I got my ATV back and running - A blast from the past....


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OK, so years ago (maybe 10?) I wrote about the dreaded "J" turn. I will paste it here for you to read, but there is an update to this story so keep reading.

The Dreaded "J" Turn
A lesson in Being Careful Out There !

A lot of people have asked over the years what is BCOT!

It is Be Careful Out There! Now I say that because there are a lot of hidden dangers doing what we do. The other reason is to remind myself to Be Careful Out There, because I just really don't have a good safety history when it comes to prospecting trips.

You have heard of people that are just an accident waiting to happen? Well I'm just one continuous accident with momentary lulls in between.

Like three years ago when I took a wonderful prospecting trip to Rye Patch then on to Northern California with Digger Bob and Chico Jim to detect some hydro pits. It was such a great trip and I also got 4 nuggets so I was pumped!

So on the way back home, I hit a deer! Big buck, ripped off the whole left front of my new pickup truck.

Then 2 years ago, coming home from Gold Basin, I swerved to miss a coyote, I was so gun shy from hitting the dam deer. I just knee jerked and tried to avoid hitting the coyote, threw my truck into a skid, hit the berm of the graded road and rolled my truck. $14,800 worth of damage, they had to rebuild it from the frame up.

OK, so three weeks ago, I go out to do a little detecting and I am bound and determined to get way the hell back in and amongst the mountains and find some new ground.

So I take off on my quad, a 350 cc Artic Cat. It has served me well.

I pretty much know it's limitations in terms of climbing mountains and it does an amazing job. In fact sometimes I get up a hill side and look back down and scare myself because I can't believe I negotiated such a steep grade.

It's a 4 wheel drive manual transmission and it has a low and a super low gear that really helps if you get in trouble. You just have to reach down and pull this rod forward to engage these extra low gears.

OK, so I am back in and amongst the mountains where I wanted to be. Looks like pretty virgin territory, just like I like it. I've worked this one gully with no success, but also no trash! It was time to ride over the mountain and see what was on the other side.

The whole area had rain about 3 days before, and while the ground was relatively dry, in other words, not muddy, it was damp. When you dug a hole, the ground was still moist.

OK, so I start up this mountain out of this gully. I could only go up the mountain on the one side of the gully because the mountain to the right of me had no entry point to start up, there was just this solid rock wall about 10 feet high.

In other words, as you were walking up the gully, the left side had the normal benches and little rills running down into it from the mountain side, but to the right was just this solid rock wall, going up about 10 feet, and then the mountain started it's slope up.

The mountain I was going to try and negotiate was probably 200 feet to the top.

I started in first gear and start chugging up the mountain avoiding the Joshua trees, boulders, cactus, and large bushes.

Well about half way up I had to slow down because there were some rocks in the way that I had to sort of go sideways around across the mountain, NOT my favorite maneuver! I like to go straight up the mountain, balls to the wall, screaming like a 12 year old girl at an INSYNC Concert!

As I straighten back up to resume a straight path up the mountain I sort of lost my momentum. That, combined with the soft dirt, caused the quad to start throwing rocks and it starting spinning the wheels and digging into the dirt.

Well the back wheels were digging in faster than the front and all of a sudden I felt the ATV, start to come up in the front. I mean this baby was ready to roll over backwards with me on it. At this point I am off the seat and hanging over the handlebars trying to keep my weight on the front of the ATV to keep it from flipping backwards on top of me.

I am screaming words so dirty, I don't even know what they mean! Words like damn, crap, hell, poopy dust, the "F" word, they just did not come close to expressing the gut wrenching fear I was feeling, so I was making up dirty words!

This thing was going to flip backwards, bend me in two, break my spine, shove my pick through my brain and out my rectum, and it was probably going to break my Minelab SD2200d.

I had to stop, breathe, think, and not panic.

I stopped gunning the engine and screaming. I carefully reached back with the hand I had on the accelerator, and turned the key off to kill the motor.

