110 heavy duty ute - 4be or just a truck?

[Gq skyline]

Thought I might get someone's attention! Tell me, does anyone know if a defender 110 with the heavy duty pack- you know,double coil springs and Michelin tubed tyres done the Simpson,robe or anywhere there is sand a plenty ?

[Jack Isa]

Thought I might get someone's attention! Tell me, does anyone know if a defender 110 with the heavy duty pack- you know,double coil springs and Michelin tubed tyres done the Simpson,robe or anywhere there is sand a plenty ?

mate are you fair dinkum!

[djam1]

Don't feed the Trolls lol
I wouldn't worry about the Simpson not much of a challenge have a look at some of Cols110 posts on this site.
His travels were an extreme example of sand travel.
Many Land Rovers over the last 40 years have been doing it daily not just as tourists once a year.

[Gq skyline]

No- serious question! Just had to get someone's attention. Very specifically. Did these people run the factory standard tubed tyres ? I'm very interested to know.

[djam1]

Have a look at Len Beadell's books he surveyed most of the outback roads in Australia back in the 50s.
He predominantly used SWB Land Rovers with their original original tyres.
He faced more sand and bad conditions than anyone is likely to today.

[Gq skyline]

Yer, Len did lots of roads and avoided sand dunes like the plague, his support vehicles were not made for sand! Now what about these new defenders with the tubed tyres, any thoughts or better still facts ? Can they do serious sand ?

[vnx205]

I'm interested to know why you think they might not have run the factory standard tubed tyres ?

[vnx205]

Yer, Len did lots of roads and avoided sand dunes like the plague, his support vehicles were not made for sand! Now what about these new defenders with the tubed tyres, any thoughts or better still facts ? Can they do serious sand ?

He created the roads. How on earth did he avoid the sand dunes?

[Gq skyline]

Ok, I'll come clean. The landrover 110 HEAVYDUTYPACK official hand book as quoted to me by a very keen land rover owner, states pretty exciting tyre pressures 'for all loads' ,hence my keen interest for sand driving. Any experience of this out there?

[LowRanger]

Yer, Len did lots of roads and avoided sand dunes like the plague, his support vehicles were not made for sand! Now what about these new defenders with the tubed tyres, any thoughts or better still facts ? Can they do serious sand ?

There are plenty of 130 Defenders that have crossed just about every part of Australia.And the new 110 Defenders are tubeless.And like any other vehicle,tyre pressures are relative to the load!!

[Gq skyline]

Yes, I've just done a trip in a 2.5 year old 110 with double coils and factory fitted tubed Michelin . Called the heavy duty pack. Any thoughts on its ability in sand with handbook recommended tyre pressures, or better still experience?

[vnx205]

What pressure does your handbook recommend?

[Gq skyline]

It's not my vehicle,but what do you think about f-45, r-60 for all loads ? I didn't see the written word but I have no reason to doubt these figures quoted to me. I read 'all loads' meaning all conditions too.

[vnx205]

That is similar to what my handbook says for "all load conditions" for a 130. However "all load conditions" certainly does not mean "all road conditions".

If you do a search on this forum you will find plenty of reports of the pressures that various people have used for desert crossings and sand driving.

[Gq skyline]

As a side issue,lens tracks go around or parallel to almost all the dunes. As a last resort he crossed at the lowest point and rarely. Don't get me wrong, love his tracks, but as they are now- remote yes, tough going? No.

[isuzutoo-eh]

Quoted pressures are meant as a guide. Each desert and beach has different qualities. The vehicle will excel in the conditions you list, obviously driven to the conditions, and tyres adjusted to suit conditions. The handbook isn't a bible but a guidebook.

[Gq skyline]

I'll have to do a search! I was riding gunshot in someone else's car, so his car, his tyre pressures.How low would you be game to take tubed tyres, I have tubeless and no experience with heating up tubes? And what about highway? This is with usual 3 week outback trip weight on board.

[Gq skyline]

By the way it was put to me in clear terms that the hand book is the bible to be ignored at your peril !

