Hey y'all, I just thought I'd start a thread,  I used the search to see if there was already a thread like this, but I didn't find one, so here goes!!   

Tell me about your scariest, most puckering moment,  could be a near roll or flop, hanging a wheel over an unseen ledge,  or even swamping your Zuk somewhere you thought you'd need the Corps of Engineers to recover, anything that made ya nervous will work!!


I'll start with (one of) mine:

I was playing in some ATV trails behind the local nudie bar, and had already driven up all the fun hills and back down some of them.  Well I made it up a hill that was real rutted up  and nearly vertical at the top from the ATVs.  When I decided to drive back down, I was coming at an angle and had to turn left to get down the hill.  Well, as soon as my left front went into the ATV rut, it just kept sliding down the hill,  and then the right front started following it...SIDEWAYS Well, I figured, since I'M driving this thing, and not gravity, maybe I should hit the brakes...not the right decision...While it did stop the front from sliding down the hill,  it also made the right rear start coming up,  while slightly tipping the rig out over the hill.  When everything stopped movin, I had the left front down in a rut, the right front on the ledge, and the right rear about 2 feet in the air.  At which point, my physics knowledge(none), combined with my off-roading experience(some) told me that I could just sit here with my foot on the brake forever, and not flip over, or I could keep the wheel yanked to the left, and give throttle to get started down the hill, and hopefully bring the right rear tire back down.  I opted for the latter and it worked!!  Phew!!

Here's a vid of the hill on the way up: 



Well that's my story, with a pucker factor of 7 out of 10, who's next??

I'll go next.

Well I was 14 at the time, and I went to take my SJ410 out for a drive in the Field (I live on a farm) and I started down are driveway (which is Farly steep at the end of it) when I pushed in the brake and the clutch to stop at the road nothing happend, it just went faster down toward the road I panicked but luckily no body was on the road so I got it to the Field and stopped, I looked at the brake peddle and the arm that goes thru the firewall in to mastercilinder had fell off. Now looking back I could have just used the park brake, but at the time it was scary.

I think it was a 5 or 6 out of 10

nothing happend, it just went faster down toward the road I panicked

YIKES!!  NO brakes huh?  Man that's like the worst feeling in the world!!  Glad you didn't crash!

Mine had to be on the old Trail 7 at Windrock. There is a rock ledge at the top of a huge hill climb... well I bumped it a little to hard trying to make sure I did not get hung up and lifted both front wheels off the ground... This is was a wide open power line (no trees) that had absolutely nothing to keep you from rolling the 420 feet to the bottom if you lost it... The ended up closing the trail due to the death factor.... Did it once... would NOT do it again... I will try to find a pic from the trail...
Zig

My most puckering moment? When I heard " I think I'm pregnant " the first time. 2nd most puckering moment, Harlen KY, first time there with LilRed, Duane and some of there friends. It had been raining pretty hard the day before turning anything with what passes for dirt down there into a kind of super slick mud. Duane and Lilred led the way up this real skinny trail that didn't look real bad, until it made an abrupt left turn and dropped down through the trees at about a 55/60 degree angle. The turn was so tight even a Tracker was a real tight fit. It was like driving into a tree tunnel, so narrow the trees were slapping the mirrors. NO traction whatsoever, slick as snail snot, pointing almost straight down for about 100 yards, trees literally lining the edges, ending at a road bed on the bottom. I started to make my way down, and just could not keep it going slow enough to control. If I let up on the brakes, to fast, start sliding.  A bit too much brake, start sliding. About 20 yards down I finally got into a slide I couldn't control and the passenger side slid off into the trees and banged to a stop with my front bumper just resting against the trunk of a tree, about halfway off the trail.
I couldn't back out of it, just kept spinning the wheels. So I locked the front diff, pulled the ebrake up a bit , and gassed it enough to get the front end to slide, while turning the wheel slightly, and while the rig didn't move up or down the hill, it just slid sideways off the tree trunk and back onto the trail, front first.
I started to move forward again and almost immediately it started sliding again. This time I just said screw it, and I aimed it down the hill and let her roll. I was moving pretty good when I spotted a friend of Duane and Linda's standing directly in the way at the bottom of the trail. I could not stop or even slow down and at the last second he managed to get out of the way as I hit the road bed and slung it sideways to avoid hitting the cliff face on the other side.
I finally took a breath again, and looked over at my wife, who didn't seem to think anything out of the ordinairy had happened. She just said " well that was fun."

