carnage from a bad spotter

[Crashman]

I was out on Spring Creek with a guy I don't usually go with but he has been asking me for almost a year now so I gave in thinking i would have enough experience to help me not mess up ( boy was i wrong LOL )

[Crashman]

and my front upper control arm was one of the " defective batch " light racing
It almost wore through the washer and rubbed the spring bucket plus bent the shock hose so its now touching the spring

[Jackie]

The pics don't enlarge for me. I hope the end-result wasn't too bad. I'd love to hear the whole story!

[Robert B]

how did you shear about 1/4 the ring gear off ??

[Jim]

OUCH.

Yes, story please (and larger pix).

Wheel spinning in the air and it came down and grabbed and the diff blew? What gear ratio is the diff?

[Robert B]

ehh on that one jim 99% of the time especially if its spinning one wheel that blows the weaker spider gears up ...even dana 30 ring gears take some effort to shear the teeth off of them but yes story is wanted :)

[Crashman]

I was running the trail and got to a washed out section and as I was starting up he came over and to spot for me so I was watching him and gently hitting the gas trying to let the atrac do its job when I heard him say ok keep on the gas the tires will gum up and grab I was just about to let off but it grabbed and i got over the first spot then got high centered on my skid plates. at first I was able to back off and try again but the second time I was stuck, I was about to hook up my winch and he said hell no I can get you over this I tried a bit more and heard something that didn't sound good so I got out and winched over the last part. after this I noticed a slight clunk that I could feel as well as hear but everything seemed ok I just took it easy and we were about 1/2 way through the trail. I tried to lock and unlock the center diff but the noise was still there at the start of the rock garden on the first rock I didn't realize the center diff was unlocked putting all the power to the rear and I heard a loud bang then grinding. I winched through most of the rock garden then a fellow wheeler I met on the trail hooked a tow strap to me and pulled me through the easy parts of the trail and I winched through the rest of the hard parts. when I made it to the fire road at the end I started hearing a clunking in front but I didn't see anything so I kept limping out but half way down the steering wheel started to pull to the side so I stopped and found the upper control arm was broke! I still had to get down to the road to get towed out so I ran really slow and made it but man was it loud with grinding, banging, and scraping noises

[Jim]

The money line...


and he said hell no I can get you over this I tried a bit more and heard something that didn't sound good



Sorry to hear it. A costly issue. Time for a selectable locker?

After having a front ring/pinion look like yours - it is an attention getting sound & feel.

[Robert B]

so not to be a stickler here ( but im gonna anyway) but in your text your tried it twice with no issues....high centered but nothing wrong really ......then YOU let him convince YOU to keep going instead of winching over it and move on ...... not saying the guy was a great spotter but it seems YOU got coerced into pushing your truck and or your skills too far and it broke... just saying .....


on the first rock I didn't realize the center diff was unlocked putting all the power to the rear and I heard a loud bang then grinding. and this kinda adds credibility to my statement.

[Brad]

Hard lesson learned. Never let someone make up your mind when it comes to your rig. If you don't feel comfortable, get out and check, then proceed how you feel is best for your rig. There are a lot of great spotters in this group however at the end of the day my truck, my wallet. :thumb:

[94ToyBear]

Sorry but I agree with Brad and Robert aswell in other words..... $#it Happends.
It could have been worst, I sppted my buddy last weekd in Barbour forks and he allmost rolled it....he made the choice to back of at the right time cuz I was about to put him on his side. Lessons learned for the both of us but we know know that is fresh build crawler is capable of and NOT.

[Crashman]

so not to be a stickler here ( but im gonna anyway) but in your text your tried it twice with no issues....high centered but nothing wrong really ......then YOU let him convince YOU to keep going instead of winching over it and move on ...... not saying the guy was a great spotter but it seems YOU got coerced into pushing your truck and or your skills too far and it broke... just saying .....

and this kinda adds credibility to my statement.

First I want to say I agree I am the one at fault here for my ignorance / skill level and allowing to be pushed
if I knew my tires were spinning the first time I would of stopped before they grabbed ( I was still moving slowly )
lastly I think if I had the center diff locked i may of not totally blew out the rear?

