Montana: 4WD STUCK!!!

By Ken Kempa

Posted on 2015-10-06 15:53:08

While living in the suburbs of Chicago, I landed a job as the Supply Manger at a gold and silver mine in north central Montana. I felt like I’d died and gone to heaven! At the time, I had a mini pickup which was fine for going out for groceries in suburbia, but I knew that it would not cut it in Big Sky country. So while still in Illinois, I went to my local Ford dealer to order a loaded crew cab, 1-ton, 4WD beast, and ponied up for the non-turbo, 7.3 liter V-8 diesel. I had to get an automatic, because my wife wouldn’t drive a stick shift, and this was well before a turbo version was offered.

So it was 1989… and what do you think you could buy a loaded two-tone, crew cab, auto, XLT Lariat, 4WD diesel, F350 for? As I wanted exactly what I wanted, colors options and all- white with golden bronze in the middle full-length- it had to be ordered. After a bit of haggling, I walked out with a purchase agreement for only $20,184!!! AND, as it would take 6 to 8 weeks to build, they offered to have my truck courtesy delivered in the small, local town near where I’d be living in Montana. Since I had to leave right away for my new job, this was just great for me. I’d not have to make a 2,800 mile round trip to go and get it in a few months.

When the truck finally arrived out west, a week later, in the mail, I was amazed to receive a rebate check for $350! So back in 1989, my loaded 1-ton 4WD crew cab XLT Lariat diesel cost me under $20,000!!! Nowadays, they’re going for at least THREE TIMES that…

Chapter 1: Feeding and Clothing the Beast

As soon as my truck arrived, I did two things which made me feel like a Montanan right away. Living in the country at the base of the mountains, I had a 500 gallon elevated diesel tank brought out, with a nozzle and hose, so I could fill up on diesel in my driveway, without having to drive 50 miles one-way to town. There was “no charge” for this setup… just the shock after they came out to fill it, and I got the bill for 483 gallons of premium diesel! Ouch! But over time, it was great to just back in and fill up before heading down to Billings for the day to do some shopping. Yep, in no time at all, we thought nothing of leaving early in the morning, diving 200 miles, shopping for a few hours, and then driving 200 miles back home that night. Life was very simple, and very good.

...

The wheel wells soon also became plastered with the gumbo, as did the inside of the back bumper.

The second thing I did for my new “family truck” was to order a big set of BF Goodrich All-Terrains and wider aluminum wheels. I thought the locals were not that “cool or savvy” to have the latest and the best big, wide tires on their rigs. Everyone drove stock, skinny tires on their pickups. The first time out with my “bragging” set of big tires, which stuck out past my fenders about an inch and a half, I realized the wisdom of the locals, as massive amounts and chunks of mud soon plastered my windshield and hood. And when I tried to back up to get out of a mess, both of my side view mirrors looked like you’d frosted a layer cake with mud. The wheel wells soon also became plastered with the gumbo, as did the inside of the back bumper.

It took over an hour in a car wash with a power wand and a huge amount of quarters to clean the gumbo off from all over my truck. The very next day, I ordered a new set of standard sized tires and put the big wide set up for sale. Score one for the wisdom of the locals.

Chapter 2: Many Roles to Serve

Of course, I soon came to appreciate the crew cab for everyday use. When I went to buy no-climb rolls of fencing, 6” round treated posts, and rough sawn 2x6s for the top cap, it all went into the bed. And a massive project to build a large 12 x 12’ reloading room inside my 30 x 40’ shop resulted in the 8-foot bed being filled to well above the sides with sheets of OSB and 2x4s. No drywall for me on the walls of my Montana reloading room! I left the natural looking OSB unstained or painted and used 1x2s as molding around the base and ceiling, and also vertically on every seam where the upright sheets met every four feet. A MASSIVE reloading bench inside and it was a very manly “man cave” dedicated to reloading. Many hours were happily spent in there cranking out all the ammo I needed to live a proper Montana hunter’s life.

A MASSIVE reloading bench inside and it was a very manly “man cave” dedicated to reloading.

A major important roll my crew cab served was when hunting. The first fall when...

my buddies came out from Chicago, it served as the all-terrain transport vehicle with five eager hunters sitting warmly in the cab. One hunting trip in particular was when it in fact got its new name… and that was “The Prairie Schooner!” We were out hunting the special week where the antelope and deer seasons overlapped. Between the five of us, in one morning, we had taken five mule deer and two pronghorns and had no problem getting them all in the back of my truck!

we had taken five mule deer and two pronghorns and had no problem getting them all in the back of my truck!

