I wanna hear some offroad stories

Adelard of Bath · Post by **Adelard of Bath** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 10:19 pm

Relate your offroad stories to me! For research purposes, I was searching "subaru outback" + "offroad" and I found outback.net or some such thing, forums, with a thread that was a poll titled "how many people go offroading?" the I read through the responses and they were mostly "Yeah I go on gravel roads all the time" or "There's this beach down the way that I drive on and the suby spanks the big trucks"
and I'm like "lame" cuz I'm more into the "mild to moderate rock-crawling" sort of offroading.

So I thought, why not do the same thing on Tercel4wd? So everyone has to share their offroading stories. I guess they don't have to be in the Tercel...I could bore you with stories of my lame exploits in my Nissan Pathfinder but surely there are others who have done better, more exciting conquests, so I won't embarrass myself with that.

To start, I will say that before I sold off my Tercel, I took it through this construction area near my place, where the ground was nicely torn up, and I had to crawl over rocks that were probably 8-10" tall, at most....not too exciting, a normal car could have done that I suppose, with proper driving.

Actually, years back I took an 81 Celica through some crazy crazy stuff in Wyoming, the Celica had no more than 2" ground clearance I bet....the rocks were HUGE and we actually lost the trail miles back...going was very slow and I had to spot while the other guy drove, and we lost the heatshield on the cat and scraped alot of stuff, and drove though a pond that started to come into the doors....we eventually emerged HOURS later, and upon finding some road signs, the map told me we were on the other side of the forest...heh quite opposite of the campground we were trying to find. A truck could have done that in it's sleep though, but this was a sports car...heh

laundryhamperman · Post by **laundryhamperman** » Thu Feb 10, 2005 11:55 pm

I used to do all sorts of shit with my tercel. I used to drive into construction sites and dive around there. Once, my friend managed to convince me that i should try to crawl up the tallest hill in the site. This was a hill mabe 75 feet tall covered in tall grass making the ground surface un-detectable by eye. The incline MUST have been steeper than 45 degrees, posstibly bordring on 60 degrees. The grass reduced the visibility of the ground, so there were all sorts of un-seen ditches, bumps, trenches, etc.... about 3/4 of the way up, i found a huge trench that the front end fell down into, and hung up the frame to the point that i could go nowhere but backwards. i was only like 20 feet from the top. Going back down was fun too because you think u got all this un-seen shit down when ur goin forward? Im suprized that the car made it w/o damage anything underneath. Sturdy cars these tercels are. Anyway, i make it back to a gas station, and get out. My car was a total mud paint job from the bottom up to the door handles from all the mudding i had been doing that night. The wheels were covered in solid dirt. It was one hell of a night. up all night, driving around to all the construction sites in my area, my friend and i tipped over 25 port o potties up until the sun came up for the morning. Anyway, the ultamate time i had was another night when i was powersliding around some gravel roads. It was a little snowy, and i was running on studded snow tires. I slid the car around a turn, and it didnt' slide the way i wanted it to, but i let the car get too close to the edge of the road when i snapped the wheel the other way to make it slide, and the back side stepped off of the raod. the road was about 3 feel elevated from the corn field. The ass end fell down the small hill, and the car rolled slowly on its side, and then came to rest on the roof. That was one hell of an off road escursion!

Gasoline Fumes · Post by **Gasoline Fumes** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 2:43 am

Hornbeam has been offroad a bit.

Through large snowbanks, streams, mud up to the doors, snow over a foot deep, the woods (both on and off trails), up hills difficult to walk on, peach pits (don't ask

) it's been through pretty much everything. And stuck in pretty much everything at some point too.

Click here for a bigger picture</a>

goofballz · Post by **goofballz** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 9:33 am

@gasoline

I actually was checking out your geocities site with Hornbeam on it before I came across this one, pretty interesting things on there. Especially the redneck mud pit...

Anywho, nothing too exciting, but back where I live in the woods there are a bunch of powerlines and just mud and gravel and stuff and me and my friend decided we would take turns driving the tercel back there since it had 1 seat...

