Arman

Morning @Shaaz Sha quick inspection has revealed a nasty sound coming from my rear axle.... Going to have to sit this one out unfortunately. 

Hi @Shaaz Sha apologies for the late withdrawl, i've taken myself off the drive, hope to see you on the next one. 

Morning @Wrangeld my car is having some trouble starting this morning, not going to be able to make it unfortunately. 

12 hours ago, Ashok chaturvedi said:

Dear Gaurav ji, I went last weekend on a drive and hit a bump which my shocks did not handle well there is crack in upper engine frame and the driver side door is hitting the left side yellow frame cover when opening and closing. The car is in the garage as as the upper engine chaises frame needs to be pulled re welded and set etc. If my car isnt returned by Wednesday I may also very very sadly withdraw.

I suspect your upper control arm may have too much up travel (im assuming from this picture that it swung up into the frame), if you've had a lift done on the car it may be the case that (as in most cases) longer bump stops may not have been installed, the method to determine this is fairly simple, you measure the distance from the control arm to the frame as well as the length of exposed piston rod on the shock, then the gap from the bottom of the bump stock to wherever it's meant to make contact with, if the gap there is larger than either of the former two measurements then you might want to consider longer bump stops (note...this method isnt 100% accurate...but it's free if you already own a tape measure)

Many assumptions aside, hope you're back in the desert soon again

Hi @Gaurav thank you very much for the make up drive! unfortunately i cant make it as i've basically spent most of my car hobby budget for the month, besides it looks like the Jeep is going to need to have her transmission taken a look at for her 220,000km birthday   

Have fund guys! looking forward to the pictures.

@Lorenzo Candelpergher apologies for the last minute news but it seems i have to drop out as i've just snapped my sway bar link bracket off the axel 🤣

6 minutes ago, Lorenzo Candelpergher said:

Dear All, 

@Ilya, @PaoloMaraziti, @Mus_hus78, @imranaasghar81, @Archibald Jurdi, @Ranjan Das, @Jorge Stepniak Felippe, @Rawad, @Arman, @JeromeFJ, @varunmehndiratta, @Mario Cornejo, @Luca Palanca Falsini

I am very sorry to inform you that I just found out that my car has a significant oil leakage and it would not be safe for me to drive 2x130km to AD + 90km off road in these conditions. 

With great disappointment, I'm forced to CANCEL THE DRIVE. 

Please accept my apologies for the very short notice, but I found out about the problem only this morning when I did a final check on the car before leaving to Abu Dhabi. I hope you understand.

It is what it is, Hope to see you on the next one.

Thanks for you letting us know

1 hour ago, Lorenzo Candelpergher said:

Dear Desert Wanderers, 

@Arman, @Mario Cornejo, @Lawrence_Chehimi, @Danish Mohammad, @Ilya, @varunmehndiratta, @Ranjan Das, @Jorge Stepniak Felippe, @Hisham Masaad, @Pacific

I regret to inform you that, due to unforseen urgent family issues, I will not be able to lead tomorrow's drive and that, as no other Lead would be available to replace me, the drive will be canceled. 

Given the unfortunate circumstances, I have agreed with @Carnity Crew and Advisors that all those who responded the RSVP for this drive will be allowed to join any other drive of their choice, even if on short notice. I also thank all leads for their availability in allowing this to happen. 

Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience: I was really looking forward to this drive, as you all, I'm sure. I promise I'll post it again very soon and I'll make sure it will be a great one. 

See you soon in the sand again. 

Good luck with your family emergency!

And thanks for assistance in finding alternative drives

22 hours ago, Mario Cornejo said:

A big thanks to @Lorenzo Candelpergher for hosting and leading us all during the drive, kudos to @Arman as 2nd lead and @GauravSoni for supporting and keeping the convoy moving from his sweep position.  Also a pleasure to meet and drive with all of you @PaoloMaraziti, @Hasan Wahlan, @Farouq Owdeh, @Mus_hus78, @Ruan van den Heever, and @Xavier Treasurer. @PaoloMaraziti, it was an unfortunate situation the pop-out and tyre wall rupture, hope to see you soon in the sand!