It was like those cars in the movies that almost go over the cliff. You know, where the car is teetering back and forth. Where if the guy in the car got an impure thought and happened to get an erection, that alone would send the car plummeting down the hill! Yeah well that was me, except I needed the weight in the front of the ATV! I needed a handful of VIAGRA!

OK. Engine off! I am across the handlebars laying on the front of the ATV. I have so much adrenaline pumping through my blood I can feel my high blood pressure going up even further. I can count my heartbeats in my ears. I'm figuring if the ATV doesn't roll on me and kill me, the stroke I am about to have surely will.

My left hand had a death grip on the brake. With my thumb I managed to set the lock on the brake. OK, now I just had to get the heck off this 500 pounds of man mashing machine. I ever so carefully crawled off the front of the ATV.

Once I was off, I just sat down to catch my breath, analyze the situation, and try to get my blood pressure down.

My hands were shaking so bad, that I knew if I ever got that damn ATV off the mountain, detecting would be a cinch the rest of the day. I wouldn't even have to swing the detector, I could just walk along and my shaking alone would make sure the coil got over every inch of ground.

Once I settled down I surveyed the predicament I was in. I tried to remember the operation manual on the ATV that I had read when I first got it. There was a section in there about what to do if you were stuck and had to get the ATV turned around to go back down the hill.

It was called a "J" turn. The idea was to put the ATV in neutral. You stand on one side of the ATV, and by controlling the brake you crank the ATV hard to one side towards you. You then gently release the brake, allowing the downhill pull of gravity to take the ATV backwards into a hard turn, while you stay on the uphill side.

Once the ATV has backed into a sideways position, you then put the brake on again. Crank the wheels headed down the hill. Ride the brake as you allow the ATV to get straightened out going directly down hill. Then you can get on, and ride the brake as you head down hill to safety.

Well before I did all of this, I decided I should probably put the gear in super low, in case the brakes gave out. The super low would cause the engine to brake the ATV going down hill.

Well the super low shifting rod had come off the transmission. The pin that held it on had fallen out. I couldn't shift it into super low.

Unfortunately I forgot one very important thing when I was doing the "J" turn. You want to start on the side of the ATV that has the brake handle. That way, as you crank the wheels hard towards you, and allow the ATV to roll backwards into a turn, you stay on the uphill side with the brake handle closest to you!

Well I started on the opposite side of the ATV. The side furthest away from the brake handle. When I went into the J turn I was on the uphill side of the ATV, like I was supposed to be, but I was having to reach all the way across the ATV to control the brake! Not the optimum situation to be in.

OK, so now I had the ATV sideways on the hill. I was stuck with having backed it up the wrong way with the brake on the downhill side of the ATV.

I couldn't very well go on the downhill side of the ATV to be closer to the brake, because I would risk the ATV rolling over sideways on top of me. I looked down the steep hill. It was at least 100 feet straight down the hill. At the bottom of the hill a gully and a solid 10 foot high rock wall at the base of the opposing mountain. About 20 feet down the hill on the right side was a large bush. About halfway down the hill and about 10 feet to the left were two Joshua trees that were about 6 feet tall growing out of the same root system, otherwise it was a straight shot to the wall of doom.

I cranked the wheels hard to get them aimed downhill. I took a deep breathe, reached as far across the ATV as I could to release the brake. I allowed my hand to loosen the a tight grip on the brake and started to give the ATV a bit of a push to get it started to turn downhill.

I sort of forgot about the gravity thing, and while loosening my grip on the brake, before getting a chance to push the ATV, it just took off. The brake handle was pulled from my grip, and I was running hard to try to catch up, mount it, grab the brake, throw it in reverse, let the air out of the tires, save my detector, hell I didn't know what I was going to do! I just knew I had to catch that ATV, which was now headed straight down the hill.

Well that large bush I told you about, that was 20 feet downhill on the right ?? It had a different idea. It's idea involved me running smack into it, knocking me to the ground, while I laid there helpless watching my $6000 ATV speed away downhill head long into a devastating meeting with a 10 foot solid rock wall.

