4 Ways to Pull a Truck from the Mud
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Sometimes, you just can’t avoid driving through mud. Whether you’re parking in an unpaved lot at a concert venue or pulling off the pavement to go camping, odds are that at some point, you’re going to have to navigate some mud and muck. Drive through enough of it, and you’re probably going to get stuck. With tires spinning, mud flying and forward progress halted, what is a driver to do?
Rock It Out
As soon as the truck bogs down to a complete stop, the first thing you should do is put it in reverse, keep your wheels straight and gradually accelerate in an effort to get back where you started from—on solid ground. If the truck has four-wheel drive and you haven’t already locked it in, definitely do so now. If the truck bogs down after going only a short distance in reverse, shift into low gear and power forward as far as you can. If the tires spin, turn the tires side to side in an effort to get the edge of the treads to grip the surface. Increase acceleration gradually, giving it more and more gas as long as you are moving forward. Repeat the back-and-forward process as long as you continue to make progress. Passengers should get out of the vehicle and help push if necessary. This will also reduce the weight of the truck.
Add Traction
Place dry, solid objects beneath the edge of the tire in the direction you want to go (forward or reverse). Some drivers have successfully used floor mats (though, they’ll probably be toast afterwards), but rocks, limbs and boards all make better options. You can also reduce the amount of air pressure in your tires to gain more contact between the ground and the tires’ tread. Offroader.com recommends dropping the pressure to between 18 and 20 pounds per square inch.
If the truck is resting on the undercarriage, use the vehicle’s jack to lift the tires off the ground. (Make sure the jack is on a solid surface and never crawl under the vehicle while it’s jacked up.) Once lifted even a few inches, you can slide sticks, boards or other solid items beneath the tires to provide lift and traction.
Winch It Out
If you plan to drive through mud on a regular basis, it is probably wise to outfit your truck with some sort of winch. Even if you don’t have a winch, a come-along or a Hi-Lift jack can be used to pull the vehicle free provided there is a tree or other solid object close enough to attach a recovery strap around. Simply loop the winch cable or recovery strap around the tree and use the power winch, come-along or jack to slowly pull it out of the rut. For safety, place a blanket over the center point of steel winch cables. In the event the cable snaps, the weight of the blanket should keep the cable from whipping into the air, possibly injuring you or damaging the truck.
Pull It Out
Oftentimes, the best and quickest way to get your truck unstuck is to have another truck simply pull you out. Using a webbed recovery strap, attach the strap to both trucks’ tow hitches, frame-mounted tow hooks or the frame itself, as long as you can get to them without putting tension on other, less solid parts of the vehicles. Never attach a strap to a bumper, axles, parts of the suspension or the hitch ball, as these parts can get easily damaged. Once attached, the mobile vehicle should pull most of the slack from the strap, leaving just enough room for the mobile vehicle to get up a little speed before pulling on the stuck one.
The mobile vehicle should accelerate gradually—never stomp the gas—and the driver of the stuck vehicle should put it in gear and begin applying gas as the vehicle starts to move. Bystanders should stay two to three car lengths from the vehicles and out of their path of travel in the event the strap breaks or one of the vehicles begins to slide.
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that’s a truck?
Ummm, a blanket will stop a cable from whipping? Seriously?
First, chances that the winch cable will break at the center point are slim, the cable will break at its weakest point, which could be anywhere. Second, they’re steel, stretched, with a ton of force applied, a blanket will stop taht? from someone who’s winched out hundreds of vehicles, snapped a few cables, that sound ridiculous, but if someone has some logic for me to verify this, I may believe it
While nothing can make winching totally safe, I don’t find it hard to believe the blanket would make a big difference here, working off of three simple principles.
1. Force multiplication: Get a clothes line and stretch it out, holding one end in your hand and one tied to a tree. Have someone put a blanket on the middle of it. You will be surprised at the force created, maybe even being thrown off balance.
2. The ease of altering the path of a moving projectile: It may take a tree trunk (or thick branch) to stop a bullet, but even a twig can redirect it. This is how judo works, and how a few pounds of pressure could indeed curve a whipping cable into a more downwards trajectory.
3. Inertia: The draped blanket will not be able to be accelerated laterally very much by the cable (I’m sure we’re all familiar with the “yanking a table cloth” magic trick?), thus it will apply its force downward much more effectively than, say, a pair of vice grips on the cable. A solid, attached load would just accelerate with it in the direction it wants to go.
