Oops, I shoudln't have done that - the breakage thread

[alrock]

I was thinking about the screwups I've done (and watched others do) that have led to breakage. I think a lot of breakage occurs a while after those "I can't believe I got away with that one" moments, meaning we incur damage at one time but it materializes hours, days or weeks later.

Share any stories you have of things you could've or should've prevented and other famous mistakes you may have made.

For me, I was on Sunflower Mine trail. Went over a large pointy rock and when I went back to spot another, I found a spot of oil on that rock. I figured it couldn't have been mine; must've been from a Jeep in another group ahead of us.

A week later I'm mudding

and my transfer case begins acting up. Of course just going in and out of mud like this wouldn't cause a normal transfer case to fail, so I didn't worry about it. I drove home, drive to Jerry's, drove around before I went to the dealer. Ended up putting 100 miles on a dry transfer case because the little crack from Sunflower Mine turned into this with the mud holes.

So the relatively low stress driving through mud puddles exacerbated a mistake from a week earlier, resulting in this:

 

[06 H3]

Damn...that sucks I can't believe you blew a hole in the case. Luckily my 06 is still on original stock rear shafts original rear axle and transfer case I have destroyed one tie rod in the sluice box showing off with no spotter one half shaft and one ring gear (replaced the whole diff though)

 

[Neo]

one rule i'm trying to stick by is 3 tries and take a strap . i have noticed that by the 4th attempt on a lot of hard stuff people start trying to hammer it up , me included . wasn't it about the fourth try that i twisted that prop shaft and took out the tranny pan ? and my Diffs were about the same ...

 

[alrock]

Yep, that was a bad one. Wet tires, lack of traction and a normal amount of stubbornness:

 

[Neo]

"normal amount of stubbornness"

i like that , it's so freakin true

 

[Scarsman]

a normal amount of stubbornness

Yep, that's just about how I broke my rear axle. I should've given up.

Sent from my C771 using Tapatalk

 

[HUMMER INVESTMENTS]

H1 is broken due to going up a 45 degree plus hill, that had a giant hole on the left side. First try, tires spin, so I stop, and give it one more try, and the second try, I blow a front driveline, a halfshaft, and the rear brake calipers are needing to be replaced. Hopefully soon it will be fixed.

 

[HUMMER INVESTMENTS]

Among the rest of the list is tierods, pitman arm and idler arms, and other halfshafts, plus a motor mount.

 

[MTUH3]

Hmmm, what can I remember.....

Turtle Ridge on DI, driving down a wooded trail and while driving over a tree branch on the road it broke and swung up and eliminated by passenger door handle.

Turtle Ridge on DI, didn't have UCP and stock tire still, slid off a rock and tried to use the front propshaft as a skid plate. I ended up with two, very short propshafts.

DI again.... bombing through some water holes to entertain the kids in the truck, a few days after we got home, started lubricating the bottom of the truck. Crank Case leaking oil and water pump shot. I figure it was the dirt and water getting forced up under the hood.

DI again................. Broken rear pass leaf spring at front eye. I would say this is more wear and tear. Same with the front hubs going crazy on the way home from DI last year.

I think that is it

 

[alrock]

Turtle Ridge on DI, didn't have UCP and stock tire still, slid off a rock and tried to use the front propshaft as a skid plate. I ended up with two, very short propshafts.

I did something like that too though I just bent my front propshaft. Still had to be replaced of course.

 

[3Hummers]

Damn Carl, DI seems to have your number.

Mine was towing a dead H1 off of Cliffhanger. I knew that I should have winched it up the ledges coming off of the trail but it was so much faster to strap him up and over them. I made it through all but the last one, which is capped by about 150' of steep incline once you get over the last ledge. I was up and over the ledge trying to climb the slope and tow this H1 up the ledge when my front prop shaft turned into a plate of spaghetti. It wound up taking two Jeeps winching the dead H1 while anchored to another H1 to get the other truck up the slope. I knew better tried it anyway.

 

[MTUH3]

DI is the only place I get to wheel these days. I am lucky to get one wheeling trip in a year. So law of averages says if I am going to break, it will be on Drummond....

So far I have avoided breaking the "common" stuff.

 

[M22KLARS]

How about this........

Go over to my buddies house cuz a bunch of dudes are going on on the town for his birthday. Well when I get there his Truck is gone and I'm all, WTF... so I park in his garage and get out. I'm walking out of his garage and I see his truck out in the middle of this new residential area that is being built. (He lives on the end of a brand new residential neighborhood with only about 2 houses around and the rest is still being dug)

So he's standing in the bed of his F-150 saving his arms and two other guys are standing out there too. So I hop back in my H3.... with 80,xxx miles on the factory Duelers... yes... they were balder than a... fill that in however you want.

I start to drive out to where he is and I see how wet and nasty everything is. So I decided to go out along the edge and try to get to him from a different are that he came from. Well... I didn't make it and ended up like this.

COMPLETELY BURIED! Gay ass nerf bars and all. Freakin' noob.... :shame:

Well we tried and tried but we couldn't get the 6000lbs monster out of the mud but we did manage to get his truck out....

So after about 2 hours of pushing and pulling and putting timbers under the tires I started rocking my truck back and forth... D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R, D-R....

I managed to get things so hot that I welded the clutch together.... on an automatic.

Had to call a tow truck who came, ran his winch all the way out of the drum..... had to go back to his shop to respool it..... and then cameback and pulled me out.

Oh did I mention that the cops had showed up a couple times by now? Yeah... They weren't too pleased. But we didn't get any tickets.

Yep.. that was fun. And no we hadn't been drinking yet.

Plus side was that my dealer is amazing and went out and power washed the truck before the GM insurance warranty guy came out to inspect and they got it covered under my warranty. BONUS!

 

[cbetts]

While climbing "the hill" in Last Chance Canyon, I was having issues climbing up a step. Several things happened to cause breakage:

1. Exceeded the "three tries" rule
2. Night run . . . and no extra lighting
3. 2:00 AM, little sleep
4. Last major obstacle on the run
5. Insisting on letting traction control do its job
6. No spare parts

I guess I had enough speed on the wheels when the front tires slipped off the shelf and came back down on the rock, bending a tie-rod.

(click to view larger image)

 

[3Hummers]

Craig, in your defense there was so little light that no one could see what was going on with the passenger front tire. If my offroad lights hadn't had a short( that developed part of the way through the run ) I probably could have kept that from happening by seeing what was going on with both wheels. I climbed that ledge with no issues in our H3...but that was in daytime and I could see.

 

[cbetts]

That hill has been my nemesis for quite some time. You missed it when I found the hole at the top that almost flipped me over.

 

[06 H3]

That was scary...