This was one of the drives with highest adrenaline rush I've been to.  It also was my first visit to Sweihan and what a great area it is! it required me to be alert and focused whilst taking those bowls, steep slopes and not to mention the maneuvers to criss-cross certain points.  We also managed to sustain continuous driving for long periods, which kept us all concentrated and with the right momentum to take up those challenges @Lorenzo Candelpergher was throwing at us.  There were a few refusals and pop-outs, all were dealt safely and diligently, either with help of other members (the morning shoveling workout! 😅) or through self-recovery.

As an experiment, this time I drove in 4L/tiptronic and deflated tires down to 9 PSI, the hypothesis was to try improve climbing capability and also maintain a lower engine coolant temperature.  The engine coolant temperature reached 105C at its highest point, compared to 110C / 113C observed in a previous drives, notably in Dubai's Area 53, whilst driving in 4H.  My perception was that, in spite of the soft and churned sand in some areas, the climbing performance was slightly better than driving in 4H, however driving 4L compromises speed and, as I am no car expert, don't know what impact it might have in the mechanics of the car (short, mid or long term).

In terms of fuel consumption: by the time it was announced we were exiting the fuel gauge was about to reach half tank (capacity is 95L), I reached inflation point exactly with half tank, I also had to stop a few seconds on the way back to engage 4H as we were already on the dirt track.

Here are a few videos, mostly chasing @Farouq Owdeh whose 5.7L Hemi engine can be heard roaring:

Clip 1:

 

Clip 2:  Check at 0:05 what I think was a Super Safari Gazelle 🤩 climbing from the right of the video frame 

 

 

Clip 3: 

 

 

Wish you all a great week ahead!

I've got a friend in a jeep club I'm in that exclusively drives in 4L (except he's got a manual), he's been doing it for years now and has had no issues but believes that some of that may be due to the manual gear box as he seldom shifts below 3rd gear when in 4L ( lower gears in TJ are geared super low and you'd have to shift very early in 4L). 

You lose top speed in 4L because you're doing a severe gear reduction (in a tj it's something like 11:1) so you're getting 11x more torque for 11x less speed approximately...... (correction to this number here, in first gear and 4L the Auto TJs are geared 6:1 and the Manuals are geared 10:1)

I may try this with my TJ on an upcoming climb focused drive, not sure how she'll deal with speed though as the 4 speed auto gearbox is limited at the top end. 

FINALLY!! back in Sweihan after almost a year, been wishing to visit here again for ages  see you all soon.

Depends I guess..... In general though, given the cage is properly bolted to the frame and padded, but at this point you might as well take the windshield off and drive with goggles and full race gear on, if you need this cage then you must be doing something extreme right? 

Besides I think it really depends on whether you have a body on frame or unibody chassis, this rollcage makes sense in an off road only jeep wrangle but not so much in a Grand Cherokee that you take your kids to school in. 

Image is a jeep meant to do be doing 120kmh over Rocky terrain in King Of The Hammers. Not street legal anymore. 

Hi @Brette, im looking to practice being in support roles before applying this winter, hope you'll take me on for one of those :D

Just now, Shehab Alawadhi said:

Hello @Wrangeld could you waitlist me for 2nd drive of the weekend plz! Thank you! Love to be of any help I can!

Same here please

17 minutes ago, Foxtrot Oscar said:

I have your spare radio haha 

I'm that case I shall see on Saturday

Just now, Jeepie said:

Sorry to disappoint you,  but I don't drive a manual 😉

😱 i got it wrong?! I didn't see the TCM module that usually gets installed in Automatic TJs so i thought it was an MT...my bad i must've not been paying attention when i looked under the hood of your car 😕 

Looked like a fun drive that slowly ramped up in intensity as everyone got more comfortable with their cars, was nice to see @Rory Ashman get into a good rhythm after a couple stucks at the beginning, it might be worth a try to drive with some of the manual car owners in carnity although they are sparce like @Srikumar and @Jeepie, im sure they'll have some great insights about driving stick in the desert, particularly around trying not to burn your clutch as that's a very common issue here.

