorme PN-20 on dash mount (gotta find em & if it's a jeeper worth his salt & he's good n stuck god-knows-where... if your running to get him, he better give coordinates!)
10 meter radio
4' farm jack
17,600lb snatch strap (20')
2' cheater bar (2" pipe)
Sawzall w various blades (runs off 700W marine inverter mounted on rear fender well)
8 Ton bottle jack
OEM scissor jack (you would be surprised how handy that thing is)
Full compliment of hand tools. Ratchets, 1/2" & 3/8" mostly metric with a good selection of standard in 1/2" only. Three sets of metric box wrenches, one ratcheting, one regular & one stubby. Screwdrivers, allen keys, torx, cold chisels, prybars, one big ass "C" clamp, BFH & LFH & more. Dang near every tool I need to take anything off my rig and most others too.
And a Warn 8k lb winch with synthetic line. Which reminds me, I need to run over my snatch block pulley with a file & smooth it out reeeeeeal good... the synthetic line is relatively new.

Hmmmmm, oh & if required, 5 gallons of gasoline & 5 gallons of H2O.

[robsdak]

not really much to speak of, i don't go places i need it. a strap, a small military fold up shovel. i don't go mudding and around here if you get stuck, it's usually in the sand. so i have found that if i keep good tires on my truck i don't get stuck often. but this thread has opened my mind to the possibility of carrying more stuff with me.

[slowz1k]

not really much to speak of, i don't go places i need it. a strap, a small military fold up shovel. i don't go mudding and around here if you get stuck, it's usually in the sand. so i have found that if i keep good tires on my truck i don't get stuck often. but this thread has opened my mind to the possibility of carrying more stuff with me.

Sand brings up an opportunity for a good "get unstuck tip".
If you've done some wheeling in the sand you already know this... But for those that don't, this might be worth tucking away in some corner of your brain.

It's easy to get buried to the axles when wheeling in sand. The more you spin, the faster you sink. Being in a sandy environment, usually means that there aren't many anchor points such as trees, rocks, etc... to run a winch, or come-along cable to. This is where it realy pays off to have a shovel, tow strap, and a spare tire.
Choose the direction most likely to offer a successful extraction. Choose a spot in that direction that would be the best spot for an anchor and start digging. The hole needs to accomodate the spare tire. The depth of the hole will depend on the weight of your vehicle and the angle of extraction. (I know from experience that 4' was probably overkill, but worked well with a 76 Jeep CJ-5 on east coast dunes)
Bury the spare tire with the tow strap well secured to it. Run the tow strap to your cable, and you should be out in no time at all. The hardest part is digging the spare back out of the sand.


Disclaimer::: Wheeling alone is never a good idea. Having a second vehicle as an anchor point is always a better option.