My most puckering moment? When I heard " I think I'm pregnant " the first time. 2nd most puckering moment, Harlen KY, first time there with LilRed, Duane and some of there friends. It had been raining pretty hard the day before turning anything with what passes for dirt down there into a kind of super slick mud. Duane and Lilred led the way up this real skinny trail that didn't look real bad, until it made an abrupt left turn and dropped down through the trees at about a 55/60 degree angle. The turn was so tight even a Tracker was a real tight fit. It was like driving into a tree tunnel, so narrow the trees were slapping the mirrors. NO traction whatsoever, slick as snail snot, pointing almost straight down for about 100 yards, trees literally lining the edges, ending at a road bed on the bottom. I started to make my way down, and just could not keep it going slow enough to control. If I let up on the brakes, to fast, start sliding.  A bit too much brake, start sliding. About 20 yards down I finally got into a slide I couldn't control and the passenger side slid off into the trees and banged to a stop with my front bumper just resting against the trunk of a tree, about halfway off the trail.
I couldn't back out of it, just kept spinning the wheels. So I locked the front diff, pulled the ebrake up a bit , and gassed it enough to get the front end to slide, while turning the wheel slightly, and while the rig didn't move up or down the hill, it just slid sideways off the tree trunk and back onto the trail, front first.
I started to move forward again and almost immediately it started sliding again. This time I just said screw it, and I aimed it down the hill and let her roll. I was moving pretty good when I spotted a friend of Duane and Linda's standing directly in the way at the bottom of the trail. I could not stop or even slow down and at the last second he managed to get out of the way as I hit the road bed and slung it sideways to avoid hitting the cliff face on the other side.
I finally took a breath again, and looked over at my wife, who didn't seem to think anything out of the ordinairy had happened. She just said " well that was fun."

Now you know how I got all my dents . . . trying to follow Duane!  That was the steepest, slipperest I have been on I think.  Snaking it through the trees really added to the thrill!  I didn't know what was at the bottom either!  I was terrified and after I was able to breath again, my comments to him when we got stopped were not nearly as nice as Rita's to you!  

Mine did not include my zuki.  This may not qualify, but I was elk hunting when a snow storm came in.  No big deal, but the next day was really warm with a rain.  that night  a big wind came in, the ground already soft with all the water from the rain and melted snow, could not hold the trees in.  At 2am I was awakened by the crash of old growth timber (150' plus in the area we were in, not huge by Oregon standards), as they fell to the ground.  Yes, you can hear a tree that falls in the woods.  I was camped with a buddy and knew every tree around us was 200' plus which in my mind meant it had seen all nature could offer in 200 years and was fine to weather this storm.  At around 4 am I heard a trees roots snap and I knew it was close and coming down.  Seconds later it fell through my tent parallel to the ridgeline bending one of the EMT pipe rafters around my buddy pinning him into the cot.  I was able to squeeze out in my chonies calling my buddies name while standing in the snow.  He finally answered with the manly scream of a little girl that fell off the monkey bars at school.  I knew then he was ok.  We decided to get the heck out of there and come back in the AM to see what was left, so we grabbed a bit of food and took off in my truck.  We got about 40 yards before we met the first blow down, for you flat landers that is a BFT that is laying across the road, went thru both chains we had extra for the saws, the whole time more trees were falling that we could not see but only hear because it was as black as the inside of a cow out there.  The whole ordeal took about 6 hours until we were out.  I'll share it better over a camp fire at some ZW outing when I have a beer in my hand.  still hard to talk about.

I have a few, driving a fully loaded semi and getting cut off by cars while driving 65+ on the freeway, having a motor home hit the brakes in front of my semi and having to go into the construction zone to avoid it. But the scariest moment in my Zuk (so far) happened while I was trying to climb a hill, 3/4 of the way up my Zuk gave up (I still run a fully stock drive-train with 31" tires), I went to hit the brakes and the pedal went to the floor as I rolled backwards with no brakes I somehow managed to get it sideways and not rollover. My passenger and I then got out to find that the passenger side rear brake cylinder had totally blown out. I crimped off the rubber hose with my vise-grips, filled the fluid back up and not only finished wheeling it that night but drove it around while I delivered pizzas for the next few days till pay day.
   
I have done some cool (at least to me) trail fixes since I got my Zuk, I once broke a rear leaf spring and had to drive it out like that so I put the stock jack in between the frame and the axle and drove it about 10-15 miles back in to Huntsville, UT till I was able to get a new spring a few hours later.
 
