Last weekend we were driving down an active logging gravel road in our '05 runner. We were stuck behind a mega logging truck hauling about a zillion trees and taking up pretty much the entire road. The way these monster trucks work is, they plod along the flats & downhills, and you're stuck behind them, until they get to an uphill. Then they slow down to about 10 km/h & pull over a bit so you can sneak past them.
So, we're doing about 30 km/h max behind this thing, totally blinded in all the gravel dust he's throwing up, waiting until the next uphill. When suddenly out of the dust a great big rock appears on the road, dead centre & just a few metres in front of us. Too close to stop, or to swerve, I'm guessing it might have fallen off the logging megatruck. Only thing I could do was swerve a little bit so the rock goes under the runner below the driver's seat, instead of dead centre where it would crash the rear diff for sure. And (mentally) cross my fingers.
Bang! And we're over it. But not a huge bang in the grand scheme of things - obviously a glancing blow. We take a look underneath the runner and discover a bit of a chip in the front crossmember, but that's all.
The runner has a cornfed spacer lift installed. So what's the thinking - did the spacer lift help save us from some real damage here?
So, we're doing about 30 km/h max behind this thing, totally blinded in all the gravel dust he's throwing up, waiting until the next uphill. When suddenly out of the dust a great big rock appears on the road, dead centre & just a few metres in front of us. Too close to stop, or to swerve, I'm guessing it might have fallen off the logging megatruck. Only thing I could do was swerve a little bit so the rock goes under the runner below the driver's seat, instead of dead centre where it would crash the rear diff for sure. And (mentally) cross my fingers.
Bang! And we're over it. But not a huge bang in the grand scheme of things - obviously a glancing blow. We take a look underneath the runner and discover a bit of a chip in the front crossmember, but that's all.
The runner has a cornfed spacer lift installed. So what's the thinking - did the spacer lift help save us from some real damage here?
