Picadilly Wood 16Oct10

[Tommo&Claire]

So last Saturday Ian, Paul, Greg, Paddy and myself had a play in Picadilly Wood near Brighton (thanks Greg for organising ) Here are a few pics to show what we got up to.

So here we are Rogues Gallery:

Now at this point I'd like to point out that my mate Paddy has been afraid to take his offroad since Ian and myself (mainly Ian!) rescued him from Water Lane on a rainy dark sunday night a few months ago. But he plucked up the courage and followed us into the wood and......

was promptly stuck up to his belly within about 5 minutes!

He was duly recovered by Paul whose winch failed on him at a rather inconvenient time, so out came the kinetic strap, which was sparkly and clean and Paul insisted it was returned to him in the same condition!

Then we went for a drive around and learned how to use a highlift jack as a hand winch when i got myself into an unfortunate position with a tree and some veeeerrry slippy mud...

Watch that tree stump in the bottom right, i'll make your eyes water if your step hit's it!

Learned a little about winching when i badly misjudged the depth of a gully and got firmly hung up on my towbar! So we strapped Greg's to a tree (yes i was that stuck!) and i completed my first winching exercise

Now there was one 'minor' incident (not sure how minor Ian thought it was) but predictably egged on by the rest of us, we convinced Ian to attempt a pretty hard ascent in what is basically a hole in the forest floor. I say hole but it was big enough to swallow an 80! It is steep sided, full of water and the ascent to get out at the end is probably 60 degrees minimum.

Not a great pic, but the other side of where Greg is standing is a sheer drop into the water and as you can see it is not particularly wide.

Ian enters the obstacle as he would put it 'as though he was going to drive out', unfortunately below the surface there is a large bump which, when you hit it at speed, bounces you quite hard into the right hand side of the gully.

Although the sight and noise (other than the crunch) was impressive this was the damage... observe drivers side headlight/ wing/bumper...

and on the other side more damage to Ian's otherwise pristine bodywork ...

He bore up manfully, i would have cried like a little girl!

Then commenced an interesting exercise in trying to straighten the bullbar with a winch...

Learned loads and had a great time, would recommend a Picadilly Wood trip to anyone who wants to learn/hone their off road driving skills, get thoroughly muddy and have to recover yourself frequently from some treacherous mud!

Thanks to Paul for the pics thanks to Greg for booking the wood and I hope the repairs are progressing well Ian!

Thats's all folks.

Transmission ends........

 

[Chas]

Well, . . . that looked like a 'fun' day, Ian, I bet you cried when you got home I think I would have.
Chas

 

[Lorin]

Looks like a really good day out. Cheers for the pics.

I keep promising Greg I'll have a go there. Reckon I'm right to wait until I've got a winch fitted

 

[Andrew Prince]

Nice report - looks fun! Bummer for Ian though - some fairly hefty damage there, especially to the bullbar.

Nice to play but serious recovery equipment looks essential

 

[Tommo&Claire]

It raised an interesting discussion at the time about the strength of bullbars.

Now i wont deny Ian's 80 did get bounced into the bank propelled by three tonnes of momentum. But.... the blow really did look glancing, and all of us standing on the outside watching (Ian may disagree here) thought that the bar folded really easily where we thought it should have held and protected the vehicle against such an impact....

Disclaimer: I'm no structural engineer and am prepared to wind my neck in on that one.

 

[TonyP]

Looked like a good day out! Sorry about the damage to your LC Ian

 

[Andrew Prince]

But.... the blow really did look glancing, and all of us standing on the outside watching (Ian may disagree here) thought that the bar folded really easily where we thought it should have held and protected the vehicle against such an impact....

Ahem... if that was the first impact the bullbar had taken there, then perhaps things might have been a little different I think Ian has used the winch trick to "unbend" the bullbar there before And its previous owner may have "softened" it up once or twice too. Perhaps metal fatigue allowed it to bend rather easily?

Still a real pity to have sustained the damage!

 

[Paul]

Well i guess it really settles the argument about how to remove the side indicator

 

[Chas]

[quote="Tommo&Claire":1dzghtbo]But.... the blow really did look glancing, and all of us standing on the outside watching (Ian may disagree here) thought that the bar folded really easily where we thought it should have held and protected the vehicle against such an impact....

