Wombat SF, 21/4/13

NachaLuva

NachaLuva

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DedmanWalking & I met at the Macedon servo & headed off for some mud...

We found it!

After making it through many bog holes relatively easily, DW got stuck:
img2682at.jpg


Time to use his winch :biggrin:

I didnt like the look of this so I took the chicken route:
img2687ul.jpg


After quite an effort DW snatched me out. Man that mud was sticky!

We both had bog water in our cars now :(:shake:

We kept going along this track, finding bog hole after bog hole.

DW got stuck again so I looked for another chicken track. It looked firm with a small 1' ledge to climb over. By now my confidence had been building & I thought I could make it.

I was wrong :rotfl:

I built up the track as much as I could with logs but my tiedown point got caught on a tree root forming the lip of the ledge. With a lot of effort & with my tyres smoking, DW managed to winch me up. We think his rope got bundled up on one side & jammed, while he was trying to unwind it by reversing with it wrapped around a tree, the rope snapped :( Fortunately near the end so he should be able to splice it again.

We then decided to just try to get out of this track...

There were more bogs, some bad but not as bad as the previous ones, & finally we made it out.

A few more easier tracks then it was time to head home.

Thanks for a fun trip :biggrin:
 
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The Aftermath

After I got home, I washed the footwells out with the hose. It was then I noticed where the water had come in, not through the door seals but through drainage holes in the sill join!

draining.jpg


draining1.jpg


draining3.jpg


You can see the water pouring out through the drainage holes after I filled up the passenger side footwells. It also came out more slowly through the chassis rail join near the moustache bar mount & another small seam.

This is obviously where it came in, so after it's all clean & dry I'll seal it all up. I'm thinking Sikaflex polyurethane...
 
Definitely looks like y'all found the mud....at least it wasn't dusty. :poke:
I'm gonna consider sealing up those drainage holes myself.
 
Nice trip report, any video ?

If you let the bog water in the Foz and take a bath...its good for the skin !
 
Finally got around to posting some more about this trip.
As NachaLuva said it was muddy! Very Muddy! Bog hole after bog hole but reasonably dry in between.


So here is where we went


Track_Map_2.jpg

Started off fairly simple with the first real obstacle we encountered being a large rutted hill climb separating the pine plantation and the Wombat state forest.

Here is NachaLuva Making it look easy
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bpz2-nvcro"]www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bpz2-nvcro[/ame]

After this we move on to our first track in the wombat state forest. This was a relatively straight forward track that received a fair amount of use. There was some bog holes to travel through but the surface mud was relatively thin and the bases were solid.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYVnVBD0epw"]Subaru Forester Off Road -- Wombat Bog Hole 1 - April 2013 - YouTube[/ame]

We didnt really have any plans for where we were going, just found interesting looking tracks and had a go. This worked out well except for hitting the occasional dead end and ending up going in circles a few times.

Here is another little bog we encountered along the way
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIRuOjT34hU"]Subaru Forester Off Road -- Wombat Bog Hole 2 - April 2013 - YouTube[/ame]

Up until this point everything had been going smoothly and with relative ease. It was then that we attempted the track of endless car swallowing bog holes......

The track started off fairly easy with easy chicken tracks around the bogs. Then we encountered the bog in which I first got stuck (shown in NachaLuva's picture above) I hadn't tried any of the bogs on this track yet so I though I would give this one a go..... Bad idea....

The issue with this track was that is had not been driven much recently meaning that all of the usually stirred up runny mud had settled to a very slimy vehicle stopping gloop. Every bog we encountered on this track was like this. It was either vehicle damaging momentum through the rough holes or stuck fast. More often than not it was the stuck fast option we chose.

So the aftermath of the above picture of me in the bog went like this;
Got the winch all set up ready to go and started winching away.
Winching was going very well although i was getting pulled deeper and deeper into the ooze.
Got to the edge of the bog and the winch really starts to strain to get me out. Then......
Bang! The winch completely lets go and cable flys out forward (as im using a snatch strap as a winch extension strap).
Get out and check everything and from what i can gather the free spool has disengaged for some reason.
While im checking this the car is busily filling with water as im in the deepest part of the puddle.
I decided to just give the winch another go and much to my surprise it pulled my out no problem...
NachaLuva has video evidence of the above to post some time im assuming.

Whilst I packed up the winch NachaLuva had a go at a chicken track (although i think I may have been on the chicken track)
And the result... Stuck fast as shown above...
Got out the snatch and had a go at pulling him out. Think I just about ripped off the towbar in the process. Man that mud was thick. Eventually to the smell of burning tyres and clutch we were both free to carry on.

Not fancying trying to go back through that bog hole we carried on through a series some what easier ones until again I got stuck from not using enough momentum.

