Adventure Touring Outback Australia

[Jerry_Atrick]

This chap has whetted my appetite for another type of adventure. I normally wouldn't think about a trail-ish bike, but may have to rethink. Great photography.. There are so far 7 in the series.

 

Edited October 16, 2022 by Jerry_Atrick

[spacesailor]

I found that a used 4X4 , with a small group , was far better than a two wheel bike with only one drive wheel .

In the mud !.LoL

Serously, I looked at The group outings like TAA . BUT for two people doing three trips !!!.

You could buy a NEW 4X4 .

Just remember  that Outback Australia will Not treat the ' loaded with electronics ' truck any better than the basic ute type truck.

Go See all the sites here !, before the developers box them up , just to charge an entry fee .

spacesailor

[onetrack]

Bikes are O.K. until you come off them at speed, or hit an animal. I've got a little Honda CM250C (mini-Harley), and I hit a 'roo at about 80kmh! Sent the 'roo sprawling, but I managed to stay upright. I still ended up with a buckled front wheel.

[Yenn]

Bikes are no good in mud, my experience is that the mudguards get clogged up and steering becomes impossible because the wheel is dragging.

The best for outback is an old style 4WD, with not wide tyres and no fancy electronics.

[onetrack]

I can remember when enthusiasts organised dune races in the Lancelin (W.A.) sand dunes, sometime in the early 1970's. Dune buggies were all the go, and everyone was building their own "dune buggy special" to win the competition.

 

The basis of many of the dune buggies was a cut-down and hotted-up VW. They were pretty good, but there were always those who thought bigger and more powerful was better, even building rear-mount V8 monsters.

I saw one built from an Austin 1800, they reversed the power arrangement, and put the big BMC powertrain in the rear, taking out the steering knuckles and using straight swing axles. It was a real beast, and sounded great, too!

 

But do you know who eventually won the race? It was a couple of young blokes in an old SWB roofless Landrover, fitted with wide tyres, and little else! All the rest of the buggies spun and roared and bogged themselves regularly in the soft, hilly dunes - while the little old Landrover just kept plugging around and around the track, until all the others fell out, fell behind, bogged themselves to the makers name, or broke down!

[facthunter]

The older Landrovers had a lot of diff problems. 4WD electric will be the go. You can't climb certain slope dunes with anything. Nev

[onetrack]

Nev, the earlier Landrovers certainly had weak axles, but the 88" SWB Landrovers were generally trouble-free. It was the LWB 109's that more commonly broke axles.

Landrover didn't do anything about upgrading the axle strength until they brought out the Salisbury diffs in the Series 3's.

[Old Koreelah]

Can’t resist:

 

[facthunter]

You're supposed to stock the Lada not stack it.  Nev

[onetrack]

I haven't seen a Lada Niva for years and years - but I had a quick look on Gumtree and found there's actually a fair few for sale - and some, still even go!

One bloke in the Hills east of Perth actually has 3 for sale! - but they're all in pieces, and only one is classed as, "will run".

They are certainly the ultimate in "enthusiast" purchases - sort of like Austin Champs. But be prepared to invest a lot of time and money into keeping them running!

[facthunter]

LAST time I looked into these the OLDER types were getting very scarce. They are built pretty basic and tough. The radiator looks like one out of a  fork lift IF they work in Siberia , they must be reasonable. Parts seem expensive to me which was a surprise.. Nev

[nomadpete]

The people who drive Lada Niva's seem to love them. I suspect they are great it you can find a Wednesday one - quality control was poor.

 

But (like the Austin Champ) they have independant suspension all round, and constant AWD. Maybe more like a civilised Jeep.

 

I had a Champ. Wish I still did.

[Yenn]

I drove and worked on the Champ back in the fifties. I thought they were just wonderful, suspension was the best available at the time, along with the sister ships, Humber combat and the Saracen, Saladin etc.

Never saw or drove the civilian version with the Austin engine. I don't even know why they have such a bad reputation.

The Humber Combat was the forerunner of the Hilux I reckon, with more power and that lovely suspension. A pity that the Poms never managed to get that sort of vehicle on the market,but produced rubbish instead.

[facthunter]

There was a few things crook about the Austin engines post war. The Ports are siamesed because the push rods are on the same side and there's no room for individual ports so they have exhaust seat erosion. and poor breathing. Also the con rods are too heavy and the bearings load up at higher revs The timing chain tensioner is only an "O" ring. Like most British stuff of the period they are underpowered. The 6 cylinder OHV Humber had head warping problems. Nice car otherwise.  Nev

[nomadpete]

I was told that the Austin Champ had a Rolls engine. It was the most tractible engine I have ever driven. Smooth useful power from 500rpm. But it did top out at 3750rpm. Precisely. That made it excellent for serious 4wd use. And the torsion bar suspension could be manually adjusted up or down (by spanner) without having to go under the vehicle. They had a bad reputation for killing people. The fwd/rev transfer case was in the rear diff. That meant there were 5 reverse gears, and it was said that people met their demise by trying to reach top speed in reverse (64mph, governed). Needess to say, high speed roolovers of a 30cwt open vehicle in reverse were often fatal.

