We are on the way
home to
Melbourne from
Wiluna gathering and Canning.
The car hadn't seen dirt since
Marree way and was getting grumpy so as soon as we hit the Vic/S.A. border I intended go south via the Big Dessert roads to
home, but not having any coffee for an hour we pulled into the
Pinnaroo coffee lounge via the rear entrance and partook.
Shortly after leaving
Pinnaroo I realized we were on the road which lead to the less friendly S.A. desserts instead so I looked to turn around, but as we pulled up I noticed that a ute behind us also pulled up.
This
young lady gets out and walks up and says, I noticed you lower your tyre pressures on leaving
Pinnaroo. So I figured you must be heading into the sand, thats good, I have a map for you, I'm a local
Ranger.
Eventually I noticed she had badges on her blouse and
well I guess she was a
Ranger, and a very observant one I might add.
Then she told me that the tracks were ok but a little cut up at the bottom end where the "
Young ones like to play" but this shouldn't worry the older more responsible ones like you !
Well, now that I was offically recognized as a responisible 4wder, we accepted the map, pointed the car towards Firebreak track and a
test hill I knew of and headed off on our real mission.
This mission was to determine if my car could get as far up a
test sandhill with lockers on as opposed to open diffs.
It was a weekday, we had plenty of time and no else around to worry about so we took our time.
At the base of the difficult testhill the tyres were verified as 24psi, didn't want them to low as 18 would get me over the
hill whereas 24 might not.
With open diffs we launch into the steep track which has many huge corrugations and whose surface is damp sand.
Up and Up we go, yes we will, no we didn't, but we almost made it, only 3m from the top, so after a neck twisting 100m long reversal the twin lockers are in and off we go again.
The car tries hard but its obviously struggling early on and ends up falling a significant 10m short of the open diff mark. Interesting, and a confirmation of my suspicions.
Why ?
My theory is that even 200kw pushing the lightly loaded GU's 2 solid axles caused massive axle tramp which quite simply equalled loss of traction!
Bit more playing with the adjustable shocks just re-inforced my conclusion that on this chopped up surface open diffs were better than lockers.
Still in responsibile 4wder mode we picked up some unsightly rubbish, dodged a huge bunch of Emu's who thought the track was made for them and headed for Broken Bucket and a nice warm campfire, our last of this month long trip - tomorrow would be cities, traffic and 492 unopened emails.
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