I got out the winch again and pulled myself free
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqnVEDWdZkk"]Subaru Forester Off Road -- Winching 1 out of Wombat Bog Hole April 2013 - YouTube[/ame]

Once again the winch did not seem to be experiencing any Ill effects from its previous failure.

Whilst I was recovering myself NachaLuva managed to get himself stuck in what look like a flat not very muddy spot.
Here is where he got stuck after he was pulled out.
P1190449.jpg

This shows just how sticky this mud was with NachaLuva having four wheels spinning at once with nothing really scraping or limiting forward progress....

Anyway decided to get the winch out again to pull him out as NachaLuva wasnt keen on being snatched over a nasty root at the bogs exit.

Here are the winching videos
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbwfeFRuO7M"]Subaru Forester Off Road -- Winching 2 out of Wombat Bog Hole April 2013 - YouTube[/ame]

To my surprise the winch stalled on this one however i didn’t think that this was because of overloading (as i wasn’t sliding and the winch has made me slide before) but more likely because the winch was dying

Got out the snatch block and tried again
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaQxaAL19hQ"]Subaru Forester Off Road -- Winching 3 out of Wombat Bog Hole April 2013 - YouTube[/ame]
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOHQL3yLw-g"]Subaru Forester Off Road -- Winching 4 out of Wombat Bog Hole April 2013 - YouTube[/ame]

Got him out eventually but the winch was sounding less and less happy. The freespool would not release the cable despite operating normally and the the gearbox was making some horrible, bits of metal getting mashed through gears noises. I wanted to see if i could get the cable unjammed so i could at least wind it back in again so I tied the cable to a tree and reversed..... And... The cable snapped... No more winch I guess... Cheap Chinese Rubbish!!

This wasn't the end of the world as we were both free but we were going to have to be more careful about both getting stuck from now on.
 
We carried on along the track navigating bog hole after bog hole. Sometimes we to the chicken track, sometimes we took the chicken track of the chicken track. I think one bog we were 4 or 5 chicken tracks wide.....

Here is another one of the bogs we encountered
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEpInPxBhqY"]Subaru Forester Off Road -- Wombat Bog Hole 3 April 2013 - YouTube[/ame]

Finally after several more bogs we got back to a marked road. Almost kissed the ground but instead settled for lunch whilst contemplating why both cars had leaked significant muddy water in on the passenger side.

After lunch we decided on an easy track for the rest of the day. We Went along XL track which was much easier (although apparently blue diamond rated according to parks). This was a nice finish to the day with the only real obstacle being a small creek crossing which none of us had any issue with.

After this we had decide to call it a day as we both needed to clean out cars. I also needed to unbend my sump guard which was bent to within a millimetre of the sump....

All in all a good day though.

Good carpet clean and new winch and sump guard required as well as working out where all that water got in.
 
Still need to find some time to sort the winch out and work out what went wrong with it. Ill post when I get round to it.
 
Holy crap on a cracker :huh:

It sounds like the you guys really had an adventure & a half :cool:

Sorry to hear that about the winch & it's issues :o

I (together with Kevin) had water come in through the drainage holes once too, a few years ago :madred:
I ended up sealing my drainage holes (about 20 or so) with clear silicon.
While I had the carpet out, I also ran some silicon around any grommets that led into the cabin aswell, just to be sure :iconwink:

Just make sure you check the rear drivers side foot well for dampness while you're at it. As that's where we both noticed that the majority of water settled ;)

Getting back to the topic though, great trip report together with some great pics & vids :raz:

Well done on what looks like some very challenging tracks & terrain :biggrin:

Regards
Mr Turbo
 
Whaow, nice short videos ! That mud seems very sticky, I love your trip reports !
 
It was quite a hoot. I find having a winch is great to get out of trouble but gives more (false) confidence to get into trouble as well...lesson learnt! :o

thunder039 said:
matt i never noticed how bad you have saggy but syndrom!
Click to expand...

I dont get to the gym much anymore... :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
 
Better a handwinch, because you sweat so much to take the Foz out that you don't even want to go in the sticky stuff, but if you're in it you can still get out of it !
 
Very true about the winch although credit to the winch when its due, it managed to pull us out of everything we got stuck in :raz:

Glad it didnt die when we both got stuck at the same time though.....:rolleyes:
 
Looks like it was a fun day Gentlemen!!!:ebiggrin:

That winch sure did come in handy. Glad you were able to get out of everything.

Thanks for a great report.:cool:
 
Looks like a great adventure. The short clips are perfect for people like me with goldfish attention spans. Great report guys!
 
That sure is a mess. Very sorry your winch died pulling me out... :(:shake:

IMO you should absolutely get a replacement or refund from the seller...

Another thing I'm kicking myself about is I had the milk crates in the back for exactly this kinda thing...totally forgot them! :rolleyes:
 
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