Wrangeld

Thanks a lot. I never said how big it is ...

So, I thought I would give a quick update here. We have fitted the secon, independent fan at the front of the radiator as proposed by @Javier M . Now the question is whether we will ever get the chance to test if it's made any difference.

That's a great idea. I will keep looking to see if there is anything that is any good from this region.

Flight simulator 😂😷😁

As we are all 'grounded' for the next weeks, e-learning seems to be the only option around to improve off road skills. We have a great series of 'what went wrong' videos already posted on Carnity and wondered if there are recommendations from anyone of 'must see' tutorials to increase learnings before we get back out on the sand? Would be great to create a sort of bibliography of excellent content. Thanks See you (nowhere as) soon (as I would like) in the sand

@Rahimdad May god bless all that you have and do not yet have so that you are granted the continued wisdom of understanding the prosperity and wealth already in your life, May you have time with loved ones and ones who love you whether there in person or in spirit, May your challenges be overcome and each of the challenges become a learning opportunity and May you continue to grow and grow with grace, as all around you benefit from the light of the shadow you cast. Happy birthday.

@Gaurav this is really instructive and helpful as a learning piece, so thanks for the explanation and tips for us all to read. Looking forward to the next opportnity as I unfortunately missed this drive #notevenonetinyteenylittleitsybitsyenvious 😷

The more of us that treat it like a curfew, the higher the likelhood that we will stop passing this virus on to one another.

While less extreme, working in the pharma business, I have been and remain in the office working probably longer hours than usual and working 7 day weeks. Luckily, I do not have the added concerns of medical professionals because we are socially distancing in the office very successfully. Of 150 people, there are a total of 10 in the office (5 in my team) and we are all doing what we can to limit contact outside the office so we do not infect each other - possibly a bigger responsibility than if it was just me and my wife: At home, the unusual thing we did is to cheer every night at 8pm for the public service workers and health workers who are taking real risks to keep the country moving and functioning. Last night I took my drum outside to bang on the drum because where we are supporting the public servants. That felt strange because it was not really a big thing where we are, and frankly so many of the apartments are clearly vacant. We could hear a few people in the disntance joining in ... feels quite wierd and ... isolating.

Uglier than a half grown bat 😂 - and ours was flourescent green: so we NEVER lost it in the car park. Funny moment in that car was being caught for speding on the way to Paris. Why funny - the Policeman told me I had been clocked at 174kph. I could not stop laughing because the car was supposed to max out at 170. I was going downhill so maybe ... I appealed the decision based on the quoted speed of the specification on the car (and that they could not prove corect callibration of the gun that morning) and that they were only stopping Dutch registered cars. It only took a year and half, but the fine got reveresed, even though I had told them I was prepared to admit to speeding at 160!

