Skip's 4x4

Dwellingup / Nanga hill Trip 1999

355 kilometre round trip, on 4th & 5th December 1999.
Participants:
Gadget:     Skip:      Mat:

A very pleasant trip. We departed our meeting place at 2:15pm Saturday, and headed straight to Dwellingup, via Mandurah. We arrived at Dwellingup about 4:00pm, and proceeded directly to Nanga hill. Wow, what an awesome hill: very steep in places, up to an estimated 40 degrees, deep ruts, and very long, at least 200 meters - too long to walk, and too slippery too! Several of us fell over attempting to walk parts of it, with Gadget sending his video camera into the gravel! All 3 cars made it to the half way point, where we got out and investigated the 2nd half which was even worse. Mat and I (Skip) were unsure whether we should attempt it, but as Gadget said he would try, we knew we had no choice! Being on such a steep slope, to get out of the cars, we had to shutdown the engines, and rely on 1st gear low ratio to stop the car from rolling. After having a bit of trouble starting the cars again due to the slope, we were ready. Both 80 series had their oil level lights glowing on the dash as a result of the steep gradiant, but were still showing normal oil pressure on the gauges. So off Gadget went in his Patrol, with rear diff lock engaged and rear stabiliser bar dis-connected. After hesitating (stop / start) in a couple of places, which is possible in an Auto, and lifting his front wheels off the ground in places, he got up. Mat went next in his 80 series, and despite having an Auto locker in the rear, and a torque-proportioning LSD in the front, managed to loos traction and slide sideways into a large rut. However after working it backwards and forwards a couple of times, on a rather bad sideways angle, he managed to get those big 285 All-terrains to bite and off he went. Next came me - oh dear! Nice suspension, in my 80 series, but no diff locks! As soon as I slid into the big rut and got a front wheel off the ground, it just rolled backwards. I had to work it backwards and forwards several times, with increasing ferocity, often lifting the left front wheel up to shoulder height off the ground, and with the vehicle on a bad sideways angle, each time with heaps of wheel spin. Eventually I managed to get passed the rut and as soon as the front left wheel re-connected with the ground, I was off. So all vehicles made Nanga hill, but my vehicle made the hardest work out of it!

After finding a few more hill climbs with we all tackled successfully, we found a nice campsite on a flowing stream and setup camp at around 7:15PM. We had our hot meals and a few beers, then gathered wood for the campfire, and got it going. We sat around listening the the awesome sound coming from Mat's 500watt amp and sub woofers until 1:00am in the morning. This amp is so grunty that it flattened Mat's 2nd battery within only 2 hours, and he had to run his engine to keep periodically topping it up!

Sunday morning we got up around 7:00am and had breakfast. By 8:30 we we seeking hill climbs again. We headed straight to Nanga hill for another shot at it. This time we all got up with no fuss. My trick was to tackle the hard bit with a lot more revs on the dial, which provided enough momentum to keep the car moving when the front wheel went skywards! We then tackled 4 or 5 more really great hills, one of which gave me even more trouble than Nanga, with a steep section having deep ruts that I could not claw my way out of, resulting on my front diff getting hung up every time. Again, I had to keep trying faster and faster, until I managed to bounce out of the rut and claw up the side of them, with the front end straddling the rut, but the back end still dragging in it, resulting in the car going up that section sideways! We went up and down each hill, to experience it from both perspectives! It was around this time, that Gadget discovered that he was leaking engine oil from his fuel pump, and although his front diff was covered in oil, the leak was not serious enough to have impacted on the oil level on his dipstick, so decided to puch on. At around 11:00am, we found a lovely swimming spot on the Murray river, and I went for a swim, whilst the others just splashed some water on themselves to cool off, and clean up. We then headed for home. I arrived home at 1:40pm in the arvo.

Contact Alan (me) for more info. Email Skip.

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