g'day legends I'm Brenno and I'm back again with another tips and techniques video to get you
camping and for driving better than ever before in a previous life I was the editor of 4WD Action
magazine and what that means is that I've been lucky enough to camp and full drive my way around
every single part of Australia and I want to share with you the secrets and tricks that I've learned
along the way that will make your next off-road adventure the best one ever so this time around
it is a beautiful sunny day and we're here on the beach to do a bit of sand driving I'm gonna
let you in on the secrets to avoid getting bogged when you hit the beach and make sure
that your next feature venture is hassle-free and stress-free I reckon there is not much better than
4WDriving on a sunny day on a beautiful beach and I really want to make sure that you all enjoy it
too so in this video we'll first start off talking about the techniques and the theory behind beach
driving then we'll hit the sand and we'll put it into practice I'll show you some cracking tips
to make sure you don't get bogged but if you do don't sweat it because I'll show you how to get
out whether you're by yourself or with a mate this right here is your glovebox guide to beach driving
now before we hit the beach let's talk and gear for a minute and don't sweat if all of
this stuff looks expensive because the reality is the entire cost of all this stuff is about
the same price as one night at a dodgy motel up the road not a whole lot so what do you need to
go Beach 4 wheel driving first up quickie tyre deflator so cracking better gear cost about the
same as a 6-pack let you drop your tyres really quickly and really accurately and it is vital for
making sure you don't get bogged out on the dunes now if you don't carry anything else in the back
of your 4 wheel drive when you go beach driving promise me you'll carry this the humble snatch
strap this one here is an eight ton Hercules snap strap and I've got a couple of rated bow shackles
too even if you go full driving by yourself if you do get bogged someone's probably going to
come along eventually and if you've got your own recovery gear you'll have a way of getting
out and it's always good practice to use your own recovery gear too next worth its absolute
weight in gold out in the beach the mighty long handled shovel now going to show you a couple of
tricks of how to use this really effectively very soon and finally at the end of the day you've got
to pump your tyres back up before you hit the blacktop and for that a 12 volt air compressor
now this right here is the thumper max mark - two dead set speed demon I absolutely love mine
alright so the number one rule to prevent getting stuck when you're out on the sand
is to lower your tire pressures now just use more quickie tie deflator to drop these tires down to
16 psi that's where you want to be when you're out on the beach you want to know more about
tire pressures and the effect that they have on 4 wheel drive performance click that link
in the top right corner where I go into tyre pressures in detail now the other thing to be
aware of is tide times now there are four tides every single 24-hour period to low to high what
you want to aim to do is hit the beach about two hours before dead low tide that way the waters
on the run out you've got as much wide firm hard sand as possible and you've got around
about a four-hour period until that sand starts disappearing and the water keeps coming back up
again driving on low hard packs and at low tide is way easier than high tides super soft sand righto
so one more thing just before we hit the beach let's talk gear selection now if you're in a
four wheel drive that has selectable two wheel drive high range and low range what you want
to be is in four-wheel drive high range that gives you the best combination between wheel
speed and keeping the revs as low as possible you're in a full time full driver or SUV high
range again but if you have us in a diff lock hit that button it'll lock the front and rear
axles together you can do low range if you need to if you're really struggling that high range
is ideal and of course if you've got manual locking hubs and don't forget to lock them in
now how good is this I dead set love beach four-wheel driving a massive part of when
you're out on the beach here is mechanical sympathy it's about making sure that you
look after your vehicle so you don't cook it on any day but especially on hot days and it's
all about finding that sweet spot that balance between getting a forward drive to go where you
want it to go and not pushing it too hard now a big trick to sand driving is about getting your
vehicle to move as efficiently as possible whilst using as little throttle input as possible watch
what happens when I put my foot to the floor when I take off all that does is walk down
that's just we will spinning that's not what you want now I'll come to a stop watch what happens
when I gently ease onto the throttle that is so much easier that is night and day so busy
beaches do get chopped up and deep ruts like this on busy beaches make four wheel driving
really tricky now the trick here is to find a well-defined set of ruts and stay in them
because the sands already compacted compressed within the ruts much easier if you're fully dry
to follow those tracks a lot of the time you probably won't have much choice anyway your
wheels are going to want a tram track you're gonna stay in the ruts you know we've talked
about how to get going and how to keep going when you're four-wheel driving now let's talk
about how to stop like your steering and your throttle inputs your braking in which should
be gentle and gradual instead of jumping on the brakes and screeching to a stop when you want to
pull up just slip the gearbox in the neutral and let the sand do the work just watch the
difference that rolling gently to a stop makes as opposed to jumping on the brakes and skidding
to a stop and that just makes it so much easier to take off again when you're ready to get going
so the hardpacked sand that's down near the water line is definitely easier to drive on
than the soft stuff up the beach a little bit but if you find yourself bogging down
a little bit that's because deceptively dry sin can actually hide water underneath it if
