Wednesday, Jun 07, 2006 at 23:48
"...As a responsible 4wder, I'm sure that you would have appropriately rated recovery hooks front and rear, and if you did get stuck, the majority of us "low rangers" would have no qualms in pulling you out. However, like with just about everything else, there are those who give responsible soft roaders a bad name by thinking they can go anywhere, getting stuck, then expecting to get recovered without the benefit of decent recovery points...."
Nowhere to put them. They are a monocoque design that does not have any longditudinal link front to rear (unlike Pajero/Discovery etc., with frame in chassis type monocoque), and has several transverse welds in the floorpan. You are in effect putting all the snatching stresses through intermittent transverse spot welds in a thin metal floor and sills (spot welded to the floorpan). I have a video of a vehicle (granted, a car) that had the rear end of it ripped out simply by being pulled out of a snow drift.....
Remember these vehicles "safety cells" are designed not to crumple, with no indication how they perform under tension and they only extend as far as the passenger capsule. The crumple zones that are used in the front and rear of vehicles are inherently made to come apart/deform with minimal force (compression, and assumed, tension) to absorb the energy of an impact.
Cuffs and atoyot give me an email on ckg 612003 at yarhoo spot com spot au (Minus space in username and guess the rest...) and I will email it to you next week (I'm off to QLD tomorrow am).
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