Once broke the outer cover on the clutch cable inside the engine compartment, right next to the fire wall I took a box end wrench (15mm) and electrical tape (green) and made a splint for the cable it worked for a few days till I could change the cable.

Medford, that does sound pants wetting scary, a young woman was killed here this summer by exactly that,  falling tree in a storm crushed her in her tent where we wheel. Doughboy, I can attest to the sheer number of braindead drivers on the roads, you have to be pretty tolerent. I used to daydream about having a monster truck so I could just roll over traffic clogging idiots. OK, time for my meds now.

I would love to drive a monster truck down the freeway just need a larger fuel cell in the back LOL

Quote from: bentparts on October 05, 2010, 04:24:01 PM

My most puckering moment? When I heard " I think I'm pregnant " the first time. 2nd most puckering moment, Harlen KY, first time there with LilRed, Duane and some of there friends. It had been raining pretty hard the day before turning anything with what passes for dirt down there into a kind of super slick mud. Duane and Lilred led the way up this real skinny trail that didn't look real bad, until it made an abrupt left turn and dropped down through the trees at about a 55/60 degree angle. The turn was so tight even a Tracker was a real tight fit. It was like driving into a tree tunnel, so narrow the trees were slapping the mirrors. NO traction whatsoever, slick as snail snot, pointing almost straight down for about 100 yards, trees literally lining the edges, ending at a road bed on the bottom. I started to make my way down, and just could not keep it going slow enough to control. If I let up on the brakes, to fast, start sliding.  A bit too much brake, start sliding. About 20 yards down I finally got into a slide I couldn't control and the passenger side slid off into the trees and banged to a stop with my front bumper just resting against the trunk of a tree, about halfway off the trail.
I couldn't back out of it, just kept spinning the wheels. So I locked the front diff, pulled the ebrake up a bit , and gassed it enough to get the front end to slide, while turning the wheel slightly, and while the rig didn't move up or down the hill, it just slid sideways off the tree trunk and back onto the trail, front first.
I started to move forward again and almost immediately it started sliding again. This time I just said screw it, and I aimed it down the hill and let her roll. I was moving pretty good when I spotted a friend of Duane and Linda's standing directly in the way at the bottom of the trail. I could not stop or even slow down and at the last second he managed to get out of the way as I hit the road bed and slung it sideways to avoid hitting the cliff face on the other side.
I finally took a breath again, and looked over at my wife, who didn't seem to think anything out of the ordinairy had happened. She just said " well that was fun."

Now you know how I got all my dents . . . trying to follow Duane!  That was the steepest, slipperest I have been on I think.  Snaking it through the trees really added to the thrill!  I did know for sure what was at the bottom either!  I was terrified and after I was able to breath again, my comments to him when we got stopped were not nearly as nice as Rita's to you! 

It makes me want to do it all over again! Whens the next ride Lilred?

It makes me want to do it all over again! Whens the next ride Lilred?

Me too!  Those guys you almost ran over are riding at Royal Blue TN in a couple weeks.  We couldn't work out that trip but I'm seriously considering riding over to Harlan in the street rig, just to watch the Fall Crawl, do a little scenic riding, and see whats changed with the park.  So I'll be making plans for sure to get back there soon with the Zuks, might be spring, keep that in mind.  Got a local place here we've been playin at.  Going out there this weekend, Duane in a stock 4 dr 94 Kick on 235s open open!  240K and smokes but still seems to run stronger than any of mine & wheels great for stock!  Beautiful weather!!!  Should be interesting.  Come on down anytime!!

  Got to work on that, hopefully before it snows! What were they're names again? Jerry? and ?

Got to work on that, hopefully before it snows! What were they're names again? Jerry? and ?

Yeah, Jerry in the other samurai. 
Cowboy hat = Shane.  He bought Papa Smurfs Zuk  (Windrock trip), but yesterday showed up in 91 Wrangler he got in trade on it.  He was just too big a boy to fit in it.  Had it been street legal, I woulda consider it.
CJ5 (I think) at Windrock = Grease
D in stock 4 door could not keep up with me due to limited ground clearance  (among other things ).   Ended up overheatiing too.  Not enough torque for Duane anyway. . . Dust dust dust here.  We need rain.

Nice stories, careful out there!!!  Especially you Zig,  try and keep at least three tires on the ground.    Well, unless you're teeterin