that happens and you're look in your mirrors and you see water in those wheel ruts behind
you don't panic just gently turn away from the water just get yourself up onto the drier sand
want to have a crack at a bit of dune driving away from the beachfront the number-one rule here is to
only ever drive straight up or down the dune never on a cross angle that risks rolling the vehicle
over you can safely drive down an almost sheer dune by keeping the nose pointed straight down
and using only the slightest bit of throttle to keep you just ahead of the sand that you're
bringing down with you remember that golden rule straight up straight down never sideways
OK so something that's not only common courtesy but actually an Australian Road rule is to make
sure you're past on the left so if you see an oncoming car just flick your blinker on
the left so that he knows your passing and left "thanks champ" and that you know that
he's passing left and if he's coming towards you and he puts his blinker on first just
give him a quick left hand blinker as a bit of acknowledgement and because Road rules apply all
beaches do have speed limits whether it's sign posted or not take it easy always slow right
down around people and leave those coldies in the fridge until you get back to camp
all right so what happens when it all goes wrong and you get stuck look don't
sweat it because everyone gets bogged on the beach at some time but there's
a massive difference between being stuck just a little bit and being bogged to your
chassis rails for hours and the difference is making sure that when you do lose a bit
of momentum the first thing you do is hop out and have a look at what's going on
now that is pretty stuck but crazily enough that's actually not too bogged there's a big difference
between stopping when you first lose momentum or keeping going keeping those wheels spinning
and just turning your day so much worse now if you have a bit of a look it's pretty obvious to
see why we're stuck here you just got a build up of sand underneath the suspension under the
tyres under around the tires so the first thing I'm gonna do here before I do anything else is
get the shovel out so what we're gonna do here with the long handled shovel is just get into
the digging now what you want to do is create a bit of a ramp just in front and behind each
of the tires clear away a bunch of sand and that way the tires not trying to climb up a little hill
it's got a gentle slope for it to drive forwards or reverse backwards now with those little ramps
dug in front and behind all four tires what I'm going to do is start the vehicle and gently do
it back forwards back forwards rocking motion see if I can walk myself out of where I'm stuck
well that definitely didn't work look sometimes it doesn't matter how much you dig you need a
snatch recovery or you're not going anywhere especially if you're like where I am right now
and you're bogged to your chasis rails luckily I've got a mate that I prepared earlier "hey
Mitcho come give us a hand champ" and we're going to show you how to do an effective snatch
recovery on the beach now situations like this where you seriously bogged on the beach that's
where the mighty Hercules snaps trap comes into play think of this like a giant rubber band under
tension where the recovering vehicle drives away this thing actually stretches up to 20% when it
reaches its limit of stretch it recoils and then you get the power of not only the towing vehicle
towing you but the strap recoiling to spring you free let me show you the right and the
wrong ways to use this firstly when you attach a snap trap to your vehicle make sure you only
ever do it via proper heavy-duty rated recovery points now these are almost always bolted to the
chassis rail not tack welders like those little eyelets that they use for tying vehicles downwind
they're shipping them okay so please promise me there's one thing that you will never do when
you're out on the beach and you're for driving don't ever drop the end of a snap strap over a
tow ball tow balls are not designed to withstand the kind of shear forces that snatch recoveries
generate they have been known to snap and when they snap the snap trap is after such insane
tension that couple of kilos of metal ball gets flung at a million miles an hour and go through
a windscreen go through a back window people sadly have been killed this way it's incredibly tragic
I'm attaching my snap strap to the tow bar the right way with my adventure Kings hitch receiver
this ultra strong bit of gear simply attaches with the hitch pin and has a rated bow shackle
to turn your tow bar into a proper recovery point but in a pinch you can remove the tow
ball completely slide the snap strap into the tow bar and secure it with a pin that's still
safer than putting the snap strap over the toe ball and if you've got one handy a winch
dampener or even an old jumper is a vital bit of safety gear drop it over about the
middle of this snap strap so something does break it'll arrest whatever's flying through the air
OK first let's show you the wrong way to do it notice how Mitch has driven to the end of
the strap so the tensions already been taken up this means there's no elasticity available and
the snap straps acting like a tow strap with no extra advantage when trying to recover the
bog vehicle now let's show you the right way to do it Mitch is backing up so he's about half a
car length away from me as he takes off you'll give it just a little bit when all the straps
tension is taken up and it's as stretch as far as it can it will recoil and add extra energy
to pull me free and one last final thing as the tow your vehicle takes off the bog vehicle should
feed gentle acceleration on at the same time and look at that we're free that is one successful
snatch recovery and one last piece of advice don't sweat it if you haven't got the biggest
baddest for drive out there because when you're on the beach stock standard vehicles can actually
perform just as well as highly modified ones just keep your tyre deflater, your air compressor,
your snap strapping shackles and of course your long handled shovel with you and you'll have a
blast legends for more tips tricks and techniques to become four wheel Drive guru make sure you hit
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