DRIVING AND TOWING – RECOVERY TECHNIQUES

Vehicle recovery is fraught with danger, as our accompanying guides in this 4WD Recovery section make very clear. Using your vehicle and recovery kit to aid others carries serious responsibilities.

Winching a vehicle out of a bogging can be a satisfying experience, confirming your bush self-sufficiency, or it can be a disaster. Having the right gear and using it correctly are vital to safe winching.

We’ve heard recently about issues with snatch blocks failing during winching operations, which creates a very dangerous situation that is potentially fatal, if the snatch block pulley becomes a missile.

One day you’ll need to change a wheel and we show you some tricks that make the job less arduous.

A high-lift jack is a very effective 4WD recovery tool – in the right hands and on the right vehicle. Using a high-lift jack on non-specific lifting points and without training can be a life-threatening experience. ARB’s new hydraulic jack is said to be much safer than the traditional mechanical high-lift jack.

OTA checks out three different ways of getting your 4WD unstuck: sand ladders, Bog Outs and Trac Grabbers.

People can die or get seriously injured during snatch strap recoveries. OTA asked 4WD Off Road Driver Training to demonstrate how to perform this operation correctly.

We’ve been asked by many website visitors about the viability of soft shackles in 4WD recoveries, so we’ve been testing them for the past two years.

This hub-winch design uses two drums – one for each opposite-side wheel and can be used going forward or rearwards. Each drum attaches to a rear wheel hub, using specially-shaped wheel nuts.

The majority of bush travellers use tubeless tyres these days, so repairing them on the run is the main focus of this article; however, we’ve included a section at the end on tubed rubber.

A hand winch can be used for vehicle recovery from virtually any stranding and using the right technique can reduce the required physical effort.

We’ve been concerned for some time at the trend towards stronger and stronger snatch straps, because we felt that elasticity, not ultimate breaking strain, was the key to successful snatch strap performance. We’ve also long suspected that the loads involved in snatch strap recovery aren’t as great as most people seem to think.

Here are some ideas for diagnosing major mechanical problems and making bush repairs that should get you home.

For sure, you’ll be out in the scrub and you’ll break, bend, puncture, lock-in, or lose something. The following hints may then be helpful.

Going bush without a recovery kit should be unthinkable, but many people don’t take enough equipment.

Like many off-roaders we used to carry several toolboxes, with contents that would allow a major 4WD rebuild in the bush. However, experience over the past 30 years has taught us that we’re unlikely to do a major rebuild in the scrub.