[FORSALE7]

have a good partner who knows what theyre doing

[Faramir66103]

Originally Posted by briguy3030

I was planning on purchasing 20' of recovery chain, grade 70 w/grabber hooks.
Is this not recommended? I use rigging every day as I am a Union Ironworker.
We use straps & wire rope chokers w/ the cranes.

I understand the logic of a failed piece of rigging & the metal hook/chain flying back @ somebody . . . however, couldn't one merely put a blanket, something with a little weight on the rigging to absorb/dissipate the energy in the event of a rigging failure?

I've got both chain and straps, and they do different things well. As stated earlier, the straps are significantly lighter to carry and handle, as I'm sure you're well aware. Straps stretch and lessen the impact on both vehicles and anchor points. In a rolling recovery situation, this is very beneficial. I'd also prefer to tow (as opposed to recover) with a stretchy strap to eliminate potential shock loads on the rigging and vehicles. Chain is excellent when needing to anchor off of a rough rock that would chew up a synthetic strap or anywhere you want to NOT have any stretch. My HiLift will also pull a chain, but not a strap.

As always when dealing with terribly lethal forces, use your best judgment and when in doubt, back off and rethink.

There's a good video available here by Bill Burke called UNstuck. It's not the most gripping or well crafted piece of cinema of all time, but it's got a lot of good information and is well worth the price.

Adam

[dolphy]

Go with someone who has experience. Ride high, don't straddle rocks, drive over them with your tires. Don't spin your tires if you lose traction...that's how parts break. Instead, back up a little bit and try a different line/angle. Easy on the gas...4-wheel low and crawl over obstacles. If you go up a steep hill and can't make it, back down it. DON'T try and turn around, you might roll.

NEVER try something because someone tells you to.

Use a spotter if needed.

Get used to jeep noises. Most importantly, have FUN and BE SAFE.

[briguy3030]

Originally Posted by Faramir66103

I've got both chain and straps, and they do different things well. As stated earlier, the straps are significantly lighter to carry and handle, as I'm sure you're well aware. Straps stretch and lessen the impact on both vehicles and anchor points. In a rolling recovery situation, this is very beneficial. I'd also prefer to tow (as opposed to recover) with a stretchy strap to eliminate potential shock loads on the rigging and vehicles. Chain is excellent when needing to anchor off of a rough rock that would chew up a synthetic strap or anywhere you want to NOT have any stretch. My HiLift will also pull a chain, but not a strap.

As always when dealing with terribly lethal forces, use your best judgment and when in doubt, back off and rethink.

There's a good video available here by Bill Burke called UNstuck. It's not the most gripping or well crafted piece of cinema of all time, but it's got a lot of good information and is well worth the price.

Adam

Very solid points, thanks. Like I mentioned previously I have daily experience rigging iron (beams, columns, decking, etc.), however, I am a bit foreign to the subject about rigging for vehicle recovery. Particularly, when do you want stretch & when would you not want stretch?

[CLNinja]

Originally Posted by thedirt

When crawling over obstacles, go as slow as possible. Dragging something slowly does a lot less damage than dragging something quickly (as me how I know ).

If possible, take your tires over an obstacle, not your other parts. Sometimes it's unavoidable, but if you can.. do it!

Go as slow as possible.
Go as slow as possible.
Go as slow as possible.

exactly... dont try and gun it over an obstacle


oh and be sure to have spare fluids with you...say you overheat on the trail.. you will want coolant


most importantly... a first time wheeler should not wheel alone

[sentinal02]

Originally Posted by briguy3030

Very solid points, thanks. Like I mentioned previously I have daily experience rigging iron (beams, columns, decking, etc.), however, I am a bit foreign to the subject about rigging for vehicle recovery. Particularly, when do you want stretch & when would you not want stretch?

personally I've always been of the opinion that stretching is bad in most cases. when you stretch a strap you're essentially storing up large amounts of potential energy. if something lets go when your strap is stretched then that's when things become missiles. that said, sometimes you just have to break down and use that potential to get someone unstuck. the trick is minimizing those instances and using the correct equipment for it.

for the most part, there's two types of straps out there on the market. your average TOW strap which is designed to pretty much be rigid, ie no stretch under most circumstances and your RECOVERY strap, which is designed to stretch and is meant to be used in such a way that it does stretch. the problem is that people and even manufacturers use both terms interchangeably. your average tow strap you can find at most hardware stores, wal-mart, auto parts stores, etc. it's designed to work like a chain without the weight and while it has some inherent stretch to it because of the weave of the material it's not meant to absorb huge shock loads. recovery straps on the other hand are generally found from 4x4 shops that cater to the off road sport. they're designed to act like rubber bands and use the stored energy to literally "yank" the stuck vehicle out of whatever hole it's stuck in without shock loading either vehicle.

as for which one to use, it basically comes down to common sense. obviously, stretchy straps don't offer the best anchor points for winching when you have a slow steady pull. you'll just end up stretching the strap to its limit and possibly beyond at which point it's not going to be much use to you anymore. likewise, taking a huge running start to get your buddy unstuck when hooked up with a tow strap isn't the greatest of ideas either. the strap will stretch a little, go rigid and shock load the recovery points of both vehicle. if one of the points lets go then the stretch in the strap will send it rocketing the other way. and neither strap is all that effective as a connection when trying to winch with a hilift or come-a-long since the stretch in either strap will further increase the amount of slack in the rigging that you have to take up before you can actually pull on the vehicle. chains on the other hand work beautifully in this case since there's no internal slack to be taken up. they also work great for anchoring a vehicle if holding the brakes isn't enough to apply the full force of a winch. still, a tow strap will also work just find in that last scenario since the winch line is usually somewhere around 100' long and your strap only stretches maybe a foot at most, so for the amount of extra weight a good recovery chain can add, not to mention the cost, I say stick to the straps. unless you plan on winching with a come-a-long there isn't much benefit to them that you can't get with a strap. the only two i can really think of are abrasion resistance and the fact that you can easily shorten up a chain, where as a strap is pretty limited to either its full or half length.