Well I hadn't really been back there before and there were a bunch of hills and such, I came off of one (no air or anything like that) and when I was heading down the other side there was this patch of like sliding gravel and I didn't realize it... anywho hit the brakes and slid sideways, recovered, but over-counter-steered and hit a tree.

...And that was the end of my Tercel.

Tercel4wdQuÃƒÂ©bec · Fri Feb 11, 2005 5:53 pm

Here in Quebec, it's not Off-road stories.. It is SNOW stories..!!!!

25 inches of fresh snow yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHAT a good time I had... Fun to jump big snow accumulations... or in the city, laugh about a Mustang at the green light.. ;o) with 62 HP!!!!

That car is Awesome in the snow because of its good ground clearance. I can park everywhere in MOntreal after a snow falling. And all the little streets are not cleaned today.. I love to drive in that..!!!

I'll try to send you pictures!

Vince

Gasoline Fumes · Post by **Gasoline Fumes** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 11:24 pm

goofballz wrote: Well I hadn't really been back there before and there were a bunch of hills and such, I came off of one (no air or anything like that) and when I was heading down the other side there was this patch of like sliding gravel and I didn't realize it... anywho hit the brakes and slid sideways, recovered, but over-counter-steered and hit a tree.

...And that was the end of my Tercel.

That reminds me of a scary moment with Hornbeam. There was probably less than an inch of snow on the ground and I had decided to try and climb the same steep, grassy hill I had gone up many times before without snow. HB made it about 2/3s to the top and ran out of traction. I pretty much expected this, but hadn't really planned my descent very well. I ended up going down the hill backwards with all four tires locked up, accelerating towards the woods at the base of the hill. It's a good thing the ground levels off before the trees, and I was pretty lucky the car didn't go sideways and roll over. I'm not sure what the moral of the story is, maybe don't go up really slippery, steep hills when you know you won't succeed?

tercel4wdrules · Post by **tercel4wdrules** » Fri Feb 11, 2005 11:57 pm

I don't have any real off-roading stories, but I will someday! Here is a previous thread on off-roading Tercel stories: <a href='http://tercel4wd.com/invision/index.php?act=ST&f=2&t=49' target='_blank'>http://tercel4wd.com/invision/index.php ... =2&t=49</a>

3A-C Power · Post by **3A-C Power** » Sat Feb 12, 2005 12:14 pm

The best way to descend a hill is using engine braking. The 4WD makes sure the braking is spread over all the wheels, and one axle can't slip without the other. It does the same with brakes on but I find you have alot more control with the engine.

Juando · Post by **Juando** » Wed Feb 16, 2005 1:30 am

I have done the basic, yet fun, cookies in a farmers wet field..once while forgetting that I had left my rear windows rolled down (ugh) I might add that the tercel handles VERY well in water situations. I have driven a quarter mile through water that was just up to the bottom of the doors and crossed a very very shallow but rocky creek (in hindsight that was very stupid because the rocks were slippery and there was about a 3 1/2 foot waterfall less than 20 feet downstream)

Baja buggy style backroad/crosscountry ski trails with some rock climbing..nothing much above5 or6 inches. Lots of snow play.

got my cars stuck in a ditch in mud one time...I just jacked the car up so the frame wasn't stuck in the mud any more, got in and shot the engine up to about 5000 rpm and dropped the clutch in E.L....flew over the ditch like superman..hehe. a little less elegantly. did all that without a flashlight at 3 in the morning.

The only thing I could truly call offroading was a few years ago on a friends property. Made our own trail with the car through an area full of scotch broom and blackberrys (bad idea..the tires made it through though..?) and made it into their wooded section that covers about 200 acres. Lots of weaving through trees in extra low on no roads , climbing over tree roots and very rough terrain. it obviously does not have the ground clearance of a truck or SUV. But it's all relative (like an ant is small and weak compared to a person, but if you made an ant the same size and weight of a person, now guage it's strenght...), and for the size of the terc weight wise and engine wise, it outpreforms other offroad vehicles easily....with stock parts!!

