Leaderboard

Margham area looks airy due to its low elevation dunes but in fact it is a very difficult terrain to drive on due to its uneven dunes sprinkled with vegetation. Also it has some very soft sand patches that appear unexpectedly. It demands a lot of concentration from the convoy and did we not have it? The long patches of radio silence is testament to fact how engrossed everyone was while driving. Hats off to @Anish S to make the drive seem so easy, and facing all the refusals all by himself. Reminded me of this pic while driving: With @Hisham Masaad at 6th position and @MUHAMMAD Kashif RAZZAQ driving with @Abdul Rafay-S at 7th position, I didn't have anything to do, rather than drive in tranquility, as they managed all the issues - though they were few. @munkybizness - Oh boy you have no idea. The benefit I had today driving as Sweep++(effectively both the cards in front of me were doing the same thing I was.) - I looped twice as i slipped off the ridge and did not have to disturb the momentum of the drive, quickly joining back at the back. The one refusal @S Jacob had - It seemed to me that you were not turning the wheels left/right enough, with a little more wiggle you could have perhaps self recovered. But may be you could not. Otherwise you drove very well through out and the displayed the power of SWB cars. Otherwise everyone drove fantastically well. @Naveen Raj seemed to be observant of what @Anish S was doing. It was great to observe @Aisha S and @Abdul Rafay-S driving their Jeeps like seasoned professionals. @munkybizness looked like you enjoyed the drive as well. This is a map of our drive today recorded on Gaia GPS

As the events of this morning are still very fresh in my mind, it's easy to pen them down. Firstly, thank you @Anish S for taking over the convoy marshal duties in @Islam Soliman's absence. I hope your car is back on the sands back again soon! Anish, you were an amazing marshal today, and as @Hisham Masaadput it, in your exploratory duties you took on the most challenging parts yourself. I'm still in awe of what you accomplish with a 3.5l Pajero. It really highlights your immense skill as a driver. I have much to learn from you. My car glosses over many of my mistakes and experience gap and seeing you do what you do, inspires us to push ourselves further. Thank you for navigating us away from the most challenging terrain by taking it on yourself. In the process, you taught me how to do better recoveries. @Naveen Raj, you were an excellent SL continuing the pace through the convoy with @S Jacob & @Aisha S. I particularly had my eye on your driving line because like you, I too drive a LWB so it was a much better prediction on how I should approach the ridges and sharp corners (wherever I had visibility). @Aisha S, seeing your Wrangler float up dunes and take the sharpest corners with so much ease made me question why I have a LWB. You were a great driver to follow. And thank you for punctuating the drive wherever there were sharp dips. It saved my nose on many an occasion. @Hisham Masaad & @MUHAMMAD Kashif RAZZAQ - having you in the convoy just lent so much confidence to me. Knowing the experience & desert wisdom you both collectively carry, I was always safe in the knowledge that if I ever did get stuck, I had an amazing crew beside me. And finally @Looper, I think it's time to ditch why your name is what it is. Keep it as it is but you're no longer looping. Thank you for riding sweep and keeping the back end so tight. Between the three of you (with @Abdul Rafay-S at the helm), my rear view mirror was witness to a collection of some glorious ridge riding and side sloping. All in all, thank you for a fun and momentum-filled drive. I thoroughly enjoyed driving with all of you, and I look forward to seeing you all on the sand again soon. I (my brother leaning out) took my camera out for a spin and I think there is some excellent footage that I can't wait to start sifting through

Team.. wanted to give an update about what happened with my radiator.. turned out one of the 2 plastic tanks on the side of the aluminum radiator (driver side) had a tiny crack at the top and hence with high pressure resulting from high coolant temp it started to steam coolant out through that crack. I was lucky it was top side so after we added water and exited the leakage was very minimal even when driving with the car yesterday and today on the quest for repair . the interesting part is my garage and all the radiator shops they contacted said the whole assembly of the radiator has to be replaced all together and the tank can’t be found separately.. the quote was scary.. decided to try my luck at scrap yards and managed to find a the tank at a shop who agreed to sell it to me without the rest of the radiator assembly.. I got it and then tried to look for a radiator shop take out the radiator assembly and replace my old side tank with the one I bought.. turns out this is another challenge as most radiator shops at Ras Alkhour said they don’t do or they will charge ridiculously high price for the swap. after looping around on the streets of Ras Alkhour, I was lucky to land a real gem for radiators.. surprisingly they have everything from full radiators, accessories, and most importantly brand new tanks for almost every car.. they didn’t mind doing the swap with the one I bought from Sajaa at a very reasonable price compared to the others after they installed and applied high pressure to test it we found it leaking so I took it out and got a brand new one from them (surprisingly almost at the same price of the one I got from Sajaa scrap shop!! If only I knew) They are extremely professional and I was surprised by observing them throughout the whole process.. so I am posting this in case anyone faces the same situation and told you have to pay a 4 digit number to replace the full assembly.. you don’t.. and also don’t go to Sajaa as there is no way you can be sure of the quality specially with items like this.. I won’t post details of the shop here respecting Carnity’s policy but happy to help if anyone need to know where they are.

