Tire ground anchor

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I have been a bit disappointed in the performance of PulPals a couple of times in different terrain types. I am working on an idea for a differently designed ground anchor that should address the problems we had for our uses. *IF* it works out, you'll hear about it here first. :)


Mark...
 
I've seen some mixed reviews but I haven't personally used one so I can't comment. I'd love to have an afternoon to play with one though.

In the southeast we really don't have a frequent need for a ground anchor like a pull pal or burying a tire. Typically a winch line extension gets the job done. Now if you are out muddin' in a big field then you could definitely get into a situation where you need one. I always keep an eye out to 'what will happen if I get stuck here.' If I won't have a way to self-recover my vehicle or if someone with me won't have a way to get me out then I try to find another route. That still leans heavily on our abundance of trees in the southeast - I guess I'm just spoiled by wood! :hillbilly:
 
I too have been lucky enough to have either 1) other rigs to use for anchors or 2) vegetation. Sometimes I've had to anchor to many different bunches of shrubbery at once to keep from pulling them out one at a time.

There have been times when I'd have been happy to have a pull pall along but not enough to justify all that weight and space taken. Somebody should design some kind of dual purpose apparatus. Maybe a tire carrier that could be reconfigured as a pullpal? Maybe a portion of a bullbar?
 
lowenbrau said:
Somebody should design some kind of dual purpose apparatus. Maybe a tire carrier that could be reconfigured as a pullpal? Maybe a portion of a bullbar?
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Dangit - now you got me thinking! :D LOL

On a separate note - would you rather bury a tire, or carry a Pull-Pal even if it was designed to be smaller?

I'd estimate it would take at minimum an hour to prep, dig and setup a tire anchor - maybe several hours easily depending on the dirt you have to dig through. A Pull-Pal or similar device would take less time but also cost you about $450 right now with carrying case shipped.

Looks like it comes down to convenience and frequency of use.
 
Honestly, I've been stuck a thousand times and I've never considered burying a tire. I've jacked up a truck and built roads underneath quite often though. What I probably should be investing in is one of those air jacks.
 
lowenbrau said:
Honestly, I've been stuck a thousand times and I've never considered burying a tire. I've jacked up a truck and built roads underneath quite often though. What I probably should be investing in is one of those air jacks.
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Best of all is they are lighter and store away in a much smaller space.

This winter though I was stuck on ice and had a buddy also stuck on ice. An air jack wouldn't have helped out in that situation. I got out by repositioning but I had to get to the top of the hill and winch my buddy back up the hill backwards.

Hmmmmm.....
 
A bag 50 pound of pea gravel does wonders on ice. :) I backed a trailer into the ditch a couple of weeks ago and was spinning on glare ice trying to pull it out. even after disconnecting and reconnecting to get better angles and trying brush under the tires, nothing helped. Luckily I found a bag of redi-mix concrete in the barn and used some of the sand/gravel mix. Poured it in front of the tires and drove out without spinning a tire.


In the winter a good stout metal stake and a sledge hammer will create an anchor in ice or frozen ground that you can winch a tank out with!

Years ago I used the handle of a highlift jack for a stake, a OEM screw jack for a hammer and a come-along for a winch to pull my '55 out after I dropped a front tire through the ice on a creek while out running my trapline.

I will not spend the money for a pullpal, but after using ones that others have it would be pretty simple to fab one up. My biggest complaint about them is that they are not nearly as easy to get set and started in the ground as you may be led to believe. Once they do bite they tend to work fairly well but a lot of times the drag pretty shallow and it can be a bit of work to get them to stay straight and not flow to the side as you get it planted.


Mark...
 
This is the ice we got stuck on. Probably 1/2 mile or so more down the hill we came around a corner. We had probably dumped it into the uphill ditch twenty or thirty times earlier in the day to keep/get under control. I started sliding but couldn't duck into the ditch b/c of a large rock sticking out the mountain. I almost went off the mountain but saved it. My buddy behind me took the ditch and stopped before the rock. I got back by him to get him unstuck, got stuck myself, got unstuck, then had to winch him out. There was little traction on the ice in the video, and none further down the road.

There is no way to bury anything in this frozen ground - but driving a hi-lift handle into the ground might have worked. That would seem like a logical choice but never seeing or hearing about it done before and not watching MacGyver in awhile makes these obvious choice not so obvious.

 
Looks like a set of studded tires would have been nice to have. Probably made it a non-event. But I guess you guys do not normally have enough need for studs to simply swap over to them when winter arrives.

Chains would have done even better on that sort of stuff..


Mark...
 
Mark W said:
Looks like a set of studded tires would have been nice to have. Probably made it a non-event. But I guess you guys do not normally have enough need for studs to simply swap over to them when winter arrives.

Chains would have done even better on that sort of stuff..


Mark...
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South Carolina winters aren't cold enough for studs. The ice you saw was in the North Carolina mountains and they only get that a few times a year. This was on a Forest Service road that doesn't get plowed.

