Friday 8th of january me ad my friends went on a trip..
The first group, my Explússó, Suzuki Fox 38" with toyota pickup diesel drivetrain, 44" disel hilux doublextracab, two 38" hilux og patról y60 á 38"
The biggest difference between traveling in a 3 door suzuki, or my Explusso is that I can bring the grill now!
Later in the evening some of our friends arrived...
Á laugardeginum lékum við okkur eitthvað, ókum inn að dómadalshálsi og einn okkar spilaði sig upp með snjóankeri, svona til að liðka græjurnar og sína mátt sinn, og gera eitthvað úr þessari malbiks ferð
On saturday we woke early and went back to greet the rest of our friends who were coming to meet us, traveling through the "VALLEY OF DOOM" as the Top Gear USA presenters call our "Dómadalur" valley, you can probably find this episode, i think it's called VIKING OFFROADING or something, season 3 episode 16
http://www.streetfire.net/video/top-gear-america-03x16-viking-trucks-ptbrtgbr_part-1_2423803.htm
Thats where we met 15 other of our friends in the Valley of DOOM
Most of the cars in one photo, not all of them...
The largest tyres, and then the smallest, and the funny thing is that the average driving speed was not much different between us two...!
Parking spaces almost running out... it's like a tourist week in july summer
Later on saturday, the weather was still and -12 degrees
sunday morning was extremely cold, -19 degrees, the coolant in my Explusso was slushy like, and the heater pipes completely frozen, the car had been warm for about an hour before the clog in the heater pipes melted hehe
Some cars had frozen brakes, because there is a river crossing just 3 minutes from camp...
My father and I...
It was at this hour where I was thinking, god this trip is going to be flawless, for the first time in many many years nothing will break down.... and thats EXACTLY when it happened!
Earlier in the day, a shock absorber had broken loose from its mount, this resulted that in a harmless (jump) later that day the spring jumped from its seating, there are no bump stops in the front suspension yet... so the car plowed down and the panhard bar broke off a fitting from the auxilary steering jack... no big deal really, could be worse, I blinded the lines and we were back on the road in 15 minutes...
Later I found the shock absorber was blown, and had filled with water, which then had froze solid, this is what broke it loose, the 46" tyres at 1.5 psi give great suspension, so I never felt this....
On our drive home the sunset was mind boggling... you really had to pay attention to the road but this sight was so amazing that you just wanted to stop and stare
The red line is friday, the dotted line is saturday, and the yellow line is sunday
Back home in my warm workshop
During this trip my car spent 85 litres of fuel, thats the same as the smaller 38" diesel cars were spending... this same trip last year I spent 240 litres of gasoline... so this is a successful fuel efficiency engine swap!
The best of all, performance is almost the same, the 4.0 was quicker from a stop, but the torque is what matters in snow, and it's very close to equal, however the diesel pulls better at lower rpms, so the clutch doesnt have to sweat!
85 litres equal 22.5 us gallons
240 litres equal 63.5 us gallons