I was MEGA excited about that popped out 🤣 the moment i felt the distinct rumbling and pull of a pop out the little boy in me had a moment of pure joy! So much so that i jumped out of the car an celebrated. This is a great thing to experience early in your drives as getting your first pop out much later would've mad for a harsher learning experience.

Also @Desert Dweller you may or may not still have my spare radio😅

It was a beautiful location you picked @Lorenzo Candelpergher and @Ale Vallecchi with plenty of challenging dunes that force you to improve your driving on the fly.

There were great views between the undulating dunes with strange shapes that constantly demanded your attention and plenty of variation in the types of dunes we encountered, i was pretty impressed with our guys in the back as i drove along the virgin sand knowing that 10 cars down the line it would be a much different terrain to navigate, good stuff guys!

Hope to see you all soon once again!

21 minutes ago, Niki said:

Hey @Arman 

#1 Service Manual for your TJ

#2 Parts Catalogue for your TJ

#3 Jackpot for all Jeep TJ Owners - all years documents

I love your idea of a 'hands on' session to learn some of the basics!  living in an apartment I am forced to hand my car over however would love to build skills on learning the basics.  I found a garage space with ramps we can hire in the Green Community and lets work on getting some like minded people together in the near future to share the cost of that facility and learn together.! 

 

Hope the above helps and pls do post on your Jeep channel if it can benefit the others. 

Hey man thanks! I've already got the service manual for my 05 and parts list printed out hehehe, there's another Garage in DIP called U-Fix-It that i rent a lift in every few weeks if i dont get a chance to work on it with my TJ buds on the weekends.

I think i'll start a mini TJ maintenance post here with all this stuff put in there when time and life allows.

On 5/14/2021 at 11:59 AM, Frederic said:

Very good topic @Arman many amongst us have that initial fear of trying something ourselves, but there is so much we can do with some common sense, elbow grease, and the occasional Youtube video to help us out.

I don't think every mechanic is trying to rip off their customer. In most cases they are just not interested in digging a little bit deeper into the problem and want to kill the mosquito with a bazooka. On the other hand i have seen small workshops doing wonders with what they have. But it takes time to find good reliable workshops but yes even then you'll need to keep an eye on them and be a critical and difficult customer to get it done properly.

 

 

I can imagine that it's a matter of profitability, the risk of spending an hour to look for a 5 minute definite solution that costs nothing to fix is a is outweighed by the alternative AED3000 solution that works in 30mins and probably solves the problem.

Im actually experimenting with garages now, since my car is a daily i do about 25.000-30.000 km a year so i have very regular maintenance visits. I've found that specialized garages tend to be more likely to fall victim to this practice, perhaps because they possible pool of customers is lower than a general garage so they're prices have to make up the difference in profit margins.

On 5/13/2021 at 6:27 PM, Chaitanya D said:

Absolutely agree with you @Arman

on the way the "trusted" off road garages or mechanics behave. If you dont agree with them , and if you dont do a lot of mods with them they will be least interested in doing your simple works. 

DIY checks is good because it always helps you understand your car better atleast for the minor or easily doable fixes. 

Some tiny bit of it is included , and will be explained when you do your advance lead/ recovery trainings as you progress in your levels with Carnity.

For a desert car , check every week better. Especially cleaning the air filters , oils , coolant . You will be surprised to see how much sand will be there in the air filters .

 

Exactly, just like in medicine, maintenance is always better than treatment, if you're able to do an inspection on all the common maintenance items on your car then you could predict possible major problems in the future as well as prevent the minor ones.

Some 4x4 cars have greasable joints similar to farm trucks an other metal on metal contact equipment which with some very affordable tools can extend the life of a part exponentially.

