What recovery equipment do you carry?

[Jefe1018]

I carry a lot of shit but I don’t think any of this is unnecessary if you want to be prepared when off road. Obviously this isn’t for running up to the local Costco. I would consider this to be kind of a minimum loadout because I’m not carrying lots of spare parts. None of this listed includes camping/survival stuff or convenience items, like towels, etc., I may take.

In a large Adventure Tool Company Bag that lives behind the fridge:

• 3 Factor 55 soft shackles
• 2 Factor 55 Pulleys and an ARB snatch block so I can back winch (you need a minimum of 3 snatch blocks or pulleys for this)
• 3 Crosby hard shackles
• Factor 55 Hitch Link 2.0
• Factor 55 snatch rope (this takes up most of the room)
• ARB tow strap
• ARB tree saver
• Deadman anchor
• ARB tire repair kit with lots of extra plugs and steel wire
• A piece of 5” fire hose as a winch line protector
• Warn winch line damper
• Hi Lift lift mate
• Dickies Coveralls
• Safe Jack lifting pads and a 3”extension

I also carry a small Atlas 46 bag with:

• 2 quarts of motor oil
• Construction adhesive
• A spare u-joint
• Safety glass
• Dewalt battery charger
• Dewalt impact gun
• JB weld steel stick
• Gorilla glue
• Gorilla tape
• Mopar fender clips
• Zipties
• Gloves
• Fast Fid for splicing winch line

The winch is a Warn Evo with Synthetic line and a spliced on Flatlink

For jacks I carry a Jet (made in Japan) 12 ton bottle jack and a Hi-lift. The Hi Lift is mounted to the back wall of the bed where I hope it never leaves. I don’t use this for tire changes. This is for lifting/leveraging vehicles off of rocks or as a come-a-long. I have a lift mate to go with it.

I carry a Yorktown Tool Roll with enough stuff to do basically any repair, including a brass and ball-peen hammers, rubber mallet, torque wrenches and only impact rated sockets a breaker and cheater bars. I also carry an assortment of electrical tools, fuses, etc. This lives locked under the seat. I usually work out of this bag for doing routine maintenance and don’t even mess with my garage tool box.

Its a bit of a mess right now.

I also carry my cardboard beadlock pattern template for maintaining torque on the wheels.

I carry a small bag (attached to a seat molle panel) of 1/4 drive tools with, a headlamp, bit driver and any other stuff I frequently need to grab for messing with the top, trailer hitch, etc. I also carry Dewalt safety goggles because the bottom of the truck is going to be a muddy mess, disposable gloves and work gloves

Lastly, I carry a mounted PowerTank which has plumbed-in ports on the side of the truck, hoses for 4-wheel simultaneous inflation, MaxTrax traction boards, a MaxTrax jack base, an spill kit (which everyone should carry but probably doesn’t) and a canvas tarp for working under the truck. I don’t carry air tools because the Dewalt impact gun is better imho and it shares a battery with my portable inflator I use for the water port and my lil’ Dewalt chainsaw I carry for clearing fallen trees and cutting up firewood.

Have you ever weighed your truck?

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[Wolf Island Diver]

Have you ever weighed your truck?

The recovery gear doesn't weigh very much. The 2 jacks and all their accoutrements weight a lot less than those Badlands floor jacks everyone likes to carry now. The spill kit doesn't weigh anything. My large recovery gear bag is easily lifted. It's probably less than 50 lbs. The deadman weighs less than a tarp. The tool roll, which is only metric, weighs about 50 lbs. All in all the recovery gear and tools weighs less than my petite ex-wife, and it's a lot more useful.

What gear weighs a lot is a loaded ARB fridge, 13 gallons of water, the awning, rack and camping gear and people. 4 people is easily 600 lbs. IMHO as a former firefighter, 3 row mid-size or small SUVs are deathtraps. People conveniently forget to consider people when thinking about their vehicles GVWR so you get the Klumps going to church in their Kia, when they make an emergency lane change and end up flipped over in the median. It's usually just me and my dog and either my kid or a girlfriend. Personally I would get a full size truck to carry more than a total of 2 people, unless the kids were under 10. I've taken 2 other people and a dog on a trip and it felt a bit like the Beverly Hillbillies piling into their jalopy.

I'm running the 3" "Blue" AEV springs so that the truck maintains some rake when fully loaded. With the 2" springs the truck was even when loaded. I err on the side of not wanting the truck to drive like it's loaded. I felt that the 2' springs were too soft for my preferences off road and on the highway. So far, I haven't seen any changes to mileage (diesel) or braking performance when fully loaded. Emergency handling is also still good. If I towed a camper, and I hope to, once Powell reduces the rates, I would start jettisoning some of the gear I carry on the truck. I'd probably reduce things to just the recovery gear and awning. So for me the platform has been really impressive for carrying what I carry and still maintaining composure. I haven't noticed any excessive wear on components yet either. That being said, you can't wheel a loaded truck the way you wheel an unloaded one and you have to drive conservatively on the highway. It requires a lot more finesse. I don't think a lot of people got that memo which I why they brake things and then ask people like me to help recover them because they also didn't bring any gear.