Combine all three of these and it makes sense. Common sense (“How could a blanket affect that amount of power?”) is often proved wrong by physics, which is how the magic industry came about. : )
Oh, I forgot the most important part of my comment! The question is not, “Could a blanket stop that?” which it obviously couldn’t, but rather, “Could a blanket redirect that into a safer trajectory, like into the ground or the truck’s bumper?” And the answer to the latter is almost certainly yes. See previous comment for explanation.
The purpose of the blanket on the cable is to decrease the speed of the cable’s movement after its suddenly released from tension by increasing its atmospheric drag. It goes from being supersonic to subsonic and increases the likely hood of survivability when someone is struck.
Believe it. It’s physics. I’ve thrown an old military wool blanket over my cables when winching for years & it will make the cable fall to the ground instead of whipping back….now with that said if it’s under too much stress & it fails in the right spot the end can still whip back just not as much as it would have otherwise. of course it depends on where you put it & how many too; I just use one in the middle & it’s a great dampener.
the cable will most likely break at either end. The weight from the blanket pulls the middle of the cable to the ground before the broken end travels beyond it. Sounds logical to me. I haven’t tried it but I certainly will. I’ve also seen a few cables/chains break and it can be scary. I definitely see the blanket acting as a damper. I would even guess that hanging a weight of any kind in the center would help the cause.
No, that is not a truck. Looks more like a Jeep Grand Cherokee to me or a S.U.V. Def not a truck!
Another way is called “shin Crackin” attach rope or ceble to ovehicle and twoo a tree, or a “dead man” of some sort. Cut two small saplings. Stand one in thehe middle of the cabe between vehicle and tree. Weave other sapling under and over the cable at the middle point around the upright sapling. Start winding the cable arohund the upright sapling and this action will unstick any vehicle. The sapling you are doing the winding with is about shin high and if you let it slip you learn where the name shin crackin comes from. But it really works.
Atrocious spelling. Detracts from the point of your post and makes it so I can’t possibly read it.
So what, you are going to ignore a great idea because someone spells poorly? If you get stuck in the mud are you going to ignore his soulution, possibly the only one that may work for you, just because of a few small spelling errors? You are missing out on a lot of great things in this world if you have many such prejudices. Many brilliant people do not spell well. Besides, John’s errors look more like typing problems. Maybe he just is not hung up on perfection. I did not have any problem reading his advice and that is what is important to me. I have read a lot of comments with perfect spelling but incredibly poor construction and logic to the point that I had no idea what their point was. But hey! The spelling was great!
ya John. A lot of amazing people (lincoln included) were terrible spellers. Its called dyslexia. There is no cure nor is there one for arrogance. I’d rather be dyslexic.
That’s called a Spanish Windlass. It can be used in many situations.
I have used this method and another very similar one on multiple occasions. It’s not and easy task but sure beats a long walk out of the woods and the trouble of finding someone to attempt to pull your vehicle out.
no kiddin
Agreed…. Can I get paid to write such a stupid article? How about an article on how to back out of a parking space?
if you have a winch or a come-along but there is nothing near you to tie off to dig a hole at least 3 feet deep a put your spare tire in the hole, tie off to it then bury it .it WILL be a solid enough anchor point to get you out. If your truck has dual rear wheels but no winch the rear axle itself can be your winch. just always carry a STRONG nylon or other man-made fiber rope that is strong enough to take the weight of your truck. Simply place your lug wrench or other similar STEEL tool through the holes in your rear tires rims, tie the rope to the lug wrench BETWEEN the dual wheels, put truck in reverse and if your truck has a hi-lo range transfer case or a 2 speed rear axle use theLOWEST gears. and make SURE the other end of the rope is securely anchored an SLOWLY back out .the rope will coil around the lug wrench btween the wheels like a spool. once you are out take of the outer wheel and the rope will easily be removed.I KNOW these methods work because i have done them both. The Army taught us well on most of us OLD soldiers still remember and use what we wre taught.
If you have a winch but no tree or anchor point – its possible to use a tractor with the bucket dug into ground for an anchor. That may help where the tractor would have not held its ground otherwise… Saved my butt in a snowy field!
No more or less obvious than the ones in the article – if you’ve got 4 wheel drive, engage it.
The worst mud I typically encounter is caused by the Spring daytime thaw of Winter’s snowpack. If you get stuck in this mud, you may also be able to extract your vehicle all by itself by just waiting until the night-time temperature drops back below freezing and either congeals or solidifies the mud. It doesn’t hurt to shovel as much mud away from the tires and undercarriage as you can beforehand.