my best advice: bust out the straps BEFORE you bury your rig to the point it needs a huge pull to get it unstuck. a little common sense before the stuck will minimize the amount of force you have to apply to get the rig unstuck and thus minimize the danger level if something lets loose. my primary strap is a $20, 20' walmart tow strap that i've had for 6 years now. it does 98% of my pulling tasks and while i keep 3 other straps in the recovery bag, i generally don't need them. the 30' recovery strap I bought 2 years ago is still brand new, never even gotten dirty. the other 2% of the time I use my tree saver strap with the winch, and a shorter 10' strap when i don't need to unroll all 20' of the bigger strap, mainly for those quick little tugs to get someone unstuck who's just high centered or something. in 6 years of wheeling i've never said "boy i could really use a chain right now" during a recovery operation. i've seen them used a few times for things like keeping axles from falling out after a control arm breaks, and keeping the shafts of a c-clip axle in the tube after one breaks, but not for anything recovery related.

[Faramir66103]

Originally Posted by briguy3030

Very solid points, thanks. Like I mentioned previously I have daily experience rigging iron (beams, columns, decking, etc.), however, I am a bit foreign to the subject about rigging for vehicle recovery. Particularly, when do you want stretch & when would you not want stretch?

I'm not an expert, though I've rigged all over the world for both entertainment and search and rescue applications, so I'll give you my two cents worth and advise you to seek out professional instruction. Ok, disclaimer over.

The loads that will be applied to the rigging system can vary greatly. A load hanging from an anchor point is a dead hang and the system will experience the loads weight, no more and no less. As soon as you introduce multiple anchors, angles in the rigging, or varying (moving) loads the stresses change significantly.

A shock load (such as in a rolling recovery with chain) can multiply the loads on the anchor points well beyond their limits. I don't have my reference material on hand, but it's many, many times greater than the static load. So, when there's any possible play in the system, having a stretchy strap to absorb that shock is beneficial. That stretch doesn't stay in the strap permanently, it just spreads the shock out over time and reduces it's severity.

So, I'd use the strap between vehicles or anywhere there could be a sudden change in the loads on the system. I'd use the chain where there will be a known, steady load such as anchoring off of a boulder, extending a winch line, using the HiLift as a come along or winch etc.

HTH,
Adam

[briguy3030]

Sentinal, Faramir, thanks for the useful & concise answers.
Much appreciated!

[swampmud]

Skid Plates are a good idea. Start with an engine skid. No oil = No engine and not getting home. Try running with some more experienced wheelers for your first time.

[BlackBellamy]

so how was it?

[Lifesgoodhere]

about the recovery tech...just don't get stuck in the first place....problem solved!

[gearchick]

Thanks for all the advice- it was a blast but we didn't do anything crazy the first time around, just went on some easier trails and figured out how to use 4 H and 4L..

Amazing experience!

[Jerry Bransford]

There's enough good advice given above that I really can't add anything signficant other than just a little more info on airing your tires down which is really important for most offroading.

Most new offroaders are reluctant to let much air out of their tires, and generally do not let enough air out to really help. They're understandably nervous about the tire unseating from the wheel but that's not a common thing. In fact, over the 12 years of airing my TJ WAY down, and I air down to 7-8 psi regularly with my 35" tires, I've yet to have a tire lose its seat against the wheel... knock on wood. That's not to say you should air that far down with your factory size tires, but if you're not airing down to no higher than about 15 psi, don't even bother. Pretty much any factory size tire can handle 12-13 psi without much worry.

We had a new Rubicon owner wheeling with us last year on a moderately difficult trail and he was having a much tougher time than a Rubicon should have been having. We asked him several times if he was aired down and he was pretty huffy about saying he was aired "way down". It turns out that later when we pushed a little more since he was really slowing us all way down with the extra help he needed, that he was really only aired down to 20 psi, not nearly low enough. When we got him down to 12 psi, things were fine afterwards and he was a little embarassed that he had not been too cool to us when we tried to help him earlier.

Just know that you need to air back up again before attempting to drive at highway speeds since an aired down tire will eventually overheat when driven that fast.

[breckboarder55]

The straps you usually hear of in reference to off road recovery are known as Kinetic Recovery straps. Kinetic is energy related to motion, this is in reference to the elasticity the straps are made to handle (specifically the recoil action), in other words a proper kinetic tow strap will stretch up to 20% to reduce stress on recovery points, as well as to build up what is known as Elastic potential Energy. Now, we all know that energy can neither be created or destroyed. So when a strap stretches (kinetic energy) the energy is not lost, instead it is transferred back to kinetic energy during the recoil, creating a rubber band like snap back to the original length, with an end result of freeing the disabled vehicle.

So:
no force is lost
you can safely "yank" on a vehicle
it produces less stress on equipment and tow points
no metal ends to worry about
exc.

Still if used improperly can be very dangerous, the recoil produces an extraordinary amount of force, so be careful!

IMO: Two things any Jeeper should invest in first, a proper kinetic strap, and proper recovery points.

[Jerry Bransford]

If you go to a 4x4 store or website looking for "kinetic recovery straps" you're not going to get anything but blank search results or blank stares. They may work via kinetic energy but in all the years I worked in the industry and have offroaded, I have never heard anyone or read anything that referred to them as kinetic recovery straps. Ask for a snatch or recovery strap however and they'll know exactly what you are looking for.