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Every offroader who is regularly driving offroad and involved in recovery by pulling or tugging should inspect there tow points and tow hook regularly. At least once every month or after every extreme recovery to make sure they are safe to use. Thanks to @Barry for wonderful contact of Mathias in Car Pro garage - a seasoned welder to take up this job during Eid holidays and doing a wonderful work. Sadly Car Pro garage is closing or closed down, so if any of you need quick welding job from expert welder you can contact Mathias on ‎052 926 6714. And he is very reasonable in pricing. He charged me 200 Dhs for all 3 joints ARC welding.

Part one – UAE – to SALALAH Well it all started with disappointment, my wife and kids visa was not granted till Thursday evening so we decided to go directly to border and apply for manual visa, we started at 1:00 AM sharp from SHJ to Hatta Border and we reached there by 2:30 hrs, it took 2 hrs to finish formality at border by the time we entered Oman it was 04:30 – 05:00 hrs. Stage- 1 - Hatta Border to Ibri - 05:30 am – 09:00 am We took below route from Border to Ibri our first stop was at Lulu hyper Market. The view from marked segment is awesome with hills, animal grazing and Wadi’s with few water ponds in between. Stage – 2 – Ibri – Haima 10:00 – 19:00 with 1 hr stop after 250 kms and Petrol Filling Next route from Ibri to Haima is very boring and tiring with only Flat lands till horizon with no view or Town in between, you get small villages in between after 200 – 250 Kms, Fuel stations are available after every 100 – 150 Kms. It is consisted of both two ways and 4 Track High ways, Work in progress to make it 4 Ways highway. Haima is big town will most of the facility and most of travelers stop for final stage preparation. Final Stage - Haima to Salalah – 19:00 – 23:30 Hrs From Haima to Thumrait again its barren land with no life in between, petrol stations are very rare so fill when you see one, No Lights on roads and its two way not very difficult but it makes challenging with Incoming Traffic. You start seeing mountains and greenery once you cross Thumrait things begin to change with green Lush Mountains and misty climate This is Part one of the journey, I’m not updating the things to do in Salalah as most of us know about Salalah. Part 2 to follow soon – Salalah – UAE

See attached full specs of the new Mustang Shelby GT500. What do you guys think? 2020-Shelby-GT500-Esourcebook.pdf

Sure. I’ll be at the shop on Saturday. I have a lot of spare cool stuff so I’ll make you a nice little care package full of stuff you didn’t even know existed 😬

Mathias is a top class dude, both professionally and personally. I’ve watched him design and fabricate some funky stuff that I would have no idea about, all from an idea he gets in his head. He designed and built the crazy lengthened and widened Jeep CJ chassis with the dual front diffs along with the suspension system to make it all work. I’m not a big recommender because I don’t want bad work to come back on me but that’s one guy I would recommend to anyone who needs any welding or fabrication work done.

How often do you see battery terminals with post grease on them though? I’ve never even seen it on dealer serviced cars. Servicing in UAE generally means an oil and filter change, if you’re lucky they might blow out the air filter with an air line. I have a few spare cans of battery post grease if anyone needs some.

You should have visited me at my workshop missed the chance to see me melting... Morning drive....no comments...😨

Or maybe after his weather observations and scientific analysis that night at the tip of the Fossil Rock, when the breeze only started at around 4 am 😂

...and perhaps an alternator that has not been whacked with a hammer to keep it running.

The only reply I can give to this is that this is the difference between a parts fitter and a mechanic Any monkey can screw parts on and off but not everyone really understands what the engineers were trying to achieve. Where I’m from, most of the mechanics here would be classified as helpers with a bit of knowledge. It takes a 4 year apprenticeship before you are even allowed to call yourself a mechanic. You have to complete at least a level 5 qualification. If you want to call yourself a technician you have to reach level 7. The biggest problem is the people who go around 5 garages looking for the cheapest job. Quality doesn’t matter. Only price. As long as it’s working again, who cares. Even if it’s going to break down again in a month. These animals make it hard for people like me who do a good job and charge accordingly. I would rather have less work than lower myself to their standards.

It’s specially formulated grease with conductive particles to maximise electricity transmission. In theory, you can use any grease, EP2 works, you can even cover the battery posts in Vaseline if you want. The main aim is to keep the air away from the connection to prevent oxidisation.

Very rare to see mechanic using torque wrench here. This is super rare.

What is it the kids say now? Ooof! Screw extractors can get nasty fast. If you snap one you’re not drilling it out unless you have a milling machine and a 500 dhs titanium drill bit. If it works then everything is cushty. If it doesn’t you’re in a whole new world of shit. Be careful using them. @shadow79 if it gets really bad I have a helicoil kit here you can borrow. I think there are 2 big points to take away here. 1 - Spark plugs don’t need to be murder tight. You don’t need to swing off a 1/2” bar with a pipe on the end. Use a torque wrench. 30 Nm is plenty. It’s such a simple job anyone can do in a parking lot so you should do it yourself 2 - A little bit of copper grease is your friend. A little, not a lot. Back home my mechanic friends used to laugh at me for using copper grease on everything when you might not see the customer again. I always said think about the next guy who might be working on the car. When you get a car in the shop and you see parts with copper grease, it makes you smile. It’s good karma.

Isn’t this just regular white lithium grease ?

I def need one, save one for me please and ill arrange to pick it up. Thnx

I think you are talking about 2001 Pathfinder, which is good 18 years old now. Ford F150 in above video is also 2001 model and Jeep in second video looks TJ (97-06). Still there is no harm in trying than opening an engine head for multiplying hassle, cost and labor.

How we see you car How you see your car.. wonderful driving skills Now that's solid won't break has just enough play... Just little shaky at high way speed other than that all good...

IMG has a huge parking lot if the Global Village parking is closed.

We know that too, and Sri plan to exit by 9 to keep an hour as a buffer till 10 AM for any extreme recoveries or problems. Depending on the situation and actual heat in sand we might play around till 10 AM.

Totally agree with @Javier M as something very similar happened with my Mustang and I kept on charging with my other cars for over 2 hours and in end spotted the metal corrosion on battery was responsible for not starting the car. In my case there was a partial cranking after every a minute or two and I kept on charging the battery. This is the dielectric grease usage in several places to prevent corrosion.

Would recommend to put some dielectric grease on the battery terminals to prevent this issue from happening.

That's why I have kept an extra one hour and we are starting at 5 am just to be on safe side. 😁

This is also factually very incorrect. Talk about necroing a thread. Bam out of the blue !

Hopefully not, as Sri has done tremendous research and bribe the heat god to only wake up after 9

This good advice and no offence intended, but the no spark triangle mechanics look for is air/fuel, spark, and compression. You need these 3 things to make an engine start.

It came out of a 1980s GMC G series van. Can’t find much information on it but it was produced for less than 2 years.

Cover blew off it over the weekend. It was a patrol. Was kinda hoping for something big and macho with the 2 spare tyres and exhaust sticking out the side.

It could be heavily modified LC or Patrol for extreme offroad or military use. Difficult to make a guess with full cover on, my best bet was the tire carrier bracket shape typically used in Omani LC and brake light shape resemble Patrol VTC. Second, cruiser and patrol both have exhaust on right side. Third both came with similar pintle hook. Lastly, fuel cell protection points more toward Nissan Patrol as in LC fuel tank is little upward and less exposed.

Oops