Snow-crawl on steep incline--LONG

(sigh) You weren't there, Bill. You don't know.

All i know is i didnt have the luxury of any ruts in the road, only one, at 3 feet deep, the ditch, i knew i was screwed when i began sliding backwards and sideways, and just got it into the ditch,

had i of had a winch, i woulda winched down like i was advised, i didnt, so i drove the ditch, , and lukily im here, i wont be going up again till spring, johnp

Find a couple more Jeeps, preferably with winches.....

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:

That is all well and good, but my point is that depressing the clutch pedal can't possibly be an improvement in your situation. When something like this happens, the best thing is to keep the tires turning in the direction you want to go. I understand that this is TOTALLY counter intuitive and very difficult to accomplish, but a tire that is turning is a tire that can help with directional control, a tire that is not turning is a tire that is subject to the slope and the imposed direction of travel. This holds true going forward or backward. I know the instinct is to smash the brake pedal into the carpet, but I submit that resisting the impulse is often times the better course of action.

But, no, I have no experience in snow, but I am well versed in steep hills covered with sand and dirt.

Matt, despite anything Bill has to say to the contrary, you are right. If you are stopped with all four tires locked up, and the vehicle is sliding anyway, ABS will not change things. ABS drops out at speeds below about

10mph and allows the brakes to lock up anyway.

An alternative is to put it in neutral and feather the brakes. .... this requires that the brakes are well set-up and 'equal' front to rear. Works well on solid 'black' ice as well as hardpack snow.

If the tires are dry you can spray on a rosin based belt dressing onto the tread for additional 'traction' on hardpack or ice. Better is to use cable chains on the rear and 'feather' the hand brake to keep the rear end where it belongs. For super slippery conditions, increased tire pressure than normal seems best.

Too bad they dont allow studded tires anymore. They do but you can only run them (in PA) when its icy or snow-covered ..... not worth the bother.

Am a ski-patroller.

Enh... I don't know about the neutral and brake feathering. In my experience that worked so seldom I never try it any more....

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's

Rich Hampel wrote:

Selecting the lowest possible gear and idling is the best possible condition for directional stability and control, especially going backwards. Feathering the brakes in this condition is advised, UNLESS this results in locking the brakes and stopping the tire rotation. Bear in mind, I am speaking of the situation where the vehicle has been stopped, and proceeding down a hill is the desired action. Driving along at 40 and having an emergency develop in front of you is entirely another matter, but in that condition it is a very poor plan to depress the clutch pedal.

Bill, the magic number seems to be 5 mph where the ABS 'turns off' according to a brochure that came with Jerry B's TJ.

Though I have 'never' seen an ABS equipped Jeep skid to a stop like folks are trying to convince me theirs can.....

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's

"L.W.(ßill) Hughes III" wrote:

That is not the scenario we were talking about, Bill.

We were talking about a stationary vehicle slipping sideways in the ice.

ABS needs a minimim speed to enable it, then it shuts off when speeds drop below another threshold. Effectively meaning that a car must attain a speed to set the system, and this speed is higher than the speed at which the system knows it won't work effectively anymore, so it shuts down.

And, the topic that started this was a guy telling us how he was not able to prevent sliding backwards, and he depressed the clutch pedal in an attempt to improve his immediate predicament. Regardless of what his brakes may or may not have been able to do for him, removing his engine from the equation by depresssing the clutch was the wrong thing to do.

You 'desert rats' have no idea what it is like to have absolutely 'no' control at all no matter what you do. LOL!

It is a really spooky feeling just sitting there and the damn vehicle is going to do what 'it' wants to, no matter how hard you curse at it or hit pedals!

All you can do is lock it up to attempt to stop or aim it right to the 'correct' ditch and hope it isn't too deep a ditch or too long a walk out....

We were in those conditions over New Years.....

Mike

Jeff Strickland wrote:

Hear hear...

There's a spot here in Az. called 'the sluice' It involves a tight left turn, with a boulder ledge above you, and a gravel sluice headed at a very steep grade downhill. At the bottom of the hill, is, well..nothing. About a

200 foot drop straight down? The procedure here is, make the tight left over the hump, the front end of your jeep slams down, and your back roll bar nails the overhanging boulder... from there it's pretty much an uncontrolled slide down the sluice on the gravel and you hope to hell you can make the tight right turn at the end without going over the cliff. I did it once, won't do it again... Nick

Neutral or clutch depressed is a very bad idea. You have MUCH more control descending a hill while in gear, in 4-Lo. That way the front and rear axels are locked together, so when you feather the brakes, both axels will get equal braking power. In 4-Lo, the engine will do most of the braking for you.

The front brakes are much more powerful, so feathering the brakes while in the transmission is in neutral and the transfer case is in 4-Hi or neutral, will apply almost all of the braking power to the fronts and almost none to the rears.

If you have drums in the rear as most TJ's do, the rear brakes offer very little stopping power while descending a hill in reverse. Drum brakes have a "self energizing" action that makes them work better while braking in a forward motion. The brake shoes are "jammed" into the drums harder while braking in a forward motion.

Tom

I've been in 4-lo in very icy conditions and found that I had to give it gas to be sure the wheels turned enough to allow me some direction control. Sometimes engine braking can do the same as locking up the tires altogether!

That's entirely true ;-). We only think we know what slippery means because we drive on hardpack with a thin layer of sand that acts like BBs under the tires.

That is also true, but when you are trying to get everything locked up and battoned down, mashing the clutch pedal seems to be contrary to the affect one is trying to achieve.

I once observed a newbie in a CJ7 depress the clutch on a decent - a long decent - and use the brakes to keep thinigs under contol. As we watched things go from bad to worse, he finally let the clutch out suddenly. It couldn't take it and literally exploded. At least the guy had the mechanical understanding to be able to shift with out his clutch, and he was able to get home once we got him back to the highway. My ONLY point was that the engine is your friend, and you want it connected to the tires pretty much all of the time.