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First of all I take full responsibility. I was totally negligent and cannot lay the blame on
conditions, environment or others. We were headed down 3-stage and my front bumper locked
against a rock slab after a tire dropped into a hole. It hit with the heavy “thuck” that told you
you weren’t going anywhere. I just knew it was going to be a pain having to jack it on a steep
angle. I dragged ass out to take a closer look at the situation. Just what I thought, wedged
tight. At no time did I consider setting the parking brake or putting the automatic
transmission into park. I gave it a little push for no particular reason and it took
off!!!. At this point it was a panic situation with my wife and son in an out of control rig.
It bumped a jeep and disappeared off of the trail. I was giving chase with my only clues to their
condition being the snapping of trees as they were run over. They stopped after launching over
and against an outcropping. To my indescribable relief they were fine. Beyond the boulder the
hill dropped off very steeply for several hundred feet. It scares me to think of so many other
ways that this could have ended.
The overwhelming of emotions makes it hard to describe with any clarity all of what happened but
thanks to Ron Vanderslice of Ramsey winch who was at the run I have some photos of the scene. I
know a lot of people were photographing and videoing but these are all that I have. If you come
across additional photos they should be shared to let people know that things can go dangerously
wrong with the least little lapse of attention.
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Our rig was wedged on the slab where the two people are. This section of trail is about half
of the driverless run that the 40 took. |
I know that this shot doesn’t really capture its resting position. That’s because it was so steep
that it was hard for the photographer to get around.
The 40 is very high centered (the passenger rear tire was about waist high) with the left side
of the front bumper against a boulder. Beyond the bolder it is a steep drop off. |
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After the trail leaders determined that there was no injury and got my wife and son out of the
40 they stabilized it and used two winches to get it off of the rocks while keeping it
stabilized. These guys knew their stuff on winching techniques.
Trail rig # 1 in position to start winching |
Trail rig #2 winching |
Almost back on the trail |
As you can imagine the 40 was not drivable. To get down the hill I had one rig pulling and a
second rig in back doing my breaking, I steered. Jackie and Sean rode down separately.
I know that this isn’t a time for bragging, but considering the ride that our 40 took the damage
was not mind blowing. Below are photos of the damage that our 40 received. Much of it happened
while being winched off of the rocks.
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Bent tie rod. No big surprise. |
Bent spring. The main support leaf is bent back locking the shackle backwards against the frame.
Many thanks to Jody Potter for turning me on to his spare springs. |
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Broken driver’s side front hanger.
This is the factory set up (go check you own rig). The hanger is welded to the upper pin holder
on the bottom only!!!
That means the load is carried by the thin cross sections of the decenders. These are about 1/8”
thick with a ¼” to 3/16” webbing. This adds up to about 1/8 square inch total load carrying area.
I don’t know what Toyota was thinking. Our FJ-60 is welded about 180 degrees on the top providing
about 10 times the total load bearing area.
When I rebuilt this I welded the entire 360 degrees. If anybody knows why Toyota did what they
did I would like to find out. But I do know they changed the design in later years.
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Bent parking brake-backing plate. |
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Bent front bumper. This is 8” X 3/16” X 2” channel. It was bent back about 5 degrees at the point
of anchor. Go ahead and calculate out the amount of energy that was absorbed. |
Of course there were brake lines to rebuild, electrical issues, interior problems and a host of
other details to take care of. But these are mechanical problems that can be fixed. Even if it
were a total loss I could live with that but I could never live with the responsibility of
having taken a life. Safety will always be number one with me. |
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