Lateer · Post by **Lateer** » Wed Feb 16, 2005 4:47 pm

My offroading stories are split between fireground work and non-fireground work.

There's been a few instances where I've turned up with the Tercel on a fireground with a little magnetic flashing light (have to have that for OHS reasons) with the back full of gear for resupply to be told that the track I just came through was impassable for the larger firefighting units. The track was even easier going out when I wasn't as heavy. Everyone was really glad to have the gear and looked at the Tercel and then looked at me and wondered how the hell we got into the fireline when a 78 series Landcruiser couldn't do it. Well, the Cruiser weighs about 4 tonnes, that's why. My Tercel weighs about 2 total fully loaded on a good day.

In terms of non-firefighting, I've taken the Tercel through sand dunes on the coast of Tasmania, through the state forests for bushwalking trips, run mudpuddles up to the trim on the doors (thank Christ for good door seals) and been flying down dirt roads at 100kmh in 4WD. I even look out for good dirt roads so I can put it into 4WD to make sure that everything keeps lubricated and working...

I love my little Tercel...

xaserII · Post by **xaserII** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 8:56 am

MUD CITY
got stuck in the nastiest mud in all of nevada the other day. we still have snow on the ground but only in a few patches. so i figured i could drive up this hill etc. well turns out that it was a huge patch of mucky muck. the funny thing is is that the ground looked dry so i gunned it. the wheels just sunk and i got high centered. it took me a good 4 hours to dig myself out with a spade. had to chain up and rock it back and forth till it finally came out. got some pics with my 35mm and will post when i get them developed.
word to the wise...
when offroading avoid the ground down hill from the snow cause its melting that direction.

takza · Post by **takza** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 9:53 am

Got stuck with a 2WD in the Mojave on top of a hill....most of it was a sand/gravel mix like you usually see...but there was a patch of DUST on top of one hill that acted worse than sand. Never know till it hits you?

AbusedJalopy · Post by **AbusedJalopy** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 9:58 am

The first weekend we had our car, we took it up to a designated offroading area called Gorman, just north of L.A. near Magic Mountain. It was fun zipping around, testing the car out, and having people in their huge trucks and jeeps looking at us like "who the hell did they get here?" Nothing too major but found the limits of the power going up steep grades and having to go all the way back down because we didn't have enough momentum and power to carry us the whole way. Also, the first time I've ever been in a car that's been airborne, which subsequently made the small crack in our windshield span to a much bigger one. Car took every bit of abuse with no problems.

The car has only been defeated by three things. The first being sharp rocks. We lost three tire in one trip to rocks slashing the sidewalls, but I blame it mostly on the cheapo tires we had.

The second is sand. Without having locker for the front or back, the car likes to dig itself into a hole. It's relatively light so it's fine as long as you keep moving. I also blame having fairly narrow (175) tires on it that kept the tire from being able to float on the surface, even while running the tires on low pressure like they tell you to do. This is the reason we keep boards and/or carpeting in the car. You can put it down when you get stuck to provide a traction surface to get yourself out.

Lastly, deep, melting snow will ruin your day like the previous poster mentioned. We started out in Mammoth once on a trail early in the morning and the snow was still packed and frozen. As the day progressed, it softened and when we hit a deep (18"-24") drift, the car sank straight down. After 6 hours of shoveling and attempting to winch it out with a jack connected to a tree, we decided to go into town and have a snowcat tow us out. It ran us $150 and hour, and took two ours, so it really hurt the wallet. For that amount, we could have had a decent electric winch, but there was no time or place to get one up there. Funny thing is, the snowcat literally dragged the car the rest of the trail for about two or three miles, with the car acting like an anchor and sinking to the bottom, so it was pretty packed with snow. The second we hit road, the thing immediately fired right up. Everyone, including myself, was amazed that it just went through that much abuse and still worked fine. I guess it's the little shitbox that could!