[Marty110]

Hi there - my experience: 110 300TDi for 13 years and 300+k working as a soil surveyor towing a drilling rig on a 6x4 trailer. Vehicle set up with long range tank, 80l water tank in rear, 50l fridge in rear plus drawers with all my tools, 2 spare batteries in the rear, roof rack etc - so heavy loads. Sometimes spare on bonnet, bull bar, etc as well. Most of my surveys were in deep sand on Mallee country. Seldom had to let the tyres down including on sand hills but did have a few bogs but none that I couldn't get out of by myself by un-coupling the trailer and airing down to 18psi, drive out and then pull trailer to where I could re-hitch. So open road towing with heavy loaded vehicle and tubed tyres on Wolf rims - 40psi rears and 34 fronts. This included on and off road. See pics attached. You'll see i also got to drive in some grassy paddocks as well.....

[Gq skyline]

Thanks Marty, rigs sitting nice and level too! Anyway, spos it's all academic, we made it no dramas! The outbacks great! Just wished we hit a huge dune to test the tyres out! We'll never know.

[Marty110]

oh yeah - I have a property at Carpenters Rocks so have done Canunda, Little Dip, Robe, Coorong plus plenty of sand around Lake Eyre North, areas off the Strez and Birdsville tracks and heaps more - all on tubed tyres, heavy loaded, safe as houses aired down to 18psi for the worst stuff. Never had to be recovered or snatched. So my experience is you can safely air down tubed tyres to 18psi - I have not had to go lower so can't comment on lower pressures. Some Tojos on a recent trip aired down to 12psi but that was on tubeless........

[rick130]

Who reads and sticks to what is on a piece of paper ?

FWIW the recommended pressures are 65psi in the rear tyres, all conditions, but who on earth would run that in an unladen vehicle at any time if they had half a brain ?

I have a 130 which has exactly that rear suspension setup and I've never run the factory 'recommended' tyre pressures, even with over one tonne in the tray and I initially had 7:50/16 Michelin XZL's (and the same pressures are recommended for 235/85/16's too)

Hell, most of the time my 130 tares at 3000kg without the driver and I only have 41psi in the back tyres for highway use, but they are 255/85's but aren't ten ply tyres either.

[LowRanger]

Yes, I've just done a trip in a 2.5 year old 110 with double coils and factory fitted tubed Michelin . Called the heavy duty pack. Any thoughts on its ability in sand with handbook recommended tyre pressures, or better still experience?

Yes I realise what the heavy duty pack is for a 110 Defender,it is identical suspension to what is standard on the 130.As far as the wheels and tyres go,you can choose the wheels you like from Land Rovers range as part of the pack.And as I stated,tyre pressure is no different in defender to any other vehicle,it is all relavent to load and terrain.Back in the 70's it wasn't uncommon to drop tyre pressures down to 15-16psi on the sand with tubed tyres,so why would it be any different now?

[Gq skyline]

Hey, I enjoy visiting sa, coorong's looking good now,love those barrages. Want to do googs track and of course Simpson again. Bugger about no fires there soon. SA's got some great outback. Don't know if my nearves could do robe again ! Sea and sand( mainly sea! ) can be scary!

[dullbird]

Really Factory fitted tubed tyres??? are you sure about? that because I'm not. You sure your mate never fitted them himself....even if the heavy duty pack came with wolf rims I would still expect the wolfs to be tubeless

[rick130]

Really Factory fitted tubed tyres??? are you sure about? that because I'm not. You sure your mate never fitted them himself....even if the heavy duty pack came with wolf rims I would still expect the wolfs to be tubeless

Mine and most that I've seen are tubed Lou.

[rijidij]

...........Don't know if my nearves could do robe again ! Sea and sand( mainly sea! ) can be scary!

What's so scary about Robe ? I've run about 10 club trips from Carpenter Rocks to Robe and you can easily do it without having to drive in the water, and there's nothing else that I would call scary, unless you're doing something stupid or Irresponsible.
We've had many Countys and Defenders on the trip over the years and all have handled the sand well with the appropriate tyre pressures and all types of tyres including standard 750/16's, tubed or tubeless.
I've never taken any notice of 'recommended' tyre pressures, and I'm pretty sure if you did a 4WD training course they wouldn't tell you your tyres should generally be on 65psi, but the appropriate pressure for the load, terrain and speed you're doing.

