Part 1
Mucky Ducky

Sorry for the long delay in posts but trust me when I say we have been busy with the D3 and it has seen some serious action.

Before I explain this picture that has surfaced on a few forums of our secret organic A/C mod, let’s take a quick stop at the events that lead us to think the D3 was ready to fight the mighty trees of Virginia.

Our first stop on the Summer 2014 tour was The Wilds in Ohio. Chris Ray of Mud Ruts Repair Shop and the Green Oval Guild always put on a hell of a good show and this year was no exception. We showed up to 85 degrees and nothing but sun. As soon as the tent was up the clouds started to roll in and then it was quickly followed by torrential downpour.

What the hell, rain or no rain we were at The Wilds, America's largest nature preserve. So with a smile and some recovery gear we hit the trails. It did not take long though to figure out that we should have brought more recovery gear and we were running low on smiles. Have you ever heard the term "duck snot" used to describe mud?

Even in this mud I thought I would be fine. I mean, I had the Terrain Response set to Mud!! Made sense to me.

We even brought along a little old Series truck to help out

I started on a downhill that I have seamlessly handled in the past with a stock truck on banana peel tires. With both of my feet jammed hard on the brake pedal, my attempts to stop were still futile. The duck snot mud had other ideas about giving me an express route ride into rapidly approaching trees. Take a look at this and you can see we are not talking about a large or steep hill here.

Thankfully the D3 came to a stop just before this:

So I radioed for help from Andy and Rick in the little Series truck (on 37s) but he soon informed me that they too were immobilized about 200 feet behind me. After some tire-spinning fun and nearly digging a hole to China, Andy was able to position his bumper against a tree to provide an anchor point for the still sliding D3.

There unfortunately was no way that their Series that weighs as much as one of my pelican cases was going to be able to pull out the 6,000lb D3. And then, as if it were something out of one of those crazy Canadian beer commercials, Randy Williams from British Boneyard miraculously pops out of the woods. Together we were able to design a plan on how Randy was going to snatch block me from the bottom of the trail in an attempt to pull the nose over.

To avoid pulling the truck down the hill, we needed a good point of attachment on the side of the Lucky 8 D3 in order to line up with the trees we could also use as snatching points. Unfortunately the Rock Sliders did not have the tree bars (nerfs) to grab onto. We were only left with one option: Go through the rim of the truck as all we needed was a tiny little tug. **Full Disclosure – this is not an approved recovery point. I do not recommend or condone my actions, but in the interest of science we went for it.**

This is when things started to get interesting. Instead of being able to pull the nose of the D3 over, Randy started pulling himself up the hill. This was a complete WTF moment. With the D3 being tide off to the Series Monster Truck jammed against a tree Randy’s D2 did not have enough weight to get the job done either. It was time for another  plan.

With the traction being so unstable, we decided to take advantage of the duck snot factor. Have a look at this video.

(cue the trumpets) SOFT SHACKLE TO THE RESCUE!!!!!

By spinning the tires, it made the front end lighter so to speak and easier to winch over and position the D3 back onto the trail. You may think this muddy tale is over. It isn’t.

The BAD

Somerwere on this little green lane mishap tour the rear sway bar link had snapped. Normally this would not be an issue but the the link broke in such a fashion that the lower rod section was able to make contact with the height sensor. A broken hight sensor can give you a warning light or worse. As you would imagine the L8 D3 went with worse.

The Good

We were able to find a slightly longer and slightly beefier swaybar link to put in the rear of the D3

The ugly.

Here is this updates poser pic. But let me explain this humiliating picture and let it be a learning tool. If you have a height sensor that is out of adjustment or is not reading in the proper fashion, you will get a suspension fault. I can hear the voices now. "Thank you Professor Obvious, we already know that." What you guys may or may not know is that if your truck has been sent to the bump stops with lift rods, there is a good chance that the rods have pushed the sensor out of the range it is capable of reading. A fast trail fix is to lift the truck up front and rear at the same time. By doing this it will allow the hight sensor to go back into a position where the computer can read the values again.