Summer Offers trip report

[khaiwi]

Early morning with a reasonably nice weather all three registered members met at the deflation point. Meeting was based on SMS message sent to all with gps coordinates in two different formats.

Briefing was conducted after deflating the tires and we started the convoy seeing many Gazelles at the very beginning of the trip close to the main road of Al Fathiya-Hameem road.

It did not take us much to reach the soft sand spots and tricky dunes causing the cars to sink-in even on flat sand areas. As expected, the trip was full of fun I mean stucks and all were so great demonstrating the teamwork and AD4x4 family attitude. I wanted to increase the difficulty level and then ask the intermediate members to lead the convoy, but the number of stucks and the heat that developed early made me just wrap it up and call it a day.

Unfortunately towards the end of the trip Fox burned the clutch of the Jeep and we had tough time pulling the car from the dunes to the gatch road (luckily we were few hundred meters away) then all the way out to the main road. Thanks a lot Amit for the help pulling Fox' jeep out and sorry for your front bumper/plate bracket.

I assume all have learned something new while driving in the desert today and had fun experiencing off-roading on the sand from a different prospective.

I would like to thank Gladiator for helping me on this trip sweeping and supervising recovery, Amit for the great help specially at the end of the trip, Fox for the great friendly attitude and smiling all the time (sorry for your Jeep clutch) and Eisa who demonstrated great driving skills and very friendly attitude.

My pictures will be uploaded on my FB page very soon.

Look forward to seeing you all in the desert again.

[khaiwi]

Sample pictures from today.....

[Gladiator]

Thank you Chief for such a challenging trip... sure it was very beneficial for out Intermediates..

Thanks to Amit for the hard work toward the end with Fox..... Thanks to Fox for offering a seat to my son Zeid ( Fox I think the weight of my son in your Jeep caused your clutch to burn !!!!! )

Eisa.. Thanks you for the help too...

See you guys on next trip... pictures will be loaded on both our Gallery & FB ...

cio

[Fox]

Thank you khaiwi for this great trip offering new experiences !
It was much fun and nice interaction between all. The area is beautiful, full of gazelles
and has many variations. Thank you Gladiator, Amit, Eisa for great company and
Amit for the "final pull". Gladiator don't worry your son was a nice co-driver and flag
collector. By no means could we have left the Lebanese flag in the sand, it has to
go up ! By the way it was 50 C hot by the time we ended the trip.
Here I have to say thanks even to my insurance company who organized the truck
to come for me, which after WM even took me to a taxi bay so I could return in ease.
Some other insights from the trip:
- Do not trust that the petrol station at the car museum can fill up. It is wise to fill
up at Mussafah and to top up at the CM if possible.
- The clutch of the manual JK is a weak part. It does not like to be stressed and goes
on strike.
- With 33' tyres on the JK the wheel torque with stock R@P is not sufficient in 4H.
In 4L it is ok but the handling needs to be re-learned.
- Manual transmission lures into digging in because one tends to push the accelerator
down much in order to avoid engine stalling. This would not happen with automatic
tranmission.
I will have a stronger clutch installed now and see you all again in the sand.

[mike0967]

Yeah, our Chief surely did a trip to remember in a very technical area I know too well

Fox, ask for the Grand Cherokee clutch, its way better and do not worry either, some people manage to burn down the stock clutch in their very first trip, ask Detlef

Mike

[Fox]

Hello Mike, yes I am getting the Cherokee clutch. Plus steel front bumper.
Any Newbie reading this, look for next weekend's trip with Khaiwi, recommended !