So last night I went and did a little muddin and wheelin in the dark on my friends property. They had a mud pit that ended up being about 3 feet deep and really fun!! It was 22 degrees outside and I was trying to be careful of mixing hot metal with cold water and all that.
After we were done, I drove it around a little to burn off the water from the engine just so it wouldnt freeze up and break something.
So I let it idle and wait for it to stop steaming and I shut it off. I came outside a few hours later to go home and put it in reverse. Didnt move. Gave it gas...didnt move..just revved. At this point I thought the driveline fell off. But my better judgement said..maybe its just frozen to the ground because it was dripping water...so I let it warm up a bit and tried again...SNAP!!!!!!!!!!! A very bad noise but it started to roll. But with each rotation it was making a hellacious banging noise. So I hit the brakes...no dice..it just kept rolling. About now I thought for sure I ripped my brakes off or something but it slowly started to slow down and I realized that they were just frozen solid with water and as it melted off, my brakes came back.
So I am assuming thats all it was. Today it seems to be ok and it made the drive home just fine with no errors on the display other than the Tire Pressure sensor which I have decided comes on whenever its below 25ish and the tires are wet. Better get that fixed. (check the pressures last night just in case...all were 33psi.)
So this is not the last time I'll be playing in mud when its below freezing so is there something I should do to avoid this happening again and is there something I should check to make sure I didnt do damage??

 

Heres some pictures


The Mud Pit




I wanted to try out the locking diff and finally found something that would get some wheels off the ground

 

Cool nice roof lights!

 

Ghostrider, thats actually a pretty good question now that its getting cold out... anybody know?

Truck looks GREAT btw!

 

To dry off the brakes, ride them for a block or two after you get done playing. Actually, any time you drive through liquid water in sub freezing tempretures you should do this because as you drive they can freeze and cause stopping problems. As for the tires freezing to the ground, which is what happened, you can get them out on the road and heat them up, but the problem with that is when you park on ice, the tires will melt it and freeze if you sit there long enough.
I wouldn't worry too much about freezing to the ground though, If nothing else, put it in low range to break it free, or pour some warm water ground where the tires are right before you leave.
Also, take it easy until your vehicle and fluids warm up. Cold, brittle metal and thick fluids don't mix too well.

 

I once got stuck in deep mud, the type that sucks your boots off your feet, in the middle of nowhere. Lucky for me that temperatures got down in the single digits and in the early morning the mud froze like concrete. i was able to drive out in low range. I was down on the frame in the mud in my International Scout.

 

Yea, it sounds like maybe there was some water that froze between your rotors and pads. It's probably a good idea to drive around a little bit after being in the mud or water to dry them off before parking. The truck should be fine.

 

Run it through a carwash...

 

Thanks for all the comments!! Its been fun putting it together! And good thoughts on keeping the pads dry. Hopefully everybody else can learn from my mistakes because that god awful snap when the pads broke free from the rotors sounded way too much like a driveline snapping.[:@]
I took it on a little road trip today and it drives just fine..no major problems to report.

Good thought...but I drive a truck not a car