Hi mate,just found your clip brilliant. You make sense. Im so tired of the wankers who flood utube.over this lovely trip. Did your trip a few months ago,your spot on. And what is wrong with smelling instead of carrying heaps of kilos of water. Well done Grant
Great video! Good solid advice. I've actually rewatched it several times lately, it's that good. One question: Why are the wipes called "chucks" or "chunks" (my cloth ears can't quite make out which)?
Thanks, I am looking at a solo maybe in my MY18 Dmax 2024 September, maybe with my wife. We sleep in our canopy too. Dmax Space cab chassis and canvas walled alloy roof canopy on alloy tray. Got all the gear and coms covered. Looks very doable. 2 inch lift with GVM upgrade, Toyo AT tyres.
Just found this upload. Great info. I was surprised at how much fuel you didn’t use. Nice tip with the oiled chux - might give it a go. How many days did the crossing take you ? Cheers...
probably the best advice is ..........drive carefully. I hear stories all the time of people driving fast in the outback to Birdsville and Cape York over rough stuff only to completely tear a front wheel off. No matter what brand of vehicle you have, its a machine and if you thrash it, it WILL break. I even had a friend ( city dweller with little experience with machines) that was in a 4WD club and completely destroyed not one, but two front differentials in his landcruiser from 'spin out' abuse in mud........the pinion literally stripped the teeth off the crownwheel like they were tupperware.
Yes - drive slowly and safely - breakages are then extremely rare (which is very important like somewhere such as the Simpson Desert when you are by yourself)!
Great overview mate. We literally had a trip planning session yesterday and you covered everything we spoke about. Nice to know we are on point with your experiences.
Thanks for the information. Very helpful. Securing gear in the back of the canopy can be a challenge. The bed in the canopy would reduce your settup time. I've got a dual cab also but I would need to change my settup alot to have a permanent bed and I'd be too cramped. I'll stick with my swag until I buy a space or single cab. Thanks again and I really enjoyed that.
Great info, I am planning a trip for July in a 2020 DMax and am impressed by you only using 72lt, I was planning on taking 3jerrycans of diesel, now maybe only need 1-2. Thanks for the tip on securing everything in the tub, I didn’t think too much about that one
Remember I travel light...do not run out of fuel! Towards the Birdsville end, the dunes get much higher and you need a lot of momentum...and everything tied down in the back! Fless
Did a trip and used a great big esky fir my foods.. Even put tins of food in there although I didnt need to it was a good use of space.. When the ice melted and all the stuff in there smashed against eachother for a a few dozen sand dunes I had about 8 litres of soup you would not recognize.. also had a 10 litre plastic jerry for diesal which disappeared I could smell diesal through everything but it was all smashed to a pulp no sign of the jerry anywhere.. Secure it well!!
Very informative thanks. I know 4 Freelander 2's and at least 10 auto Subaru Foresters that have done Simpson Crossings. They all don't have low range but all are great in sand and all the drivers were very experienced. Personally I reckon the toughest part of the trip is out around Dalhousie, Pedirka, Mt Dare etc. The roads are brutal.
Yep - around Dalhousie is just awful! I have no doubt you could do it without low range - but you'd need be be travelling very 'light' and have large tyres with very low pressures. Low range makes it easier to ensure your engine is always revving at around the optimal spot on your torque band.
Thanks for sharing this, great video mate detailed for someone wanting to give it a shot. We're out to prove you wrong at point 1:25 about all wheel drive vehicles definitely not been able to do this! Next year we will be out there with 2 of our raised AWD's we feature on our channel plus 2 Toyota 4WD's to see how they go. We plan to document and film the 3 week trip, hopefully you are wrong! Subscribed!
Great advice. I did a solo crossing in 2019 via the Madigan Line. In my opinion the most common mistakes are travelling too fast and overloading. When you drive quickly the margin for error decreases and force of impact increases. I strongly suggest taking 2 spare tires. I only took one and it made for a very nervous trip after I got a flat. Make sure you have contingency plans for all kinds of problems. What are you going to do if you car breaks down, you get a hole in your fuel or water tank, you lose your car key, your fridge stops working, your car catches on fire, you roll your vehicle, you get bogged or you get sick? Also make sure everything is tied down. I ended up with a bag of charcoal bouncing into my fridge and food box and mashing everything for a few hundred km. The result was not pretty!
Very good points you've raised. Like any worthwhile adventure, there's always an element of risk of something going wrong. If you are a 'risk averse' type of person, a solo crossing of the Simpson Desert is not for you!
Thank you me & my son of 22 years are looking at doing this next year in a old troopy that I'm currently getting back on the road, mind you I still like to do it on a bike.👍
Any oil will do - engine oil is fine. Even cooking oil is ok - but you can't wash it out in petrol. You just need enough to lightly soak the chux with no dry spots - juat squish it around in you hand. It's surprising how well it collects dust, acting as a pre-air filter.
Excellent information, thank you. we are planning our trip across the Simpson for 2020. I also have a Dmax, how did you go with DPF regeneration with the slow travel speeds?
No probs with DPF. Don't worry, you'll be driving at least 6 hours a day - engine will get plenty hot enough for DPF burns. Good luck - let down your tyres to 15psi max! Fless
when you are driving on dirt and especially soft sand the engine works much harder despite the low speeds..........plenty hot enough for the dpf. Just ordinary gravel roads will eat up 20% more fuel from the extra resistance and put more heat into the drive train.