I was screaming at the top of my lungs "Oh s-h-i-t, oh s-h-i-t hit a tree, hit a tree, oh Sweet Jesus please let it hit a tree!"

The ATV wasn't even halfway down the side of the mountain and I swear as God is my judge it was going at least 30 mph if it was moving at all! All I could think about were those commercials with the crash test dummies, when the test cars smash into those solid brick walls, and what those cars looked like. Well my ATV was going to hit that rock wall going about 50 maybe 60 miles an hour! It was going to look just like those wrecked test cars with two exceptions, this pile of trash was going to have a $3000 detector smashed with it, and the dummy would be laying on the side of a mountain in tears instead of inside the vehicle.

I know there is a GOD! Do you know how I know? Well, do you remember those two 6 foot tall Joshua trees that were about halfway down the mountain and about 10 feet to the left? Well when I screamed, "oh Sweet Jesus please let it hit a tree!" within about 20 feet of being even with those Joshua trees, that ATV turned and headed straight for those two Joshua trees. Now I'm sure that the tire must have hit a boulder that caused the ATV to veer off in that direction. I'm just as sure that God heard my screams for help and nudged that boulder in the way of that tire.

What happened from then on was like in slow motion. That ATV hit those Joshua trees so damn hard that in a time lapse video in my head I watched as it uprooted one of those 6 foot high Joshua trees throwing it 10 feet into the air and 20 feet down the side of the mountain. I looked back at the other Joshua tree which was now pointing at the mountain on the opposite side of the gully. The front of my ATV was about 4 feet up the trunk of that tree. The front wheels were 3 feet off the ground. The rear wheels were still on terra not so firma! I couldn't believe what had just happened. I couldn't believe that I still had an ATV that was in one piece. I mean it looked like a dog that had tree'd a racoon, it was all up in a tree, and I might not ever be able to get it down, but hey. it didn't hit that rock wall.

"Thank you God, Thank you God, thank you Jesus!"

I was having my own revival meeting right there on the side of that mountain! "Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord! If you have faith but the size of a mustard seed you can move a mountain, or apparently an ATV for that matter!" I was giddy with laughter, and half dizzy from adrenalin, I really wasn't thinking clearly.

I had that really sick, "Oh crap, I hope my wife doesn't find out about this," feeling in my stomach. You know, the feeling! The feeling that tells you that once again, when she told you to be careful, and you promised that you would, you weren't!

OK, so I am trying to calm myself down, trying to get my breathing under control, trying to quit sounding like Oral Roberts. By this time I have praised, Jesus, God, My Lord, My Lord Savior, the Baby Jesus, the Resurrected Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, God the Almighty, God my Father, God the most Holy, Precious Jesus Redeemer of the World, etc. etc. etc.

I was starting to get my breath back, and it was time to get serious. Now that I had given so much thanks to the Heavenly Creator, it was time for me to have a talk with me! So out loud I start screaming.

"You stupid ignorant son-of-a-bitch, do you have any f---kin' brains at all. Perhaps you should get you head out of your ass long enough to realize that you could have just been killed! Are you aware of that?" I surprised myself when I hung my head, and sheepishly admitted to myself, out loud mind you, "Yes I know, I'm sorry!" I am on the side of a mountain in Arizona having a religious schizophrenic experience while I alternately talk to God and chastise myself, and apologize; TO MYSELF!

You see these are the times when I wish I drank alcohol, because Gator Aide just doesn't cut it. Continuing my running dialogue with the ass hole I call myself I approached my tree'd ATV with apprehension. On some level I know there is no way I could have escaped at least some damage to my ATV. Much to my amazement, there was a single small dent in the tubular bumper on the front of the ATV. Even my detector came through with minimal damage. In fact there was no damage to the detector. The only thing that had happened is that it took the UFO coil and shoved it so hard backwards that it snapped the lower fiberglass shaft. Total damage estimate? $25. I mean that was if it didn't do some internal damage to the ATV.

