cape trip with trailer

What . . . No Exploder jokes . . . come on . . . Thats not fair.

Snorkle is always good for this type of thing. Its not only water that its useful for. Allowing the air to be drawn from higher is good, because it can be slightly cooler and not as dirty.

Extractors on a modern vehicle is always fair questionable.

Actually, I think the biggest issue you will find with the Explorer is their questionable ground clearance. They are very ordinary. If you are undertaking this trip, especially towing a trailer (camper I assume), this is one area I would be seriously looking into.

Personally, I'd go the snorkel and the tarp for the deeper crossings and a 20hp yamaha on the back of the trailer for the really deep crossings.
Only joking about the 20hp Yammy.
You'd need at least a 40hp.Dare to Lead not to Follow

Barry unless the wet is late water depths will generally not require a tarp. I have extractors on my Pajero 3.5 petrol and definitely made a fair difference in torque and maybe 0.5 kpl in fuel (8 kpl average on road). Motor now puts out around 170kw. As far as trailers go it will need to be a very well built off road trailer to handle the corrugations. A trailer will restrict you considerably on the telegraph track and some of the other remote tracks. I left my trailer home whilst some of my friends took theirs. I was much better off. A brand new Kimberley camper had a shocker problem and a lesser koala trailer broke a spring. Clearance is certainly a big plus in the rough crossings. Good tyres and keep your pressures and road speed well down.

We have 16" rims with BF Goodrich's and polyairs for when the trailers on, it hasn't got the clearence of a cruiser but it's better than the standard explorer. I would be interested making it a little higher and what would be considered a good height without being to high the other half is only 5' and old sssshhhh, I didn't that.

Took camper trailer to the cape 2 years ago. Took the trailer up the OTL as far as Twin Falls then used the bypass roads. Found the OTL much easier on everyone as the bypass roads were very badly corrugated. Saw two trailers on the bypass roads that had snapped either leaves or U-bolts. Going too fast and too heavily loaded was my guess.

North of Twin Falls you encounter narrow bridges and deep creek crossings on the OTL so we didn't venture go that way.

Cockatoo Creek was probably the deepest water we encountered (up to the bonnet inplaces). Had a snorkel and simply loosened the belt driving the radiator fan so it would slip and drove through no probs without a blind.

Barry,

Yes it can be done .....But

We were up the Cape in Aug/Sept last year and did see one Explorer up there, it did make it to the top by the bypass road, and we saw it again at Bramwell.

It was in a pretty sorry state when it got back to Bramwell as they tried to come back and do a couple of creek crossings on the Telegraph, as someone said earlier the angle of approach is very poor on the explorer and this one had gotten hung up front and rear and in the middle.

If you're going to tow a trailer up there with an Explorer at least tag up with a good friend in a Patrol or Landcruiser to help and stick to the bypass even with its corrugations.

Good luck

I can't comment of the explorer but I towed a well built box trailer with leaf springs up to the cape with a 3.85 explorer and all boat gear in/on it, the trailer did not give us any problems and did not restrict us from going anywhere we wanted, saw quite a few broken ones up there but some of them I must say I would not tow around town.
Very impressed by the guys in a L300 who brought their own welder to fix the trailer each time it broke. We went up the telegraph track incl. the section past twin falls and found had no problems with it other than me having to be pulled up Cannibal Creek exit.

My main advice towing a trailer with a wagon in particular is to make sure that you have a very good stone guard to avoid sand blasting the back of the car and smashing the rear window.

Its always advisable at the end of each day travelling is to get under the trailer and tighten all the u-bolts and shackles as the vibration loosens every thing no matter how tight they are. If you have the space a spare spring doesnt go amiss, also spare pre packed bearings. Col