ChrisW

Congrats @Krinesh - it’s been a pleasure driving with you and seeing you learn how to pilot that Raptor round the desert. I hope you enjoy the next level and the new variety of driving styles and terrains you’ll get to try out.

Great work @Diego, hope you enjoy the continuing journey of gaining experience and having fun!

Hey @Frederic - looking forward to this one! Just wanted to double double check the meet point - which side of the fence line are we deflating?

I think the items that @Zed mentions above are worth prioritising to check first. They’re much more likely sources of a burning smell.

It’s not something I’ve experienced - I’m running 35” BFG K02’s on beadlocks. I usually run 8 PSI, although the K02’s have stiff sidewalls. If you’ve got a burning smell there must be some sustained friction occurring somewhere. The only places that come to mind are if there’s some sort of tyre rotation on the rim (which would indicate the beadlock rim is not tight enough), or if there’s tyres are flexing enough to contact the car somewhere (eg rubbing against a liner). One way to test if it’s due to the tyre being overdeflated and the sidewalls flexing too much would be to do a drive with slightly more pressure and see if that changes anything. Maybe the sidewalls of that particular tyre are not suited to running at a low pressure. The other easy thing to check is the torque of the beadlock bolts. Those do need checking periodically (I usually do it every six weeks or so). It doesn’t need much torque, maybe 20 lbf, but they do loosen slowly over time.

Great work @Sam Selim, very well deserved - and recognises both your ability to apply the techniques you have learned and your willingness to proactively help out on our drives. Well done, looking forward to doing the higher level drives with you.

What a great return to form, @DP1011! Yesterday’s drive was great fun. We started off nice and early and got straight into Nahel’s medium to taller sized dunes while the air was still cool. We found some good lines to sweep through the taller dunes, and some easy ridges to push through. We gave ourselves the chance to practice a few times on a nice long ridge section in the early part of the drive, and we found a nice bowl section which gave everyone a chance to practice managing their energy…and some great photos from @Marek! The back end of the drive was a chance for our newest support team member @Andrew John Melvill to shine, putting @Wayne Momsen back enroute again. As DP mentioned, great teamwork from everyone in keeping it together during the long recovery. Well done.

Hey @Davie Smooth_Operator - just wanted to send a belated thanks to you and everyone who joined us. We started off in the daylight with some easy lines through Fayah’s small to medium height dunes, giving everyone a chance to get warmed up and practice on the moderately technical terrain. It was also fun to catch a few sideys and some flat ridges. A stop at the fox holes was great for some social time and photos for everyone, and then preparation for driving in the dark. With the sun soon down, we trailed through some slightly larger and more technical dunes which gave everyone a chance to stretch further the skills from earlier in the day. A few refusals and stucks, all handled really well and plenty to learn from. A great day out and my passenger enjoyed it too!

Looking forward to it @DP1011 - and @Luke K P hope you get sorted soon…have missed the karak!

Great news @J-P L! Very pleased for you, and I am sure many of the club will benefit from your support and coaching along the way.

Hey Doc, unfortunately I will have to drop out - my wife lands back in AUH on Saturday night…not sure I’d be very popular if I sent a taxi to meet her… 😂

@M.Seidam Thank you kindly, Doc - looking forward to the regular Friday fixture.

The PCV is an interesting one - the connector on the Jeep gives a very firm and positive lock, but the female end of the connector is wide and does seem to gather sand. I was doing some work on my Jeep over the weekend and had it open - and was surprised to find oily sand there and a small amount on the face of the throttle butterfly.

@Ale Vallecchi Many thanks again for a great drive yesterday. We had some long periods of really good flowing lines and the convoy moved at a good pace. It was also a treat to find so many fresh ridges which gave us some very easy going rides with the sun sitting low on the desert. @Warbs, @Sam Selim, @Glenn W it was a pleasure driving with you guys - you tackled so much of the terrain with a good mindset and no dramas. All our recoveries were followed well and we worked everything out without having to step out of our cars - great work and meant that @Aser and I got to sit back and enjoy! Hope to see you all out there soon!

Cool, it helps but yes - I have the same issue. We somehow seem to often land on the same channels as farm or construction guys!

The simplest starting point is to become familiar with how the squelch function works on your radio. This basically raises the threshold (the floor) at which your radio will make transmissions audible. Very weak or distant signals can be screened out, whereas stronger signals (such as from radios in the convoy) remain audible. In my experience this screens many of the nuisance signals from construction workers. The use of more sophisticated modes would be great for many reasons - but it also requires a level of setup that might be beyond the scope of our weekend drives.

Thanks @GauravSoni, as mentioned elsewhere, this was a brilliantly simple drive plan executed extremely well. There was a continuous run of interesting technical dunes which all required slightly different combinations of momentum, gas and steering. This was definitely a good one to revisit basic skills and gain practice. I also enjoyed seeing what the highest gear/least RPM I could get away with was! From my position in the convoy I could watch @Abhishek Chikara and @Sam Selim - I was very impressed with you both, good approaches and you adapted your lines well as you discovered where the traction was. You also made a very good call Abhishek with the turn down, loop and re-attempt - on an IM drive that’s the difference between keeping the convoy flowing and having to stop and re-start. All under the watchful eye of the solar furnace 😂

…thank you for the timely reminder to ensure we pack all the gear we are each required to carry…shovel, recovery rope, soft shackles, suitable tow points on the car, etc… Looking forward to it @GauravSoni!

Thank you @M.Seidam and all. That was a really fun evening and gave me a chance to learn and practice different skills. It was a great pleasure to support you. You all did really well - driving at night in softer sand with larger terrain can be daunting, but nobody panicked and everybody did the right things at the right times with their driving. @Kashx2 and @Suneedh Wrangler you both handled refusals and reattempts really well, looking forward to driving with you both in the future.

Congrats @Warbs - was a pleasure driving with you the other night, you covered Qudra really well and are clearly ready for the next step!

Congrats @Jessica Lambert! Will be excellent having you helping out and passing on hard won experience to fellow drivers.

Soon, @Sam Selim! @Martin M You will need to join another drive for the weekend at or below your current level of Fewbie - this is a Fewbie Plus (FB+) level drive.

A few onboard vids…

@Ale Vallecchi thanks for leading a really fun drive, there was some good opportunities to stretch ourselves and the cars in there and plenty of learning opportunities. Getting out into the Pink Rock and Big Red areas was a chance to test some technical and bigger dune skills, with climbs at a few points too. It was a pleasure getting out with you all! Well done @Johannes Roux for carving good lines as second lead, plenty of Pajero learning for @Carl Stanley and @Jose Luis Campos, @Sam Selim you’re really at one with the car and the quality of your driving is coming up and up - and finally @Beide Worku it’s always fun to see the big cars carve through the dunes without breaking a sweat!