The importance of a pre-trip inspection.

[Red_Leaf_Overland]

I thought hard about posting about this because it makes me look like a bit of an idiot.
But for the sake of people learning from my mistakes here it goes.
DON'T GET COMPLACENT!
I wanted to take my son out on his first back country camping trip for father's day weekend. It should have been and easy trip.
My wife and I had been working too hard the weeks before and I had been putting in any of my extra time doing a few quick things to the Jeep like mounting a new air compressor because my old one popped, and making sure the rear seat was set up well enough to hold his booster seat.
The rest of the short amount of time I had I made sure that I tried to make sure that my son had everything he needed to stay entertained and have fun while we were out ......

 

[Red_Leaf_Overland]

Well... an easy camping trip meant for sending some quality time together fishing and hanging out went a little off the rails. Part way into our trail there was a section that had been washed out and partly covered by water, and I didn't really think anything of it. Turns out I was about 8" too far to the right in that section and the tires dropped off a ledge under water and the trailer pushed the rear of the Jeep further out and wedged the hitch on a rock.
Here's where the pre-trip would have come in handy. "Not a big deal" I thought, "ill just pull some winch cable" . Well I plugged the remote into the winch and dragged outvthe line.... only to find the winch click but nothing happen.... and after trying to use the Hi-lift and a strap on a tree, there was too much flex in the system to get my pulled out.
At this point is was a quick set up for camp and start trying to make calls with what little signal I had to find a friend to help me out.

 

[Red_Leaf_Overland]

In the 24 hours we were stuck there in that same spot we saw 1 person on an atv who tried to give us a hand but just didnt have the mass behind it to drag out a loaded vehicle, and they continued on. Eventually I got ahold of some people I knew and they were able to get us out of the hole but the I ended up getting water in my fuel system which ended up burning out the pump ( or so I thought) and the jeep could not make it out of the trail. The guys that helped us gae it their all but had to also leave. This left my son and I with our dog stranded in zero cell signal in the middle of nowhere. So I grabbed all of my son's belongings out of the jeep and we started hiking.

 

[Red_Leaf_Overland]

No my wife had known we had got stuck and decided to track our dog for our location ( which i hadn't even thought of). I have a Tractive tracker on the dog which I couldnt read because I had no cell signal, but my wife 3 hours away was able to keep an eye on our location and realized that we were moving slowly and got ahold of my family to head to an access trail she believed I was headed to to get out to a main road, and she was right. Luckily we were able to meet up with a family member and my son still seemed to enjoy the adventure. I told him I was proud of him for sticking through with me and that it wasnt the plan. He honestly seemed to just enjoy being there.

 

[Red_Leaf_Overland]

Then came planning for the extraction of the jeep.
Lucky for me some locals who happened to know my family and lived right at the trailhead offered to drag the jeep out and sit it at their property until I could come back for it ( I live 3 hours away). So I set up a tow for thw next weekend and dragged it back home and started tearing it apart.
I dropped the tank knowing there was likely still some watering it ( we tried to drain as much as we could out through the lines but ended up creating a low fuel pressure issue), and after pulling the fuel pump i realized there was a fair amount of sand in the tank too. I had been scratching my head trying to figure out howni got so much water in the fuel tank until I saw the one running to the evap canister. A squirrel had chewed a good size hole in the line leaving open to the fuel return line and intonthw tank.
So now Im waiting on a few parts to show up and hoping to get some good fuel running through the lines before I tear it apart and swap the injectors, gear oil, engine oil, and look over a few other issues i had with electrical.

 

[smritte]

Glad it all worked out. Tracking the dog was something most would never have thought of. This scenario has happened to me twice in my life. Both times I was lucky enough to extract myself. One of them took about six hours. The critical factor was no comms where I was. This is what made my decision to add a starlink panel when they came out.
I'm very OCD about pre and post inspection's as well as being proactive when it comes to life spans on critical parts. Still, sometimes you miss something. My latest was a crack half way around the frame side of my Pan hard mount. I found it by accident. I periodically check for cracks around major parts but this one escaped me. It could only bee seen from a certain angle.
Again, glad you ended up safe.

 

[smritte]

One more thing. Your filter should have kept anything away from the injector's but, there were a few years with crappy injectors. If your pulling the injectors anyway, you may want to look into that. My 04 had them. Jeep installed a single hole injector, you replace them with multi hole. I think my new ones were five hole Ford. Bolted right in. The issue is well documented.