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1988 K5 the "Big Blue" compromise

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The ground on the low side was loose as hell, and there was nothing nearby to stop the roll if it tipped over. It was a long way down, and if it went over, some of the heavier pieces of wreckage might have had a shot at landing in a house's back yard about 3/4 mile below.

I got out carefully, and unloaded the entire truck (very very carefully) - EVERYTHING IN HERE COMES OUT, because I didn't want weight shifting around, and also because the tools and unsecured junk would have pummeled me to death like a giant ball mill, if I happened to be inside the truck and things ended up getting gymnastic...

I walked around the area for a little while assessing the situation.

I had no spare tire with me to bury as an anchor, and nothing else remotely capable of attaching the brand new winch to.
 
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So, i had a hammer, a bucket, a pair of gloves, and a screwdriver.

I walked down the trail, and not far down the hill I had cell service. So I texted a buddy who has played the "come rescue my dumbass" game before, and gave him my GPS coordinates, and a description of my not very good plan. I told him to call the local authorities of all types and flavors if he hadn't heard from me before it got dark in the next few hours. -send the helicopters and send the army, and send MacGyver and send Walker Texas ranger!

I Also gave him an estimated address for the people at the bottom of the hill - that would probably be the best place to start the search for flaming wreckage.

-And then i hiked back up the hill and got to work.
 
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aaaaaaaaand then i spent an hour trying to find rocks or branches of any kind. there wasnt much. that hill was mostly loose gravel and grass.

I probably moved 1000 pounds of baseball and grapefruit sized stones, and tried to start building a ramp back behind the low side tires. The hill was so steep i had to start building material up 5 or 6 feet below the height of the tires, and then build/stack back up, just so there would be SOME kind of support that didn't just give way and collapse and slide back down the hill under the weight of the truck.
 
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I had dug those pits right up to and literally UNDER the tires -I wanted them to come STRAIGHT down!

They did.

After carefully easing the truck back a few inches, the high side dropped about 16 inches, and having those tires better anchored into those pits kept the low side tires from sliding and displacing the ramps and rock bridge I had been building.

At least the immediate danger of rolling down the hill was over, but I also had effectively just high centered my blazer.
Still stuck, sitting on the side of a steep hill with nowhere to go, so I had to spend ANOTHER 1.5 hours frantically digging the under the axles and the skid plate. One bucket at a time, I moved dirt to the low side and added it to the rock bridge.

I had to dig out all the dirt between the driver's side tires, so that I had a cleared flat trench for the tires to back down while the low side rolled up the rock bridge - hopefully without pitching any weight back towards the scary side of the hill.

Man! - I'm tired just from remembering all that work!
From the initial teetering sphincter pucker, to the sigh of relief when all 4 tires had rolled back far enough to get back on the trail? -that was probably 4 hours of nonstop work.

trench.jpg
 
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82355 said:
Did you fill it back in after you got out?

Martin
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lol - Short answer is no I did not.

But, over the course of the ordeal, I had moved so much dirt just getting my truck out, that I basically changed the profile of the trail and the contour of the hill itself right there. If you were to drive up trail after I was gone, it looked like part of the trail just got smeared over the edge, and there was sort of a "landing" where the trail leveled out a bit before continuing the angle it had before that spot.

So, no blatant holes or trenches to ruin someone's day if that's what you were getting at?
 
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wouldn't have been an issue to other vehicle or foot traffic (at least no more than it was before!) , sooooo... no sleep lost over the trail contour.
 
yeah, its kind of cool having Miss January hanging above my desk...

But i don't want to go home to her, because she is big and fat and needs a bunch of work right now!

desk work.jpg
 
scouthead said:
yeah, its kind of cool having Miss January hanging above my desk...

But i don't want to go home to her, because she is big and fat and needs a bunch of work right now!
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Something about: Knock knock. Who's there? Squeal! :doah:

She may not vroom vroom but she's still a beaut. You'll get'er right.
 
joshuak said:
Something about: Knock knock. Who's there? Squeal! :doah:

She may not vroom vroom but she's still a beaut. You'll get'er right.
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lol yup. engine work next 2 weeks- hoping to keep that contained to January though! that truck goes back out on some trails this spring! buuuuut i havent posted enough photos to get the build on big blue back up to present day, so everybody has to forget these posts and pretend they didt happen yet? - i will get some more build stuff posted here this week.

I do have some pictures with me I could post in the firearms forum about a tumbler I made for brass... i will do that today.
 
also - VIDEOS!! i forgot i had posted a few on you tube years ago - just figured out how to post a link. I stuck two of them back on page 2 somewhere roughly chronologically correct, from pre bumper days when the truck was still on 33" tires.

good for a laugh!

-edit- whoops i meant page 2! got those first few videos on page 2
 
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