Phoenix
1st June 2004, 09:49 AM
On sunday I finally got our for my first "Proper" 4wd trip with the Tamar Valley 4x4 Club. It was an eventfull trip so I thought i'd write it up and put it here.
In attendance was myself & swmbo in the landy, Geoff & missus in a disco, bruce & family in a hilux and another new couple in a challenger with highway tires (that was always going top be interesting :shock: )
We met at westbury at 9:00 am to what was going to be a miserable wet day it appeared (and it was style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif ), with a cold wind to boot. THe trip leader (geoff) said that the trip was going to be a medium difficulty track, but for us novices, it would probably be classed as difficult.
From westbiry we went up the hill to the great lake. I didn't have any difficulty up the hill, excep[t lack of speed and an engine getting a bit warm style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif , however once we reached the top of the hill it was all peachy.
We reached the track and began our trek to lake fergus. The gazetted track to the lake begins beside little pine lagoon, but they wouldn't give us the key to the gate because the track was apparently too wet (too wet, never :twisted: ) Fortunately there was an alternate route over the hill instead of around it, but we had been warned to be careful going down the hill as it was possible to get bogged on the way down :shock:
The first 4km or so were torture, rock all the way. That combined with poor throttle controll, a leaf sprung vehicle and heavyweight springs for carting loads, and it wasn't staring out all that fun :evil: . I prefet trails, hills & mud, i'm not much of one for crawling over rocks all day. Even the large puddles had very uneven rocky bottoms.
About 3.5 km in we came to a gate which we went through to start on the more challenging terain, ie mud :twisted: . Climbing up to the top of the long hill was great fun, plenty of mud, no rocks and plenty of snow on the ground (I can safely say we had all types of terrain bar sand that day). THe challenger struggled with it's HT tires, but it managed to keep going. On reaching the top of the hill it quickly became apparent that going down the other side was going to be more difficult.
THe slope was steep, muddy and rocky and about 2 km long. It was slow going but we got there eventually. I only banged the diff once one rock during the whole decent. it was certainly a great workout for the low range gears.
When we got to the bottom of the hill the track meandered through the valley untill it reached the lake. This section was a mix of boggy sections :twisted:, rock sections :evil: and a mix of the two.
We had lunch at a small hut by the lake, and at this point everyone was happy. The missus had loved the muddy and wet sections (she must love me 8) ), but had hated being thrown and bounced about in the rocky sections (maybe we need a coil sprung defender darling :roll: ), and the crew in the challenger had gotten there, abeit getting hung up a couple of times. the only person that needed recovering was the trip leader when he found that one track option was bottomless bog, and wasn't going anywhere.
After a quick potter about the lake it was time to head back. As there were a couple of tracks following the same general direction the trip leadet took a different route back (more damn rocks) and that is when my typical good luck began. an a short decent the landy poped out of low range (did it about 4 times during the trip), so I jumped on the anchors to engage it again. then there was a horrible regular clunking noise coming from the engine. Kinda like something tapping the fan. Once in the past the air filter had came acroppa and rested tapping on the fan, and I figured that was it.
so I called the group to a stop while I checked it out. Nothing there, Bugger!! looked at the alternator fins, nothing ..... oh s#$&!!! it was starting to sound a bit like a death rattle. After 3 minutes of searching it was isolated in the sump :shock: . Tap it and it stopped, tap it again and it started again. Solution, take the sump off. So the oil was drained out, and the sump removed. what was the noise? we thought it might be a small bolt or nut that had been left in the sump by a previous owner and the shaking had moved it under the pickup. But no, it was a 3 inch long bolt was sitting in the bottom of the sump :shock: :shock: :shock:
It turned out that it was one from the bottom end :shock: :shock: great, but not serious and very fixable, it had only fallen out afterall. 1 hour later and we were back underway again. 500m dow the track, and the engine stops. Oh F&$%!!! one not very happy missus in the pasanger seat now style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif Problem, fuel line blockage. 5 min later we are going again fine.
We had now managed to get back to the bottom of the large hill and clawed our way back to the top with less problems than we initially thought, although the challenger did have a couple of hairy moments on the muddy sections. On the way down the other side we took an alternate foute around a very muddy section and found a VERY steep downhill section, at this point in time the challenger was in front of us and slipped down the hill in a scary fashon, we got almost to the bottom when it poped out of L range again, but fortunately not at the worst part, and right near the bottom.
Back on the main road and it was cold dark and I was ready for bed, but still had about 100 km of winding road to cover through which we had bitumen and gravel in dry and wet guises, pea soup fog and darkness. What a drive home, I would have traded rides with the challenger in a heartbeat then.
