Part 2

Making your Fourbie a Watering Can

Isuzu I-Venture Club D-MAX exits the Wollondilly River.

I-Venture Club D-MAX takes a dip with thankfully a short immersion over the bonnet. Last time we corresponded I was offering some sage advice, hmmm, maybe even trying to put you off the idea of taking a 4WD for a swim. In the decades I’ve been mucking around with vehicles, I’ve noted that crossing a stream is a risky business, because 4WDs really don’t boat too well.

Back in the day, when vehicles weren’t crammed with electronics and faced with the prospects of crossing a stream hovering around bonnet-high, it was likely that your fourbie was going to float, just like today. To pre-empt that moment and as you

Making your Fourbie a Watering Can PART 2 BY DAVID WILSON

Back in the day when 4WDs had hair on their chests.

entered the stream, you’d crack open your door, thus encouraging the vehicle to flood. What the? All that extra mass filling the floor kept wheels in contact with the riverbed and progress was reasonably assured. Exit the other side, pause, doors ajar, as the river escaped the vehicle’s interior. In that illustration likely no harm done, because the floor was a rudimentary sheet of vinyl with no sound deadening and the closest you’d get to compromising the sophisticated electronics would be keeping a watchful eye on that fabbo AM radio and the dashboard gauges, making sure they didn’t get submerged. About the only other things that were truly vulnerable in the cab were the Masonite backs of the door cards. You’d strip them out and leave them in the sun for a day or two and voilà, back in business. In case you hadn’t noticed, vehicles aren’t built like that today, so deliberately flooding the vehicle won’t be happening. Unless by accident … maybe?

So, fast-forward to 2022, you come across a river system and there is a body of water sitting at the crossing, what to do? Perhaps in the lead up to the trip, you did a bit of reading and found out about the positive experience of others at this location.

When a creek crossing goes bad.

Gunshot Creek descent is not for the fainthearted. Committed to the crossing and hoping we don’t float.

Old Tele Track travellers heading up to Cape York will know of Gunshot Creek and that there are a couple of alternatives. Gunshot proper is a short, but near-vertical descent, with a real chance you’ll damage your car, and that’s even before you get into the drink. An apparently safer, less harrowing alternative is Slingshot, with a tamer descent. That earlier reading you did might reference the entry and exit points that’ll offer the greatest chance of success, just like Slingshot offers. You’ll also learn when is the best time of year to visit and what to expect of the bottom? I like bottoms. That might sound a bit creepy, but I like my bottoms solid and hard, not mushy and slippery, so, fingers-crossed, the base of this creek you’re about to tackle, has some firmness to it to minimise the lack of traction risk. Maybe it’s at this moment you should consider some tyre pressure reduction is in order, perhaps fifty percent? The next two agendas are depth and flow. No good if the stream is both deep and quick, because before you know it, you’ll be belting out one of Rod Stewart’s favourites, that mentions sailing stormy waters.

We mentioned last time that depth is a problem, because 4WDs float. That modern, hermetically sealed cabin you’re luxuriating in is tighter than a fish’s bum hole and will make your fourbie float without too much trouble, and at the relatively innocent depth of around 750mm. But before it gets that deep, it’ll be bobbing around and starting to stumble at maybe half that depth unless you’re heavy.

I can tell you that there’s been a couple of watery moments in my 4WD experience that have had my full attention and each time it was when I realised my grip was being lost and now, I was at the mercy of the stream. With a couple of knots of force being exerted on the slab side of your vehicle it will start to drift. I’ve practised it, where there’s been space mid-stream to enable it, in aiming for a wider point in the middle. The line I’m taking would look like an arrowhead from above, the logic is that you’re aiming for the exit at a point higher than it actually is, the drift pushing you back to where you hope to land and emerge from the stream successfully. Of course before we did any of this, we should have checked the preparedness of the vehicle and got our technique ready. Last time we spoke of snorkels. Snorkels are those contraptions that are affixed to your door pillar and elevate the airbox’s entry point and supposedly eliminate much of the risk of “hydraulically” busting your engine. If, and that’s a big if, your snorkel has been sealed at all the joints with plenty of silicone, you are still vulnerable. Don’t think that this accessory alone is going to make you waterproof.

Jeep’s launch of the Gladiator in NZ was epic thanks to wild weather the day before. Nerf bar doors permit the full flooded experience.

You might consider fitting a car-bra, a bespoke and fitted vinyl “blind” stretched across the face of your vehicle to further eliminate the entry of water into your engine bay. A low-rent version is a poly tarp and a couple of ockies. This goes hand-inhand with the use of second gear in LOW range, because there’ll be an optimum speed to achieve to create this thing called a “bow” wave. LOW range is the go. With near-maximum torque available at a speed I’d describe as a walkingto-jogging pace, you’ve got the best prospects of maintaining forward progress and knocking the water down ahead of you. That’s the bow wave. Go too fast and you’ll push the water over the top of the bonnet. Submarining isn’t desirable.

I know some crew go to the trouble of affixing a snatch strap to recovery points ahead of submersion. If the crossing is so wild that you’re already anticipating rescue drama, I’d be admitting defeat and find another way, or wait there until some other hero could safely demonstrate to me that it was possible! Make a watering can out of my 4WD? No thank you.

Got the bow wave moment going nicely here. The cover has a pocket to hold a snatch-strap at the ready.

Too much enthusiasm with the accelerator creates a big, big splash, that at the very least will tear off a numberplate and at worst, fill your airbox to the max.

GO ANYWHERE. GO EVERYWHERE.

With the right 4x4 parts to get you there.

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