I have always loved driving. It was the thing i most wanted to do from an early age, sitting behind my dad in the car pretending. I got my driving licence within 5 weeks of my 17th birthday (the age a licence was allowed in the UK) but had been driving for years before that. On motrobikes, or 'borrowing' my parents' cars when they left them at home. Perhaps I was the original inspiration for Ferris Bueller? Take a look at my car history, you'll see that I have had a lot of vehicles, normally just one at a time but sometimes as many as 4. None of these was new, some were classics in the making, some I knew were already classics, but all of them had character. A day driving through the Negev desert with friends got me hooked on the possibilities of offroading. We spent a day in a few jeeps just crossing the empty desert. Nothing extreme, just a day of cruising through wadis and valleys and crossing otherwise unreachable places (if you were there with another sort of vehicle). It took me another few years until I was able to convert my wish into a vehicle. I had made sure my (then) wife had a wonderful car for our growing family, I had a TR6 that was my first passion and business was good. One day I was invited to a corporate fun day which involved a number of 4x4 treats, including blind jeep driving. There was also a 4x4 course at the end the day. That was the clincher and within a month I treated myself to a 2nd hand diesel SWB Nissan Patrol. It was officially a work car, so was kitted out with Leather seats and all mod cons. My wife organized for me to go on a full day 4x4 driving course, which was brilliant and exciting and massive fun in SJ413s and Land Rovers and that was it. I was determined to get off road. I also joined the 4x4 club and as a result spent one day every weekend after that for around a year taking my car and some giggling girls strapped into their child seats through muddy tracks and water filled paths mud plugging - as it's called in the UK. My Patrol was cleaned meticulously after every trip. It was all part of the fun, seeing the mud drain away leaving my jeep clean on the street each week. Life has a strange way of teaching us lessons, because just as I bought my next 'toy' (my Yamaha GS1A motorcycle) I got offered a job in the Netherlands. The toys did not come with. From having pretty much my dream garage (the family car was a V6 Citroen XM with all the Bells and Whistles), all the cars were sold and I ended up living in the Netherlands with a Honda Motorbike and a Fiat Multipla (please, please stop laughing, it's a great car). Roll on 20 years, a divorce and two global financial meltdowns and a redundancy later which drained the bank account, I end up in Dubai with my wonderful new wife. Off roading was high on my list of things that I wanted to do again in coming here. Problem was that this was new to my new wife. When we spoke about a car for her here in Dubai, she was talking about a small city runaround, maybe a nice sedan. We went to see quite a few cars, exotic or otherwise, but none of them fit the bill. Then one day, our TJ was advertised. With some trepidation I took my darling wife out and let her know on the way that our outing was to test drive a Jeep [that I have to admit, I had test driven a few days earlier to check it was everything promised]. Within 10 minutes of sitting behind the wheel, she was hooked on the car. Next challenge was to identify an opportunity for off roading and after a bit of research it was clear that an organization called Carnity was offering the easiest way to try out desert driving. The rest, as they say is history. I knew I would love it, but was a little worried that my passion might not be shared. I should not have worried. Not only is this now my weekly fix to clear my head from the stresses of my working week, it's a shared hobby so there's never a question of having to choose between our being together and my hobby on my day off. Now the biggest challenge is getting behind the wheel as much as I want. A very small price to pay for having found my way back into my natural environment - high up, behind the wheel of a 4x4. See you soon in the sand.

If I may, I would like to join you morning as well

Work as usual - in fact more pressure than usual. Office has a lot less people here than usual as some are working from home. I am spending most of my day looking through the windows at the traffic on the highways [I see the A44 and A66 from the window] and thinking "there's one hell of a lot of people in this city working in essential jobs".

@Emad Malaeb it's been great to see some of your development from newbie and now to fewbie. Congratulations See you soon in the sand.

Congrats @Chaitanya D keep it safe and secure and enjoy the new experiences. See you soon in the sand.

Congrats @Pancho Keep up the growing and driving and enjoying. See you soon in the sand.

Congrats @Kalahari the fun starts building from here. Looking forward to seeing you on more and more drives. See you soon in the sand.

@Jamy B. such a well deserved promotion. Delighted to see you getting this after some great drives and having found your place with that Xterra. See you soon in the sand.

@Amory I'd love to say it's been a long time coming - but truth is it's clear you have spent a good amount of time in the desert and fewbie is where you deserve to be. Looking forward to driving wiht you some time. See you soon in the sand.

@Lorenzo Candelpergher Brilliant video - really enjoyed watching. Thanks for sharing.

