Tyre punctures in the Kimberley

Mate, we did the GRR in our old 75 series troopy heavily laden and towing a camper trailer with a 12 ft tinny on top. Tyres are Desert Duelers 31.5 10R15's running 25 psi. The road was not the best as we crossed early April last year and the grader had only just completed the section of road near El Questro and a bit near Burnett Roadhouse. As often as possible I tried to "Drive over" the corrugations. Where lots of sharp rocks were present I dropped the speed considerably. In fact the 2 km (approx) rocky section of the GRR between the Pentecost and Durack I handled in Low range 1 st gear and crawled. The suspension on the troopy is original and a bit spongy having done 300,000km. The front springs and rear springs are almost flat. I think this actually gives a softer or less harsh ride than heavy duty stuff and you don't get the guts of the car shaken to pieces and the GPS is readable at almost any speed.

We did 55,000km on the trip and ended up with 1 flat tyre on the last day of the journey.

Adjust tyre pressures to suit the conditions and take corners smoothly.

Chris,

Some common factors with punctures are:
Too much weight,
Too much speed,
Too much pressure in the tyres,
Flimsy tyres

I led a trip last year across the Simpson and had zero punctures in a convoy of 12 vehicles, because we observed all of the above. Another rip was 8 vehicles over he Anne Beadell with only one puncture.

Take it easy, and you'll be fine. Lowering the pressures (I run about 25psi on dirt) also irons out the corrugations and reduces chances of suspension problems.

Phil

Chris,

Speed combined with heavy loads on roads with a lot of loose sharp rocks. The tyre guy here in Derby will tell you that long tread life is irrelevant here as few tyres actually "wear out", rather they are destroyed.

I have done 30000km in the Kimberley region in the past year and had 4 tyre events. Two were repairable punctures and two were destroyed tyres in 10 minutes on freshly graded road. My colleague kept the speed at 100kph (unwisely).

I was running Bridgestone Dueller AT's at middle of the range pressures.

In general, keeping the speed down in such conditions will save the tyres. Taller, narrow 85 section tyres last better than fat tyres which tend to have sidewalls very exposed.

JohnS

We did the Kimberley at this time last year from Adelaide (an overall trip of 12,500 km) without any tyre problems in an 80 series cruiser, weighing about 3.2 tonnes all up. Other than good luck, which probably makes a fair bit of difference, we started with new BFG AT's, and ran them at about 28 - 30 PSI. Too much pressure in the tyres is a problem on gravel roads (just ask any bush mechanic... especially the bloke in the Pink Roadhouse at Oodnadatta), and speed is also a problem, especially if you do have a puncture as you simply cant stop in time before you do too much damage to the tyre. Most times we have destroyed a tyre in the past is when they are down to their last 30,000 km, unless you decide to do the "Old Ghan" railwayline, and pick up a railway spike... that's just bad luck.

By the way the roughest stretch that we found was on the Kalumbaru Rd, and the trick was not to go too slow. Travelling at about 30 km/hr would shake the old truck to pieces, but at 60 km/hr it was tolerable.... guess you have to experiment to get the speed right in the conditions.

Hope you have a good trip... wish we were going back too!

Kevin

I reckon overloading and speed are the main controllable factors. Followed by pressure.

Chris
Too much pressure, too fast & freshly graded roads are what you need to be aware of as previously stated.
H/T tyres are a waste of time but I did see an old EH station wagon doing the trip last year with the barest of necessities. Wished him luck but told him I wouldn't be helping him if he was stuck.
Have done this road twice with only the one puncture (absolutely shredded an el-cheapo tyre about 5Km's into GRR, turned straight around and bought a full set of BFG A/T's at Kununurra).
Will give you a full update when you hit Hedland but with Cooper ST's you shouldn't experience any problems outside of bad luck

chris,

after living in kununurra for 2 years and spending most weeknds out and about, the biggest problem i had with the gibb was the following weeks after graders go through. The road is rough in places by generally kind to tires but not after grading.

For example i did two tyres in 30 minutes and these tires had probably spent over 1500kms on this rd already, all because the grader had been through 4 days earlier. The other big factor as mentioned above is pressure, i never ran over 30psi when driving on roads like this.

Unfortunately you can't do much about the grader, otherwise it's all much of a muchness, IMHO best to drive into the mitchell plateau, boring as bat bleep from the air

cheers

Do graders actually make conditions worse? Or do they just allow some drivers to go faster and this is what causes the tyre problems?

Barry

G'day Chris
Done the GRR twice. Once in forerunner skinny tires with 1 puncture. Second time 80 series 33inch muddies 1 puncture(almost new). Mate in a Hilux went at same time and shredded 3 tires(factory 31x10.5x15). As mentioned above, freshly graded roads were the worst. Wrong speed/pressure seems the killer.

Chris
My dollars worth-
We did the trip in April/May of this year and had no tyre problems.
I have a 92 Daihatsu Rocky fitted with Simex Road Trekkers 31/10.5 R15 that had done approx 15K before the trip. I towed an offroad camper and ran pressures of 32 front , 36 rear and 30 in the trailer.
On our return home I had the 4 wheels rebalanced and a front wheel alignment - was amazed at the difference it made , should have had it done before we drove home on the black stuff.
At one petrol stop on the GRR got talking to a grader driver and he said don't let your tyres down ,keep them hard - stones can puncture a soft tyre ????? After my experience I would have to agree with him.
My mate , also in a Rocky , got a metal stake through a tyre and destroyed it before he could stop - thats bad luck and could happen to anyone.

Have a good trip.

I'm heading up to the Gibb river road and kalumburu as well as mitchell plateau in july. ive got a gu patrol towing a cavalier camper trailer , ive got bridgestone all terrains on the patrol and i'm unsure how good they are(original tyres)

has anyone done this trip on same tyres

have had advice that high tyre pressure is the go which is different to what most writers are saying

see you all in the kimberleys

big john