It's fascinating how 4wds have taken over Australia. If ever they leave the bitumen they make the news.


Here's a rugged outdoorsy type showing us how it's done. Ralph A. Bagnold. Not only did he pioneer desert exploration, ( he is credited with being the first offroader to let air out of his tyres) but he went home and wrote up the fluid dynamics of wind and sand. Fluid dynamics is an imprecise science at the best of times but his work is still standing. They use his findings on Mars, using the sand formations to backwards infer the Mars weather . He has the Bagnold Dune Fields up there named after him.

.be

Just cause its 4WD dont mean it should go offroad i suppose.

Yep, looking at those wheels/tyres on the top pic it should never have left the car park.

I dont think tread makes too much of a difference on sand. The whole 4wd industry is odd. U get situations like people driving to a 4wd park and paying to drive offroad. Fair enough if it has nice camping spots but how bored must u be to drive through obstacles.

^^^ he meant u can't let down low profiles.
Well, you can but they won't bag out so its pointless.
Knobs with 40 series tyres on a 4WD

Not that the above was real sand driving, they must have had an extra dose of stoopid

Whats the problem?
they've only got one wheel buried

When I was a kid my number one concern in life was quicksand. I thought it was everywhere, I was always waiting to get sucked into the earth, I carried a stick everywhere just like the cartoons.
when I turned about 10 or 12 I realised quicksand wasn't real, this was fine until I got my license and 4x4 now I know quicksand is real and the biggest patch of quicksand in the world is the beach from Lancelin to Jurien.

I dont know how ppl afford these vehicles. The price is astronomical on some of them.

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elmo said..
Whats the problem? they've only got one wheel buried

Yeahhhh moite the lockers I put in my Patrol (Landcriuiser recovery vehicle haw haw haw there's a new one) would just get out of that sh!t moite I only need one wheel on the ground. Sik AF
classic not plastic, I even have fake dog balls on my Reece hitch

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Razzonater said..
When I was a kid my number one concern in life was quicksand. I thought it was everywhere, I was always waiting to get sucked into the earth, I carried a stick everywhere just like the cartoons.
when I turned about 10 or 12 I realised quicksand wasn't real, this was fine until I got my license and 4x4 now I know quicksand is real and the biggest patch of quicksand in the world is the beach from Lancelin to Jurien.

Perhaps it's the world telling you that there's better things to do on a beach than drive on it.

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Shifu said..
I dont know how ppl afford these vehicles. The price is astronomical on some of them.

You put a roof pipe rack on top a cooler tool box in the back and deduct the **** out of it

^^^^ Yup and if you can't do that, lease so you can look rich.

Looks like my post has missed the mark. I was intending to introduce you all to the remarkable Ralph Bagnold. The upturned range rover was just click bait. Did anyone watch the video? A most unrecognised scientist. I'd say If he hadn't spent so much time pushing model T Fords over sand dunes he'd be up there with Stephen Hawking. But then again, maybe the getting out and pushing was essential to getting him into the subject?



(No low profile tyres for Ralph)

P L U C K
& I was thinking of getting a Forrester to go on the beach with. I sold the Nissan Pathfinder a few years back...
But that looks like it has 3 diff's - and no rocks in sight - so apart from the profile (lack of) WTP could cause that to fail apart from fuel or stoopid?
AP

Did he explain corrugations?

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Ian K said..
Looks like my post has missed the mark. I was intending to introduce you all to the remarkable Ralph Bagnold. The upturned range rover was just click bait. Did anyone watch the video? A most unrecognised scientist. I'd say If he hadn't spent so much time pushing model T Fords over sand dunes he'd be up there with Stephen Hawking. But then again, maybe the getting out and pushing was essential to getting him into the subject?



(No low profile tyres for Ralph)

I liked the bait - but yes .. I recall Merlin Minschell (Ian Fleming modeled James Bond on him) was the first to drive across there with an air-cooled vehicle about the same time - not in the same academic league more of the rascal.. until WW2
Cheers
AP

Another awesome bloke from the good old daze - Vladimir Peniakov - 1930's refinery worker or something like that, based in Egypt.
His hobby was desert navigation.
He would take the map of Arabia [pretty much a blank sheet of paper with a couple of dots on it] and load up his Model A Ford - affectionately named "pisspot" and navigate across the desert using dead reckoning, an astrolabe, compass and his odometer.

During WW2 he was the OIC of Popski's Private Army [another version of the SAS and LRDG] and found that 4wd trucks and jeeps made for lazy drivers.

trivia - PPA were the first to drive a car in Venice.

I've seen worse, what happens when you take the family wagon for a drive.



Just in case anybody is wondering, it's a 1964 Pontiac Catalina station wagon, or was one.

Quality vinyl!!!!!

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Mark _australia said..
Quality vinyl!!!!!