I set the brake, and reluctantly climbed up on the ATV. And I do mean climbed! Have you ever had to mount an ATV that was three feet off the ground, up a tree? I pushed the starter button and the motor started right up. I put it in reverse and tried to power myself back off of the tree. It took about 5 minutes of rocking, and cussing, and praising the Lord, but I finally got the ATV off the tree and back down the mountain.

I don't think I have ever driven that ATV so carefully getting it back to my car. It took me about an hour to go three miles.

I still haven't told my wife this story, I mean, it's sort of between me and God, and the rest of you detectorists on the forums!

I just have a strange feeling she wouldn't understand.

BCOT!

DOC

FAST FORWARD TO THE PRESENT

My ATV, well, let's just say the ol' girl is getting sort of tired. Every year there is something else that goes wrong.

So when Spring started getting close I figured I better do some Spring maintenance. Put some new gas in, clean the carb. Replace the spark plug. And then, of course, the battery was completely dead.

So I take the dead battery to Walmart and get the exact same battery, same part number the whole 9 yards. I get home pour the acid into the battery, and proceed to hook the battery up. Sun is going down and it is starting to get dark, so I am trying to hurry. As soon as I get the positive onto the terminal, the wires start smoking. HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP.

TOO LATE! The EXACT SAME MODEL BATTERY! They had redesigned it and switched the positive terminal position with the negative position terminal. I had just FRIED the entire electrical wiring harness. Because I was careless and did not double check the battery.

I was just sick to my stomach, because I knew this was not going to be cheap.

So I take it to BASS PRO SHOP, they are an authorized Artic Cat dealer and repair center. A couple of days later they call and say the job is going to cost $800 plus dollars because the entire wiring harness has to be replaced. BUT, "Oh, by the way, you need to come over and look at your rig because we can't do the re-wire until you fix something else."

Bass Pro is like 3 miles from my house so I run right over. I get there and they have my ATV stripped down to the frame, all the plastic panels, carry racks etc. have been removed. Mike, my friendly service guy says, "Look at this."

Remember when I told you the only damage I suffered from the DREADED "J" turn incident was a dent in my bumper? Not so fast there Harry. As I am looking at the skeleton of my quad, it becomes apparent that the damage was much more severe, and the hidden damage was much more consistent with an ATV that had hit two Joshua trees going 30 miles an hour. The frame had been snapped in two in two different places. In fact the only part of the frame that had been holding the ATV together all of these years was two tubes of the frame, one on each side of the ATV, on the very bottom of the bike. I guess it's a good thing I never ride it fast.

So Mike says, you are going to have to get that welded. I said OK, maybe I can get a mobile welder out here. "Oh, they won't let you do it on Bass Pro property, you know, liability and all. " So I get in touch with a certified mobile welder guy. He agrees to meet me in the vacant lot across the street from Bass Pro. I load the skeleton of my ATV on the trailer, take it across the street, have it welded. 50 minutes later it is back in Mike's hands.

The wiring job got completed, and Mike threw in some other repairs, no extra charge, and my ATV purrs like a kitten and is finally safe to ride again. I really missed not having my ATV. It's old, but it runs great. It's not a top of the line, and it doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but it gets me where I want to go. In a way I guess it was sort of a blessing that the battery fired things. I may have continue to ride that ATV, and on any given bump the compromised frame could have failed and the ATV would have just torn itself apart and launched me skyward.

So, like I said before, BCOT!

Doc

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Doc.

OMG...that brought back memories for me on the dirt bike! :)
Cussing, thanking God, calling yourself stupid ect, ect.

Went out a couple of times on my 350 and decided to go hit some single track trails.

Well about halfway in, after dumping the bike 6 times and Justin having to come back and help me, we look at the

trail ahead and Justin says "im not going to be offended if we turn around here"
Did the smart thing and turned around....only thing is my legs now have the strength of a newborn and I can hardly stand up.

We head back out and im looking at the trail wondering if I actually came in on it? Did get back out and managed to dump the bike a few more times.

