Dirtco's Adventure Thread

[BigFishAllDay]

After getting home I realized I seriously didn’t have a scratch on me!

I'm very thankful to hear that, Jeremiah.

I'm sorry to see this happened, but looking at those pictures and the angle of that slope, I would say things could have ended up much worse. I thank God you walked away from that one without injury my friend.

As many of us often say, the rig can be replaced but the driver cannot. A lot of hard work went out the window in an instant and that must be a tough pill to swallow, but I'm confident that you'll bounce right back from this. Hang in there man, and give the family some extra hugs.

 

[jkeith.w]

wow, sorry to hear that Jeremiah! Glad you're ok - how's the truck recovery coming?

 

[smallfry]

Wow, glad your okay. It's a bumper that the 4runner is wrecked but the important thing is your ok.

I know how you feel about rolling a vehicle when I rolled my 2000 4runner it was little disorientating, I climbed out though my passenger window. Didnt have a scratch either.

 

[Black798]

So glad to hear you're ok. That hill is crazy steep and I'm very glad the 4runner did it's job keeping you safe. I can't even imagine being in that sense situation, despite coming very close a few times while I was out snow wheeling, but at the end of the day it is just stuff. It can always be replaced. You on the other hand not so much. It's really sad to see the countless hours you have into building an amazing truck just be wrecked in less than a minute but knowing you the next one will he even better. I hope the vehicle recovery works out without too much effort

 

[Cree]

Body swap the wife's rig if the frame isn't totally screwed?

 

[theesotericone]

Glad your OK.

This is usually where I type something witty but I"m at a loss of words man. That just really sucks. Get it recovered, assess the damage, decide to repair or start again.

 

[SnowLizard]

After getting home I realized I seriously didn’t have a scratch on me!

I'm so relieved to hear this... just wow. I'm grateful you are okay.

 

[hounddogman]

I can't believe that beautiful 4Runner is wrecked ! But I'm glad your OK , that kind of situation even something relatively small like a broken leg could have been fatal .

 

[Dirtco]

Jeremiah, I'm glad you were not physically hurt. Your description was very vivid, priorities spot-on, IMO.

I hit ice before, and it's a damn helpless feeling, like a slow train wreck. I didn't roll though. I did roll before, twice, in FJ40s, simply me being young and inexperienced. I remember holding the roll cage, then letting go so I wouldn't lose any fingers, then holding it again, and letting go. The steering wheel was an arm-breaker... It was scary. No doors or roof.

Glad you found your phone, that it was sufficiently charged, and that you had reception. A ham radio, with the local repeaters programmed is super nice to have too.

Best to you and for what comes next…

Thank you, me too! I’ve been in several roll overs but this one takes the cake. I’m just glad that I was able to think clearly right after it happened. I honestly don’t know if I would’ve been able to get back through that window to look for my phone had I not grabbed it. I also carry a SPOT emergency GPS transponder that will call 911.

I'm very thankful to hear that, Jeremiah.

I'm sorry to see this happened, but looking at those pictures and the angle of that slope, I would say things could have ended up much worse. I thank God you walked away from that one without injury my friend.

As many of us often say, the rig can be replaced but the driver cannot. A lot of hard work went out the window in an instant and that must be a tough pill to swallow, but I'm confident that you'll bounce right back from this. Hang in there man, and give the family some extra hugs.

Thank you Nick! Your 100% right, it’s crazy that I walked away without a scratch. It could’ve been SO much worse! Where I slid off the road, and how the tree caught me on the passenger side really saved my butt. There are other places on the road that are several hundred feet down without a single tree to stop you, even another twenty feet to the left of that tree and I would have gone at least 200’-300’ down the mountain crashing through smaller trees.

wow, sorry to hear that Jeremiah! Glad you're ok - how's the truck recovery coming?

Thank you! It’s been recovered, I’ll post about it in a few minutes…

Wow, glad your okay. It's a bumper that the 4runner is wrecked but the important thing is your ok.

I know how you feel about rolling a vehicle when I rolled my 2000 4runner it was little disorientating, I climbed out though my passenger window. Didnt have a scratch either.

Very true, I’m impressed with how well it held up to the accident.

So glad to hear you're ok. That hill is crazy steep and I'm very glad the 4runner did it's job keeping you safe. I can't even imagine being in that sense situation, despite coming very close a few times while I was out snow wheeling, but at the end of the day it is just stuff. It can always be replaced. You on the other hand not so much. It's really sad to see the countless hours you have into building an amazing truck just be wrecked in less than a minute but knowing you the next one will he even better. I hope the vehicle recovery works out without too much effort

Your 100% right, it’s just stuff (and time) but I’m still here to be a father and husband for my family, that’s what matters. And I’m not giving up on wheeling (or the 4Runner yet), it will live on one way or another!

Body swap the wife's rig if the frame isn't totally screwed?

I’ll get into that in a little bit…

Glad your OK.

This is usually where I type something witty but I"m at a loss of words man. That just really sucks. Get it recovered, assess the damage, decide to repair or start again.

Thank you! That’s pretty much how I’ve dealing with the whole thing, just taking it all one step at a time and trying my best to not get too overwhelmed with the whole thing.

 

[Dirtco]

After I got home I called my insurance company, my wife and I had talked about dropping the full coverage insurance down to liability for a while, but I wasn’t sure if she had actually called the insurance company about it. Turns out that the 4Runner still had full coverage! They also said that the tow bill “should” be covered, so I contacted my local tow company and explained the situation. After sending a few pictures they felt they could recover the 4Runner, but it would be a day or two and I would be paying by the hour. Two days later I get the call that they are ready and the owner of the company would be heading up to get the 4Runner. He picked me up at my house and we drove the seven miles to get my truck, I could tell at first he wasn’t thrilled about me being there but after a mile or two it was fine, a couple miles later we were BS’ing and his dog was sleeping on my lap.

