It's official, I need a 4x4!

[fred42]

Two weeks ago, I got the rig in my signature stuck in the mud. My wife's family home is several hundred acres in south Georgia on a red clay county maintained road. We have a full hookup site there. Their mile long driveway is gravel so it is fine, but the county road is trouble if a lot of rain comes. Over the years I have had to delay an arrival or departure, but this was the first time getting stuck.

This red clay is like grease. It is even hard to walk in without falling. You have to try and balance your vehicle exactly on the crown of the road and have your speed just right or you are in the ditch. The only good thing is that the ditches are not deep enough to overturn the trailer. I was on my way into the farm after traveling all day and it just slid to the right. The trailer wheels came to rest in the ditch where the red arrow is below. I thought I may have to spend the night with the rig on the road.





The trailer was resting on several tree limbs that would do a lot of damage when pulling it out, so those had to be cut first. I knew my tow service with standard tow trucks would be useless in this situation. A call to the family determined our best bet was to get one of my wife's cousins to pull us out. I was thinking maybe he would bring a large tractor, but the weapon of choice was a 5 ton surplus military vehicle that her cousin had converted to a water truck for his forestry business. It was raining hard during this whole episode and I did not get pictures of his vehicle, but it looked a lot like this one below. It had a cab over, Unimog look, and three axles. Just before he started to hook me up, he did some noisy shifting into a low low or multiple axle mode, I think all three axles were drive axles, I'm not sure. The tires were not like in this picture but were the traditional army agricultural looking tread.



This truck was amazing. We used a chain to my front frame hook loop closest to the ditch. It pulled my rig like it was a toy. This diesel truck was very loud and at one point I did not notice my truck had stalled (manual transmission) and it just drug my locked up rear dually wheels through the mud like nothing had happened. He had to tow me about 60 yards, through this stream and into the gravel driveway.





So, I'm thinking my next truck will be a 4x4 diesel dually crew cab. I have a lot to learn about it, for example, I understand duallys present some issues in sand and perhaps mud, they sell some spacers for this. Also, I noticed my highway tires were a joke in this environment. They were coated with a half inch of clay mud and had no traction. I will have to get an aggressive tread and forget about road noise, gas mileage and tire wear. It doesn't matter how much I save if I can't get where I'm going.

An issue 4x4 fifth wheel owners have often had in this forum is traveling with a nose high camper. I do a lot of one night stays and stay hooked up. To be level, my pin plate is 46" off the ground. Even with the 2wd I have and factory flipped axles I am a little nose high now. I have to solve this somehow. I have heard of flatbed solutions, but that kills all your bed storage. We have been conditioned to think of 4x4s as needing a lot of suspension travel, thus being set high. Extreme suspension travel is necessary if you're in a rough off road situation, but I am in a smooth road situation. I just need the traction, not the suspension travel. My plan is to get in touch with my inner Lowrider and see the beauty of a low 4x4. I'm sure my dog would appreciate a lower jump in and out as well.

OK, maybe not this low:



But this is a sweet ride. I found the picture on an Airstream forum. I have a Ford now, but don't have to get a Ford. Of course, primary concern is engine/trans performance and reliability, but I would also want to see how easily each of the brands could be lowered.



thanks for any ideas or experiences,
fred

[Frostbitte]

Where I live, 4x4 is very handy, especially in winter. I've only had to use it a couple of times while towing/camping. It can come in handy when pulling out or trying to park 13000 lbs on wet grass, loose gravel hills etc.
I have on/off road tires. A little bit more noise perhaps and maybe slightly less mileage but I don't care. I would be hard pressed to buy another truck that's only 2 wheel drive.

[NinerBikes]

Wes Tausend wrote:
...

There seems to be some misunderstanding of driving greasy clay roads. The best solution remains tire chains. Nothing else is as practical other than avoiding greasy clay roads altogether.

The best M/T tires will gum up, sometimes with over an inch layer of muck banding the tread face and preventing any more traction than just the oozing mud viscosity affords.

Any other traction conditions are different. Dry sand can be easily navigated by almost any truck as long as it has 4x4 and reasonably wide profile tires. Snow has a high viscosity packed index, and it too will allow navigability with M/T treads, either wide-face floating on deep drifts, or narrow-face bottom-digging into shallow snow cover. Short mud hole traverse works ok with M/T type tires but that short distance is about it. The main downside to M/T tires is they are noisy on the highway and worthless for traveling any distance on a long, muddy road. They gum up and will likely not self-clean in sticky clay mud conditions, especially if moving slow.

So one might ask how the large military vehicle could find traction? Simple, really. The truck is so heavy it digs down to dry base and squirts the mud free of the tread face. The knobs then grab dry ground. The same thing can be accomplished with very narrow face M/T tires on a pick-up. But most people buy fat off-road sizes that float on top... on top of grease providing very little traction. As an example, my winch buddy knew of this caveat and his favorite tire was a very narrow Michelin that dug down in both moderate snow cover and muddy clay roads.