Hello All, Thanks for joining Friday drive. Looks like starting at 5.30 helped everyone and we had no dropouts this time. Thank you @Sunil Mathew @Zixuan Huang - Charlie and @Hisham Masaad for your support. Your assistance during recoveries really helped a lot and kept us moving. @Sunil Mathewyou did brilliantly as second lead. Position yourself perfectly. @Nafiz you did amazing for your 1st fewbie drive. I hope this is a good start for your upcoming drives. Hope your bumper is ok. @Michael Glavanisamazing try with your LR and I am glad that you kept trying more with your wheels. More you drive, the more you bond with them. And I believe the rest of the team members used your radio, only for listening purposes . @Richard Franks @Ben84 @Will Seivewright @topgear @Daniel Yang @TT_Dubai You all did amazing and hope you guys enjoyed the drive. Cheers See you again soon in the sand

Hi all, I have added a selection of the pics to the gallery I took at the bowl/playground where we had Islam’s radiator troubles. Not all of us played so apologies for only getting shots of the few that did have fun! @Islam Soliman thankyou for sharing your experience and very happy to hear the radiator is fixed within a day of the issue! my fav is the one below.. what a fun drive and next time I will give these climbs a try… inspired by you all!

@munkybiznessi admire your observation skills and the way you put that in writing, hats off man.. btw don’t underestimate the power of Pajero 😜 I drive 3.0 😄. Everyone performed well, thanks @Anish Sfor another wonderful drive and also for taking up this opportunity else we would have missed it.

The later start certainly helped @Janarthan! Thanks again for leading a great drive on the fine sands of Nazwa and Badayer. As @Sunil Mathew mentioned the first part was up and down technical dunes which allowed me to experiment with keeping my revs low to really benefit from momentum and to play with gearing. Great support from @Zixuan Huang - Charlie as CF and @Hisham Masaad in sweep - I felt safe that I wasnt going to be left behind! The temperature was on our side too and it was nice to deflate and drive the first part without breaking out into a sweat. I uploaded some pics in the Gallery. Have a super week all!

Glad to hear you are sorted.

My passenger took some photos on the drive.

And we have @Frederic@Gaurav@Wrangeld who do wonders with their SWB pajeros which even Mitsubishi can be proud of, they are the ones who taught us that gen4 pajeros are not the usual mall crawlers 😄. Having said so my next off-road toy will definitely be a LWB or SWB Y61.

Having seen @Veedooshee, @Lakshmi Narasimhan & @Gregory on previous drives doing some of the things they do with LWB Pajeros, I don't underestimate them (present company included) at all. You're all smooth operators

Great drive @Janarthan, along with @Zixuan Huang - Charlie at CF and @Hisham Masaad sweeping . The drive was a welcome tone down for me after 03 demanding back to back FB+ drives last weekend, given the fact that we were mostly going around the dunes for the first hour , and not much of crossings. From the 2nd hour onwards, i think Jana had bumped up a bit and tried to include crossings, reaching the Big Red, looping around the dunes and finishing off with couple of long climbs. It was a perfect mix and everyone drove well, as we did not spend much of stopped time in recoveries, but more in guiding and re-attempts only. A lesson by Jana on how to recover a crested car with shovelling only , with the right technique was also a highlight of the drive, which i am sure, was a learning opportunity for many in the convoy. @Nafiz at his first FB drive did really well, although his car had to sustain some "battle scars" as he put it, hope its sorted and we see you with your car ready to sustain more scars or avoid them altogether !! Good to see @TT_Dubai after a while and to have some chit chat with @Will Seivewright. didnt get a chance to interact with the others , but hope to see you soon !!!