Overall it was a good day with the landy getting through some areas easily where even the discovery struggled. The only downside was getting tossed about on the rock sections. Oh, and i'll never call a challenger a soft roader again, it struggled in places, but it went everywhere.
In attendance was myself & swmbo in the landy, Geoff & missus in a disco, bruce & family in a hilux and another new couple in a challenger with highway tires (that was always going top be interesting :shock: )
We met at westbury at 9:00 am to what was going to be a miserable wet day it appeared (and it was style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif ), with a cold wind to boot. THe trip leader (geoff) said that the trip was going to be a medium difficulty track, but for us novices, it would probably be classed as difficult.
From westbiry we went up the hill to the great lake. I didn't have any difficulty up the hill, excep[t lack of speed and an engine getting a bit warm style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif , however once we reached the top of the hill it was all peachy.
We reached the track and began our trek to lake fergus. The gazetted track to the lake begins beside little pine lagoon, but they wouldn't give us the key to the gate because the track was apparently too wet (too wet, never :twisted: ) Fortunately there was an alternate route over the hill instead of around it, but we had been warned to be careful going down the hill as it was possible to get bogged on the way down :shock:
The first 4km or so were torture, rock all the way. That combined with poor throttle controll, a leaf sprung vehicle and heavyweight springs for carting loads, and it wasn't staring out all that fun :evil: . I prefet trails, hills & mud, i'm not much of one for crawling over rocks all day. Even the large puddles had very uneven rocky bottoms.
About 3.5 km in we came to a gate which we went through to start on the more challenging terain, ie mud :twisted: . Climbing up to the top of the long hill was great fun, plenty of mud, no rocks and plenty of snow on the ground (I can safely say we had all types of terrain bar sand that day). THe challenger struggled with it's HT tires, but it managed to keep going. On reaching the top of the hill it quickly became apparent that going down the other side was going to be more difficult.
THe slope was steep, muddy and rocky and about 2 km long. It was slow going but we got there eventually. I only banged the diff once one rock during the whole decent. it was certainly a great workout for the low range gears.
When we got to the bottom of the hill the track meandered through the valley untill it reached the lake. This section was a mix of boggy sections :twisted:, rock sections :evil: and a mix of the two.
We had lunch at a small hut by the lake, and at this point everyone was happy. The missus had loved the muddy and wet sections (she must love me 8) ), but had hated being thrown and bounced about in the rocky sections (maybe we need a coil sprung defender darling :roll: ), and the crew in the challenger had gotten there, abeit getting hung up a couple of times. the only person that needed recovering was the trip leader when he found that one track option was bottomless bog, and wasn't going anywhere.
After a quick potter about the lake it was time to head back. As there were a couple of tracks following the same general direction the trip leadet took a different route back (more damn rocks) and that is when my typical good luck began. an a short decent the landy poped out of low range (did it about 4 times during the trip), so I jumped on the anchors to engage it again. then there was a horrible regular clunking noise coming from the engine. Kinda like something tapping the fan. Once in the past the air filter had came acroppa and rested tapping on the fan, and I figured that was it.
so I called the group to a stop while I checked it out. Nothing there, Bugger!! looked at the alternator fins, nothing ..... oh s#$&!!! it was starting to sound a bit like a death rattle. After 3 minutes of searching it was isolated in the sump :shock: . Tap it and it stopped, tap it again and it started again. Solution, take the sump off. So the oil was drained out, and the sump removed. what was the noise? we thought it might be a small bolt or nut that had been left in the sump by a previous owner and the shaking had moved it under the pickup. But no, it was a 3 inch long bolt was sitting in the bottom of the sump :shock: :shock: :shock:
It turned out that it was one from the bottom end :shock: :shock: great, but not serious and very fixable, it had only fallen out afterall. 1 hour later and we were back underway again. 500m dow the track, and the engine stops. Oh F&$%!!! one not very happy missus in the pasanger seat now style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif Problem, fuel line blockage. 5 min later we are going again fine.
We had now managed to get back to the bottom of the large hill and clawed our way back to the top with less problems than we initially thought, although the challenger did have a couple of hairy moments on the muddy sections. On the way down the other side we took an alternate foute around a very muddy section and found a VERY steep downhill section, at this point in time the challenger was in front of us and slipped down the hill in a scary fashon, we got almost to the bottom when it poped out of L range again, but fortunately not at the worst part, and right near the bottom.
Back on the main road and it was cold dark and I was ready for bed, but still had about 100 km of winding road to cover through which we had bitumen and gravel in dry and wet guises, pea soup fog and darkness. What a drive home, I would have traded rides with the challenger in a heartbeat then.
Overall it was a good day with the landy getting through some areas easily where even the discovery struggled. The only downside was getting tossed about on the rock sections. Oh, and i'll never call a challenger a soft roader again, it struggled in places, but it went everywhere.