All is not lost...

Except for a spare tyre, our tow rope, the ARB tyre inflation hose, $ 12,372 in used Nigerian notes and the rag we use to wipe the dipstick. (But he's on holiday so we don't need it...).

Was it Burt Reynolds who starred in Every which way but loose? I think so. Anyway, it seems that the toolbox on the rear of the car became a little unhinged today (happens to us all in these temperatures, right?) and so its contents ended up, well, a little Reynoldsed. Scattered to the four corners of the Earth. Given that the Earth is a spheroid, albeit marginally prolated, it's difficult to know exactly where those four corners are, which explains why we couldn't find our oily rag, or tyre inflation hose, in the vast expanse of sandpaper we call the desert.


Still never mind, T-Phablog was on hand to dash to his ageing Land Rover in Dubai and remove the ARB inflation hose stored within. Only to be told it wasn't one of those he needed to deliver to the desert 5 hours drive away, but a different ARB inflation hose, a Jose Mourinho. Yes, a Special One.

So he dashed again, driving straight past the offices of the rather wonderful SRG Motorsports whose driver was going to deliver said hose to the desert 5 hours drive away if T-Phablog could just get back there in time, onwards to the ARB store in the less than salubrious International City. His mission? To buy a Dh 200 tyre hose.( Last year they were only Dh 185, but hey, that's inflation for you....) No matter that they closed at 6pm but promised to wait until T-Phab got there at 6.07pm, they had the part!!!!!   Which was surprisingly just like the part T-P could have delivered to SRG 20 minutes earlier.....Hmm. What's wrong with this picture?

Quick phone call. "Hello Ian" "Yes" "I'm looking at this ARB hose and it's like the one I've got with me in my car" "No you have one for a Bushranger compressor" "Yes but I also have an ARB one" "Do you?" "Yes" "Oh right, yes that's the one, please take it to SRG Motorpsorts, you know, the place you drove past 20 minutes ago...... " "So I needn't have driven to ARB"  "Err no". "OK, no problem, I'll just turn round then and drive through the rush hour traffic a second time to the place I passed not so very long ago....."

Thank you Sean Gaugain and the good people of SRG Motorsports for your help. Ian owes you (and me) alcohol...a lot of alcohol

Apart from that we broke an axle (it's alright, so did Guns 'n Roses and they just fixed it) but otherwise it was just a walk in the park. A really deserty park, with lots of sand. And sticky bits. High temperatures, no swings, no ducks, very few trees, no crazy golf, no huts selling ice cream and no scantily clad young office workers slipping off their blouses in the summer months and rubbing sun tan oil into their........ NOW STOP THAT!

Sorry. The UAE Desert Challenge - it's serious stuff. With very little Tropicana. But the drinks are free. Allegedly.

Pump my Ride

The interweb is an amazing thing. Once you know what your problem is, there’s bound to be something out there to help you solve it. It would be more useful if it told you all that stuff before the problem occurred, but somehow that never happens. Which brings me to the question of power steering pumps, about which I now know enough to bore you senseless.

Looking back, I find that we’d already replaced the p/s pump once, because it wasn’t giving pressure. We then replaced it just before the rally for the same reason, but the pulley then wasn’t tight on the shaft. (Pressing the pulley onto the shaft, and expecting it to stay there, is one of those really naff American engineering ideas.) Then we replaced the pump again before day 2 and the pulley was welded onto the shaft, and even that didn’t last. Are you beginning to see a pattern here?

The reason for these repeated failures is now pretty clear. The p/s pump had a remote reservoir, connected to the pump by a flexible hose. The pressure side of the pump goes to the steering box, the return from there comes back to the tank, from which the pump is sucking fluid. And it sucks big-time. According to my new friends at KRC, this pipe should be able to withstand a vacuum of 28” Hg., and if it’s not, it will collapse under the suction of the pump – especially if there’s a bend in the pipe, which there is. And when that happens, the pump will fail – either the seals will fail, or the pump will stall, in which case something else will give – like the non-existent bond between the shaft and the pulley, for example. Apparently this is the biggest cause of p/s pump failure, but you can eliminate this potential weak spot by using a bolt-on reservoir.

A new GM p/s pump is Dh 1700, without a pulley or a reservoir. An after-market KRC pump with bolt on reservoir and splined pulley is only slightly more. Yes, 17 splines give the pulley something to actually grip onto, and a nut tightened to 46 lb/ft to make sure it damn well stays there. I like the sound of that. So I’ve given the plastic another good spanking and ordered a shiny new pump with all the toys, and eagerly await its arrival. The only downside of this arrangement is that a bolt-on reservoir tends to make the fluid run hotter, but since I will use a slightly larger 6.5” pulley, the pump will run slower and hopefully that won’t be too much of an issue.

No-one has been much help on the ARB front diff problem. I have the part number of the flange which I need to replace, but even appealing direct to ARB hasn’t produced any response. So I guess I’ll run with the standard front diff.

Last weekend I was down in Liwa to run through this years Day 4 route (basically last year’s day 3) for Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, to check that no-one has built any new roads, fences, camel farms or other obstacles in our path. Turns out the only major issue is at the start, where last year’s seldom-used gatch track is now a major construction highway, so they need to change that bit. The worst bit of the route – and of the rally – is the section from Ghayathi Rd back to the Crescent Rd, about 30km of unadulterated hell. Driving it with no vehicle tracks to follow othe took us nearly 2 hours, during which the car wasn’t horizontal for more than about 5 seconds. One bowl follows another, and it’s as a soft as a very soft thing. And in another month’s time it’ll be even worse, and as hot as hell. At 355km, Day 4 looks like being a long, long day, and I foresee many cars being time-barred at PC4. Let’s hope we’re not one of them!

A New Year's Resolution

I've resolved to get the damn race car back on four wheels. However, six washers have stood between me and accomplishment of this dream since early November.

The washers are for the ARB front diff lock, which is made in Australia. Four of them are hardened conical washers, unique to ARB. Their agents here neither had the parts in stock nor showed any inclination to obtain them, so I contacted a mate in Sydney, Jon Harbour. He duly ordered them from his local ARB dealer (who had to order them from the factory) and two weeks later they were collected by TNT for shipment to Dubai. TNT then promptly lost them.

So I mailed Jon and asked him to repeat the order, and sure enough, two weeks later another set were with him. By that time, his planned visit to Dubai was only a few days away, and rather than give TNT another opportunity to lose them, we decided he should hand-carry them.
Well, you know how it is when you’re going on holiday, you always remember something that you should have packed, just after the plane takes off. In this case, it was the bag of washers, which were left sitting on his hall table in Sydney. They sat there undisturbed as Christmas came and went and the New Year was celebrated, until finally Jon bade his farewells to Dubai. By 7th January, the washers were once again on the move and, miracle of miracles, TNT delivered them in record time.

So now the front axle is being re-assembled by Rick at Carwise, and I should be able to get the car back at any moment. Friday is taken up with the Gulf New Fun Drive, for which we are Rear Sweep, but maybe Saturday we can take the Beast out for a blat.

The Saudi Hail Baja 2010 looms ever closer. Once again the Saudis have refused to allow Sheila to compete, so Ian Rodgers will fill the co-pilot’s seat for this event. Ian navigated for Ramesh Pereira in his ill-fated Patrol, which burnt to a crisp during the 2009 DC. Our two-day road-trip (a.k.a. ‘The Highway to Hail’) starts on 13th February.

Meanwhile, I’m still trying to sell my old T2 Patrol which came 2nd in class at the 2009 Hail Baja. I have a customer who plans to compete in it at Hail, but as yet no actual money – and the clock is ticking. Watch this space.