Well.....broke yet another axle. This is the second one on the drivers side. After close inspection it was due to a bad casting of the tripod joint since the splined part where the rollers attach is cast it was just a mfacturers defect. It happened on basically flat terrain with very little load. So I just drove it home the 15 miles with it in there like that and then took it apart to inspect it at home in the shop. Got lifetime warranty on em from Oreily's so new one is already in and monty is back up and running.
Also while recovering some people this past sunday had a very enlightening experience. :Wow1: It was so slippery on the trail that I had to winch myself up in order to make forward progress. I just could not get traction whatsoever. Well the rigs behind me were Open/Open in their diffs and were way worse off than me. I ended up having to back down to each one fo them and hook my winch up to a tree in front of me and then a strap from myself back to them. So essentially my winch was pulling both of us up the hill.
It was late at night and I ALWAYS check the trees that I anchor too with my winch and saw one that was perfect in size...about 2 feet across in diameter and had leaves and was good quality. Basically it looked alive. Well it was near 80 feet tall. I had dang near all my winch rope spooled out so i was close to 95' out you could say. Well when I proceeded to winch all was going well and then I heard a loud rifle CRACK and looked forward and saw the tree that I THOUGHT was alive slowly falling towards me.
At that moment I dont think I have been that scared in a long,long time. I ducked and covered inside the paj and hoped for the best. Well it fell down with the loudest bang and when it was all over and done with I got out to survey the damage and clean my pants.
Had the tree been 1 foot taller it would have landed on my hood....had it been 6 feet taller it would have crushed my paj with me in it. So my whole point to this is to MAKE SURE TO CHECK AND RECHECK YOUR ANCHOR POINTS. This tree was very misleading and decieving and when I went to the base I looked and the inside 10" core was rotten but outside was alive and well. So I dont know what I could have done different but I am very thankfull that I escaped with no injury and only a few dents on the hood from a stray limb