paolo dassi

Really a great great drive! Thanks @Islam Soliman @Davie Chase @Wrangeld for your patience and suggestions always clear and helpful. The drive was very enjoyable, pretty hard sand to begin with, getting softer as temperature rose. It was good to practice specific skills in the drive with multiple attempts. As often happens, while about to get back to tarmac and when the attention drops slightly, I got stuck on a "solid" bush in a little pocke after a small dune... I misjudged it completely, thinking it was a much smaller one! A gentle pull from @Islam Soliman and the suggestions from @Wrangeld got me out of trouble. Greetings to the reminder of the convoy and see you soon again on the sand! 

Great afternoon / evening drive and perfect refresher for me after many months off the sand and to test drive our new (old) Pajero. Some refusals and stucks here and there but the convoy moved steadily, really enjoyable drive. BBQ and some rest with a truly multicultural bunch of kids playing and enjoying their time together was the icing on the cake... we can really hope for a better future! The last stretch was also quite cool, driving in the darkness proved to be an interesting experience, looking forward for the next one!! Thank you all for the drive. 

And now flag pole on my new old Pajero (2011)!

Undo the spare wheel cover bolts from inside.

Open the cover. 

Get two 3mm steel plates, 25mm x 50mm, drill a hole and weld them to the marter metal frame (better welding than the one I got should be easy to achieve!). 

Buy two plastic electric cable  shrink mounts and install them in the holes (the ones with rubber oring and shrinking nut, 8mm diam, same as my flag pole). 

Close the cover, bolt it back on and you are ready to go! 

When needed, just stick the flag pole in, tighten the plastic nut compressing the rubber ring and the pole would not move a mm! You have access to the nuts from top and bottom of spare wheel carter, non need to open it every time (orange gas rubber pipe is to prevent the pole from hitting the carter). 

Micrometric precision 😜 and all for 30 AED, quite happy about how the all lot came together! 

Hi guys, I am coming with my wife and 9yo daughter, any other child about her age joining!? See you tomorrow! 

Hi fellow drivers, @Rahimdad, strange noise is coming form my car bonnet... possibly an engine support got loose, but it might be a resilient mount cracked - not sure yet till I have car back which will hopefully be Saturday, so I have to opt out from this WE drives 🤕😭.

Enjoy the drive and see you next time, take loads of pictures!

Great drive, really enjoyed each and every moment of it! The troop started on time following @Fredericpath on rather hard sand. The drive unwinded over tracks, small dunes, camel crossings (many... I wonder what they think seeing these strange humans moving around the desert inside these metal boxes with wheels!) and some little stretches of tarmac to connect different legs of the drive. The drive moved on smoothly, little refusals here and there and apparently the quickest pop out fix of carnity history and here we were under the shade of some trees for the lunch break. After, the scenery changed completely, with our cars squeezing through a narrow rocky canyon, where wadi bed stones replaced sand dunes. Only sad point was not being able to share some food together due to the restrictions in place... let's hope to get back to the pre covid life soon! Personally I like a lot this sort of longer and more "panoramic driven" drives, where the challenge is to keep concentration up for a longer time. Thanks @Frederic and @Jeepie for guiding us, to the ladies and gentlemen who drove safely and to all who came oveor and enjoyed the day! 

Pics and a couple of videos in the drive gallery as usual. 

If interested in the topic from a technical stand point, have a look at the engine developed by Lancia for rally cars in the beginning of the '80s, supercharged (low RPM) + turbocharged (high RPM). It is remarkable they managed to make it work with the little electronics available at the time... Almost the same concept is now used in small VW engines, but fully driven by electronics. 

If I was to describe this drive with one word, the word of choice would be "different"! I'd say this drive was different in any aspect form the usual Dubai area ones: colour of sand, driving style, environment, nature. Credit to @Ale Vallecchi and @Gaurav for making it possible with such an enthusiastic bunch of offroad hungry drivers to lead. After deflation, drive proceeded at a good pace, with no major delays and on a very nice and new environment for most of us. On track - off track route proved to be interesting, with some sudden soft sand pockets on ratehr firm sand / vegetation area. Some pics here and there, some bio breaks 😁 and an additional final challange of some ridge riding - not my favourite technique to be honest! Due to the small size of the dunes, though, and despite them being longitudinal so soft on both sides, the drive progressed smoothly with most of the convoy making it all the way through and descending with more and more confidence and control. I personally found the mid stop and the final briefing incredibly valuable to understand the environment (longitudinal dunes, pockets, morphology of the area) and to have some basic theoretical background on approaches, speed, different tecniquerisks and how to minimise them, thanks @Ale Vallecchi for that!

As usual some pictures here, see you next time.

Great news! Thanks for rearranging the plans and making it happen for all the interested drivers @Gauravand @Ale Vallecchi

13 hours ago, MUHAMMAD Kashif RAZZAQ said:

@Wrangeld, I will drop out of the waiting list as I have secured a spot in RAK drive. 
 

Same here! From the presentation it looks like a challenging one... not sure I can cope with both drives in the same day.

