Chris Saul's Blog

Wednesday March 19, 2008

Sweihan Trip

The Wrangler's new radiator seems to be doing its job...

Start in low range, third gear, then up to fourth and fifth, down into fourth and third coming back down to let the engine do the braking. When you're in the bowl it's quite hard to see where you are exactly - you're just surrounded by sand! The guys with Nissan Patrols and tiptronic gears found things a little easier. Spend too much time changing from third and up on the Wrangler and you lose power when you need it, spend too much time with the clutch depressed when coming down and you have a tonne and a half of Jeep with no power and control whizzing ever downwards.

An incredible trip, this one. Really pushed me in terms of understanding what the car can do. No major stucks all day, either. The bigger the dunes, the less often people seem to get wedged.

Here's the view over the edge of the bowl. We didn't drive down from there - this time at least...

What lies beneath...

Radiator explosion pics

Here are some pics of my broken radiator from the other week's trip to Area 53.

It went bang after some harder than usual pounding up a rather large dune - the garage said it was caused by a faulty radiator cap. Apparently the cap is more than just a simple lid, but also acts as a valve, releasing pressure when needed.

It's now fixed and seems to be working fine.

Gingerly approaching the still steaming Wrangler...

2,000DHs worth of broken plastic.

Duncan had a great stuck earlier on in the trip. As usual, the worse they look, the easier they often are. He just drove the Pathfinder down the dune, righting it in the process.

Helping Babu move the Wrangler onto the truck by the power of only one hand.

Why worry about getting stuck when this awesome team of desert geniuses is on hand... to get even more stuck than you.