I think I didn't say this right.
when I was high centered I had already heard the first noise and stopped then he was telling me not to stop and he could get me through, I did try to move the truck and when the wheels just spun ( slowly) then I stopped and winched
Also what I forgot to say was after I heard the first noise he was telling me there was nothing wrong since the tires were still moving Funny after writing this I remembered just before it totally let go he said if I made it this far there was nothing broke lol ( that was just a encouragement statement )

The main reason I stopped going with him was he is very extreme and brash, let me explain:
when he was getting ready to start the obstacle I was hung up on he was trying to plan out his route with his spotter, I was up the hill talking with someone and other people were talking ( not close really to him ) he turns around to everyone and yells " shut the f#$% up I am trying to talk here"
the extreme part, his way of wheeling is momentum so he will hit the obstacle and bang through it with speed so you better not be any where around him. I like to try and crawl through and save my truck not kill it

I also realize I have bigger HEAVY tires ( Toyo mt ) now and lots of armor weight so that would account for the breakage? I did do Red Elephant ( both sides) a few weeks earlier and had no problems I think that was harder than spring creek

[Crashman]

Sorry to hear it. A costly issue. Time for a selectable locker?

I have been saving up for re-gearing and lockers so I am almost there but I just found another 3rd member for cheap to get me going but I am going to upgrade asap

[94ToyBear]

First I want to say I agree I am the one at fault here for my ignorance / skill level and allowing to be pushed
if I knew my tires were spinning the first time I would of stopped before they grabbed ( I was still moving slowly )
lastly I think if I had the center diff locked i may of not totally blew out the rear?

I think I didn't say this right.
when I was high centered I had already heard the first noise and stopped then he was telling me not to stop and he could get me through, I did try to move the truck and when the wheels just spun ( slowly) then I stopped and winched
Also what I forgot to say was after I heard the first noise he was telling me there was nothing wrong since the tires were still moving Funny after writing this I remembered just before it totally let go he said if I made it this far there was nothing broke lol ( that was just a encouragement statement )

The main reason I stopped going with him was he is very extreme and brash, let me explain:
when he was getting ready to start the obstacle I was hung up on he was trying to plan out his route with his spotter, I was up the hill talking with someone and other people were talking ( not close really to him ) he turns around to everyone and yells " shut the f#$% up I am trying to talk here"
the extreme part, his way of wheeling is momentum so he will hit the obstacle and bang through it with speed so you better not be any where around him. I like to try and crawl through and save my truck not kill it

I also realize I have bigger HEAVY tires ( Toyo mt ) now and lots of armor weight so that would account for the breakage? I did do Red Elephant ( both sides) a few weeks earlier and had no problems I think that was harder than spring creek don't sound like a fun day to be around someone like that at all ! either way your both safe and that's what counts the most.

[Jim]

In all, it sounds like you have your head on straight. Thumbs up to ya.




I just found another 3rd member for cheap

Cha-Ching!!!

[Crashman]

On the positive side I got a lot of winch experience!

[Robert B]

ya those wheelers are fun to watch on youtube not much fun to go with lol and the ring gear breakage throws me off some as i dont see many of those at all without an axle that now has about 10 more drain holes in it :) and the control arm i would guess had a crack before and it just gave up on that rock ....does the broken part have any rust on it ?? in fact it was on spring creek i went with some guys that didnt care about their trucks much it seemed lol they were bumping each other on the way down a basically shelf road and i was downhill from them ..... had me on edge..... side note and i dont know if the center diff being locked would have helped ... do you have a front diff to lock also (or hubs) or does it rely on the center one to put power to the front ??

[Crashman]

ya those wheelers are fun to watch on youtube not much fun to go with lol and the ring gear breakage throws me off some as i dont see many of those at all without an axle that now has about 10 more drain holes in it :) and the control arm i would guess had a crack before and it just gave up on that rock ....does the broken part have any rust on it ?? in fact it was on spring creek i went with some guys that didnt care about their trucks much it seemed lol they were bumping each other on the way down a basically shelf road and i was downhill from them ..... had me on edge..... side note and i dont know if the center diff being locked would have helped ... do you have a front diff to lock also (or hubs) or does it rely on the center one to put power to the front ??

The control arm didn't have any rust on it they were relatively new there was a batch that came out that were prone to breaking and I had one of them I guess they swapped them out but I finding more damage I hope is not to bad
the center diff does control the power to the front with out it locked the truck is pretty much just AWD

[Crashman]

well I got my new gears and now lockers ordered should be here Friday Woo Hoo

[88Toy]

Which locker did you go with?

[Crashman]

Which locker did you go with?
ARB is the only option I have for front and rear