Click on any photo to see a larger image.
I decided to take the photos when I accidently got my car bogged in my back yard.
In this photo you can see that the back left hand rear wheel has spun and dug itself a hole. The river gravel is very soft (especially after rain when wet), and only a small amount of wheel spin will dig you in.
In this picture you can see why I got bogged. I was driving across a section of my yard that I usually drive through, except this time the water had changed things a little. It had made a hole that I'd never seen before. My front wheel fell into the hole then became half submerged and was no longer on the ground. This made the floor pan rest on the ground. Once you get too much weight resting on the pan, you aint goin' nowhere.
To make things worse, the back wheel fell into a hole at the same time as the front wheel. The back rear right wheel in also half submerged in water.
This shot gives you a better view of the water on the left, and the ground on the right. I should just stayed further to the right, and I wouldn't have gotten bogged. But that would have been as much fun as driving through the water.
Luckily vw's are relatively easy to recover. All I did was jack up the wheels (one by one) and put some fresh gravel under them with a shovel. The ground looks just like new again. I repeat this process on the front and rear right-hand wheels (but forgot to take photos), until the floor pan was no longer on the ground, and I thought I could drive out.
Before and after.
It doesn't look like much difference, but it's all I needed.
It doesn't look like much difference, but it's all I needed.
After I thought I was ready to try to get out, I cleared my jack and shovel out the way, and gave it a go. I reversed a little, turned to the left a little, and then gunned it! There was lots of noise, lots of mud and grass flying, but I was out (see the grass for evidence).