Drives in the Time of Corona We arrived, and did not hug, or shake hands or come that close to each other. Strange that. Stranger, and better was that EVERYONE was on time, so we were able to take advantage and leave for the deflation point very quickly. Briefing was briefer than ususal. Looks like everyone has taken to heart the postings about being prepared for the drive yourself, and the threat of being turned away seems to focus minds - a lot! If we keep this up, we can get into the sand quicker and quicker each time. With @Rahimdad at the lead @J J a trusted second elad again and @Rizwanm2 sweeping it was up to myself and @Jeepie to keep things moving in the middle. As just about eveyone had driven before we kept us a consistent pace. @MUHAMMAD Kashif RAZZAQ is finding his feet in the Ford, @Anvar Sadath Bekal is mastering the sloes now that he can trust D! and @Shiju Manuel despite having a very full car made the drive look easy. We really were making up great time today. Everyone kept their distance, but not too much and most were able to unstuck themselves from stucks (which for the purist, should of course be referred to as refusals, not stucks ... oh, what ever, you get my meaning) and keep the convoy moving. @Muffy Acidwala and @Emad Malaeb having benefitted from unexpected experiences in previous drives clearly found today's drive an opportunity to practice what's been learned in earlier drives. We had said that due to Covid 19 the likelihood was that instead of shovelling and sharing the heavy sweaty work, we would be quicker to move to a roped recovery than in previous weeks: and so it was that the first real problem of the day required a gentle tug on the rope to free a stuck before we could move on. The confidence coming through, it was great to see @Jolly Abraham @Mathavan Muthukrishnan manage every challenge with aplomb. By the time we reached the foot of Pink rock in seriously record time @Lorenzo Candelpergher had shown that not only were he and his vehicle very well prepared for the drive but the time we had spare let him get his drone out to take pictures of us all lined up waiting for the ascent to the top. Pink Rock is one of the first opportunities for a Newbie to test their car and their nerve. I remember this well from the first time I sat at the bottom and thought, 'am I really going to get up here?'. The adrenalin pumps the hands get a little sweaty and then it's ... I am going to make it up just like I saw @Rahimdad climb up that hill. For a few like @paolo dassi you just need to trust yourself and the car a little bit more. It takes a bit of time to shock your vehicle from the lazy weekend drives to LuLu it was used to. But boy, doesn't it feel good to hear the engine screaming and the suspension howling as you make it up that hill? In then end we all made it, still earlier than planned, so well done to @Shahid Mehmood @Nayan Shenaiand @Nizam Deen who also made it up and allowed us to continue to exit at Big Red rahter than straight out at the December 2nd cafe which was the original plan. And it's always the case that just when you thinks it's all going well, it start to go ... less well. The sort of challenge you think is not going to delay the convoy seems to suck everyone in reminding us that the sand is cruel to one's ego! With the expert help of @Rahimdad (and in the end a rope) we all got through and headed for the exit. Yes, a bit earlier than we had thought but with everyone wanting more: and as any great enetertainer knows it's essential to leave the audience wanting more! It feels a bit strange to reflate and leave and not debrief and 'share bread', which has been a signtaure moment in understanding the difference of Carnity to other driving groups. The interaction was (and remains) a critical element of the all for one and once for all approach of Carnity and with social distancing it's a bit different. Drivers become friends through shared experiences. Let's hope that the physical distance can be oversome as we enjoy shared experiences and develop friendships through supporting each other. For @Jeepie and myself, we always enjoy the learining experiences of helping out where we can, meeting new faces and sharing a great drive. Yesterday was another examples of this. No doubt we will be kept socially disctanced for a few more months: That just means we need to support each other more than ever as this really is one of the last 'social' activities that is still avaialble to us as the city closes down around us. See you soon in the sand.

And there you have it. For the additional 50Dhs and a tiny bit of additional time, everyone is happy.

A sort of request/or question - not sure. In the last two weeks I've had the chance to use my kinetic rope quite a lot to tug members off crests or out of trouble. No problem with that at all. It's a pleasure and learning experience. Where I have a challenge is that I also had (an admittedly) small number of caces where the rear towing points had been fabricated and frankly, I was not prepared to use them. The problem was that a piece of metal plate with a hole drilled into it had been welded into the structure of the car. Fortunately in both cases where I did not want to tow from this point, there was access and the possibility to use another tow point at the front of the car. What's the problem? These fabricated plates have sharp edges like knives and I am not prepared to take the risk of using them and the rope failing because the soft shackles will be sliced in half. It's dangerous for anyone standing nearby, the drivers of the two vehicles and potentially quite expensive (for me, if not for the person being towed). Perhaps I am the only one who has encountered this, which is why I raise the issue and ask the quesiton: What's the protocol here? Carnity is not a club where everything is checked before you go out, and I am not sure we want it to be, but at the same time, I hope there is also a degree of responsibility being taken by the people coming out for a drive. When it says you need to have towing points in good condition front and back, it's not just about whether they will fly off because they are corroded with rust because they were never maintained, is it not also about making sure they are in good condition to that they can be used if needed. A quick fix, applied to the car so you can claim you have tow points without understanding that we are not going to apply metal shackles (for which this fabrication would probably be fine) probably needs some other additonal hook or attachment - it's something our overworked rope would appreciate. Any thoughts on this? Or am I just being too precious?

Hi @Jamy B. myself and Ale made this drive two weeks ago so its more than possible ... as long as you exit on time. It's also a beautiful drive.

Which all goes to confirm that the Jeep TJ is the perfect 2nd car for off roading (hehehehe!) - it can work stock, has masses of mods avaialble and, if the tuning is good enough, a perfect weight power ratio.