Certainly doesn't rust

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sn said..
Another awesome bloke from the good old daze - Vladimir Peniakov - 1930's refinery worker or something like that, based in Egypt.
His hobby was desert navigation.
He would take the map of Arabia [pretty much a blank sheet of paper with a couple of dots on it] and load up his Model A Ford - affectionately named "pisspot" and navigate across the desert using dead reckoning, an astrolabe, compass and his odometer.

During WW2 he was the OIC of Popski's Private Army [another version of the SAS and LRDG] and found that 4wd trucks and jeeps made for lazy drivers.

trivia - PPA were the first to drive a car in Venice.

During WW2 my dad was a travelling chaplain and had his own bedford camper truck, arriving in some base in Egypt one time he questioned why there were 10 American jeeps out there away? answer ...from Americans we thought we might be on land mine ground, so abandoned them and walked out on the tracks we had made.
Long story short....he bribed 10 fellow Kiwis to drive the jeeps out on same tracks and bring them into base.

Being intelligent fellows they did just that, dad them promptly claimed them as salvage and sold them back to Yanks thereby starting a career is car sales that lasted some 45 years.

I drive a 100series v8 petrol gxl auto for work, goes great but only has stock tyres needing replacing..
do bigger wheels and tyres really work better in sand or will stock size with more agro tread be just as good?


sand use only.. no roads here

Bigger tyres are always better on sand. Bigger footprint, even more so when tyres are deflated to 12 or 15psi.

Aggressive tread can help if you're driving through soft sand at speed and ripping massive rooster tails.

For the rest of us plodding along on top of the sand tractor style aggressive tread is not necessary. A tyre that spins on the spot, say one rotation, with aggressive tread digs bigger wheel trenches in the sand. Then the car has to try and dig out of this trench and a feed back loop of the car digging a constant deep trench results.

Not much of an issue if the tyre is deflated to 12 psi. Only during that time when one can't be bothered letting the tyres down from road pressure and seeing how far one can get. No one admits to this, but we all avoid letting the tyres down if we think the car will make it through on Hwy pressure.

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straddiepaul said..
I drive a 100series v8 petrol gxl auto for work, goes great but only has stock tyres needing replacing..
do bigger wheels and tyres really work better in sand or will stock size with more agro tread be just as good?

sand use only.. no roads here

Paul stick to the 275x70 size, if it's just sand a highway tread will do, if venturing a little further get all terrains. Get a good compressor and drop pressure when needed.
You can't beat a petrol auto in sand

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firiebob said..

straddiepaul said..
I drive a 100series v8 petrol gxl auto for work, goes great but only has stock tyres needing replacing..
do bigger wheels and tyres really work better in sand or will stock size with more agro tread be just as good?

sand use only.. no roads here

Paul stick to the 275x70 size, if it's just sand a highway tread will do, if venturing a little further get all terrains. Get a good compressor and drop pressure when needed.
You can't beat a petrol auto in sand

Cordless air compressor Aldi sold one last week Works gr8 blows the kite up to

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firiebob said..

straddiepaul said..
I drive a 100series v8 petrol gxl auto for work, goes great but only has stock tyres needing replacing..
do bigger wheels and tyres really work better in sand or will stock size with more agro tread be just as good?

sand use only.. no roads here

Paul stick to the 275x70 size, if it's just sand a highway tread will do, if venturing a little further get all terrains. Get a good compressor and drop pressure when needed.
You can't beat a petrol auto in sand

thanks bob tyres are barely legal and have done well at 18psi with 6 bods on board..
just the soft or wet stuff she weighs down chews tha juice but never bogged, not even needed low range (yet)

Bigger, wider tires with appropriate gearing compensation, lighten the weight, keep it moving, and smooth throttle and wheel control.
I've seen 3 all wheel drive Wranglers get stuck at the beach as a rising tide consumed the entire vehicle for a total lost.
Probably still there after 30 years.

I haven't done a lot of 4 wheel driving, but I've done a lot of sand driving with 2 wheel drives. So the biggest problem is getting going without digging in.
Aggressive treads just dig you down faster. Wide smooth tyres work better, if they do spin they don't dig as much. Also you need good torque at very low revs, the lower the acceleration the less you'll dig in. None of this is as much of a problem with 4 wheel drive in low range.

Try it with an ancient holden with only 3 gears, 1st was quite high and it was a very subtle battle between stalling the motor and spinning the wheels. I think that's why I burnt out a few clutches!

Most 4 wheels drive tyres I've seen aren't optimised for sand, the treads are all too chunky.

Bigger diameter tyres also help but not as much as wider smoother.
I remember there used to be some Israeli sand tyres on the market, they were wide and rounded with a narrower raised tread in the middle. So on the highway you had a normal tread, but as you started to sink into sand the wider smooth area started to do some work.

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sn said..

During WW2 he was the OIC of Popski's Private Army [another version of the SAS and LRDG] and found that 4wd trucks and jeeps made for lazy drivers.

So how do front wheel drive vehicles go on sandy tracks? Does weight bias on the driving wheels make them better than an EH ute or is something else going on?

Dont forget to turn any traction control off as you do not want loss of traction to a slipping / spinning wheel.