Perhaps a forum post with information on maintenance checks that you can perform yourself on popular cars in the club like JK wranglers and Pajeros, as well as general info on what oils and coolants to use might be worth a look. There's also trying to hunt down the service manuals for our cars, they make diagnosing issues quite easy and also help you decide if a job is personally doable or if it's best left to a professional. 

On 5/13/2021 at 6:07 PM, Gaurav said:

Very well said @Arman but sadly people after spending 2600 instead of 160 don't tend to share their story and learning like yours. Either they are too busy / rich / afraid to tell the saga.

Here's the section you can use: https://carnity.com/forums/forum/268-offroad-mods-diy

I'll do my best to fill this up with stuff, although my experience has been with my TJ....which there are only 4 active ones in the club i believe?

WOOOW! it's most the Angela regulars! 

1 hour ago, topgear said:

Do we need wheel spacer for a basic 2" lift? @Gaurav @Ale Vallecchi

 

 

Depends on the car, and tyres, i have bigger tyres on mine than stock and they were rubbing on the inner control arms during a sharp turn (you may not have this issue with your car).

The second consideration is that as you raise the car the center or gravity changes, if you get a 2" lift, then a 1" spacer would be how you balance it out (watch out for the wheel travel as it might start impacting your fenders though)

Alternatively, you can get new rims with more backspacing or less offset (the popular consensus is that this is better for your driveline in the long run compared you spacers) 

Normally a lift is used to solve two problems:

1. your wheels are impacting the inside of the fender and reducing your travel
2. to change the ride dynamics of the car

It may give you a little ground clearance in the case of an IFS car (like pajeros and FJ) but will do nothing of the sort for solid axle cars like the wrangler.

If you want more ground clearance then get bigger wheels (if the wheels start touching things, get a lift and spacers....)

Thanks a bunch for the exciting drive that day @Lorenzo Candelpergher, im glad i was able to confirm all the things i'd learned on my first Intermediate drive!

That view from the top of the dune was amazing as well, would love to see if we could spend a night camping at the top, i can imagine it'd be a beautiful sight to wake up to, lets hope winter treats us well, @Shehab Alawadhi and I will prepare some great meat to eat along with some singing.

I'm still looking through the dash cam footage but im sure i can find us a nice clip to post (At least shots of @Lorenzo Candelpergher, @marks, @Hisham Masaad and @amir amiri )

I'm quite impressed with how gentle @amir amiri was with the throttle despite his massive engine!

Just now, Arman said:

Thanks a bunch for the exciting drive that day @Lorenzo Candelpergher, im glad i was able to confirm all the things i'd learned on my first Intermediate drive!

That view from the top of the dune was amazing as well, would love to see if we could spend a night camping at the top, i can imagine it'd be a beautiful sight to wake up to, lets hope winter treats us well, @Shehab Alawadhi and I will prepare some great meat to eat along with some singing.

I'm still looking through the dash cam footage but im sure i can find us a nice clip to post (At least shots of @Lorenzo Candelpergher, @marks, @Hisham Masaad and @amir amiri )

I'm quite impressed with how gentle @amir amiri was with the throttle despite his massive engine!

PS @Shehab Alawadhi i may have left my Lug Wrench in your car somewhere, let me know if i should bring a search team to help find it in your rear seat area.

2 hours ago, Luca Palanca Falsini said:

Hi,

I am planning to put on my Fortuner a lift kit.

At the moment I choose the Ironman 4x4 foam pro suspensions price is around 4k.

The main reason is that are kind of approved by Toyota (found the stand on Toyota shop) and they proclaim to be the strongest (with similar price) because the foam technology.

Anyone had experience with that brand?

Ironman 4X4 are an Aussie brand and it seems they've got a really good reputation in Australia where they really LOVE Japanese 4x4 cars especially Pajeros, Patrols, LC and Tacomas. And since the terrain is very similar i would think they'd do fine here.

Having a local dealer also means that warranties and maintenance are much cheaper than getting other US parts.