ABSOLUTE NEWBIE ( AN ) DRIVE The AN Drive , in my opinion , is Unique for both the lead/ support team and the participants. I still remember my first drive where before I never stepped on sand. I hope we could manage to leave a positive memorable drive for all of you at least your first time with @Carnity offroad club and this what makes it special for us welcoming you to the world of sand trying our best ensuring the smile I have seen at the end of the drive drown on every one face 😊 Yesterday I believe every one had a chance to get the feel of it and to excel safely during the drive what was explained in the brief by our lead @Brette and what turned to be a day of excitement. @Christopher Mitch Fuerzas, @Clara Cordero, @Nittin Pangotra , @Waqas Asif, @Daphne, @Muhamed Ameen, @Bakr Abdallah and @FSt thank you for coming and I hope you enjoyed it as I always do . please feel free to leave your comments and feedback so we can always improve and develop in the future. last but not least great thank you for our lead @Brette For the all the tips and learning opportunity that you put us all in that lovely day . have a great day and see you soon on the sand P.S I will post few clips in the thread of recoveries bit later cheers Mohamed

Like I always say, you want something done right, do it yourself 😜

@Asif Hussain Thanks for your guidance yesterday. I had a great time. Unlike sweihan, AL khatim dunes where different. Yesterday learned that, every vehicles has its own way of driving, I was driving landcruiser same way as Montero, 2 different things, 2 different methods to drive, considering the weight factor. Well i guess thats what carnity is for. @Hasan Wahlan Missed you on yesterday, hope everything is fine, will meet you on next ride. Has a lot to learn from you. @Josh T. nice pics brother. Keep it coming. @Naveen Raj count me in with shovel any time Thank you all for the patience when i get stuck, I am just getting used to the vehicle.

Thanks @Ale Vallecchi and @Alexander Alcala for a challenging and entertaining drive and also for the learning inputs throughout the drive and of course the physical effort to pull us out of the issues whenever they occurred. Looking forward to more of the same - for sure every drive I have been on drives with Carnity I come away having learned a few things on offroad driving in general and importantly on getting used to my car and how it behaves on sand. A great weekend stress buster as usual - thanks as well to me fellow newbies, hope to see you next time on the sand!

@Hisham Masaad @munkybizness @Aisha S @Abdul Rafay-S @Looper @Ehab @S Jacob @Naveen Raj Hello Everybody, I hope you are doing well. Please find attached convoy list for tomorrow and we will be using Radio Channel 1 ( 446006). Unfortunately @Islam Soliman won't be able to join us for this drive, for sure we will miss him and looking forward to see him back in the sand soon. See you in the morning and take care.

It was amazing and its the first time I fell in my car thanks a lot @Brette and @M.Seidam see you guys

Thought I would remain as SW which seems to be a more relaxing role to me, but ended up being the more important role - CF, Thank you @Janarthanand @Hisham Masaad for the opportunity. Great job done @Sunil Mathew being the SL, as well as the rest of convoy, especially the self-recoveries performed by @Michael Glavanis. @Nafiz I hope you can get your bumper fixed and will see you soon on the sands, yours were better than the other LC120 I have driven with in the same area, it had the entire bumper tore off in 1piece Looking forward to seeing you in FB+ very soon @TT_Dubai! Till next time!

Appreciate the good drive @Tbone, and support from @MUHAMMAD Kashif RAZZAQ and @Anoop Nair. I enjoyed the cooler than expected weather, and a generally flowing drive. Thanks @Tareck for the galley photos, and @PaoloMaraziti for the recovery video - always adds a different perspective from another angle/camera/position. Looking forward to the next drive!

It was Indeed a drive that had everything we could expect on a wonderful drive, Thank you @islam for taking us through this beautiful terrain. Thank you @Ranjan Das and @Javier Lucero for your support throughout the drive, @Niki (Always a pleasure driving with you), @Christian Andras (for your support), @Russ (always love the roar of your monster) and especial thx to @Alex Raptor for helping us with his new toy, it was so much fun to fix my popout 😄. It was one of the best teamwork display I have witnessed ever on any drive 👏 @Rizwanm2 hope you get your steering pump fixed and its not contaminated with sand! See you all soon again in the sand!

