Fear of Rolling Over
 

I am pretty new to wheeling but absolutely love it. My xj is my daily driver and is on 31's with a 4.5" lift. I took it out for the first REAL wheeling trip in it and had one really scary moment. I went to climb this steep muddy hill and went sliding to the side which was much steeper...so now I was leaning heavily to one side and looking at the sky. I froze. My passenger got out which was very sketchy as he was on the high side. The jeep behind me (with 2 guys in it) and my pass. tied a couple straps to my jeep and with a little brute force and crawling very slowly I was able to get it turned square then made it up the hill.

This really had me thinking though. I REALLY DO NOT WANT to roll my xj. I don't mind some battle scars, but really can't afford to total it. It would deffinately be the end of my xj adventures for a very long time. So I guess my whole point in this is to get others thoughts and suggestions about how hard to push it but then what to do if you unexpectantly find yourself in this situation. Also, are there any easy roll cage solutions to keep your jeep still streetable after rolling without compromising interior room?

Thanks!

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Ultimately that is what I would want to do, but wonder if there is a less radical looking design (since my wife will still have to ride in it...LOL) that is still functional. I am not sure how little of a cage I could get away with and it still do its job.


Is that your daily driver?

no..i have a work van too.

i do drive it to and from trails though.

If you are good a fabing, look into hybrid cages. They are really neat, a pretty low profile. If you search on NAXJA, you can find lots of good pics and build threads.

I do like the hybrid cages. This is probably down the road a ways. How about some stories from people that rolled their xj without a cage. How did you and the Jeep come out?

There's a thread on jeepforum where a guy rolled his cageless xj down like a 250 foot drop. He survived, but he had two bloodshot eyes and I think a concussion and lots of other stuff. I think he got a new jeep and transfered the salvageable parts to it.

I'm not sure of the name of the thread over there, but it's in the Cherokee non-tech section.

Even with an Exocage you will still do damage in a roll. More than likely you will loose glass and if you roll on rocks then expect to cave in the sides of the XJ. Cages are more to protect the occupants than the vehicle itself in a roll altho an exo cage will cut down on damage considerably.

If you avoid getting side-on to the hills, you avoid rolling over , most of the time. It's not a bad thing to take you foot of the gas and roll back down a hill, in order to get a better line up the hill.

LCG bro it makes a huge difference..thats why i ditched my rack and roof spare.

to be honest, id amost be willing to bet you werent as close to rolling it as you though...even with a 4.5 inch lift, these are very stable rigs..im not saying they wont roll over, but sometimes uve gotta really be doing something dumb...and also, the longer you wheel, the more likely something like this could happen..
just dont get cocky over time...that is what will roll you over

i do somet pretty dumb things in the XJ...but everytime i do something dumb, as im doing it, i feel what the XJ is going to do...and if its a very steep hill im climbing, and i feel it just a tine bit start to go sideways i stop

another thing you can do is if you find yourself in a situation like that, and you think quick enough, as its sliding sideways nail the trouttle and turn into the lean...if there are a couple trees in the way, well id rather nail a tree then roll over with one of these...most likely the tree would stop you and you could get help

thats the only thing i hate about XJ, is, although they dont roll easy, when they do roll, like ive seen on some youtube vids, the top just flattens like a pancake...thats the only reason i miss wheeling wranglers....is their factory cage....granted its not the best cage in the world, but it will protect the driver in a full roll over ( when i say full i just mean all the way over once and back on its wheels) as long as they have their seatbelt on...

on that note, never wheel without your seat belt...i always wear mine, and i always make my passengers wear theirs...

the fact is, in this hobbie/sport, it can be very dangerous, even at a time when you may think its not..so just the fact you go wheeling, you alway run a good chance on rolling over unless you just mud bog thru flat fields..

there is a place in southern ohio that that opened up a couple months ago that some friends of mine and i went there with our jeeps, on the day they opened..

the way its set up is, you drive into the parking lot, and to the right there is a 600 foot hill that stretches for about a mile...and there are trails that wind thru this big HUGE hill that is a hill WITH hills..lol..its amazing, but not for the faint of heart wheeler..

if you dont want to roll your jeep, dont wheel at this place period...there are trails that are flat in some spots that go along the hill, not up or down, and then all of a sudden you come to an extreme off camber spot..but it didnt stop there, see were are about 400 feet up this hill, and so when we hit this spot, we werent just leaning, but if the jeep slipped just a little bit, it wasnt going to stop until it got to the bottom of the 400 feet...its a bit unerving at times..lol

i know that feeling , but you get used to it and learn to realize its not as bad you think ,you start learning your limitations, ive had my wheels off the ground and didnt roll

my jeep is super low and super wide

i have come close

but if you are just getting into this, you are probably thinking you came close to rolling when in reality you werent even close. i know i used to think that.