I was never so glad to see the truck at the end of that day!

Im now in the process of SLOWLY building up my riding skills again instead

of going out and thinking im 18 again riding my Maco 250.

Yes, there is a God, he hears us and somehow gets us out of the stupid predicaments we

put ourselves into.

BCOT to you to! :)
Great story with memories to last a lifetime.
Tom H.

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How come God let's our bodies get older and yet in our mind we all think we are still 27?

My mind always tells me I can do that, the next day my body screams, "OH NO YOU DIDN'T, you stupid ass."

I have a new prospecting partner as of the last couple of years. I call him "IB" for short. His last name is Uprofen. We have become best friends.

Doc

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Doc..Cuz were men :) that's what we do! ...........if you get a human prospecting partner and you can do even more stupid stuff!
Its great to have a back up that can call in a helo to carry you out :spank:

IB is a good friend of mine also.

If you ever get down this way, we can go out and damage ourselves in the desert :blink:

Tom H.

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When I was 62 I was almost up to Turkey creek from the south and hit steep hill all rutted out. Coming back my rear tire slipped off the downhill side and it was a 60 degree drop. Stood up on the quad and gave it a little gas. The front lifted up and I fell down the hill. Looked up at the quad balanced on the rear wheels just as it came down on top of me. Sheared my holster in half, cracked my left hip and a couple of ribs. The welded gun rack saved my life bit it was a painful ordeal. My Honda landed on the tires at the bottom after rolling. I figured out I could move through the blasting pain and I crawled down and got on the quad. Started right up and I rode to my truck and had a cold beer. I did not have insurance at the time so no doctor for me. Walked funny for two months and the hip still hurts once in a while. I guess it is hard to kill us old guys. :-)

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At least you had an adventure while riding and crashing. I was just loading mine on the trailer in my driveway when it flipped over on top of me. Happened so fast I had no time to react. Broke my pelvis and a couple of ribs and put a big hole in my leg. I was off work for a month. Never had anything happen out in the bush but in my own driveway??

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How come God let's our bodies get older and yet in our mind we all think we are still 27?

My mind always tells me I can do that, the next day my body screams, "OH NO YOU DIDN'T, you stupid ass."

I have a new prospecting partner as of the last couple of years. I call him "IB" for short. His last name is Uprofen. We have become best friends.

Doc

I know about the body getting older and worn out with 2 shoulder surgeries and a knee replacement and the other is due, but I still am 27 and I'm getting ready to celebrate my 40th anniversery of my 27th birthday. :P

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HERE HERE GENTELMEN !!!!! I AGREE

Its a wonderful thing to be over 60 and feel like 27 maybe ??

Rolled and flipped mine in the SAME week only 1 broked rib and a really screwed up shoulder.
It was the first couple days of the wifes weeks vacation we were detecting/camping
Luckily I had 2 extra control box covers I had been hauling around with me. Well I was able to attach them together with the Velcro
tabs and they reached all the way around my fat belly to cinch up the broken rib.
So no doctor or emergency room bills, the wifes vacation wasn't ruined because I had to quit an go home.
Saved by the control box covers !!!!
ONLY 1 problem outta all that, because I didn't treat the dam broken rib properly and stay still to let it heal I have this annoying "clicking" going on all the time, so 1 Dr's visit to ask the question and he says Yes it healed APART instead of together because I didn't stay still at first to let it heal.
Yeah Boy it sure is fun to reach yer 60's.

AH HUH BCOT FER SURE !!!!!

HAPY HUNTN

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Yep, I hit a rut with my ATV, I was riding sort of stiff armed. BIG MISTAKE. Turned the ATV on its' side and It jammed my arm back and ripped my rotator cuff. That was a 2 month recoup after surgery.

And I was going like 5 mph.

Doc

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Im beginning to think those Quads are more dangerous then my dirt bike! :)

I can just jump off of it and it usually stays where it falls.

Hardest part is picking it back up on a downhill :0

Well...then kick starting it again. Good exercise though.

Tom

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