@lastresort576 how did it go?
Oh man oh man.i got a story for you!
Not sure if you saw on fb, but the day before I was supposed to head to Maine, I took the boys around the woods near my old house…an area I’ve spent a ton of time in.
Anyways we get to an old water crossing that I’ve done a hundred times even in a stock Tacoma let alone my 80 on 35’s…yup I sank the 80 bad. We would have made it through without issue but someone put a few telephone poles under water right in the path through.
Kids are freaking out as the truck is tipping, sinking, and filling with water. I quickly bring the kids to the sand, grab my gear to start rigging up the winch. Horn is now blaring all by itself..kids still freaking out leaving me a bit distracted and flustered.
Truck is still running perfectly fine at this point.
I could not for the life of me get the feel spool/engage switch to engage to pull myself out.
Take a breath and she’s starting to sink more towards the air box..fuuuck. Whelp I guess it’s time to kill the engine before the water does. Oh and I finally had the sense to disconnect the horns. Getting a minute to think I try the winch again. FINALLY the switch engages and starts reeling the 80 in. First tree I tied off to pulls down…quickly rerrig..s*** too far can use the snatch block anymore. Okie dokie. Start reeling in line and the 80 climbs right in out.
Let the water drain out of the cab a little bit then get started on pulling the starter so it can be disassembled and dried out. Whelp in the process of doing that I forgot you can’t pull the armature out of the cover otherwise you’ll never get it back in and past the brushes.
Finally my dad get out to the gas line in his 2wd Tacoma. I use his truck as a winch anchor and pull up the hill to the path that exits the gas line. That in itself took about 3hrs. Did a combination of winch, tug, winch, place jumper cables to charge the battery until the winch said F you around 0300. We got about 1/4 off the trail this way.
I make a post in a MA 4x4 recovery group on fb and a guy named Mike in a stock gladiator on street tires comes out from 2hrs away…only asking for a few bucks for gas money..”bro you get me out, ill fill your tank n get you breakfast.” Another guy also joined in an h2 on 37’s but I was already hooked up to the jeep so we just left it that way.
We get my 80 to my parents house around 10am the following day from being stuck. Grab some coffee, say howdy to the kids(dad took them out and home in his truck).
Start looking for a new starter and get it on order.
Pull everything out of the truck so it can air dry in the yard. More or less took the day off from there waiting for the starter, just doing some much needed cleaning.
Starter installed the following morning…slightly turns over then massive voltage drop and clicks. Alright what’s going on….start disconnecting every connector in the drivers kick panel, remove all relays and get them drying with compressed air/sun. Put it all back together once dry…same thing. Ok so pulled every fuse and relay out that wasn’t need for the rig to start.
It starts!!!!
Let it run for a bit to recharge. Then start reinstalling all of the fuses and relays one at a time. I get to plugging in the seatbelt reminder chime relay and it immediately starts going off while causing a change in the trucks idle! Sweet disconnect that relay..finish everything else and it’s still good to go!
Got back to NC this morning around 0100.
