worst trail fix ever

So I was on my way to River Rock GA, had driven 200+ miles from Columbia SC to Milledgeville. About 10 miles away from the park itself I had a rear bearing go out(blow up) in my Ford 9". I limped into town to a parts store, purchased a bearing, and headed towards the park. When I got there I immediately pulled the shaft out and went to work. After breaking away the old races, I tried to figure out how I was going to get the new bearing back on. So I found a piece of pipe and went to hammering on it. Unable to get it perfect, and knowing it was probably not right, I took a stupid chance and considered it done.   I put the shaft back in and then went wheeling .  Oh the horror!  Since I had not pressed the bearing down far enough, there was only about 3/4" of spline inside the carrier. Well, it stripped out.  My plan then was to press the bearing down farther with what tools I had and keep wheeling(lightly).  Then I remembered something. A friend of mine at the local off road shop was coming up there that weekend to wheel with us. I called him up and asked him to bring a spare set of axle shafts with him. And he did!  At about 11:30 that night Wessley showed up with the shafts, I put it in just in time to run the rock garden known as Rathole with the night ride posse.   Hooray! I've been saved!!  After all of that headache it was still an awesome trip. Point is, I was unprepared this breakage (sort of), and replacing bearings with simple hand tools is a pain!  

My advice is: bring a bloody spare of everything. Even if you don't use it. Don't ask me how I know!  I think we may have just started up a trail fix goof up topic, Houston.    this should be interesting.  

Broke my rustys trac bar on the trail and had to use ratchet straps in an x pattern to try and drive it off the trail. I modified it to use a 1/2" heim joint and bring two spares  
lets go wheelin

I broke a center pin one time in the middle of a nasty rock garden-not fun. The axle slid forwards about 6 inches and I lost the shim, and bottom leaf. I eventually found both missing pieces. What I did was hammer the axle back into place, put the shim back in and used a 1/4 inch ratchet extention for a center pin since I didn't bring a spare. I also took two large C-clamps and cinched them down tight (one on either side of the spring perch) to keep the axle from sliding out of place again. Feeling confident with afro-engineering I had performed, I kept on wheeling and drove home the next day.  

I've had worse trail fixes... I'd say you did alright considering...  
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Long Travel 4WD - The best of Both Worlds

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The worst trail breakages are by far the ones that you don't plan for. Especially when its the stuff no one else in the world breaks-so it seems. Once I broke a lower control arm bracket. The two metal flanges welded to the stock dana 30 sheered off like paper! who breaks that?! When something like that fails, it's rough. Good thing there was a welder handy.  

But thats part of the challenge. Keeps your brain from total shutdown on your relaxing day on the trail!!!!  
lets go wheelin

I sheared off all of the ring gear bolts on my 44 front. Limped home and spent about 6 hours in the rain extracting, drilling and tapping to get it all back together. Lesson: If you buy a truck from an owner who installed new gears, make sure he used grade 8 hardware.  

A few years back,I and a few misfit friends set out on one of our intended short off road excursions. We had only meant to be gone mabey three or four hours and didn't take along to many supplies. The first misshap was the spider gear pin falling out on my brothers Jeep. It chewed up the gears and tore a hole in the diff cover on the model 30. We removed the cover and cleaned out all of the shrapnal then put the cover back on.He then had a front wheel drive only jeep.The rest of the trip was cetered around my poor,pathetic,dilapidated Jeep.A blown rear brake caliper was stopin' my ride from stopin'.Using a pair of vice grips we smashed the brake line closed that was going to that wheel.Since the only fluid that any of us had thought to bring with us was beer,guess what makes an emergy subsitute for brake fluid.I didn't have quick stoping power but it did let me slow it down when I needed to.The next issue was a busted shock of wich I just ignored at the time.We had to clime up a long rocky hill were I was having to do a little pulling to get that two wheel drive jeep up.During all the pulling and bouncing up the hill I busted a leaf spring.This of coarse helped with that stopin' problem. We didn't even have a jack on this trip.But we did have a come along. Using the come along we tied it up high on a nearby tree to lift the Jeep up, Then we weged a large rock in between the frame and the axle tube. We used the come along to tie it all in place. It wasn't a comfortable ride home but it worked.Not bad for a Three..Imean thirteen hour trip huh?