Gypsy steering locked on the move, and toppled I ended up toppling my Gypsy last week, a first for me after the steering wheel inexplicably locked up briefly . To be honest it has shaken my confidence to an extent. Looking for answers as to why it may have happened and precautions to be taken to avoid a repeat.
I was going through a forest on some work accompanied by a forest official when this happened. Terrain was typical of the western ghats with mud trails running across low lying hills. It had been raining heavily throughout that afternoon but had reduced to a drizzle when we set out around 1300 hours. Trail was somewhat slushy but not enough to require 4WD. The trail led up a small hill with a large gutter on right side to allow rain water to flow down and a near vertical wall. On the other side of the trail was a steep drop of 80 foot or more.
The last thing I remember was making a slight right turn on the steering (not all the way) to avoid a rock on the trail, and then trying to straighten out. To my horror, the steering had locked up: like what happens when you remove the key? There was a little bit of play in the steering, but the wheels were not responding to input. Panic set in, and perhaps i was a little slow in slamming the brakes. The vehicle went off the trail, straight into the gutter and then the front right wheel went up the near vertical surface on the other side of the gutter before toppling onto the left side. It was all over in less than 5 seconds!
It was fortunate that we were turned to the right and not to the left when it happened, because on the left was a sheer drop! We were both buckled in at the time which meant that we climbed out through the driver door with only superficial injury to both of us. The Gypsy had come to a rest in the rain-gutter on its left side after rolling a complete 90'. The forest officer at first berated me, and did not believe the steering had locked until he checked it himself!
We called for help on the walkie-talkie and some forest guards came 2 hours later on a FD tractor to rescue us. We pushed the gypsy such that the 2 wheels on the left were on the ground and the rear right wheel was on the near vertical side-wall. Tugging with the tractor alone proved to be insufficient, and I got in the gypsy to give an additional push as well as some direction control. The steering was still locked.
At this point, i tried to put the vehicle into 4WD mode and noticed the lever was in a halfway loose position between 2WD and 4WD. it refused to shift into 4H or L at first but a little back and forth pushing of the vehicle courtesy the forest guards and the tractor, and it finally slotted into 4L and voila! The steering was now working fine! We finally got the gypsy back on all 4 wheels, checked the controls once and drove at a slow pace back to the Rest house.
Vehicle has been ok since then except for the alignment which I think has gotten screwed. I drove it back to bangalore without incident and got it examined at the local MASS which has a gypsy "expert". he gave the steering a clean bill of health but I am not entirely convinced.
What could have caused the steering to lock? I am not going to take the Gypsy out for a forest trip until I have got a handle on this issue. I plan to take the differential and transfer case and steering box apart to see if there is some problem.
What are the things I should be checking for?
Damages:
Last edited by COUGAR : 26th August 2012 at 08:53.
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