Mawy

Hey guys, so my fiancée and I are joining and camping tonight, will there be group camping? We can get cards, Uno and monopoly!

16 hours ago, Lorenzo Candelpergher said:

DRIVE REPORT

Dear Desert Wanderers, 

It was a nice and chilling dawn when the convoy met yesterday at 6:30am.

Everyone made it to the meeting point quite on time and after an extensive briefing we were ready to move by 7:05am.

We warmed up crossing a long sabkha heading north east, then entered an area of nice long range dunes, where we spent quite some time roaming around and practicing some fun sidesloping. 

The sand in the area was very churned up and with many tracks, which made the exercise way more complex, but worth it.

To the surprise of most in the convoy, we encountered several rock formations, which made the landscape, in the sunrise light, even more fascinating. 

As we moved further deep into the desert, we managed to get some distance between our convoy and the other two that were roaming in the area, one of which led by @M.Seidam.

Quite early in the drive @Vishal Nair's Pajero, if I am not mistaken, showed some transmission overheating problems, so we stopped to address the issue. As discussed, most Pajeros suffer from transmission overheating which is often solved by installing a small additional fan in front of the dedicated radiator. Many Senior members in the club will be able to help on this. Our Marshal @Vanessa8580our Expert @Mehmet Volga or@GauravSonifrom the Support Team will be surely able to give you some advice. 

As the convoy was doing very well, I decided to raise the bar a little and to throw in some more fun stuff, including a few straight-up / straight-down dune crossing. 

It was approaching a high crest, followed by a long and steep descent, that @Asem Rashwan got crested in a moment of hesitation, giving Russ the chance to demonstrate to the whole convoy how a proper rope recovery is done.

The stop and regrouping came handy to review some basic concepts about sidesloping, dune crossing and fishtailing, after which we were again on the move. 

With a few more refusals here and there we made our way further North, approaching the area of the Mighty Lisaili Dunes, maintaining a nice and fluid pace. 

Too good to be true, me and @Russ were thinking.. Then it happened: @Asem Rashwan's Ford Explorer, after a severe overheating caused by repeated attempts to recover from a stuck situation in supersoft and churned up sand, totally lost power, with no chance to get the engine running. 

Given the situation, as @Carnity's motto is that we never leave anyone behind, it was decided that we would attempt to tow the Ford Explorer out on the tarmac using my winch first, to get him on the flat, and then the endless horsepower of @Russ' beast.

Winching uphill a dead load was hard but it worked out, so the towing was next, but probably the tow point (a bolted one) had been taxed enough and it collapsed as soon as @Russ started to pull. Luckily no one was injured and nothing was damaged by the steel projectile and we are all here adding this story to the many adventures of our off-road memoirs.

Having explored in advance the best route out, the convoy had an easy exit to the Sabkha and eventually to the tarmac on D63 Seeh Al Salam Road, where we reached at 11:05am, exactly 4h after our departure. 

Everyone in the convoy did extremely well

@Marcin Wronowski was an excellent 2nd lead. Always responsive to my instructions for small deviations.

@Premjit Vappala did very well with his Pajero. With time you'll learn to be less shy on your throttle and get addicted to flooring it 😂

@Mawy followed in a very disciplined and focused way, with a brilliant performance. I also appreciated his many smart comments and useful suggestions on the radio. Well done! 

@Simon DawoodDawood had sometimes the temptation to fight gravity while sidesloping. Practice will help you control your fishtailing with the right combination of gas + countersteering , which will ultimately lead you to sustain longer sideslopes without challenging the unbeatable gravity. 

@Vishal Nair proved to be more efficient with manual shift than his automatic gearbox when it comes to preventing transmission overheating 😉. Other than that, some refusals here and there were all part of the game, especially in non trivial terrain as the one we drove through yesterday. 

@Asem Rashwan drove overall very well and had his good share of Desert Adventure for the day, but all is well what ends well. As @Russ recommended, please do not join any other drive before replacing both front tow points with proper ones, adequately strong and rated to withstand harsh tugs as happen off-road. 

@Usman Basit had a moment of concern when he heard some weird noise from his front left wheel, but it disappeared as suddenly as it appeared, so he could continue the drive and get a full blast of fun with the rest of the convoy. His hesitations here and there will fade away with time and practice. 

I had less visual on the cars at the back, but both @Rouaj and @Muhammad Qasim leveraged well their capable FJ Cruisers, struggling here and there in churned up sand, which was however quite unavoidable yesterday. 

@Sergio Big Dawg certainly showed he has a few more drives outside @Carnity under his belly. Also, his legendary Y61 is, by definition, almost unstoppable.. 

@Tom B at the back led his capable Land Cruiser, a great (but heavy and thus not easy) off-roader. Coming to terms with counter-steering to control fishtailing will take time and practice, but is particularly important on a heavy long wheel base ride like his. 

