There are plenty of essential bits of gear that you might need to add to your 4WD recovery gear setup, to get your 4WD out of sticky situations when you are off the beaten path!

We are going to cover the basics of regaining traction and getting your 4WD free  – When you first bought your 4WD you probably had visions of driving EVERYWHERE offroad with it, and being able to concur even the most gnarly tracks – however without extensive modifications this may not be the case and even with modifications your 4WD may still get hung up or bogged off road.

This is why recovery equipment is so essential to getting your 4WD back home in one piece.

LOST TRACTION

When beginning your journey learning the ropes of 4WDing, maintaining traction is one of the first hurdles you may encounter, with standard highway tyres having less than adequate mud evacuation, and generally when you first start out, knowing the proper air pressures to be running will be all but guesswork.

But before you go out and buy yourself a new set of super aggressive MUD TERRAIN doughnuts, trying a few techniques with your air pressures might not just save your traction, but prevent you from puncturing your tyres, thanks to the enhanced sidewall flex!

By packing into your recovery kit a purpose made tyre deflation tool like the Kwiky Tyre Deflator you will have not only extremely quick deflation times, but also excellent control over what pressure you drop your tyres to. Whilst standard highway pressures for many 4WD’s is somewhere around 36psi, you will most certainly want to drop your pressures by approximately 10psi for casual dirt roads down to around 26psi, this will allow your sidewall to bag out and offering more of your tread pattern up for the terrain, however in seriously soft surfaces you can drop your pressures down an additional 10psi to 16psi for mountains more grip, but keep an eye on your pressures to avoid overheating and dramatic changes to tyre pressures, and bear in mind, whilst you may have improved grip, it is possible your vehicle’s handling may suffer with softer tyres.

BOGGED

Whilst you may have the ideal pressures dialed in, you will probably, at one stage or another end up sitting sill deep in a pool of foul-smelling mud – with next to no options for powering through.

Ideally in this situation, you would be able to back it out and tackle the obstacle again, however we know that if you are anything like us you gave it too much right boot and buried yourself deeper than you can drive out of!

This is one of those situations where a reliable winch like the Domin8r X 12,000lb winch comes in, with a steady smooth and powerful pull, you can cleanly extract your 4WD from deep mud and awkward ruts without stress, as practical as a winch may be it is almost useless without a recovery kit suited for winch recoveries.

At the very least you will require a tree trunk protector, that is assuming you have a sturdy tree in direct line of pull from the spot you are stranded. However this is more unlikely than it sounds – as often you will need to redirect your winch rope using a pulley block and a secondary anchor point to the side of the track.

You must always use a recovery dampener to ensure you aren’t putting yourself or spectators at risk of serious injury when you are in the bush!

With the steady pull you will be able to put your tyres back onto a surface that is much more stable and able to drive yourself out!

HUNG UP ON RUTS

When in heavily rutted country, the chances of becoming high sided and having your wheels lifted up off the tracks at the same time becomes extremely likely, this means you can have driven power being sent directly to the wheels not in contact with the ground. Resulting in spinning lots of tyres and sitting stationary on the tracks.

One of the best ways to get out of this situation is to whip out your winch cable and find a stable anchor point, if you aren’t hitting the tracks alone, getting a friendly tug via snatch strap from your mate can be a much smoother way to get your 4WD free!

By unrolling your rated snatch strap with no twists and lining the recovery up so you have a 1m overlapping ‘Z’ approximately half way along the strap, means your 4WD will have a steady and smooth yank free – a snatch recovery is not a drag race, it is best the towing vehicle uses a smooth and steady speed and clear communication is kept between vehicles!

ROLL OVERS

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When 4WDing Australia’s gnarliest tracks, it’s almost inevitable that someone will have an off – and taking queues from our friends from 4WD Action, this can happen when you least expect it to – knowing exactly what to do if you have a roll over or come across one could make a massive difference when the panic starts to set in!

Firstly if you or your mates encounter a roll over, you should check that everyone is out of harms way and not injured, this should be your first priority.  Before any attempts have been made to recover the vehicle, it is important that all occupants are evacuated from the vehicle and made to feel comfortable and checked for injuries and treated for possible shock.

With the vehicle ignition turned off and the handbrake applied you can now begin the recovery!

Roll over recoveries can be dangerous, and even if the body damage is minimal, the possibility of the rollover causing oil starvation issues and even oil making its way above the pistons resulting in valve damage or bent connecting rods, regardless whether the vehicle is diesel or petrol is an extremely real issue that can be faced!

When performing a roll over recovery, the task is best performed using a winch and a tree trunk protector to distribute the load evenly on the high rail of the chassis. If there is a risk of the vehicle rolling over onto its other side, a second vehicle should be used as an anchor to prevent the low side from over rotating.

With all of these scenario’s considered. A fully-fledged recovery kit with all the bells and whistles like the Hercules Complete Recovery Kit is definitely a good way to bring all of the gear you need for offroad recoveries with you, not only is it much easier than buying all the pieces separately but it is also a far sight cheaper than many recovery kits on the market and will get you out of trouble anywhere you manage to get your 4WD!