Cheers, Murray

[2stroke]

Yes I realise what the heavy duty pack is for a 110 Defender,it is identical suspension to what is standard on the 130.As far as the wheels and tyres go,you can choose the wheels you like from Land Rovers range as part of the pack.And as I stated,tyre pressure is no different in defender to any other vehicle,it is all relavent to load and terrain.Back in the 70's it wasn't uncommon to drop tyre pressures down to 15-16psi on the sand with tubed tyres,so why would it be any different now?
I've wondered about that, I never had tube problems with tubed tyres at 16 to 18 psi back in the '80s either. Nowadays a flat tyre is the inevitable result of any faster work while loaded and lower than 25 on my gauge. A little time spent changing a rubbed through tube on a windy arvo on the QAA convinced me to go 255s on tubeless 8" rims. I've put it down to they don't make tubes like they used to.

[Michael2]

Gq Skyline, you've gone about asking the question in a very indirect way.

I can't comment on the suspension pack, but it will be irrelevant to the tyre pressures in sand. I've been with tube tyred Defenders in very soft sand at Robe with pressures of 16psi without issue. The vehicles struggled with 18-20spi got through with 16psi, just as an indicator of how soft the sand was.

Obviously avoid the low pressure at highway speeds.

[DeanoH]

As I see it there are four disadvantages in running tubed tyres at low pressures (as opposed to tubeless).

The first is that it is possible to spin the tyre on the rim thereby either a/. ripping the tyre valve extension off or b/. sucking the tyre valve extension into the tyre :eek: thereby making it very difficult to inflate/deflate etc.

The second is that it is easy to 'pinch' the tube between the rim and the tyre putting a hole in it.

The third is that most modern tyres are not smooth on the inside (like old style tubeless tyres) and the tube becomes abraded and worn through on the rough inner surface of the tyre as the tube and tyre move in relation to each other.

The fourth is that most tubes now are cheap and made in Korea out of very thin rubber which makes them prone to failure.
Quality thick tubes are available (at a cost) from Michelin or for 7.50X16's from your local John Deere dealer. :)

The upside with tubed tyres is that when used on split rims are quick and easy (compared to tubeless tyres) to change/fix without specialised tools.

IMO for most applications a tubeless tyre/rim combo is a much better bet.

Deano :)

[uninformed]

When can I buy tubed tyres

[Graeme]

When can I buy tubed tyres
Michelin wouldn't honour a warranty claim when a manufacturing fault involving exposed threads in 1 tyre cut into the tube when fitted to my RRC's tube-type alloys because the tyre was marked as tubeless. I didn't buy any more Michelin tyres for my RRC after that. It was rather annoying having to regularly repair punctures or replace tubes, although the incidence was reduced after the threads were melted with a soldering iron.

[dullbird]

Mine and most that I've seen are tubed Lou.

what a puma? really?

well learn something everyday. I honestly didnt know it was an option on the new one

[uninformed]

its not the tyres that need tubes its the rims.................

[rick130]

what a puma? really?

well learn something everyday. I honestly didnt know it was an option on the new one

There's been a few TDCi 130's that have been delivered with the tubed version looking at some post from the last couple of years, others come with tubeless, so go figure.

Most Tdis came with tube type rims too, although I have five tube type and one tubeless.
Amazingly all the tyres seem to have lost their tubes somewhere along the way :angel:

[Gq skyline]

On a differt tack, the defender had fantastic fuel economy. We didnt hammer it, it was a holiday ,but i think we were getting sub 11/100 km and terrain didnt make much difference. Wish my petrol got half that again ! The low down power is a surprise when you're used to thrashing a petrol motor ! The rear canopy was 99% dust free which was a very pleasant surprise too . We love outback red dust, but not in your food boxes.

[James]

There is some good information about tyre selection for extended ‘no road’ travel here.

Beadell Tours - Tyre Information (http://www.beadelltours.com.au/tyre_information.html)

.

[dromader driver]

if you go to tubes on the old rims ensure the tyre fitters put the collars around the valve stem. Mine were not installed correctly and rubbed through the tube/valve stem.

for info I run 28 front and 32 rear on the trayback 110 with no load on michelin XZA . up the pressure when loaded or on a trip.

this pressure mix seems to take some of the crash bang rattles out when lightly loaded.

yes the XZA are 750 r 16 skinnies.