So narrow, digging down tires might sound like the answer. But it so happens that they don't work well in bottomless sand or bottomless mud. A great example of bottomless mud is a super wet plowed field where not even a 4x4 tractor with aggressive treads can always navigate. Then on the other hand, a tractor with tire chains can often climb out on it's own. Which brings up the point that even narrow truck tires will climb out of deep sand if they are equipped with tire chains. Chains simply can't be beat.

Speaking of farm tractors, land anchors like Pull-Pal may be of some use. But they are essentially a one-bottom plow and, I surmise, possibly near useless in the worst buried conditions since a pick-up with moderate traction could easily pull one, leaving a plowed furrow behind it. Three or more might be required, or best, just another parked truck. Then on the other hand, anchors do dig down to hard soil just as I would expect tires chains to do. But, when there is miles of impossible muddy road ahead, tire chains do not require the operator to walk ahead re-setting the anchow every few hundred feet... probably in the rain.

Score one for tire chains. Get wet once to put them on, then ride in the dry cab. 😉

Wes
...

This explanation is so thorough, you know it's been written by a person that has been there, done that, in spades. Great analogies there, Wes.

[Wes_Tausend]

RobertRyan wrote:

BurbMan wrote:
Here they are sold as surplus.

This one only has 7200 miles on it, 6x6 drive, CAT diesel, 31,900 GVWR.

It would be interesting to find out why the U.S. army went from a Conventional to Cab Over requirements,. I notice the current one is similar

Robert,

I think the main reason for using military cab-overs is that they take less footprint to park and store for their bed size. This not only affects the number of trucks that can be parked in any current given motor pool, but affects how many can be shipped on the least number of train cars and ocean going vessels.

I note I would have a similar advantage parking a comparable-length "cab-over" motorhome in my driveway over the room taken by our lengthy travel trailer and truck rig. Even a comparable sized 5th wheel would take less parking room, since the long 5th wheel trailer at least overlaps the truck somewhat.

RobertRyan wrote:

transferred wrote:
No doubt SRWs and manuals are the best for getting through mud. 4x4 combined with good TIRES though is the main factor.

DRW's are not very good on rocky roads, I guess mud packing between the duallies would cause problems

Robert,

The duallies are terrible in mud. My main experience was a 1 1/2 ton converted school bus that had a Detroit Locker differential. We used it in new home construction, and backing it up the slight landscape slope to a building, in spring thaw mud, was a humbling ordeal. It had as aggressive dually tires as was commonly available, but the unchained Mud & Snow tires were still nearly worthless in greasy mud.

One thing I did learn was that, navigating a slope with 2wd only, works much better while backing up. All buildings are built on slightly high ground for proper drainage and this makes the raw, unfinished building site difficult to approach. Steering becomes a major problem in such mud, with the unchained front end often sliding down the muddy landscape slope when taken at an angle. While moving forward, even cranking the steering to opposite lock often has little effect on actual direction. In our case, the locker tended to push straight forward unless on a sidehill.

On the other hand, backing the vehicle permits the front end to slide down from lack of control while still automatically aiming the vehicle generally upslope, which maintains desired direction much better. So in the case of a pick-up with only two wheel drive and rear tire chains, in which case the front wheels won't stay on the crown of any muddy road, the answer is to back along the road. Slow, but sure progress is better than the ditch (This would be near impossible with a trailer, though). Frankly, front wheel drive is always better than rear wheel drive in low traction conditions.

For this same logical reason, if one only has only one set of tire chains for a 4x4, they are best mounted on the front steering axle. The rear axle may then tend to slide off the crown of a muddy road, but the front axle will then be automatically aimed back up the crown and pull the truck away from the ditch. Sure, the lighter front axle is not as durable as the rear axle, but the front gear load will still be reasonably low, because even with chains, the heat and wear from limited traction and slow speed is limited well within operating range. As opposed, a 4x4 with rear chains only... still suffers from great difficulty in steering.

Wes
...

[RobertRyan]

transferred wrote:
No doubt SRWs and manuals are the best for getting through mud. 4x4 combined with good TIRES though is the main factor.

DRW's are not very good on rocky roads, I guess mud packing between the duallies would cause problems

[transferred]

No doubt SRWs and manuals are the best for getting through mud. 4x4 combined with good TIRES though is the main factor.

[gmw_photos]

Any from the "for what it's worth" department, yes, I too have found my single rear wheel, 4WD Nissan is much more effective in snow and mud than the F350 4WD PS Dually. The duals just seem to sit on top and spin, and even with the heavy lump of diesel engine sitting on the front wheels, it just doesn't go very well.

My Nissan is also a manual transmission, and personally, I prefer a manual, even in the snow and mud, compared to an automatic. I can finesse the clutch better than I can finesse a torque converter.
That's my two cents on it.

[gmw_photos]

Not to sound like a simpleton here, but it looks to me like the OP already has the perfect answer for those occasional days when this road is a problem for him. To quote him:

"A call to the family determined our best bet was to get one of my wife's cousins to pull us out. I was thinking maybe he would bring a large tractor, but the weapon of choice was a 5 ton surplus military vehicle that her cousin had....."

