Laying my 76 on its side

[saillaw]

So a couple of weeks ago I screwed-up on a slide slope (too slow, and hit a small patch of grass on the high side while my low side was in soft sand) and ended-up flipping my 76 onto its side. It was a scary experience, and was caused by a lot of factors, but mostly because I was trying a new type of tire in the sand (tall-skinny sand tires, whereas I usually use wide MT or AT, so they handled much differently making me too timid).

The scariest part of the experience was not the roll over, but the ~2 hours it took us to start my 1hz again. Oil had leaked into the cylinders and caused a hydro-lock (similar to what happens if you drive it under water), but it took a lot of trouble shooting to come to that conclusion. We were in the middle of a 5 day trip in the Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia (Rub Al Khali) and it would not have been possible to tow the car out, so I was very worried I would have to abandon it and form another expedition to recover it, when luckily one of my friends came up with the hydro lock diagnosis.

Another of my friends took some video of recovery and un-hydro-locking the engine:

http://youtu.be/ipUaf3kBx0M

Thankfully neither I nor my passenger were hurt. Surprisingly there was not much damage to 76 (my roof rack got bent and put some dents in my roof, along with some damage to the rain gutter, but the biggest damage was to my pride). Anyway, even though this whole experience embarrasses me, I want to share it here incase anyone else ever has the same problem, maybe you won't have to stress so long trouble shooting.

Cheers,
Tim

 

[nmostofi]

Glad everyone was ok. Nothing to be embarrassed about, props for taking your truck out and using it like it was meant to be used. As far as the roll over, well that's a chance everyone takes when they take thier truck out wheeling.

 

[sadam_husain]

Glad everyone was ok. Nothing to be embarrassed about, props for taking your truck out and using it like it was meant to be used. As far as the roll over, well that's a chance everyone takes when they take thier truck out wheeling.

x2 and that's nice soft stuff to have a wee lie down in beats rocks and hard stuff any day ;p

 

[upp17]

This wasn't my proudest moment

 

[saillaw]

Yours looks like it could have been much worse, good thing it did not keep rolling down the hill!

Did you get oil induced hydro lock as well?

 

[GTSSportCoupe]

Glad you and the truck are OK saillaw!

How did you find those tires in the sand otherwise? Bad?

How much weight did you have on the roof rack? Did think that contributed at all to the accident?

I also run skinnies (235/85R16), and am wondering if I'll ever have an experience like this.

 

[OGBeno]

So a couple of weeks ago I screwed-up on a slide slope (too slow, and hit a small patch of grass on the high side while my low side was in soft sand) and ended-up flipping my 76 onto its side. It was a scary experience, and was caused by a lot of factors, but mostly because I was trying a new type of tire in the sand (tall-skinny sand tires, whereas I usually use wide MT or AT, so they handled much differently making me too timid).

The scariest part of the experience was not the roll over, but the ~2 hours it took us to start my 1hz again. Oil had leaked into the cylinders and caused a hydro-lock (similar to what happens if you drive it under water), but it took a lot of trouble shooting to come to that conclusion. We were in the middle of a 5 day trip in the Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia (Rub Al Khali) and it would not have been possible to tow the car out, so I was very worried I would have to abandon it and form another expedition to recover it, when luckily one of my friends came up with the hydro lock diagnosis.

Another of my friends took some video of recovery and un-hydro-locking the engine:

http://youtu.be/ipUaf3kBx0M

Thankfully neither I nor my passenger were hurt. Surprisingly there was not much damage to 76 (my roof rack got bent and put some dents in my roof, along with some damage to the rain gutter, but the biggest damage was to my pride). Anyway, even though this whole experience embarrasses me, I want to share it here incase anyone else ever has the same problem, maybe you won't have to stress so long trouble shooting.

Cheers,
Tim

Very cool video Tim. I am jealous. Well, really jealous actually that you get to drive one of the 76's and that you have such an epic playground.

And christ, the Saudi's can speak English!

[just joking.....I know they can speak english....I am turkish and everyone in Turkey speaks english]

 

[upp17]

Yours looks like it could have been much worse, good thing it did not keep rolling down the hill! Did you get oil induced hydro lock as well?

Yea it was lucky when we put it Back on its wheels it didn't keep rolling down the hill

No hydro locked. I pulled the plugs out and rust proofed the bottom side of the bonnet but

 

[Gun Runner 5]

Cool video....... Thanks for sharing.

 

[saillaw]

Glad you and the truck are OK saillaw! How did you find those tires in the sand otherwise? Bad? How much weight did you have on the roof rack? Did think that contributed at all to the accident? I also run skinnies (235/85R16), and am wondering if I'll ever have an experience like this.

I expected to get better fuel economy with the sand tires (235/85/16) than my normal tires (305/70/16 MT) but the difference off-road was negligibel.

With the MT's my last long dunes run I got 3.56 km/L (28.07 L/100km or 8.38mpg) over 439.6kms
With the sand tires I got 3.6km/L (27.75 L/100 or 8.48mpg) over 764kms on basically the same terrain

For highway driving at 120-130kph I got:
MT's 6.19km/L (16.16L/100 or 14.55mpg)
Sand tires 6.48km/l (15.43L/100 or 15.24mpg)

So I wasn't seeing the big advantages in extra-range that people kept raving about with sand tires.

Otherwise the tires did do well on soft sand and they do have the advantage of being on split-rims which can repaired in the field (disassembling the rim replacing the tube, and reassembling it took me about an hour per wheel). But, I've never had a flat with one of my MT's (lucky I know) in approximately 8 years of driving like this and I had 3 flats on this one trip with sand tires, so they seem to be much more susceptible to punctures. Changing a tire is not my idea of fun.

The main problem with the tires imho was that they had a lot of roll from side to side when deflated to aprox 10psi (which is where they seemed to work best in the soft sand), so if you got any kind of side slope at all you felt the truck shift left to right as much as 10 inches as the tire rolled under the rim. The MT's I am used to dont have nearly as much sideways roll. This made the truck feel very unstable which made me drive too timidly. After I rolled I forced myself to speed-up more and the sand tires performed better, but still not to my taste.

First thing I did after unpacking when I got home was to put my MT's on If anyone wants a good deal on 6 split rims and 5 sandtires send me a PM

I did have a lot of weight in the car, about 220L of diesel inside and 100L of water plus fridge and gear. On the roof 40L of water, a second spare, and some boxes full of sleeping bags and other relatively light items. The sand tires would probably perform a lot better with low weight.

 

[GTSSportCoupe]

Thanks for the comments saillaw. Glad to hear you are back to the larger tires. I also don't like the feel of my skinny tires when they are aired down. Interesting how they did not even net you any significant fuel savings.

 

[EgyptOffroad]

Thank you for the post. Great looking rig.
I wonder if you tried using the sand tires without tubes on alloys or one piece rims. As that would save you from flats, as the inner tubes tend of heat up with friction and may explode, also inner tubes can easily get pinched and torn from a bump. I never went under 20 PSI with inner tube sand tires just as I have been pinched many times at pressures under 20psi, but I went as low as 8 psi without tubes, with mind you some cautious driving is advised as to not rim off the tires!!