Well this is embarrassing... I always say it won't be me who does something ridiculously stupid and breaks his truck - but here I am

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So here's what happened:

My friend and I thought it would be good idea to go out camping and trail riding after a big snow storm (Here in Arkansas, we never get snow, and over 12" is a lot)

The first day actually went great. We saw a really neat sunset, and didn't have too much trouble on our way out there - though we did slip down into a ditch and got stuck 3 times, but hey, we made it out





The trouble started on the second day though. After going down some cool trails, I made the mistake of trying to go through a mud puddle that was frozen over. Now this really wouldn't have been too much of a problem, except using the stock bumper with my 3" body lift leaves the bottom portion of my radiator exposed - so I ended up sending a 2" sheet of ice straight into my radiator (even with a friend spotting me through it). To help express our stupidity - we thought there were slabs of rock surrounding this small pond, but they were actually large, brown chunks of what would soon be my radiator's killer








And yes, we were dumb enough to record it too - so enjoy this clip

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We tried to limp it home, or at least back to the highway, by stopping to add water every now and then, but the water would just pour out almost as fast as we could put it in. So we ended up having to leave it there overnight. Luckily, and I thank the Lord for this, there was a radiator in stock near where we live. So we ran by Advance Auto Parts the next morning, picked up a new radiator, and went back out there to swap it in. And thankfully, a radiator swap is fairly easy, so we were able to get it done quick and drove it home with no problems

Moral of the story is - know your vehicle and its weaknesses, and be smart. I knew my radiator was exposed, I just wasn't thinking about it being a problem at the time - and that was my biggest mistake