Nissan Patrol 4x4 (Africa)

The engineering leadership team at Bell Equipment recently held a bit of a team building exercise in the form of driving a trail in the vicinity of Empangeni with Righardt Welgemoed of the local LA Sport franchise as the tour guide. The route held plenty of challenges, but all had detours for those not inclined to try them (very few tried all). Imvubu obviously went everywhere and made it look easy .

The vehicles that went were:

* Righard's heavily modified Jeep Rubicon (with between R200k and R300k worth of LA Sport toys)
* New (150 Series) Prado V6
* Somewhat modified Fortuner
* Standard Triton 2.5 DiD
* Standard Hilux 3.0 D4D
* Imvubu, the Patrol (obviously the class act there )

Here are a couple of snaps of Imvubu on the trail, because I know you guys won't want to see Prados, Vrot-tunas, Lo-Luxes, etc.










Putting Peter Connan's skid plate to the test. Actually it just barely touched.








Black, sticky mud is no match for the MTs and a little horsepower.

Dit lyk baie goed en is bly jy het dit geniet!!

Very cool !!!

Hi Gerrit

A few questions:
What was thre gradient on that rock?
Was there anyone there that had done Koos se klim to compare?
How did the other cars perform? In particular the Rubicon

Lyk baie lekker.

Graet pics. Looks like you guys had fun. That is what itis about.

Nice Gerrit jy moet ons een naweek bietjie soontoe vat, ek sien uit na die Eshowe 4x4 trip die 15de September

Alex that Rubicon is highly modified, me thinks it has a 4" lift and at least 35" tyres on, but Gerrit would probably know a bit more about it.

Shalom

Alex Roux wrote:What was thre gradient on that rock?

I actually have no idea, but I would guess 40° or so. It looks like it would be really tricky to climb, but the traction is quite good and so you just need the right tyre pressure and good approach/departure angles to get up there.

Alex Roux wrote:Was there anyone there that had done Koos se klim to compare?

Unfortunately not. Us guys from down here don't often venture behind the Boerewoes Curtain .

Alex Roux wrote:How did the other cars perform? In particular the Rubicon

The Rubicon is very impressive, even in standard showroom condition (with serious crawler gears, front and rear diff locks and anti-roll bar disconnects), and this one has been significantly modified, so it is amazing.

Although I think that the modified Rubicon would ultimately be able to go where I can not in the Patrol, the Patrol followed it everywhere on this trail (and my entire car cost a fraction of what the mods alone on the Rubicon cost). The two standard bakkies did not have a hope of going where I went, due to approach and break over angles as well as their lack of ability to keep their wheels on terra firma. The new Prado has quite impressive ability to flex, for an independent front suspension vehicle (thanks to the Kinetic Dynamic Suspension System) and has a very well sorted traction control system, but was ultimately let down by the road biased tyres, low hanging Tupperware and lack of an axle diff lock . The Vrot-Tuna eventually went everywhere I went, but needed to be towed through some obstacles and needed many attempts at others. I was quite surprised at how easily my Patrol managed to go everywhere,given that the only relevant mods are a 50mm suspension lift and BFG MT KM2 tyres.

Jules wrote:Nice Gerrit jy moet ons een naweek bietjie soontoe vat

Jules, ek weet nie of ek die plek weer sal kry nie, maar miskien moet ons vir Righardt vra om 'n paar Patrols op die roete uit te neem?

Jules wrote:Alex that Rubicon is highly modified, me thinks it has a 4" lift and at least 35" tyres on, but Gerrit would probably know a bit more about it.

I don't know all the details, but it has the following:
37" BFG Mud Terrain KM2 tyres
Body lift of probably 3"
Pretty serious suspension lift (3" to 4"?)
Long front suspension arms
Replacement front bumper/bullbar
Replacement rear bumper/spare wheel carrier
Re-geared differentials to compensate for gearing change due to large tyres

Jules wrote:ek sien uit na die Eshowe 4x4 trip die 15de September

Ek ook Jules . Watter Patrolliemanne gaan saam (behalwe jy en ek)?

Pragtige fotos Gerrit!!