Moving Chicane
New member
As the title indicates, I had a bit of an incident today which resulted in the 4Runner having the passenger side tires (front & rear) in a ~3' ditch (that side of truck & the mirror were about 5 inches from a wall of dirt/rock) while the driver side tires where up high on the edge of the road in mud/gravel.
Driver rear wheel barely not touching the ground. Tilted so much that the seat belts wouldn't work when I tried to strap myself back in. Thanks gawd no airbags went off.
A hour or two later, I'd reversed at idle in 4Low while being winched at the same time (attachment point being right near the rear trailing arm on the driver side; the intent being that the 4Runner wouldn't slide further into the hillside when moving or topple over the rest of the way).
So the truck is out and there's not a scratch on the body work. Wheels aren't scratched and the tires haven't broken their beads either. It would seem a lot of stress, fear, etc. went through my system for nothing. And I also saved having the tow guy have to just "rip" the righ out of the ditch and hope it didn't topple over. :wow:
But now I wonder: Did the weight of the 4Runner resting on those two passenger side wheels, plus the slide sideways down into the ditch, potentially bend or screw-up some part of the truck I can't see or am not familiar with? After driving the mud off of the Duratrac's, it seems the steering feels 99% good (alignment) but not perfect (or perhaps I'm don't really remember what is was before the incident). Everything else outside and underneath check out visually.
Is it possible the alignment was impacted or should this rig hold the alignment true during a simply sideways ditch slide?
Anything else I should be concerned with?
First picture is teh 4Runner in question.
Second picture: Looking down the long axis of the ditch with the high-groud/driver side to the left, and low ground/dirt wall/passenger on the right. Front was pointed towards drain pipe; rear was where i'm taking picture from.
Final picture: Taken from up above on the dirt berm with the top of the picture being the road (high area) and the drain pipe/front of 4Runner being to the right. You can see the tire marks. Oye.
Driver rear wheel barely not touching the ground. Tilted so much that the seat belts wouldn't work when I tried to strap myself back in. Thanks gawd no airbags went off.
A hour or two later, I'd reversed at idle in 4Low while being winched at the same time (attachment point being right near the rear trailing arm on the driver side; the intent being that the 4Runner wouldn't slide further into the hillside when moving or topple over the rest of the way).
So the truck is out and there's not a scratch on the body work. Wheels aren't scratched and the tires haven't broken their beads either. It would seem a lot of stress, fear, etc. went through my system for nothing. And I also saved having the tow guy have to just "rip" the righ out of the ditch and hope it didn't topple over. :wow:
But now I wonder: Did the weight of the 4Runner resting on those two passenger side wheels, plus the slide sideways down into the ditch, potentially bend or screw-up some part of the truck I can't see or am not familiar with? After driving the mud off of the Duratrac's, it seems the steering feels 99% good (alignment) but not perfect (or perhaps I'm don't really remember what is was before the incident). Everything else outside and underneath check out visually.
Is it possible the alignment was impacted or should this rig hold the alignment true during a simply sideways ditch slide?
Anything else I should be concerned with?
First picture is teh 4Runner in question.
Second picture: Looking down the long axis of the ditch with the high-groud/driver side to the left, and low ground/dirt wall/passenger on the right. Front was pointed towards drain pipe; rear was where i'm taking picture from.
Final picture: Taken from up above on the dirt berm with the top of the picture being the road (high area) and the drain pipe/front of 4Runner being to the right. You can see the tire marks. Oye.
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