So I was driving across the rolling hills when we came up to a dry irrigation ditch, about a foot deep and four feet wide. Gene, the oldest of the group and also a Montana resident from the Bitterroot Valley out west, spoke up when he saw that I was going to drive through it with my big truck.

“Ken! You’ll never make it through that! We’ll get stuck, and we’re at least five miles from the nearest road!”

“Not to worry Gene!” I said, “We’ll do just fine.”

So I got out and locked the front hubs, got back in, shifted the floor-mounted transfer case lever to LO, then moved the transmission from park to low. Slowly, the front axle dropped down into the ditch, then crawled up and out the far side. Next, the rear axle took its turn going in, and then likewise crawled out the back. As I stopped the truck to get out and unlock the front axle, Gene excitedly exclaimed,

“Ken! This truck is a SCHOONER! It’s the PRAIRIE SCHOONER!!!”

Everyone roared with laughter, and from then on, the Prairie Schooner was always spoken of with great respect for the work it had shown it could perform when hunting in the field. For it had repeatedly shown itself to be nearly invincible!

Chapter 3: Nearly Invincible…nearly…

While my crew cab 4WD had proven itself in many tough situations, it actually met its darkest hour when only prairie dog hunting. It was early fall, and my brother, Gary, and I went out for one last prairie dog hunt before our minds changed to the upcoming antelope season. It had rained some the day before on our side of the mountains, so I didn’t give much thought to how the northern...

side might have fared. It took about an hour to drive around to the north side and right away, once out on the prairie, the truck was beginning to feel a little squirrely.

The soil in the area was such that with a little moisture, it became like grease, causing me to spin out easily. It also was like driving on ball bearings, as without warning, I would start moving sideways more than forward. And each time we got out to shoot off the hood of the Ford, our boots gathered up more and more mud until in no time, our feet looked like Sasquatch, leaving size 20 impressions with each step. Gary suggested we back up and take a pass on dog hunting that day, but I was a “local” and he was still just from Illinois… so what did he know?

So I fired up the diesel, put her into four-wheel-drive, and pressed on through a shallow bowl, wanting to get up to the other side where it looked much drier. But we didn’t quite make it. Halfway through, the sideways fishtailing stopped- good, I thought- but it was bad because now, the tires were digging down through the top layer. The faster and faster I tried to go, the slower and slower we went, but the tires were spinning very fast. I had hoped to use momentum to get us through. Finally, we slowly came to a dead stop.

When we both got out of the truck to assess the situation, Gary let out a heavy sigh. The running boards were at ground level, we were buried up to the axle, and the differentials had bottomed out. Once at that point, all the tires will do is spin freely in the hole they’d spun out in the mud. We were stuck… we were 4WD STUCK!

Chapter 3: 4WD STUCK!!!

Two wheel drive stuck is bad. But my brother always told me that having 4wd only allows you to go farther into real bad areas before you really get stuck, which means in a much worse predicament. So with the truck buried up to the axles, there was no possible way to get out on our own. Sure, I had a Hi-Lift jack in my bed, but so what? When all four tires are buried to their center on a 7,000 lb. diesel crew cab, there was no climbing out of that. The only possible thing to do...

was get help. Fortunately, we were only about a hundred feet from the two lane paved highway that ran north to south. So while we were still in the middle of nowhere, eventually somebody would drive by.

An hour went by, and then two. It was early afternoon, but we were sure someone would eventually drive by.

An hour went by, and then two. It was early afternoon, but we were sure someone would eventually drive by. We were sitting in the truck with the heater on because the temperature outside was really dropping. Finally, in the distance, we saw a car coming. I jumped out of the truck, made it over the barbed wire fence, and stood on the shoulder frantically waving my arms. Thankfully, they stopped. I told them what happened, and asked for a ride to town. They said yes, but I was a little concerned. The two men looked like they walked off the set of Deliverance, the thriller movie from 1972.

Getting back to the truck, I told Gary I got a ride, but I was a little scared, so could he give me his Ruger 2” SP101 .357 to tuck away in my coat pocket. He’d stay with the truck until I could get back. The half hour drive to my small home town felt like hours. It felt so good to have the .357 in my coat pocket. Dueling banjo music kept playing on and on in my head. My hand went back in my coat pocket… the Ruger was still there, and it felt so good. When we got to town, they wanted a bunch of cash, but I finally talked them into filling up their car, and as it was hardly out of their way, they agreed to that, and drove off on their way once the tank was full. Amen…

My good friend, John, runs a tire shop, so I gave him a call. He laughed when he heard what happened, but is a very kind soul who would help anyone out. Not thinking another pickup would be of much help, we walked down to his hotel where the Caterpillar mechanic was staying. A knock on the door, and Darrel said his medium-duty work truck has an 8,000 lb. winch, and he could easily haul it out. So John and I jumped into the sturdy truck with duallys on the rear, and headed out to rescue Gary. It felt like we were bringing a tank to pull out a pickup.