Ahem... if that was the first impact the bullbar had taken there, then perhaps things might have been a little different I think Ian has used the winch trick to "unbend" the bullbar there before And its previous owner may have "softened" it up once or twice too. Perhaps metal fatigue allowed it to bend rather easily?
Still a real pity to have sustained the damage![/quote:1dzghtbo]
I have the same winchbumper as Ian and mine stood up amazingly to an impact with a concrete wall , but it was new at the time.
Chas

 

[Tommo&Claire]

[quote="Tommo&Claire":2thp29ie]But.... the blow really did look glancing, and all of us standing on the outside watching (Ian may disagree here) thought that the bar folded really easily where we thought it should have held and protected the vehicle against such an impact....

Ahem... if that was the first impact the bullbar had taken there, then perhaps things might have been a little different I think Ian has used the winch trick to "unbend" the bullbar there before And its previous owner may have "softened" it up once or twice too. Perhaps metal fatigue allowed it to bend rather easily?
Still a real pity to have sustained the damage!

I have the same winchbumper as Ian and mine stood up amazingly to an impact with a concrete wall , but it was new at the time.
Chas[/quote:2thp29ie]


You're probably right, but if you look here at 35 seconds in:
[youtube:2thp29ie]stJL4_gP5LU[/youtube:2thp29ie]

From where i was standing (i know, i know, completely subjective) i wouldn't assess it got hit as hard as this....

C'est la vie, just an observation

 

[Paul]

And i have the same one too........

There does seem to be quite a difference between the Oz spec T15 and the one imported here but one thing to remember is that how strong does a bar need to be? Looking at TJM products there does seem to be a "super duty T15" available.
I have the extra bracket in mine to reinforce the winch mounting point as this i think is quite important, but if your bar is so strong to withstand animal and accident damage where does it give......the chassis?
Having said that..... i witnessed the damage to Ian's truck (i took the picture ) and i would have liked to think that it was a bit stronger than that.
I saw the comment about Ian's being second hand, but a similar damage was done on Gregs when it struck a tree.

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

From what I can remember the wings on the T15 could stand some boxing in but it took some pretty hard strikes while I had it and survived It's also probably not the first time Ian has 'tested' it so maybe there was just a lot more energy in the impact than it looked like. That one was about 10 years old BTW so any recent thining of materials wouldn't apply. If that were mine still I'd cut the wings off and make some tube ones off the T15 centre

EDIT: It *was* a bit bent already on that side (tree stump)

 

[chriscolleman]

Slippery forest and lumberjacking tracks are just about the meanest and hardest you can come across.

I once took out a passenger window, passenger door, front passenger wing, rear window on a short 70 series. It slowly slipped into a rut and against a tree whilst side hilling.
A stiff upper lip and several weeks later I knew a whole lot more about bodywork

Check out one of those forest tractors, it has got more armor on it than a tank

 

[Ian Rubie]

Well after much pounding with a big hammer the wing and front panel are near enough the right shape for the new lights to go in.

While I have certainly nudged a few trees with the bar I have not had to bend that side back onto shape before, the other side yes but not that side

Like those on the outside the crash did not appear that hard from the inside. I have certainly hit the ARB (while it was on the green car) harder and sustained less damage. I blame Jon for weakening it!! I would like to blame Toby but can not think how to just yet.

If that were mine still I'd cut the wings off and make some tube ones off the T15 centre

I might have to book it in to Wildsmith Engineering Ltd!!

Ian

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

It survived writing off 2 cars in road accidents and lots of off road bumps including the tree stump that nearly had me doing a Chas impression (except I had my belt on ) so I don't think they're a weak bumper, just not as strong as some people would like For unbent ones, best bet would be to run some plate or straps spanning the top and bottom edges to box the wing in and stop it folding up like it has done there. The ARB has a stronger shape there but at the cost of poorer clearance IMO. The ORA and Frogs bumpers look pretty sturdy in the wings as well.

Good job we have distance to moderate how much time your car spends on my drive Ian or it might seem like I still had a green car Has it just bent the side of the bumper or have the mounting brackets and central section been bent at all?

 

[Toby]

I would like to blame Toby but can not think how to just yet.

Ian, had I been there, there was a time you'd have made me go through first.Those days are long gone

I wonder what your bumper would look like if you'd run Stacey over with it? Might have cushioned the blow a bit by the looks of it...

All the best,
Toby

 

[Ian Rubie]

Brilliant, I can blame both you and Stacey! You for not being there and going first and Stacey for not laying across the bumper to cushion it from impacts

Ian

 

[Ian Rubie]

Good job we have distance to moderate how much time your car spends on my drive Ian or it might seem like I still had a green car

And a red one!

Has it just bent the side of the bumper or have the mounting brackets and central section been bent at all?

I have not looked that closely but think the centre section is OK. I will have a closer look when it stops raining.

Ian

 

[Gary Stockton]

oh - in August then, I suppose??