I'm probably going to pick up a pair of chains or cables for next year for the rear of my FJC - aren't supposed to put them on the front. The Pig could get them front and rear - and that would be fun!
 
Mark W said:
I have been a bit disappointed in the performance of PulPals a couple of times in different terrain types. I am working on an idea for a differently designed ground anchor that should address the problems we had for our uses. *IF* it works out, you'll hear about it here first. :)


Mark...
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Sounds like you're ahead of most of us. I've not had the opportunity to try one out. Frozen tundra or slick rock would seem to render a Pul-Pal useless. If I had one, I think that I'd throw a sledgehammer in the rig to get it started on hardpan. Might prevent what you experienced in post #27. Sand and mud would be easy. From looking at it and reading about it, seems like once you get a good bite with the blade, your on your way. The arm that you attach the cable to, levers the blade to dig deeper, the harder you pull. Although if it's rocky enough soil, it might be tough to get a good enough bite to be effective. Although, as a last resort effort, the Pul-Pal still beats the hell out of burying your spare!

I, for one, would be interested if you could improve on the design. Good luck!
 
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Digging in a swampy situation can be a problem too... the shovel head tends to pull out without digging down.

Falling to the side has been in my experience an issue regardless of the terrain. Softer clay/peat mud seems to be the easiest to sink it into.

The approach I am looking at would address this factor. But I'll play it close to the vest until I see if it is a good idea or if it turns out to be a bust.


Mark...
 
years ago when i was new to offroading, i found my self stuck in some red clay, that was covered with dry leaves, well being new to this when i felt my truck bogging and sinking, i stopped and tried to back out, hell by the time i was done you could not even see the frame the passenger door would not open, i had no winch, after a buddy pulled my rear bumper till it ripped in half, i used a high lift jack and a s*** load of rocks and downed wood, to get the truck back up, then started it and drove the rest of the way out, we did go back and shoveled the mud back in the holes removing the throw in debris that was on top.
 
there is a link here (or expo forum) about a guy who welded a bar on top of a ranch tool: a bar...
You bury the bar deep enough to wrap your recovery strap on it....

He used pics to demonstrate. It sounds a lot better than having to bury a tire. the only downside is storage. Similar to the bar on the left side of the pic.

handtools.jpg
 
I seem to recall someone posting up an army vehicle recovery manual here one time. IIRC they suggest using a log as a deadman rather than the spare.
 
ummm, i am thinking if the ground is too hard for a proper Land Anchor (like the ones in the olden day off road mags) then you will have a bitch of a time digging to bury a tire.

Like many that actually wheel their rigs, i have been stuck many a time. not once was i tempted to bury a tire to get out. a hi-lift is invaluable in some situations since a lot of the time you just need to brake the suction loose.

i have had the experience of winching a truck out usings a small shrub in the middle of winter. it was the only thing close enough to reach with the winch. -28C, broke through the ice on wiperous creek in Alberta. 2 buddies in one truck. stupid to go wheeling in weather like that in one truck but, well, we did start out in 2 rigs. the first one lost its clutch completely and we needed to get out. ran the winch out, hooked around the base of the shrub, buddy bent the twigs over away from the winch and stood on the shrub. very slowly we tested the setup, luckly most small shrubs have a wide root base and with it frozen in we succeded in getting the rig out.

there have been a few time when a true Land Anchor would be a benefit and like Mark i am thinking of designing one of my own that collapses and can hold the proper angle needed to cut into the ground and not just "plow a furow".

i do think, as a last resort, burying a tire might work but you would need to dig in such a way the tire doesn't just pull back up and out. maybe dig on a 45 deg angled away from the stuck rig so that unmolested dirt will resist the tire being pulled though it. it would be a lot of work with questionable results.

common sense should come into play BEFORE you got yourself stuck.
 
I guess I'm the only idiot to bury tires :D

IMG_1760.JPG


I was buried to the frame, for scale, those are 36" tires and there's a metaltech slider buried. The left side was up, but it was loose gravel, plus I was resting on the frame/skid plates. Burying a tire that size is a pain, but it EASILY pulled me out. My first attempt was only 6" down and a bunch of gravel piled on top which didn't work at all, so I went all out. In loose gravel it took a couple hours to dig it up, but it took around 7 hours to get free of the area. After getting stuck twice in the quicksand spots, I walked everything before driving it. Lessons learned, make sure to lower your psi, go with friends, and be careful in braided stream beds with running water.

IMG_1753.JPG


If you actually bury your tire, make sure you trench the cable down so you aren't levering the tire out. Also, try not to disturb the soil, other than the trench, so you get most strength. The strength is partially the weight of the soil so compacting it in 6" lifts helps, but most of it by far is coming from the tire applying pressure to the edge of the excavation. Failure would ultimately come by pushing a large wedge of soil, shearing through it. Yeah, I'm an geotechnical engineer so if you want the bearing capacity I could probably estimate that for you :p
 
Good pics. Does not sound like fun, but good to see that it works.

John
 
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