Waiting list looks quite long ... anyway if many drop out I would be happy to join!

My 3 Dirham on this... I removed the spare wheel, drilled two holes on its metal support, bolted on 2 stainless steel eyes, put the wheel back on. I then put the flag pole from the top through the two eyes, friction with the wheel rubber keeps it in place, never had a problem. Total investment 3 AED (1.50 AED / eye+nut). This applies to pre-2007 Pajeros as newer ones have a plastic carter to protect the spare wheel.

First drive after a lot of months, I was curious to see if the summer in Europe made me forgot everything about sand. It was a very pleasant drive to refresh my sand driving, sand was quite firm with some soft spots here and there. Side sloping and some slower but more technical dunes made the drive interesting while we smoothly progressed to the end with very few stucks / refusals. Thanks @Srikumar for leading the convoy, @Vanessa8580 for making sure everything went smoothly in the back end of it and well done to all of the drivers! 

Some pics here!

Hi @Srikumar I RSVP this drive after 9 am today, can I still join? Please let me know, if not possible I will join a drive next week, no problems!

On 11/10/2020 at 5:23 PM, Wrangeld said:

@paolo dassidassi

You signed up for the Absolute newbie drive in Friday. As a fewbie, I am afraid I will have to sign you out of the drive to make space for complete novices.

I understand this will be disappointing but we do have to keep to this rule.

Richard

Hi Richard, no problems, I was not aware of this rule (did not read it carefully enough!). I signed to this as others were full and it's been some months I am not driving on sand. Anyway, enjoy the drive tomorrow and see you next time!

Thank you guys! I am really looking forward to join new exciting drives as soon as I will be back from Europe... for a little while, waves will replace dunes as I will be sailing in the Med, but I am already missing the sand (not the heat though)!

Definitely a well deserved promotion @Srikumar!

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing @Frederic

Great drive, amazing reading of convoy level of confidence from @Srikumar. Started easy and lifted the level little by little as drivers confidence increased. Definitely a good and enjoyable newbie drive, some refusals and stucks here and there always happily and efficiently solved with the help of @Srikumar and @sertac. Any stuck and refusal teaches something and they are definitely part of any drive! At the beginning sand seemed to be quite hard with dunes shaped by the wind blowing the couple of days before the drive, while it became softer as the drive progressed. All in all yet another great experience, thank you to all the participants and see you next time! Some pictures and a video here as usual.

Well done @Leo Francis!

Grande! Complimenti, looking forward to meeting you soon on the sand... AC Fiorentina flag for everyone in your drives from now on to celebrate 😂😂!!!

Nice drive around Fossil Rock yesterday, great fun and every drive has something to teach. The drive progressed smoothly thanks to @Gaurav and @J J as second lead, with very interesting straight ups straigh downs on pretty steep dunes. Sand in the beginning was not too soft and actually felt firmer than I expected. Convoy with @Veedooshee, @Leo Francis, @Carlos Fernandez proceeded smoothly to the base of Fossil Rock, where I got stuck while climbing up. I am not sure why, car did not get the power even at full throttle, same happened to me once at Pink Rock with revs going down despite me accelerating full throttle. Also in that case heat gauge was slightly higher than normal, not in the critical area, but some 25% above usual "Sheikh Zayed road reading": could the engine cut a bit of power if temperature increases beyond a given limit? What do experts think? Anyway, I managed to come out from the refusal myself, following the suggestions @Rahimdad gave me on my very first drive, steer left and right, a bit of throttle, low gear and very important "sometimes is easier to get unstuck going backwards"... you never think about this as you naturally "look forward", but sometimes a step back is more helpful than trying to move ahead with no results! Out of that, though, I got into a pretty nasty spot slightly off the track, with very soft sand and a little dune just behind me. Car overheated seriously, so @Gaurav suggested to stop for some minutes and helped me cooling it down with water. When temperature went down to normal, I managed to get out from the situation and climb up Fossil Rock successfully. The final part of the drive was quite interesting, taking us to the end following the suggestions of @J J and @Gaurav guiding us down the slope. Overall a very enjoyable drive, always something to learn out in the desert, this time a very basic lesson for me... 3 liters of water might not be enough, especially if you need some to cool down an overheated engine! Next time, a part from drinking water, I will make sure to take some for "engine use"! Thanks to the above mentioned drivers  and to @Gaurav for having led the troop! Good luck to @Shamil to get his car fixed soon. Pictures as usual in the drive gallery.

@Gaurav just to let you know I will not be released from work before 15:30, so unless things change I won't be able to reach meeting point in time☹️. Sorry, but unfortunately out of my control!

My Pajero is SWB and black. See you tomorrow!

36 minutes ago, Rahimdad said:

5 minutes and I can't even join my own drive.

@Shiju Manuel you will be the first in waiting list after me, @J J you will be the next candidate and @paolo dassi you will be after @J J. @Gaurav bhai afternoon drive still has spots available, kindly join that if suitable I will add you on if there are any cancellations.

Sorry, I step back, did not note this is a fewbie drive, not a newbie one. Enjoy and see you next time!