Or get a horse to pull it out. Work horse in harness is preferred, but even a quarter horse and a rope with a loop secured by a bowline knot can produce considerable power and has good traction.
And you have to remember, with mud, put some light initial pressure on your cable/strap/chain, and wait for a few seconds for the mud to start to release before putting a LOT of pressure on it. Mud has a sucking tension that can be overcome by constant pressure and a bit of time, if you just try to yank it out right away you run the risk of snapping your cable/strap/chain.
Just a note of caution…NEVER hook up a strap and try to slingshot a vehicle out of the mud…Take up all of the slack…Saw a truck in Oregon do this…tore the tow hook off of his truck and sling shot it into the back window of the stuck vehicle…hit the guy in the head and he is now vegetative…
Why are those idiots in the storyline pic trying to push that vehicle up hill in the mud? what morons
Because going the other way is probably deeper mud.
For some strange reason, wet spots are often downhill from the dry spots.
Carry a sack of Portland cement or a sack of readymix cement if you are going off-road
When you lose traction spread some of the cement in the rut and rock vehicle until it
gets on the cement. In clay type mud this will almost instantly give traction. I have seen cement ready-mix trucks stuck and when the driver spreads cement the truck moves.
I have used this also to get a loaded service van out of the mud.
And if you have some type of winch, carry a post and a post hole digger. Dig the hole at a slant away from the truck, place the post in it and then attach the winch cable.
Two things: Do NOT use a nylon rope! They stretch and should they break, they can whip around and injure you. I once worked in a plant that used nylon rope and a power windlass to move railroad cars. One broke and badly crippled the operator. We went back to hemp.
Second: Setting a post slanted away from the stuck vehicle is not the best way. Slanting the post slightly toward the vehicle is better. Best is to dig a trench and lay the post horizontally. You will also need to dig a slanting trench for your rope so the post isn’t pulled up when a force is applied.
Investing in a set of Buckshot tires and a Warn winch while you are not stuck will make you love them both more when you are. I had a set of Dunlop Mud Rovers on my work truck and had a job in this swamp of a field. ALL of the other contractors parked on the street and toted stuff. Me and the Mud Rovers pulled right up to the job. The only truck to do that too. At the end of the day, I became the center of attention as I was watched by them all come time to exit that swamp. The Mud Rovers performed beautifully and I was never more proud of a set of tires.
Far too many people wait until they are stuck in two wheel drive before locking in four wheel drive and then still can’t get out of it. BIG mistake! Lock it in before you hit the mud and you will be glad that you did.
I understood, John. Thanks for the advice.
Never, never wrap a winch cable around a tree!
Carry a Pull Pal, works in sand too.
Drop your tire pressure to 8 PSI or so.
Tread Lightly!
Stop before entering mud hole
Best advice, so far. No, I’ve never owned a 4WD and don’t plan to. Far fewer than 1% of drivers need to enter such bogs. (and the extra gear boxes, weight, and boxy profiles, and monster tires only add to costs and reduced fuel mileage in ALL conditions)
If a short, muddy path is smooth you must go slow enough to be able to maintain directional stability, but fast enough to avoid becoming balled up with mud–if it’s very rough and you must bog through slowly, you must have a specialized vehicle.
They didn’t explain why it’s very important to keep the steering wheel STRAIGHT–the rolling resistance is MUCH reduced. Go straight (forward or back) until about 5 mph and the introduce very modest directional change. (this is an essential lesson for ice and snow, as well, no matter the depth of the snow)
i READ IT AND HAVE NO CLUE WHAT HE SAID, BUT THEN I DON’T LIVE IN THE SOUTH AND NEVER UNDERSTOOD VIRGINIAN
so…. ken your saying there is only mud in the south??? and south being Virginia….. you have reveiled yourself to be truly of northern ignorance stature….. please remove head from hole in ground.
I have heard that one is best off driving in 2wd, then going into 4wd once you got stuck, at least on snowy roads. The logic of this, is that if stuck in 2wd, then 4wd can get you out, but if stuck while in 4wd, then you are truly stuck.
a cable ropwe
a cable, rope ect., will break at the connection points in most cases due to small radius at the attachment hardware or knot.
the strength is usually reduced x 50% or more.
a blanket or rug hung over the center of the cable will reduce and dampen backlash if the cable breaks
A come along is in the back of my truck,that and a 100 foot of hemp rope.