Klaas Bals' Blog

It's been far too long since I did some 4WDing/offroading. An extra baby in the family does make a big difference. Also far too long ago, I received a set of Pillowtracks to test. I did some initial tests in front of my house, but wanted to wait until I had some real experience with it. That seems to take too long, so I decided to post my early findings already, and I'll do another post once I get some more experience with them.

What are PillowTracks?

PillowTracks are some kind of durable inflatable pillows, that can be used to drive on. Typically, it makes sence to use them in all kinds of 4WD offroad recovery situations. You can either inflate them before driving over, or alternatively you can first place them under the tires before inflating. This should give a wide range of possiblities in various offroad recovery situations.

For me, they seem to replace waffle boads, so in a way also replace sand ladders, for many uses that is. And you can't loose the PillowTracks as easy as losing waffle boards. (Really, we lost one a while ago because the mud was too deep. We kept on looking for it for at least 45 minutes, trying to locate it with a shovel, without success.. The PillowTracks would just float on top of the mud I assume.)

Wish I had them before

Previous cases I wish I had them were:

• When I got stuck on the belly of the car, then needing to shovel the sand out of the way. Instead of shovelling (I can guarantee that took me a long time, shoveing in the sun), it would be nicer to just place the deflated PillowTracks under the tires, then inflate them, and the belly would get clear again, allowing me to drive backwards (of continue forwards, depending on the situation)
• In combination with the air jack. Instead of carrying waffle boards, I could just carry the (much smaller, less heavy, better handling) PillowTracks, and inflate them whenever I need them.
• Another good use would be to raise the car in the carwash to better reach its underbody, when cleaning after driving/lying on muddy Belgian tracks.

First impression

Unpacking the PillowTrack gives a feel that the product was well designed. They paid a lot of attention to the details too. I has good packaging, allowing to include an air pump too. No messing around with squeezing the pillowtracks in the pagaing. Just roll them, wrap with the packaging, and you're done.
It contains clear instructions on a thick piece of paper..

Early testing in front of my house

As I did't own a compressor (I always borrow one from a friend), I used the hand pump included. It sort of did the job, but wasn't really able to put enough pressur on the pillows, so they did't have as much effect. Real usage definitely requires a compressor. (but hey, who doesn't have a compressor when going offroading. --blush--)

Initial conclusion

I love the PillowTracks so far, and I'd love to finally use them 'for real'. Up to this point, I only have found one area where they could improve: They include a loose Schader valve adapter (a tiny piece, easy to lose): It would be nice to place these in a small zipped pocket in the packaging.

Ik durf te denken dat opscheppen over mezelf niet echt mijn ding is. Maar lachen met mezelf dan weer wel. Onder dat motto, ziehier de 'reportage' die Man Bijt Hond gisteren de wereld instuurde.

Met bijdragen van @studio_stefke, @admkrm en mezelf (@kbals).

An inspiring movie about entrepreneurship.

I'm still evolving slowly to being an entrepreneur, in many aspects guided by my father in law, in my view a real entrepreneur. Not sure whether I'll ever be one... It ain't always easy, but let's try to make this place a better world, while having fun doing what we do.

Hat tip: Geert Noels, my hero ;-)

Here in Belgium there are hardly any hills. And if there are, they're slippery because of the rain. In South Africa however...

So, unfortunately, I did not record the following movie. But I did want to share it with you to illustrate what I mean when I say you can do pretty steep slopes with a Discovery 3. (If you're in a hurry, skip the first 3/4 of the movie).

When your car is on its side, on a hill, do remember to pull up the handbrake, or make sure someone is in the car while you push it on its wheels.

You wonder why? Look at the following video:

One of the basic rules when driving off-road is that you need to know the terrain. If you don't, make sure to check it on foot before driving it in a 4x4. Especially on those slopes where you don't see the other side. Many people ignore this advice when they're behind the wheel. Check out this video to see someone driving too confident...

Forbes has an article about which Luxury SUVs actually get used off-road. The Land Rover Discovery 3 (or LR3 as it is called in the USA) is leading the charts, with 26% of owners using it off-road, followed by the Range Rover (22.2%) and the Range Rover Sport (14.8%). The first non-Land Rover car in the list is the Porsche Cayenne with 10.5%.

So apparently I am not the only nutter using it for what it was built (or what they are marketing and selling it for). :-)

Thanks to Nathan Woods for the link!

When driving through deep ruts or over rocks you always have the risk of damaging the bottom of your vehicle. For older Land Rover models, there is a variety of protection available. For a relatively new model as the Discovery 3, this isn't the case. I've been looking for this from the beginning when I just owned my car, and there wasn't much to choose from back then.

Now, there starts to be some choice in what's available. Time for an overview of the underbody protection for a Land Rover Discovery 3.

In september 2006, several weeks after the birth of my son Anders, I really couldn't resist driving offroad any longer. My offroad buddy couldn't join me so I decided to go alone. Just me, myself and my Discovery 3...

All very well, a great day, great weather, nice slopes, some sand... and then I tried to take a ditch. I couldn't take it at a right angle, because my Disco 3 would touch the ground with its belly. So I decided to take the ditch dialogonally. Unfortunately the car pulled itself straight again, I think because I didn't have enough momentum, so it got stuck with its belly on the ground.

Initially I started to shovel the ground away, but it was too hot for that to be pleasant, and I decided to use my air jack (for the first time in an offroad situation). I had bought it several weeks before at www.air-jack.com. An air jack is a large strong bag that can be inflated by simply connecting it to the exhaust pipe of an engine running idle. Because the bag is quite big, it doesn't need a high pressure to be able to raise a serious weight. The one I bought is type ELH04, and it can actually lift 4000kg.

A Discovery 3 has two exhaust pipes that are interconnected, which means you connect the hose of the air jack to one, while you need to block the other exhaust as well. So I purchased a blocking cone as well. When using the airjack by yourself, this means you have to stretch your arms to reach out for the two exhausts... not very practical...

I'm going to try to solve that using a tool I got from a friend. It's called 'packer coupling', or just 'packer', and it is used in concrete injection processes to fix cracks and water leaks in concrete. This is a metal tube with a piece of rubber, that can be tightened with a bolt. By tightening the bolt, the rubber is pushed together, which results in it becoming wider, thus blocking one of the two exhausts. At least, that's the theory, I still need to try it out...

This is a picture of such a 'packer':

I came across a very nice movie of a properly equipped Discovery 3, driving some dry ruts, in the Harvey Forests in Australia.

A pity I wasn't able to drive a Disco 3 in Australia.