It took about an hour to get the 4Runner back up the hill side, and that was running two winch lines. It actually went pretty smooth, just a slow process. By the time we got the 4Runner up to the road myself and the tow truck driver were on really good terms, ends up he has a K5 Blazer on 42” tires and occasionally goes wheeling with some people I know. When we got the 4Runner to my house he started filling out the bill, he made it clear that the only reason he was charging me full price was because insurance was going to reimburse me, and if they didn’t he would change the total and refund my card to help me out. That was very nice of him!

So here is how it looked when I got home. It actually looked better than I thought it would, considering how far it rolled.

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[Black798]

[MENTION=67615]Dirtco[/MENTION] Im honestly amazed how well it faired. Seeing how far you rolled I know it hit that tree super hard and I was seriously expecting the whole roof to just be a crumpled mess. It looks like other than that passenger A pillar the majority of the damage is fairly easy to replace body panels. Heres to hoping the frame and drivetrain faired similarly. Im curoius to see what insurance says about it and if theyll actually be fair about the value of the truck since it is far from stock.

This whole situation has me doing a bit of a gut check about when I go snow wheeling solo which is pretty often. I think one of those Spots needs to be my next "mod"

 

[Dirtco]

[MENTION=67615]Dirtco[/MENTION] Im honestly amazed how well it faired. Seeing how far you rolled I know it hit that tree super hard and I was seriously expecting the whole roof to just be a crumpled mess. It looks like other than that passenger A pillar the majority of the damage is fairly easy to replace body panels. Heres to hoping the frame and drivetrain faired similarly. Im curoius to see what insurance says about it and if theyll actually be fair about the value of the truck since it is far from stock.

This whole situation has me doing a bit of a gut check about when I go snow wheeling solo which is pretty often. I think one of those Spots needs to be my next "mod"

I'm amazed too, Phoenix! Don't get me wrong, just about every body panel has been damaged but I figured it would be a lot worse! I'm in the process of getting this thread up to date, I didn't want to post much until insurance did their thing.

You need a SPOT, or some kind of transponder. I put it up there with a coat, first aid kit, cell phone and toilet paper. If it saves your ass once it's worth it, the other nice thing is you can "check in" with family and friends to let them know your okay even if your out of cell service.

 

[theesotericone]

After I got home I called my insurance company, my wife and I had talked about dropping the full coverage insurance down to liability for a while, but I wasn’t sure if she had actually called the insurance company about it. Turns out that the 4Runner still had full coverage!

That's damn good news.

I've been having the thought lately of dropping full coverage on my rig. You've just convinced me to keep it. Hopefully they give you a fair valuation for it. Start getting all your receipts together now just in case.

 

[Dirtco]

The next step was to call the insurance company and get reimbursed for the vehicle and tow bill. I could seriously write a small novel about that ordeal, I probably spent close to 10 hours on the phone over the span of several days (maybe more). I’m not going to recap all of it, but I finally talked to a guy that had a lifted Jeep and understood I had a modified vehicle and why I wanted to buy it back “if” it was totaled. He sent me to a special department that deals with modified vehicles and a third party estimator. The guy over there was super cool, he was into built Subaru’s but had friends with Toyota rock crawlers. I’d rather not say publicly what they valued the truck at, but it was well above Blue Book. I could have sold it for more that they valued it at, but it was a very fair offer and I got to keep the 4Runner.


So, while I was working with the insurance company I took a few small steps to assess the damage to the 4Runner. The first step was to see if I could get it running, it sat for three days upside down so I knew the engine was hydro locked and the cylinders were full of oil. I pulled all the spark plugs and cranked the engine to get the oil out, it had so much oil in the cylinders that it would barely spin with the plugs out. When it was all said and done I had to put 4 quarts of oil in the engine to get it to the full mark!

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[Dirtco]

That's damn good news.

I've been having the thought lately of dropping full coverage on my rig. You've just convinced me to keep it. Hopefully they give you a fair valuation for it. Start getting all your receipts together now just in case.

Keep it!!!

I had all of my receipts but they didn't want them, the biggest thing that helped my case was the list of modifications on the first post of this thread. They used that to find "similar" vehicles and judge market pricing off that. The other thing is having current pictures of the vehicle before the damage, that way you can prove it's not a beat to crap rock crawler. I had really good pictures from only a couple weeks ago.

 

[Dropzone]

Dang Jeremiah! Sad news but trucks can be fixed
Glad you are OK.
I have rolled a couple of times, one was a VW bug, roof stopped caving in at the full cage I had.

 

[Road Bull]

Holy cow man! That looks scary as hell. Very glad you are okay! Good to keep your wits about you in those scenarios. There are lots of places here in Washington that look similar and if you were to slide off, it would be bad news. Good luck going forward in whatever direction you choose man.

 

[TonyB66]

Looking at the photos, do you feel the sliders spared you additional damage?

 

[G-C@T]

I live over on IH8MUD, but followed your build from post #1 over on Yotatech and just stumbled upon this thread...

Most guys end threads with the totaling of their rigs...I have to say that your post-roll-posts are some of the most interesting/informative I've read.

I thank God you are all right and I look forward to what comes next!

(I grew up in Colorado Springs...man I miss that state.)

Good luck!

 

[sportscarfan]

I've also been following from the beginning and really glad to hear you are ok. Looks like it might have been bad for a passenger...
Looking forward to what comes next. That's a lot of build to have to scrap so hopefully the buyback is reasonable.
How did the frame, axles, linkage etc. hold up to the rollover??