Here is the list of broken stuff.
1. Broken spool
2. Bent tie rod
3. Broken hub
4. Lost transmission mount and partially stripped / broken trans bolt holes
5. Busted transfer case (2 high is gone and there are clearly other issues)
6. Bumper ripped out 1” on driver side
7. Hook half torn out of frame
8. Re-set bead on tire (okay, technically this is not “broken”)
likely there will be more stuff as I pull things apart and look. I had noises coming from the front hubs, bearings, axle area before it got towed.
Here is the long version (story):
before we even got to the trail the trouble began. As we were getting off the exit at pollock pines my co-pilot (josh) and I notice some horrible sounding bangs. After the whole group spent an hour working on the rig we had accomplished nothing as the axle had spun inside the spool essentially stripping the splines inside the spool on the passenger side. I have spare axles, but strangely I did not have a spare spool (seriously, has anyone ever heard of this happening?).
I decided to run it that way anyway. With this I would have a front that was locked and one rear wheel… the other wheel (passenger side) was dead. This combination proved to be challenging (especially with snow and super bald tires I had on the rear). When the truck was leaning to the driver side traction was okay, but when it would lean to the passenger side I would spin and struggle having to be tugged or winched on several occasions.
The first section I had to get tugged through proved rough on the tie rod as it got bent up into a nice u. A little further on we had to do a lot of tugging to get her though the large creek / ravines that were in between snow banks. Toward the end of the first day I broke a hub trying to get through the last large one (we were able to get it up and parked for the night).
Saturday I fixed the hub, we straightened the tie rod, and hit the trail. Things started out well as we continued up thinking we might get through, but the further we went the more snow there was. In some of the really snowy sections I was struggling. I would back up and hit it again. In a few cases I failed to gain forward progress and again would get winched up. We finally got to the point of impassible for me and challenging / impassible for others. We broke for lunch and then someone pointed out my spare tire had a lot of tread unlike the other two rear tires so I put my spare tire on the side that still had traction since it did not matter on the passenger side as it wasn’t doing anything anyway. Why I did not put that spare on earlier is beyond me, but it certainly helped as we turned around and I was able to run all the way back down the trail without one winch or one tug (granted it was downhill). I did not get down without more issues however


as we climbed down the mountain (Craig e.) who was following me pointed out my tire was low just as I could hear it deflating rapidly. Most of us were running extremely low tire pressure to help in the snow. Apparently my spare was low enough that it let mud into the bead somewhere along the way. It was bad enough that we had no choice but to pull the tire off, pop the bead, clean a few handfuls of mud out and the throw the tire back on and re-seat / fill it up. Fortunately it was just mud in the bead so I cannot claim this was breakage, but again I was the only one with an issue here lol. A little further down I noticed it was acting funny again just not crawling right and making some strange noises / occasional bang. It wasn’t long before I noticed the shifters moving all over. I pulled over again and got under the truck to take a look. Problem easily detected as the transmission mount and bolts were all missing. One of the bolt holes into the trans had been ovaled / partially stripped out as well. We got the transmission aligned with the cross member found some bolts and bolted her back down without the mount. Then we continued down the rest of the trail.
We got out of strawberry around 7pm Saturday evening and the group wanted to head up to loon lake / rubicon. We headed up and although she seemed to be running a little funny it was really uneventful and we got up there around 9pm. Had a lot of fun that night.
Next morning we were all ready to head back home. I’d had some trouble getting her back into 2wd when we left strawberry which is only unusual as I don’t normally have trouble getting it into 2wd just out of 4-lo when I have been wheeling for a bit. Anyway, on Saturday morning I had to put it in 4wd to get out of the loon lake camp site. Then when we got to the pavement things went south quick. I could not find 2wd it was just not there so I put it in 4-hi and realized it too had issues. In 4-hi the front end was squealing and the t-case was howling at very low speed if I tried to go faster it was even worse. If I unlocked the hubs there was no rear drive until I put it into 4-lo. I was able to drive it a couple miles in 4-lo with the transfer case howling and screaming until I could get to a safe spot. Craig e. Drove me down further so I could get cell service and I called aaa for my tow. 2 hours later my truck arrived and it was on the flat bed for 198 miles… good thing I have aaa premier which gives me one free 200 mile tow a year (I think I got my money’s worth there)!
Despite all of the trouble I still had a great time and thank everyone for their help!
I am going to start fixing her this weekend if possible