hahahaha that sucks but funny as hell

Thanks for the words guys. I am sure it was not right at the tipping point, but my fear was sliding down the slippery hill to the much steeper part which I am sure would have done it in.

yeah i flipped my xj on its roof messing around in a field doing about 30 mph with no seat belt. fortunately, my friend and i were fine, but my jeep wasnt. it was totaled. the roof collapsed about halfway down in the windshield. all cosmetic damage though, so i didnt turn it into insurance. then i pounded the roof out, put a windshield in her, and sprayed the roof. i still drive it to this day, but was pretty scary. not one of my proudest moments either lol. jeeps are definitely strong dependable vehicles though.

so let me get this straight. you were breaking the law...AND being extremely stupid? if you had died...you might possibly have qualified for a darwin award. :hammer:

Glad you and your buddy are ok :)

yeah that was my moment but the xj's definitely a strong runner

Hey that guy had a cherokeeforum sticker.

Or was that yours ktmracer?

That was KTM racer and his now-deceased rig.

Its all about how light stomach you have, that feeling you had when you felt you were bout to turn over, yea... once you wheel long enough that will go away. Its something you arent used to doing so.. I compare it to the feeling of being behind the wheel of a drag car when it breaks loose at 60 mph, makes ya butthole puker up lol. Its a wild feeling, but do it enough, itll just be one of them thangs youll laugh about and say "here, hold my beer, watch this!"...

Isn't that the truth. I've driven over small things in my Jeep with passengers who've never been offroading. and been off camber by all of 10 degrees and they were wigging out(driving over a snow pile on the side of someone's driveway) saying I was gonna flip. I've had my XJ at 40 degree angle offcamber situations before and that doesn't even phase me anymore because I'm so used to it.

Just be careful, know yours and your jeeps limitations. dont try to show off or be superman and youll be fine :) yeah and drinking while wheeling increases the chances of bad stuff happening. :yes:

not only is drinking and wheeling extremely stupid, its dangerous, illegal in some places and will get you kicked off or out of most places. If I EVER catch someone wheeling and drinking I will report them and see to it that they get removed from wherever they are.

Its a pretty common practice these days to sip a beer while crawling. Honestly I'd say it happens more often then not. It sucks that people cant enjoy even off roading with out getting plastered. :thumbdown:

thats really sad, If I see someone doing that I will report them to park rangers or the proper authorities

Well there is a diffrence in drinkin a few cold beer and getting plastered. Would yall rather see people out driving on the road drunk then in the woods? In Tennessee its a regular thing for ridin and drinkin a few, you pull up to our crew of trucks or anywhere around here and 99% of em has a cooler with cold beer stuffed in it. If you guys lived around here, you wouldnt be calling the law or whoever to have us removed, you would be the one being removed, because you catch a bunch of people around here in the woods drinking and call the law on them, thats a big no no.. Yea if our trails consisted of being in a park, i highly doubt anyone would be drinking, but our trails are private owned places, bowater land that people have leased that dont mind you ridin on as long as its not hunting season and so forth. People noseing in ours buisness and quick to call the law when it doesnt even concern them is whats wrong with the world in alot of cases. Im sure there is alot of people on here that drink when they ride, riding in the woods to me and everyone i ride with is peace and serenity, along with time to drink a few and have a good time. Not everyone that drinks a few acts like an idiot.

yeah i agree. that's how it is where i'm from in NE PA.

:offtopic:

I posted my reply here: https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f9/dri...74/#post401331

Thanks for gettin us back on topic....so anymore thoughts about rolling? Anyone know what angles are needed to cause a roll over in my 4.5" lifted xj?

...I have no idea what the forumula is, its also COG dependant. you can tip an 4.5 lifted XJ farther to the side if the spare is mounted on the back and not on the roof. Basically the flop point is when there is more weight pulling to the side than down. Its hard to explain

I dont know where they came up with the whole drinking and riding anyways, then i went along with their off topic ****uation and added my two sense. The whole "here hold my beer watch this" did not mean anything toward what them guys turned this into.

Basically you are just gonna have to learn the angels and how much your jeep will take before it will roll over. Every vehicle is diffrent, you gotta get the feel. It will also pertain to if your sway bars are disconnected or not.

Sometimes it doesn't take much to roll one..........just stupidity