Mud Causing "The Shakes"

[J Tyler]

Interesting topic, and good ideas too....

So, basically, if you feel the "out of balance" vibration after you have been in mud, you know you need to hit a car wash at the earliest time you can to wash out the wheels and drive shafts. If mud cakes on the driveshaft, that also causes a nasty balance problem which can easily cause your seals to fail causing a costly repair. I had to replace two transmission seals myself due to this (unbalanced driveshaft). If the mud is still wet, it should come off easlity at the power car wash using the wand yourself (not the automatic one).

I have not had problems with mud, but with SNOW caking. First, if I drive a long time on the highway, snow packs between the tire and wheel well all the way around and forms into hard packed ICE. It grows so big, it actually gets to where the tire can not turn without grabbing the ice and breaking off HUGE chunks. It is so hard you can not even kick it off. The other problem I had was with the gear shift lever. Snow would pack into the linkage under the truck, and you couldn't take the Xterra out of drive after a long drive in icy snow. I ended up welding a plate under the truck to prevent this.

 

[Chris Gullikson]

I am in the process of designing the ultimate chase vehicle that I hope to unveil in 2013. One of the features I plan on adding is a high powered pressure washer with adjustable nozzles installed in the wheel wells to blast mud away from the suspension, wheels and tires. Rainwater will be used to fill the on-board, baffled 700 gallon tank that will double as ballast or a flotation device depending on the need. I expect this will enable me to drive at high speeds down those greasy-slick KS roads that I used to avoid.

 

[Jasson Dotts]

I am in the process of designing the ultimate chase vehicle that I hope to unveil in 2013. One of the features I plan on adding is a high powered pressure washer with adjustable nozzles installed in the wheel wells to blast mud away from the suspension, wheels and tires. Rainwater will be used to fill the on-board, baffled 700 gallon tank that will double as ballast or a flotation device depending on the need. I expect this will enable me to drive at high speeds down those greasy-slick KS roads that I used to avoid.

Driving at high speeds with 2 tons of water on board down a greasy road should be entertaining.

I know a couple of guys who use the spray stuff. They say it works ok, but they do the power washing at home because most of the places around here frown on it.

 

[J Tyler]

Just making sure I understand here......I was trying to wrap my mind around 700 gallons of water, so I searched for a 700 gallon tanker truck. Here is a 750 gallon tanker truck.

Now, looking at that, I'm trying to figure out where you will mount your mesonet?

 

[David Drummond]

I've had it happen bad enough I actually had to stop, take the wheel off, and clean the mud out of the back side of it. Not a strange thing to me having grown up driving West Texas dirt roads though, you just take it as part of living here.

The day that Ben mentioned above was probably the worst day for mud I ever experienced in my life. It did take $20 in quarters at the car wash, and part of that time was spend shoving my arms elbow deep up in the wheel wells pulling out the bulk of the mud by hand. It looked like a Trex took a huge dump in that stall when we left.

I find getting it out as soon after it happens the easier way to remove it, while it's still wet hopefully. Once it dries, it can get like concrete almost.

I also had this happen once with some damp sand we went through that got in to everything.

 

[Brandon Sullivan]

Ughhhh... This actually happened to me on June 19th 2011.. I was chasing in W Nebraska and had to go through a ton of sand/mud.. Well, after getting back onto pavement I had a horrible shake..

I actually had to swerve to avoid someone who hydroplaned across a mini pond in the road.. Had I not put my car into the ditch I would have been seriously injured.. Anyways, I drove out, and later I just attributed that shake to messing something up when I hit the ditch..

I looked at the tires and tried to see maybe a broken belt or anything, but nothing.. So I thought my car was broken, and with having my internship at NWS the next day, I decided NOT TO CHASE JUNE 20TH

Come to find out, the sand/mud was caked to the inside lining of my tire, and just wasn't visible from the outside..

Yeah I hated life