Anyone see Ray Mears on Survival this week? He was "suriving in the Arctic and then travelled to the desert. He suggested we should always check our vehicles using the following aide, PETROL
P fuel
E electrics
T tyres
R radiator
O oil
L lights.
He also said that in the desert it is safer to travel in a two vehicle group, He drove Landrover and the film crew drove what looked like a Japanese SUV!
One part concerned laying metal tracks under the rear wheels when buried in sand. He warned that no-one should stand behind a vehicle using this method as the steel trays are sometimes thrown backwards and on one occassion cut a chap's leg to the bone. Yuk!
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Ray Mears also used one of the original "Easylift" airjacks to lift his Landie out of sand. So much easier than this "new" Airjack 2000 featured on Best Inventions.
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Alywn,
Back in the '70s & probably for a long time b4 that, we (RAF) always used :-
P = Petrol/diesel
O = Oil
W = Water
E = Electrics
R = Rubber
to check Landies etc. b4 signing for them...
I've not heard the PETROL one, it's OK though.
John R
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Sorry I missed this programme. Any SUV should be capable of doing the Sahara crossing--I did it with a 2CV and plenty have done it in even less likely vehicles--Austin A40 Somerset springs to mind. I think the PETROL bit is slightly simplistic because among important considerations that I found is the ever present dust. Not many SUVs are equipped like Land-Rover with decent rubber keeping dust out of switches and so on. The 2CV certainly isn't and I suffered intermittent electrical problems after the crossing. It is also important to have decent underbody protection for sump and for brake or fuel lines, and fit an oil bath air cleaner. Heavier duty shock absorbers would also be useful. Equipped thus, just about any sound vehicle can make the eastern crossing from Tamanrasset in Algeria to Agades in Niger. The middle crossing is not I think used because of banditry, and I only know the Western crossing as far as the northern bit of Mauritania which is fine. I believe this is now the most commonly used route because of the troubles in Algeria although I would quite fancy an alternative from Tunisia into eastern Algeria and down the Libyan border.
Did you know there are imbeciles driving in the desert too. One of the few trees to feature on Michelin maps survived with difficulty for maybe a hundred years or so quite on its own until some idiot ran into it in the middle of a desert!!!
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Reminds me - does anyone here know what happened to the Africar? It had a plywood bodied 4 or 6-wheel chassis and Citroen GS running gear. I remember seeing it (on TV) coping happily with a rutted track that had beached a Landy on its diff casings...
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The company went bust, I believe, and the remnants of the project were being sold off a few years back now. The philosophy behind it seemed great to us first world gurus who though we knew what the third world wants. However, what do the Chinese, for example, want now that there is some money in that economy. It certainly isn't a modern 2CV. They want the cars they see on American films or something close, just as they aspire to lager beer and other first world 'luxuries'.
David
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China is going for VW Fox vehicles, built here! It is a mk 1 jetta (golf 1 with boot) and as basic as they come!
But the desert thread is a fascinating one - having often ventured off-road, (been there, done that, know what I'm doing), it is amazing to see the morons who buy a 4x4 and believe it is the b-all and end all ... until they get stuck/break down/smash the underside etc.
One morning (Early) we were on the beach, and encountered a group in a Nissan 4x4, buried axle-deep. Road-pressure tyres, no sand-ladder, not a clue what to do. they had been stuck all night!
We sat and instructed them on how to extricate themselves - With great mirth (and a fair few beers) as they dug, crawled, dug some more, etc. Eventually they got free (2 hours later), and we let the tyres down, and agreed to follow them to where they could get back onto Terra Firma, where we would lend them the footpump, so they could be mobile again...
What happens? Clown goes speeding off ahead of us (He now knows all the secrets!) and promptly gets stuck again, being heavy-footed crossing the dunes...
we carried on, and went fishing instead!
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As you'll know, Ian, you have to learn to 'read' the sand and decide when speed is better than a steady pace. From memory it is called 'fech-fech' in Algeria but there is a type of loose sand across which speed helps you float. Unfortunately, the 2CV doesn't have a lot of speed and I had to dig out three or four times on a flat stretch of about 2km just in front of the Niger border post where the soldiers thought it the best hour's entertainment they had in a while watching me struggle in to get my passport stamped.
I am baffled by the logic of vehicles for China, surely one of the cheapest labour markets in the world and with its own VW production lines, being shipped from South Africa!
David
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