Maybe it's just me, but this seems like the most logical thing. Tell "cousin", "I may be calling you again....and I'll toss you a hundred dollar bill when I need you".

WTH....a good 'ol Georgia boy like that will prolly do it for free....just to be able to get the 6x6 out.....:)

[RobertRyan]

BurbMan wrote:
Here they are sold as surplus.

This one only has 7200 miles on it, 6x6 drive, CAT diesel, 31,900 GVWR.

It would be interesting to find out why the U.S. army went from a Conventional to Cab Over requirements,. I notice the current one is similar

[Houston_Remodel]

Chains and tow straps live behind the seat of my truck. But then we also use them for work when we use one of the flatbed trailers.

[Bedlam]

I have to agree with Wes. I have 4wd and carry chains although I have not had to use them. My 19.5" wheels are terrible where conditions require flotation, but do fine otherwise.

In soft sand, you do not want an aggressive tire that digs. You want a tread that pulls in material instead of pushing it out so your wheels stay on top. We even found tires that have aggressive directional tread for mud work better in sand if you swap them from left to right to reverse the tread pattern.

I have not had luck with buried anchors. They either take too much effort to bury sufficiently deep or you dig half way to China and they still pull out instead of the vehicle. We never travel off-road with only one vehicle because of this and both vehicles are typically sized close to each other so either one can aid in extraction.

[Wes_Tausend]

...

There seems to be some misunderstanding of driving greasy clay roads. The best solution remains tire chains. Nothing else is as practical other than avoiding greasy clay roads altogether.

The best M/T tires will gum up, sometimes with over an inch layer of muck banding the tread face and preventing any more traction than just the oozing mud viscosity affords.

Any other traction conditions are different. Dry sand can be easily navigated by almost any truck as long as it has 4x4 and reasonably wide profile tires. Snow has a high viscosity packed index, and it too will allow navigability with M/T treads, either wide-face floating on deep drifts, or narrow-face bottom-digging into shallow snow cover. Short mud hole traverse works ok with M/T type tires but that short distance is about it. The main downside to M/T tires is they are noisy on the highway and worthless for traveling any distance on a long, muddy road. They gum up and will likely not self-clean in sticky clay mud conditions, especially if moving slow.

So one might ask how the large military vehicle could find traction? Simple, really. The truck is so heavy it digs down to dry base and squirts the mud free of the tread face. The knobs then grab dry ground. The same thing can be accomplished with very narrow face M/T tires on a pick-up. But most people buy fat off-road sizes that float on top... on top of grease providing very little traction. As an example, my winch buddy knew of this caveat and his favorite tire was a very narrow Michelin that dug down in both moderate snow cover and muddy clay roads.

So narrow, digging down tires might sound like the answer. But it so happens that they don't work well in bottomless sand or bottomless mud. A great example of bottomless mud is a super wet plowed field where not even a 4x4 tractor with aggressive treads can always navigate. Then on the other hand, a tractor with tire chains can often climb out on it's own. Which brings up the point that even narrow truck tires will climb out of deep sand if they are equipped with tire chains. Chains simply can't be beat.

Speaking of farm tractors, land anchors like Pull-Pal may be of some use. But they are essentially a one-bottom plow and, I surmise, possibly near useless in the worst buried conditions since a pick-up with moderate traction could easily pull one, leaving a plowed furrow behind it. Three or more might be required, or best, just another parked truck. Then on the other hand, anchors do dig down to hard soil just as I would expect tires chains to do. But, when there is miles of impossible muddy road ahead, tire chains do not require the operator to walk ahead re-setting the anchow every few hundred feet... probably in the rain.

Score one for tire chains. Get wet once to put them on, then ride in the dry cab. 😉

Wes
...

[kw_00]

Believe it or not a 4X4 is good in Florida as well. Like another poster was stating concerning sugar sand. That's the issues we have in this location. I would not own another 2 wheel drive. When I am about to get stuck, the truck goes into 4X4 mode and I get out. So many times I would get stuck in campgrounds around here on wet grass with a patch or 2 of sugar sand... Even while I pulled my truck off the side off the road with my lawn equipment will get u stuck if on sugar sand....Another vote here for good tires...

[Lessmore]

bcbouy wrote:
land anchor,look it up. any good mud tire throws the mud out.we off roaders all know that.if you buy bfg at's and expect to get through mud,you're dreaming.i live in a coastal rain forest,i know mud.

My buddy used to carry a land anchor for his 4WD...along with a heavy duty winch in the front of his old full size 4WD Blazer.

He used to say the only difference between a 2WD and a 4WD, was that when a 4WD got stuck....it would probably be 5o feet beyond the total length of the tow truck's cable and hook.

Hence his home built land anchor.

A 2WD would be within the tow truck's cable length.

[Brisk]

bcbouy wrote:
land anchor,look it up. any good mud tire throws the mud out.we off roaders all know that.if you buy bfg at's and expect to get through mud,you're dreaming.i live in a coastal rain forest,i know mud.

Once again ^^This