Thanks @Ale Vallecchi for leading this fun and challenging drive and for your patience . Excellent leadership taking newbies into this diverse and technical terrain. You were very patient throughout the multiple refusals and even a pop out, but this how we learn to move forward... @Alexander Alcaladid a real fantastic job shepherding the convoy and bailing us all out when needed. Thanks, Naim

Trivia # 3 (XJ and TJ owners can relate to this) I've said it before, but the Jeep 4.0L engine is the toughest, least maintenance-demanding engine I have ever had personal experience with. Folks on the internet know that the Jeep 4.0L is durable, but they know little of its history. The original Jeep 4.0L inline-six was hewn from a solid block of granite by lightning bolts. Its cylinders were bored by the Imperial Winds and its rotating assembly was balanced by the Scales of Justice. The Ancient Egyptians used Jeep 4.0L engines to move the blocks which built the Pyramids, only switching to slave labor when it was found to be cheaper than the olive oil used to fuel the engines. Scientists have ranked the Jeep 4.0L engine as one of the strongest forces of nature, racking right up there with tectonic plate shifts for its low-end torque, and being surpassed by hurricanes only for its comparatively low redline. Mechanics have found imprints of fossilized dinosaur bones in block castings, and serial numbers in Roman numerals are a common sight. The design of the 4.0L's fuel injection system has been traced to the archives of Leonardo DaVinci, and early manuscripts of Shakespeare plays have been used as head gaskets for this engine (which, incidentally, explains the gaps in Shakespeare's collected works as well as the 4.0L's tendancy [sic] to leak oil). The engine's ancient roots also explain its ability to run on some very non-conventional fuels (original translations of the Rosetta Stone include evidence of Jeep 4.0L engines running on ox blood) as well as lubrications (during the Middle Ages, Jeep 4.0L crankcases were often filled with barley, with no detrimental effect on power output). Historians maintain that the fall of the Roman Empire hinged on their inability to design a superior engine, and had the Titanic been powered by a 4.0L Jeep engine, 1912 might have been a much happier year. Yes, had early-20th-century naval engineers had a touch more foresight, the Jeep 4.0L may have saved mankind from ever having to endure Leonardo DiCaprio and Celene [sic] Dion in the same sitting. The only weakness in this otherwise unstoppable force of nature? Emissions. Yes, the engine's design may have come from the hand of Zeus, and its exhaust note at full throttle may have reverberated along the rock formations of Arizona to forge the Grand Canyon, but by the year 2007 its crude emissions control (originally consisting of papyrus strips soaked in the tears of the young Tutankhaman [sic]) had become outmoded, and the legendary, nay Biblical force of the Jeep 4.0L was put to rest. Note : sourced from the internet

Hi @Ajit John there will be climbs in the future where using the tiptronic/manual might be a better option, but until the time you really understand the capabilities of your car, stick with D in my view. I have made it to marshal in a completely unmodified vehicle always driving in D. Even now in Intermediate drives, it is very rare that I use the manual. Where the car has massive power, you might need to control the gear because it is changing down too soon (think of the 10 gears in a Raptor) or in an underpowered car you might need to 'lock' the car in a particular gear so it will not shift and lose momentum. For the moment, I advise focus on getting the basic skills in place before you worry about gear changes.

Thanks Ale and Alex for the incredible drive. This is my 2nd as Newbie and I am hitching for the third. It takes incredible focus patience and leadership to take 10 inexperience drivers through the drive we did today and I am grateful for the time you spent with us, patiently guiding us and of course rescuing us. What I really love about this club is that no matter what happen everyone is willing to be together observe and learn. I truly feel no pressure during these rides which are clearly designed to have fun, stretch ourselves and hour mechanical camels and of course have fun. Hope to see you all next week

I wasn’t able to upload videos to the forum or gallery so sent them direct to @Alex Raptor. I have added some pics to the gallery and later this evening I put up the pics of you all doing the climbs whilst Islam was mending the radiator. @Islam Soliman thankyou for a great morning… so much packed into the drive and a super convoy that supported each other. What an absolute pleasure to be part of today!

My first Fewbie drive and what a step up. Firstly, a massive thank you to @Tbone for an amazing drive. There was never a dull moment, even when we were crossing flat patches in which I could see @Gilbert Khaliland his FJ drifting, kicking up lovely dust plumes in my rear view @PaoloMaraziti, you were the perfect SL. I took a lot of notes from following you in. At times I put too much faith in my machine crossing ridges like you did but forgot that mine is a much heavier car. You live and learn. For the refusals I've put the rest of the convoy through, my apologies. @MUHAMMAD Kashif RAZZAQ, your guidance today has been quite the learning experience. Thank you for providing the feedback. And finally, thank you again to the Marshal & Muhammad for showing me how to deal with a pop-out. My first one ever and knowing you guys were around didn't make me nervous for a second. This is a lesson that's going to come in handy again I'm certain. I should have stayed more on the left of that ridge and powered through but alas, it's only when you go over do you realize where the limit is. Thank you all for a great drive. I think we covered 54km today which is the longest I've done so far. And with enough sand in the cabin and my hair, I feel so pumped right now See you all on the sands again soon!