Lars' excellent adventure

I've gotten the a TM trailer pretty tippy and not spilled the toilet. I bet it's possible with lots of shaking.


At some point more lift just won't help and you have to decide where you want to go with a trailer. I don't think the jacks like rocks haha.

I've not had the pleasure in snow with the trailer.

Very cool pictures Lars. It makes me want to get out camping! It looks like you take the phrase "drag this camper around" seriously LOL...

Geez Lars...

Got sea sick just looking at that TM hanging on for dear life back there.

You ROCK!

Pun intended.....

[ShrimpBurrito]

Very cool photo. If it were anyone other than Lars, I would have assumed it was an accident.

Dave

Originally Posted by ShrimpBurrito

Very cool photo. If it were anyone other than Lars, I would have assumed it was an accident.

Dave

Believe it or not, it was an accident of sorts. This is not my TM but a friend's. I was towing it down a VERY bad road for him. I guess I can tell the story now that he is chuckling about it too.

I organized a 4wheeling trip for our Toyota club and a friend was bringing his new TM. To get to camp took several miles of dirt road. He was arriving at night and the club always leaves signs out so people can find camp. My buddy had asked if the road was very bad and I responded that there were a few spots that had peeled back my aluminum TM bumper skin but it wasn't bad.

When he didn't show as expected another friend got a frantic cell call from him. Somehow they both manged to get cell service. Seems one of the signs didn't have an arrow and a fork in the road was mistaken for a camping area. In any case he took the wrong road. About ten of us hopped into trucks to go find him. When we found him at about 10pm, he was quite hopelessly stuck.

After much work we managed to get him to a flat area.

With three men on the back bumper and four lifting the tongue we (well, I supervised/watched) manually turned the TM 180 degrees to go back down the trail. This took about two more hours. We then hitched it to my truck and I towed it down. He could then turn his truck around and follow.

We got in to camp at about 1am and we were a bit tired. The next morning we assessed damage. Jacks were shot, bumper compartment was ripped off, spare was tweaked but fixable and latches were bent but serviceable.

Poor guy. First time out. Here is a picture of the spot during the day.

We turned the TM around on the flat area behind the black 4Runner. In other words the TM passed that spot going up and down. The trucks in the picture all have 33" tires, armor and locking differentials. The trail was worse beyond, which is why we turned it around.

You may ask how this could happen. The thing is, bad roads are a sort of relative term in our 4Wheel club. Explaining what is a good dirt road or a bad dirt road is more or less defined on whether the average 4x4 could pass through it. By definition this is a pretty good road for us and not the sort we would take much notice of. With a trailer behind, well things are a bit more tricky.

Here is an example of a bad road from the same trip.

That's me spotting the truck through. This is a 4Runner on 37" tires, dual transfer cases and locking differentials. I drive around this spot in my truck. It's not unusual to break an axle like this jeep did on it's fragile Dana 35.


So there you have it. The extreme limits of towing a TM and where it can go and come back alive. No road too narrow. No site to tight.
Here are pictures of the entire trip if anyone wants to browse. http://67.122.16.97/lars/gallery/vie...umName=album25

I now feel kinda ashamed of my off-road avatar.

Lars, y'all do some serious camping.

[ShrimpBurrito]

Lars, you seriously need one of these:



Or at least this hitch, which allows movement in 360 degrees:



Dave

When I was a teen ager, I was a member of Boy Scout Explorer Post 808. It was sponsored by the San Francisco Jeepers. It was essentially a Jeep club for teenagers.

The Adviser had a trailer that was called, I think, a Lil Loafer. It had a 12 foot box, single axle and was low enough to fit through a garage door in a San Francisco home. It was towed behind a CJ5.

We would take it down roads similar to where your friend got stuck, but not that latter bad part.

Though it did not have big wheels, being pretty short, light weight, and protected by a full set of skid plates, it was amazing where we took that trailer. Some of the time the tires were not on the ground.

My TM will never go anywhere like that.

Lars,

I have read this over and over---Did I really understand this that you took a TM on the vary spot I see the black 4runner getting over that rock. And I worry about backing my TM up my in-laws driveway.