Come on ppl’s – share your off-road experiences


Here's mine,

Just got my buggy and thought it could handle anything until found my rear tyres 3/4 buried in sand. This was at Cronulla beach..well was suppose to be Boat harbour. Some stupid people decided to use the barrier as goal posts so i didnt realise that you were not suppose to go that far.

Any way, happily driving along when I notice the sand was getting deeper and softer and thought if I was even allowed to be this far because I reached Cronulla beach! and was soon driving next to a bunch of people sun baking and swimming when I thought I better turn around…then as I slowed down a little to turn and I begun to sink, then I wasn’t going anywhere.

Did I mentioned that this was my first off-road experience? So naturally I had no idea what to do, I had some toe rope but no one to toe me , so looked for something to wedge underneath my tires…no good. Some people would walk past commenting on my car and some would offer words of wisdom of how to get out and at this point I was up for anything so I tried them all. This one bloke helped us out for about 20mins, he stood there telling us what to do which was to get on our hands and knees and start digging the back tires out so we did and it wasn’t working, and while me and a mate had our head in the sand digging he took off!! Must of realized that we were not going to get out, and to make it worse we had about 20mins before the gates close!

Eventually after about 20mins of digging and my mate pushing we had her free, and mate jumped in the car while I was driving because there was no way I was going to stop again, I would of left him behind if I had to. Think it’s over? That’s only the half of it

Heading out the place I had a ranger chasing me flashing his lights, beeping his horn screaming out to pull over, he then over took me trying to cut me off the bastard! So here I am full dodging him speeding up when the speed limit was something stupid like 15kmph, and I swear he tried to ram me once. He eventually started driving beside me and I told him that I wont pull over because I will get bogged again and that I spent half an hour already trying to get it out and that I was not going to go through it again, he was then screaming something about driving on a prohibited part of the beach and police looking for me and told me to hurry up and get out of the place. So I took off as fast as I could out of there, shitting my self expecting like a road blockage of cops to catch me or something, didn’t look back and didn’t slow down all the way home…still havn’t returned there since…until this summer =)

heres another - quite a good photo until you realise my rear tyre is half buried

you idiot :P


They are easy to get out, you just have to know how. With a jack you can get the vehicle out by yourself. I wrote a little article on how to do it here;
http://www.offroadvw.net/bajawes/offroad/recovery.html

The thing to remember is sand is don't turn the front wheels full lock. If your going to get stuff it's going to be when you try to turn around. Turning the front wheels too much turns them into snow ploughs!

ill keep that snow plough thing in mind for next time, but what happens when you dont have a jack? and your car is on sand not gravel?

rgds
Sez - Beginner offroader

hey mate what type and size wheels do u have

Carry some bits of wood to put the jack on in sand.

Some buggy guys use the exhaust powered bag style jacks. They work on soft sand very well.

But generally if you have a mate then he will be able to push you out, provided you stopped trying to move before you buried it up to the floorpan.

youve seen it b4, andf you'll see it again. buggies only float in still water for a little while.



here's some other oldies.











we have quite soft sand so on the beach my rear tyres are routinley down at 3lb and sometimes lower. just keep on letting the air out untill there's none left. you would have to be doing something silly to bog a buggy with less than 1lb on the tyres. mine seems to paddle itslef along on the pan at this pressure. and yes, the tyre stays on the bead.

unless youve got a motor with good power, dont get too chunky tyres. i use bald 31x10.5 r 15 on my 10" rims!!. could use wider on these rims but 32 or more have too high a profile...

you didn't let any air out of the tyres did you Cez.


damn you make me laugh!
you have to let your tyres down to like 10 psi in the back so you don't get bogged. 2nd, always take someone else with you to tow you out if needs be.

We need to go to stocko together.... if you can make up with your girly and get your gearbox fixed.

That's some crazy offroading there, love the pics and would love it more if that was me, i cant wait to start getting into that sort of stuff.

Considering this was my first time on the sand i had no idea what to put my tyres down too, i knew i had to let them down so i only put them down to about 16psi. after i got bogged i let them down to about 10ish. i had the one mate in the car with me who left his magna out the front does that count? I dont really know many offraders to go on an outing with.

Im running a 1916cc, so do you think i should go a bit bigger or stick to what i have? keeping in mind that i would like to use the same tyres for street and offroad if possible


Pete, i will make sure i have my buggy ready for spring/summer

You can never go to big with an engine....having said that a 1916 is fine.I ran one for years and it was great offroad and i never had a problem with it. I run 10.5 R 15 tyres and could spin them on the road so the power was OK.I only went watercooled to get the noise down...and they are more reliable...I'm getting old !! People will tell you different things about tyre pressures.10 psi is a good starting point in the sand,but it will depend on the tyres your running as well. Mine bag out well at 10psi but if i was using yours i would have put them to at the most 5psi.....they just dont bag as well due to their size and type of tyre.JMHO though.It is a conflicting subject and someone else will always "know better" Trial and learn !! Having 1 mate in the car is a lot better than none. You did well for a first outing....you made it home!!!!!:beer:beer:beer

I went to Stockton last year for the weekend. I went with a mate who's been lots of times and that was a real blessing. He has a turbo diesel landcruiser and heaps off 4wd and sand experience. Everytime I got bogged (which was really only a few times) he snatched me out.





If I learnt anything it was this. Firstly, make sure your tyres are really bagged out. The first time I got bogged we let mine down from 12 or so to like 6 and that helped heaps. But like HS said, it's trial and error. The second thing I learnt was this, make sure anything that sand can cause trouble in is sealed up, otherwise it will get in.

Here is what my clutch looked like when I pulled the pressure plate off.



This effectively ruined the weekend coz the clutch wouldn't disengage properly. I think it may have shortened the life of the clutch. It also meant I spent two weekend having to pull it out and clean it out. AND it gave my wife a complex about the car.




[ Edited on 11-8-06 by pete wood ]

Hel-70Y, if you are interested in going to Stockton with people in buggies who have been heaps of times before and have good experience in going off roading, then you are more than welcome to come along when we next go. A trip to Stockton is in the planning for the 2-3 of September, but I am not sure what state your buggy is currently in

Always happy yo have more people come along, so U2U me if you want to know more details.

Mark.

Thanks for the tips.

I will most probably have to wait until next year for the stockton run as i doubt that i will have my buggy ready in time, there's a fair bit i still would like to do to it before summer, but thanks for the offer. hopefully i will still go up in summer with a couple of pplz to try it out.

If in the sand your suppose to drop tyre pressure to about 10psi, should you still drop it with dirt/mountain type offroading?

honestly, i just wet myself having a day dream, ur buggy in a cop chase on the beach! The 4x4 coppers wouldn't be able to catch the dub buggy, hehe. God that is some hot footage in my head.... weaving in and out on the beach... OHH!!!

This makes my desire even greater for a buggy

$2 tip: Baja's DON'T perform well on the beach with only 3 sparkplugs

Festy you shamefull lardarse...*starts singing to the banana splits theme song..'one offroadie, two offroadie, three offroadie, four, declined help from a hilux because that would be a bore!' :puke :P

Hey HEL 7OY I always stopped facing down hill where ever possible stopps you getting bogged. When I did get bogged 30 years ago at Kurnell in Sydney I just laid on my back and lifted the side of the buggy off the ground with my legs but I'm 52 now it gets a bit harder. Danny