Lorin
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2010
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Thought I'd put up a short selection of some photos and a bit of info from the 10 day Croatia tour we did with World 4x4 in August.
Ridiculously, on inspecting our photos it turns out I never got a decent picture with all the 4x4s
So here is the best one I could find.
The vehicles in order from right to left were:
Ours - Land Cruiser 80 series
Land Rover 110 Tdi
HJ61 Turbo
Land Rover 90 Tdi
HJ60 Turbo
Jeep 6.1 litre V8
Most of the driving was on gravel tracks (unmade-up roads) though they varied from smooth to pretty rough with spectacular views through the mountains.
We also got to play with some very steep muddy and slippery tracks that required winching to complete
Overall the trip was fantastic. It was a good combination of easy offroad with a few more difficult sections thrown in and a couple of pretty extreme sections.
All the vehicles made it though there were a few issues and not with what you might expect...... Other than the 110 suffering with a flat battery on two occasions both LRs had NO issues
In contrast all the LCs did
Although to be fair the 61 only suffered a broken PTO UJ thereby crippling his winch half way up a steep climb. The 60 destroyed its rear diff (possibly something to do with being on 37s) but the guys simply stripped it, cleaned out all the broken bits - and there were a lot - and put it back together with various improvised solutions. It then carried on without a hitch, just making a fair few clicking noises 
We on the other hand a few slight issues
First we discovered that the captive nut which the bolt connecting the front panhard rod screws into on the axle had obviously broken off. The bolt was loose but there was no way of tightening it and it had rounded out the hole it goes through meaning the panhard rod had a fair bit of movement where there should have been none. One of the inaccessible captive nuts holding the rear anti-roll bar in place had also been affected by the same meaning the bolt couldn't be tightened and the bar rattled 
The front diff pinion decided to throw lots of oil out and make a huge mess everytime we drove anywhere. We developed a diesel leak from the pump on the second day that continued despite numerous attempts to both fix and bodge it. We lost all oil pressure on day 7 whilst driving up a hill in 4th gear at about 50mph - thereafter the oil pressure gauge seemed to be all over the place. And finally we had some of our newly installed electrics go up in smoke, luckily causing no real damage but a very rapid exit from the vehicle and feeling of panic
Despite our issues the truck carried on regardless and more than held its own against the others. According to our guide, we acheived the highest ever climb on one of the extreme sections (fully locked
) beating all the others - although the jeep had departed by then.
We then carried on after the tour spending a week in Slovenia and generally touring around.
We did a total of 4132 miles.
Used 920.07 litres or 202.66 gallons of diesel
Average mpg was 20.4, best was 22.3 (driving on gravel tracks at 30-40 mph), worst was 18.6 (70 mph on the motorway). At 60-65mph on the motorway we averaged 20-21 mpg. No idea how the fuel leak affected things as it was there for both the best and the worst.
Ridiculously, on inspecting our photos it turns out I never got a decent picture with all the 4x4s
So here is the best one I could find.The vehicles in order from right to left were:
Ours - Land Cruiser 80 series
Land Rover 110 Tdi
HJ61 Turbo
Land Rover 90 Tdi
HJ60 Turbo
Jeep 6.1 litre V8
Most of the driving was on gravel tracks (unmade-up roads) though they varied from smooth to pretty rough with spectacular views through the mountains.
We also got to play with some very steep muddy and slippery tracks that required winching to complete
Overall the trip was fantastic. It was a good combination of easy offroad with a few more difficult sections thrown in and a couple of pretty extreme sections.
All the vehicles made it though there were a few issues and not with what you might expect...... Other than the 110 suffering with a flat battery on two occasions both LRs had NO issues
In contrast all the LCs did
Although to be fair the 61 only suffered a broken PTO UJ thereby crippling his winch half way up a steep climb. The 60 destroyed its rear diff (possibly something to do with being on 37s) but the guys simply stripped it, cleaned out all the broken bits - and there were a lot - and put it back together with various improvised solutions. It then carried on without a hitch, just making a fair few clicking noises We on the other hand a few slight issues
First we discovered that the captive nut which the bolt connecting the front panhard rod screws into on the axle had obviously broken off. The bolt was loose but there was no way of tightening it and it had rounded out the hole it goes through meaning the panhard rod had a fair bit of movement where there should have been none. One of the inaccessible captive nuts holding the rear anti-roll bar in place had also been affected by the same meaning the bolt couldn't be tightened and the bar rattled The front diff pinion decided to throw lots of oil out and make a huge mess everytime we drove anywhere. We developed a diesel leak from the pump on the second day that continued despite numerous attempts to both fix and bodge it. We lost all oil pressure on day 7 whilst driving up a hill in 4th gear at about 50mph - thereafter the oil pressure gauge seemed to be all over the place. And finally we had some of our newly installed electrics go up in smoke, luckily causing no real damage but a very rapid exit from the vehicle and feeling of panic Despite our issues the truck carried on regardless and more than held its own against the others. According to our guide, we acheived the highest ever climb on one of the extreme sections (fully locked
) beating all the others - although the jeep had departed by then.We then carried on after the tour spending a week in Slovenia and generally touring around.
We did a total of 4132 miles.
Used 920.07 litres or 202.66 gallons of diesel
Average mpg was 20.4, best was 22.3 (driving on gravel tracks at 30-40 mph), worst was 18.6 (70 mph on the motorway). At 60-65mph on the motorway we averaged 20-21 mpg. No idea how the fuel leak affected things as it was there for both the best and the worst.
, as Lorin said it's mostly unmade roads/tracks, a bit like green laning with a few more severe sections. There is one bit that Robb Pritchard calls the waterfall, it's more of a water course where loggers have dragged trees down and then water has cut it deeper, dry most of the time, but in winter I imagine it's a raging torrent, this years trip did it up the waterfall, which is probably impossible without winching, parts of it are about a 45 degree incline and I couldn't risk it as my alternator was playing silly buggers and not charging the batteries fully and getting stuck halfway up with a flat battery was not an option as there is no way of backing down or turning round, I was a bit pi**ed off as I could have gone down it, but I have done it before. 
