Vehicle Recovery Gear?

[Cookie Monster]

Just ordered a second set of Maxtrax. Got a mount that mounts them on the bed rail of my Tundra.

[alamo5000]

I'm late to the party here but I will share what I recently did, or at least over time, and the reasoning behind it. Keep in mind I haven't read all the replies yet.

I think you need to define the mission and specifically what you will be working on. I don't own an off road type vehicle any more, nor do I go driving back country roads or whatever in my little 4 door. That said, I live way out in the country. Just yesterday some people swerved to miss a deer and ran into the ditch. It was extremely muddy so they instantly sunk up to the frame, at least on the front. Until I came along they had been stranded in 30ish degree weather for over 3 hours in an area with no cel phone coverage.

Other times (since I live in the country) I have had to pull people out of the yard or ditch or something near the house. One recent example was a 70++ year old woman (and her husband) that came over to the house for Thanksgiving dinner. She had no problem pulling in, but getting out with those slick tires was a different story.

More than that though, my philosophy is kind of like carrying a medical kit. Bring what you want other people to work on YOU with. There has been times when I needed to be pulled out of bad spots, especially during bad weather. Often you get people that could pull you out, IF they had the stuff to do it with.

First I bought a recovery rope and some soft shackles. I also bought a couple of heavy duty D Rings just in case. I also made sure I had a towing eye, which for some reason was not included with the purchase of a brand new car. It has the port to screw it in, but nothing to screw into it (through the bumper) so I bought one.

Flash forward and I also recently bought two different types of V bridal straps from MyTee Products. One loops back around onto itself and has hooks and rings to clip it on. This design is specifically to prevent damage because almost everything on it is soft. The other V bridal has J hooks and T/J hooks. I bought those two because most regular road cars do not have recovery points. With those, at least in theory, I can hook up to a car, either front or back, without damaging the car and not having to resort to something weird.

This is probably the most important thing that influenced my purchasing, that being that most regular non off road cars do not have anything obvious to hook to. This includes my own vehicle. I also tried to get stuff that wouldn't damage plastic bumpers or whatever when/if getting pulled. True I could have just tried to stick with a soft shackle and the rope, but my goal was to avoid ripping up plastic bumpers or whatever.

Pulling other people out is one thing. That is in my opinion a positive side effect. I won't be pulling other people out with my car, but at least I will have the gear to rig it up if need be, especially if I am out and about. At home I have other things to pull with, but the weak link has always been how to connect a strap to a car, again without breaking something.

Being able to rig up my own car in the event of some kind of situation is the primary motivation so that's what I went with.

Edit: I am in no way an expert in any of this so if anyone has thoughts or opinions on my post above I would be extremely interested in hearing what you have to say about this. If I get the idea to get something better I will buy it if I can, but so far this is what I came up with.

[entropy]

Been busy lately. Apologize for no follow up. I ordered some gear from Rhino. In the end, the cost/use analysis won over.

1. Recovery boards
2. Soft shackles
3. Recovery rope 3”x8’
4. Hitch receiver
5. Hard shackles
6. 4”x30’ strap
7. 1”x30’ kinetic rope


Now the process of getting it all secured in there. Plan is to fabricate some u-channel mounts, powder coat them, and mount the boards and gear bag in the bed directly behind the cab. Similar mounts will be made for the sides to install some other deemed necessary gear along with several RotoPax cans.

Too bad The ZR2 has limited aftermarket gear choices. Have to get creative.

[EMC]

Got to bust out the Yankum 30' Python rope today driving through the deep sand to Peek-a-boo slot canyon in Kanab in the F150 (there for spring break with my wife and kids) and we came across some travellers from Georgia in a rented expedition that just happened to be 2WD only.

They were stuck up to the belly pan spinning the rear tires. I tried to get in it and find 4WD in trail mode and it wasn't to be found. These new vehicles and their fancy displays and modes are not intuitive.

I pulled off the plastic cover revealing their tow hitch and installed a recovery hitch with bow shackle (said hitch I would later lose in the sand in the midst of tear down not paying attention)

Connected the rope to my front recovery point with a U-creative (amazon) soft shackle and gave them a fairly gentle tug backwards (yeah I know reverse is often frowned upon for pulling but turning around was not convenient and traffic was starting to get backed up behind us) and pulled them quickly out back to firmer ground.

Even with a gentle pull the kinetic energy was very effective at popping them out of the tire holes and start moving them. Told the driver to help a little but not to spin them too hard (Just like Matt on YouTube does! [emoji1787])

Got them turned around with the rope by having them turn perpendicular to the road and spinning their backend around and told the driver to give it the full beans back to the trailhead.

The driver offered me a hundred bucks but I declined and said it was a matter of honor.

Fortunately the lost hitch was a cheaper gear america extra and not my favorite. I did manage to collect all my shackles and hitch pins at least.

Video link:
https://youtube.com/shorts/jzJyqSZ8Bmg?feature=share