It felt like we were bringing a tank to pull out a pickup.

Of course John and Darrel were laughing as we pulled up, but I took it well, as...

truthfully it was pretty funny. Darrel was very confident, almost cocky, that his eight-ton work truck with its four-ton winch would yank me right out of there like nothing… but I was not too sure. John said we’d have to cut the barbed wire fence to get my truck out, but we’d come back to repair it, so no problem. For best traction, the heavy work truck was parked on the highway, in the oncoming lane, but again, nobody ever drives this road. The winch line was let out, as I slogged my way back to the buried Ford. It was at least 150 feet to the Prairie Schooner… I was glad my buddy, Gene, wasn’t there to see this. It would destroy his image of the beast.

Not the best situation, but after all, it weighs over 16,000 lbs.

Because my stuck truck was parallel to the highway, Darrel couldn’t really pull it straight out, so he actually swung the hydraulic lifting arm on the service truck around, so it was at 90 degrees to the driver’s side. Not the best situation, but after all, it weighs over 16,000 lbs. I hooked up the line to a massive forged hook on my Ford, which is bolted to the frame. This baby was gonna get sucked out in a heartbeat!

Chapter 4: Landing a Giant Tuna

The electric winch engaged, took up the slack, and then started whining as the motor took on the heavy pulling load. In a few moments, the truck started to move sideways… not my Ford, but Darrel’s eight-ton work truck! He was being pulled sideways onto the shoulder- while the Schooner stayed stuck fast! Everyone was amazed, but Darrel seemed crushed. He was sooooo sure his monster truck would just yank me out. It got real quiet. Then a light came on in Darrel’s head. He repositioned his truck back on the highway and then deployed out the stabilizing arms from both sides of the work bed. This would put more of the truck’s weight on the rear and keep it from sliding. He was pretty sure of this.

Again, the slack is taken up; the winch electric motor whined and then growled to a stop.

Again, the slack is taken up; the winch electric motor whined and then growled to a stop. His 8,000 lb. winch could not make my crew cab even budge. It got real quiet again. Darrel said he had an idea as he climbed into his cab and started...

the truck. The hydraulic hoist arm, where the winch line was being run through, was going to be used like a fishing pole. He said it had far greater capacity than the winch motor. So he lowered and pointed the arm down and towards my truck, turned on the winch and took up all the slack. He locked the winch line in so it couldn’t move at all… then raised the hoist arm as if to pull in a fish. IT WORKED!

Looking at my truck, there appeared to be no damage.

So Darrel kept hoisting, then cranking in the slack, then hoisting and taking in the slack… just like landing a thousand-pound tuna… he reeled in my truck! Everyone was cheering! It looked like a scene from the currently popular- Wicked Tuna - cable TV show.

Once he got it to firmer ground, I was able to drive the last 50 feet onto the highway. By this time the sun had slipped below the horizon, and it was just below freezing, but nobody even noticed that. Looking at my truck, there appeared to be no damage. The wheels, however, looked like sideways flying saucers. Neither the large, projecting front hubs couldn’t even be seen, nor my hubcaps either. Each wheel only revealed the tire tread and a huge solid convex cap of mud encrusting the outside. Laying down and looking underneath, the insides looked just the same…drivable, but only at very slow speeds. Each wheel must have had at least 40-pounds of dense-packed mud plastered to it!

So my good friends, John and Darrel, follow Gary and me back home, staying well back when I began to throw massive clumps of mud. I had to keep my speed down to only 15 miles per hour- otherwise the steering wheel shaking was horrible.

A very slow 50 mile drive to town and two rolls of quarters- back when it only cost fifty-cents for five minutes- finally resulted in a mud-free Ford.

The next day, I spent hours trying to scrape off and dig out as much mud as I could. Then I took my garden hose to it. The mud just laughed! It was dense and firm at a temperature of just above freezing, and after a while, I realized that driving to town to use the high pressure coin wand at the carwash was the only thing that would work. A very slow 50 mile drive to town and two rolls of quarters- back when it only cost fifty-cents for five minutes- finally...

resulted in a mud-free Ford. Later that afternoon, John kindly came out with me to the “scene of the crime” and helped me repair the barbed wire fence we had to cut.

Looking out where my truck had been stuck, it reminded me of a section of the Oregon Trail where, still today, it can be seen where thousands of heavily laden, horse team drawn wagons traveled, headed out west to homestead with their families.