March 1999 - ulands #2

Brett, Jonah, and I went out to the ulands again to check out the mud now that almost all of the snow is melted. It was pretty sloppy, and the pit that Brett got stuck in last time when he broke through the ice was just about all melted. There were some ice chunks left, but nothing that would support the weight of a vehicle, and they were just floating in the water.

At first the water didn't seem to deep, maybe if we kept driving through the same spot it would have gotten sloppy. The area around it was pretty mushy, but nothing really deep, just fun to play around on. I went a little further into the water and got stuck. Water was halfway up the front bumper and it was above the bottom of the doors. The exhaust pipes were completely submerged, the fan was definitely in the water and it was throwing water all over the engine compartment. Steam was coming out of the engine compartment pretty good, I was afriad the air filter was going to get soaked and I'd be taking in water pretty soon, I had absolutely no power in forward or reverse, but she kept running. The check engine light was on and I'm sure the computer wasn't happy.

Brett pulled around in front of me and I climbed out of my window onto the hood of the rig thinking I could hook up the tow strap on one of the front hooks. No luck. The water was freezing cold, and the tow hooks were buried into the ground where I was hung up. So Brett pulled around behind me. I climbed through the back of my truck, put the tailgate down, unscrewed the clevis and had Dave throw me the rope from the bed of Brett's truck. In my haste, I dropped the rope in the water, so Dave had to give it another toss. After getting the end of the rope, I froze my hands again and screwed the clevis back into the receiver hitch.

Brett tried slowly pulling at first, but that wasn't gonna happen. A couple good snatch pulls and I was outta the water. The pullies were screaming as I backed out, so I shut it off thinking that the belt might have come off. Luckily, nothing was damaged, let it sit for a bit and dry off, and I eventually got it started again.

Brett started messing around again, and he eventually took an angle the opposite way from where I was stuck. He hit the hole really hard and his radiator hit his fan, and the fan ripped a couple nice holes in the radiator. He got through the pit no problem, but when he pulled out, coolant was pouring out everywhere.

It only took us about an hour to accomplish this. With his radiator completely empty and broken, I pulled him back to my place and we called it a night.

Check out Brett's page to see pics of his journey through the water.

Go to page 2 for more pics.