[facthunter]

I understood it had a Rolls engine and recall it had a snorkel and was heavy and a fairly narrow track. i think surplus ones became available here at some stage. Would not have been cheap  to make. Nev

[onetrack]

There was nothing wrong with the RR engine in the Champ, nor in their beaut suspension. But you couldn't keep the complex rear axle/transfer case operating long enough to get a decent amount of use out of them.

Every abandoned Champ has the rear axle/transfer case out it. The main gearbox was a 5 speed with no reverse gear - the driveshaft ran from the main gearbox to the combined rear axle/transfer case, which then sent the power to the front axle via another (unneccessarily long) driveshaft.

 

But that rear axle/transfer case was unduly complicated by having reverse gear engineered into it - an abortion of an idea if there ever was one. And of course, the transfer case/diff/reverse gear assembly was built like a tank - in all the wrong places!

 

There was a dealer bloke here in W.A. named Archie Marshall. He imported Champs by the shipload, the MOD in the U.K. must have been unloading them by the thousands in the late 1960's and early 1970's.

 

Archie made a huge killing out of them, farmers bought them by the dozen for farm utes, and Archie always advertised how you could drive them through water 2 feet over the bonnet and they still wouldn't stop, because every single thing was totally waterproofed, including all the ignition and electricals. But you hardly ever see water that depth here in W.A., so it was a bit of an irrelevant sales spiel.

 

They sold well until all the transfer case/rear axle problems surfaced - and the difficulty of acquiring enough spares - so the sales of the Champs started to taper off. About then, the Japs moved in with Hiluxes and Landcruisers, and it was all over for the Champ.

 

Here's a good writeup on the Champs evolution and manufacture. It's been reported the development costs of the Champ were over £4M - in 1947 pounds! 

 

https://silodrome.com/austin-champ-history/

 

Edited October 22, 2022 by onetrack

[nomadpete]

Yes it is true. I had to rebuild the rear diff. But the machine was an engineering delight. As a bonus the girlfriends of Land Rover owners kept asking to ride with me on weekend trips - even though I didn't have a roof or doors. Nice suspension for 1955. (The car was, too)

 

My guess was that the Champ was specified by a MOD committee.......

 

 

We need a vehicle just like Jeep, that's not American.

 

OK, we can do that in UK.....

 

It must drive better off road than a Jeep.

 

OK.

 

It has to be heavy enough to tow a 25pounder anywhere.

 

OK.

 

An tow it off a landing craft.

 

OK.

 

Into deep water.

 

OK.

 

And be completely waterproof.

 

OK.

 

And have none of those complicated High range Low range gearboxes that just confuse the grunts.

 

OK

 

Oh, and RAF want it to be able to jump start a 24 volt Spitfire using built in jumper leads .

 

OK. Anything else?

 

Yeah, we'd like it to be a Rolls Royce 4WD.

 

Any wonder they were expensive?

 

 

 

Edited October 22, 2022 by nomadpete

[facthunter]

Look at the US Jeep. A willy's 1936 sidevalve car engine and live axles everywhere. Breaks your back over rough ground. Also built under licence by Ford Cheap and expendable & easy to work on..

   With the Austin,Torsion bar suspension puts high loads on the lower bush but that vehicle has independent suspension on FOUR wheels and to  be able to go backwards fast would seem like a good idea but the self centring works backwards when you go backwards. (It wants to go to full lock) Be dead easy to roll it. Nev.

[nomadpete]

The  Champ had a habit of shearing the bolts on the crownwheel.

Vehicle track may have been too narrow due to some military reqiurement - and that added to the rollover risk. But it rode corrugations very well and went easily where the Landrovers couldn't. It was Grossly over engineered in many regards and would have been a maintenance nightmare. Definitely not an expendable machine. 

 

Edited October 23, 2022 by nomadpete

[Yenn]

While it was in military service we had very few maintenance problems. It ran as well as a modern Hilux and that was in the days of frequent breakdowns of British machinery. The Humber and the Saracens were also low maintenance. Of the same vintage and also using a Rolls engine we had the Mighty Antar. The biggest wheeled vehicle in the world at the time. That was cumbersome, the engine was OK but the power steering was abysmal. You had to rev like hell and slip the clutch to prevent you going too fast when manouvering in tight quarters. It was designed to haul pipes to the oil fields in Iran, but we used it to haul the Conquerer tanks, which were about 75 Tons empty. Not a bad machine once you got it up to about 20mph but a two man job to steer when the power steering played up, which was often.

[spacesailor]

I think !!!.

The Austin Princess , had a RR engine .

spacesailor

[facthunter]

Just having RR on it doesn't make it perfect. The Inlet over exhaust configuration had it's problems in any motor that used it. (Bore distortion and valve seat cracking). Nev

[Yenn]

I have seen Austin Princesses with Austin engines.