 

[Jefe1018]

The recovery gear doesn't weigh very much. The 2 jacks and all their accoutrements weight a lot less than those Badlands floor jacks everyone likes to carry now. The spill kit doesn't weigh anything. My large recovery gear bag is easily lifted. It's probably less than 50 lbs. The deadman weighs less than a tarp. The tool roll, which is only metric, weighs about 50 lbs. All in all the recovery gear and tools weighs less than my petite ex-wife, and it's a lot more useful.

What gear weighs a lot is a loaded ARB fridge, 13 gallons of water, the awning, rack and camping gear and people. 4 people is easily 600 lbs. IMHO as a former firefighter, 3 row mid-size or small SUVs are deathtraps. People conveniently forget to consider people when thinking about their vehicles GVWR so you get the Klumps going to church in their Kia, when they make an emergency lane change and end up flipped over in the median. It's usually just me and my dog and either my kid or a girlfriend. Personally I would get a full size truck to carry more than a total of 2 people, unless the kids were under 10. I've taken 2 other people and a dog on a trip and it felt a bit like the Beverly Hillbillies piling into their jalopy.

I'm running the 3" "Blue" AEV springs so that the truck maintains some rake when fully loaded. With the 2" springs the truck was even when loaded. I err on the side of not wanting the truck to drive like it's loaded. I felt that the 2' springs were too soft for my preferences off road and on the highway. So far, I haven't seen any changes to mileage (diesel) or braking performance when fully loaded. Emergency handling is also still good. If I towed a camper, and I hope to, once Powell reduces the rates, I would start jettisoning some of the gear I carry on the truck. I'd probably reduce things to just the recovery gear and awning. So for me the platform has been really impressive for carrying what I carry and still maintaining composure. I haven't noticed any excessive wear on components yet either. That being said, you can't wheel a loaded truck the way you wheel an unloaded one and you have to drive conservatively on the highway. It requires a lot more finesse. I don't think a lot of people got that memo which I why they brake things and then ask people like me to help recover them because they also didn't bring any gear.

I mean it’s a great set up from your write up but immediately I thought man my JTRD has 1,096lbs of payload and between me, my wife and 2 doggos we eat into that significantly not to mention all the stuff on the truck that’s more than stock weight. I consider to have a minimalist up fitting for my JT, but even then I think we are all flirting with being over on any camping trip.

 

[Wolf Island Diver]

I mean it’s a great set up from your write up but immediately I thought man my JTRD has 1,096lbs of payload and between me, my wife and 2 doggos we eat into that significantly not to mention all the stuff on the truck that’s more than stock weight. I consider to have a minimalist up fitting for my JT, but even then I think we are all flirting with being over on any camping trip.

IMHO the stock truck wasn't safe hauling itself down the road, so I'm not surprised it has such a low payload. I'll take the Pepsi challenge on handling, emergency or otherwise, against an unloaded stock JTRD with its unsafe, undersprung, under damped, under anti-roll rate, shit suspension any day of the week. As for the frame, you can take a mid 90's Nissan D21 and run 2-3 times the GVWR all day long. It won't bend or break. The whole global south relies on little Japanese trucks running insane loads. Maybe I missed the memo on American trucks having shit bendy frames, but I'm not concerned. The brakes were designed to stop the truck and a trailer. This Jeeps brakes perform better under load than any other Jeep I've owned. I'm not worried about the modern D44. It's stronger than the old D60s. If they break, I'll replace them with Pro Rock 60s. I've never had cooling issues. The truck get 27 MPG on the highway fully loaded.

It's irresponsible to wheel without a spill kit because you can both damage the environment and cause others to lose trail access. But that doesn't weigh anything, it's just an expense. Its irresponsible to not carry recovery gear or tools because when you break down or get stuck, and eventually you will if you off road, then you're making your problem other people's problem either by blocking the trail or be needing help from other people to get you unstuck or a ride out. I can't tell you how many times I've been stuck behind someone who was broken down without the means to self-recover. I've been stuck behind a line of Jeeps and folks were trying to crowd source recovery gear because no one had anything. I can't tell you how many times I've completely altered or ruined my plans because I ended up having to help other people fix or recover their vehicle and it turned into a multi-hour ordeal. I can tell you exactly how many times, in my adult life, I've ever needed another persons help on the trail or on the side of the road. Zero.

The stuff I'm carrying that has any significant weight to it, other than the (26lb) Hi-lift, which is mostly useless except for lifting yourself off of rocks, is all basic recovery gear or tools.

Edit:
One thing I forgot to mention concerning GVWR. The tires that the OEM specs are also a huge factor, and they all tend to put soft cheap tires on their trucks to improve ride and save money. You’re usually moving up several load ratings with these big off road tires. The load rating of most of these oversized off road tires far exceeds the needs of light trucks and Jeeps.

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