@Mohamad Ziad Alhennawi was comfortably at the back with his giant Hummer. As he noticed, the heavy weight of his beast requires a lot of ability in never losing momentum, as gravity won't make any discounts on an H3 😂😂.

Overall we covered 43.6km in 4h net, moving for 2h 33' and stopping for 1h 27'. While in movement, we kept an average speed of 17.1km/h, which means it was a fairly fast paced drive as most of the terrain allowed for a fast ride. 

Congratulations to all, very well done but, most importantly, special thanks to @Russ who was all over the place, tugging, shoveling, giving instructions, providing valuable guidance, making my life way easier. Look at him at the top of a long slip face descent, guiding the whole lot down:

A perfect support and an excellent towing exercise at the end. Bravo! 

See you soon in the sand! 

I never thought that you'd be able to keep track of each participant's effort and performance all the whilst managing and leading a lengthy and relatively inexperienced convoy like ours.

@Lorenzo CandelpergherYou sir are a work of art! The combination of instructing, sarcasm, cheerfulness and lightheartedness.

@Russ Of course your spectacular efforts and recovery skills were almost life-saving that day as well. On a side-note, that's a very mean machine you've got there!

2 hours ago, Lorenzo Candelpergher said:

Dear Desert Wanderers, 

this RSVP is now closed.

Please find below the convoy order for our drive:

@Marcin Wronowski, @Premjit Vappala, @Mawy, @Simon Dawood, @Asem Rashwan, @Vishal Nair, @Usman Basit, @Rouaj, @Muhammad Qasim, @Sergio Big Dawg, @Tom B, @Mohamad Ziad Alhennawi, @Russ, this drive is going to be thrilling and exciting, but also quite intense, as all of you are relatively new to the desert. It will require your full and undivided concentration at every step, so make sure you come well rested and hydrated and that and you don’t have any reason for being distracted. 

We will be using Carnity Channel 3 (446,05625Mhz).

Our meeting poiint is confirmed at the end of the Al Qudra - Solar Park Road, next to the Pylon Track: https://goo.gl/maps/VurDujZbhkNZjGah7  

See you tomorrow morning by no later 6:30am (sharp). If possible, try to reach a few minutes earlier, so that you can be ready earlier with your deflated tires and your flags and we can maximize the time we spend in the sand.

P.S.: dear @Br. San, no drop-outs for the time being, so you are currently not in the convoy. Please keep the website/email checked during the day, as in case there will be anyone withdrawing from the drive you'll get your spot.

Hey there @Lorenzo Candelpergher, that's duly noted.

The meeting point link seems invalid though. Is that the same location that Guarav posted on the WhatsApp group?

3 hours ago, Azeem M said:

@Mawy please share your contact number bro, need some input on the flag mount you have on your pajero

@Azeem MHey man, you can WhatsApp me on +971585402059

2 hours ago, Chaitanya D said:

Does it work well when the refrigerant is filled and then the cooling reduced over few days?

Not at all, the second day this has happened, it went haywire again.

2 hours ago, Frederic said:

Then consider yourself lucky winter is coming

Pajero AC system is not that complicated, and any half-decent AC mechanic should be able to trouble shoot this. 

If any problem occurs with the compressor, usually the orange light on the AC button will start blinking. Have you seen this happening ? 

 

I have faced the blinking light issue only once. Which got resolved after a quick turn-off and turn on. Moreover, would you be able to recommend one? I've been to these ENOC AC guys which said it might be an electrical (which doesn't make lots of sense). And when I told the workshop I've been going to the past year, all he did is recharge the coolant, but nothing worked.

2 hours ago, Lawrence_Chehimi said:

If no air at all is coming out from the vents, then it's definitely not a gas or compressor issue. This is related to the blower motor inside your dashboard. You might have sucked a plastic bag or something that is clogging the air, it can also be an issue with the blowet itself, the motor inside is turning but the fan on top is not. But I guess it is just something clogging the air circulation.

Well, the thing is that it's very random. I can have 3-4 days or a long road trip of perfect AC. But then out of the blue, it becomes a sweatbox.

3 minutes ago, Lawrence_Chehimi said:

@Mohammed El-Dakamawywhen it happens you can also try to switch the flow from the front vents to the upper ones on the windscreen and back to the front vents. Maybe you have a faulty actuator.

That's something I'll have to try as well.

Hey there Carnities!

So about 3-4 months ago I started noticing that my Pajero's AC is starting to malfunction at random intervals. It would be working fine and ice cold and then all of a sudden the vents are pushing almost no air. Turning the fan to the maximum doesn't do anything too, even though I can hear the blower and the window screaming in revs. I try closing the recirculate button to get air from outside, but still nothing.

I had the refrigerant charged and an AC workshop said that the blower is fine and there are no leakages in the refrigerant but that didn't solve any issue. I'm kinda lost and sweaty. 

Please help 🥵