Getting Started

So you want to engage in 4×4 sand travel, huh? Despite the fun stories you may have heard about sand driving, it’s often difficult, dangerous, and a real chore. Proper preparation is a key component in avoiding sand-driving mishaps. Certainly the first thing to do is to lower tire pressures. By doing this, you will dramatically improve traction while driving on the sand, in addition to minimizing vehicle strain. Offroaders.com offers a good technique for finding the optimal tire pressure for each different vehicle:

“Park your loaded vehicle on a level surface and place a brick 1 cm away from the sidewall of your rear tire. Deflate that tire until the sidewall just touches the brick and then measure the tire pressure. Use this pressure as your starting point when initially lowering your tire pressure for sand driving. As you become more familiar with sand driving, you can alter this pressure as the terrain dictates.

If you haven’t performed the above technique before you reach the sand, don’t fret. A good rule of thumb is to use a pressure of 15 psi.”

Always remember to re-inflate your tires as soon as you return to a regular road! For more info on tire pressures, check out Harry Lewellyn’s well-researched piece.

Driving Techniques

Momentum, momentum, momentum! This is the ‘trick’ behind driving in the sand, above anything else NEVER lose momentum, as it won’t always be possible to get it back—leaving you stranded and stuck in the sand. Good tips for driving for beginners are to look for tire tracks (ideally from the vehicle driving in front of you, but also if you are driving alone). Keeping a steady rate of speed is key in maintain your momentum on the sand—any sudden acceleration/braking could trap tires in the sand easily.

Even stopping in the sand require good use of momentum. It’s suggested that drivers coast to a stop rather than braking. Avoid stopping on soft sand dunes also, to avoid sinking your tires. Turning in the sand should be done in the widest arcs possible to reduce bogging. As far as steep sand dunes go, avoiding them is the best option, yet if you must only go STRAIGHT up or down steep dunes (going over them at angles is the easiest way to rollover vehicles while sand driving.)

Vehicle Recovery in Sand

Bogging is bound to happen at one point or another while sand driving, and it makes more sense to be prepared than not. Do not floor the gas and try to ‘power’ out of the sand if you get stuck. Instead, try gently reversing the vehicle to get back onto the tire tracks behind you. If this doesn’t get you unstuck, lowering the tire pressure and clearing away any sand that touches the underside of the vehicle could allow you to reverse out.

Takeo De Meter over at the Internet Landrover Club offers an entertaining, yet informative write-up on all the dangers that sand driving pose for the uninitiated. He urges sand drivers to bring their own ground anchor in case they get stuck.

“Having to bury your spare wheel for an anchor will only get your mood even worse and you may well bend the rim, pull the tire off and get nasty blisters on your hands while digging,” he says.

Preparations and Precautions

First thing to do (after buying a first aid kit for potential mud driving/recovery injuries) is give the entire vehicle a wax job. This is done to make potential mud recovery tasks much easier. Don’t forget to use glass protection (i.e. RainEx) on the windshield and headlights. Next, check the vehicle for oil leaks, as wherever the oil leaks out, the mud can get in. It’s virtually a requirement to retighten or reseal anywhere oil is coming out before diving into the mud. Only drive vehicles that are sealed-up tighter than a prisoner on death-row if you want that 4×4 to last.

Checking suspension, weight reduction, and using the right type of mud tires are three final steps that should be taken before driving in mud. Long wheel travel is your best bet in terms of suspension for traveling through mud. Also give your rear shocks an inspection before getting started in the mud with broken parts to avoid disaster. Mud tires (with weight-reduced wheels) are a great help when attempting to avoid getting stuck while mud driving, and as offroader.com explains, it’s good to know the type of mud you’ll be traveling on before buying new tires:

Slick mud with a hard bottom layer is best attacked with narrow mud tires since a narrow mud terrain tire can cut through the top layer to find traction on the hard surface below. When a wide mud terrain tires encounters the same mud in this situation, it tends to float or ‘hydroplane’ on the slick top layer without reaching the hard surface below. A wider mud tire tends to do better in the thicker, cement-like mud especially when the terrain varies below the surface.

Mud Driving Techniques

First things first – make sure your in 4X4 – High range is the ideal choice.

Momentum and traction are your two biggest concerns while mud driving. Driving in straight lines, at constant speeds, is pretty much the only ‘correct’ way through mud. Whenever you turn the wheels, drag is increased on your vehicle in addition to the loss of traction. Drivers should always strive to have all 4 tires equally divided in terms of pressure, wheel spin, and power.

Getting bogged down while driving opens a few possibilities for getting unstuck. If it’s only a slight bogging, try increasing the throttle to spin tires out of the mud. Also, turning the steering wheel back and forth in a rocking motion may gain some extra traction in order to get the vehicle unstuck. The name of the game here is ‘less is more’—try not to floor the gas, or overturn the steering wheel and dig yourself in more than you already are.

If you get fully stuck, recovery techniques can represent the bigger risks associated with mud driving. As soon as your vehicle is locked inside the mud, stop spinning your wheels (this just gets you stuck more). A common recovery technique is to use a high life jack to elevate the vehicle ends, and push them out of the mud while elevated. Avoid sinking your jack in the mud by using a piece of wood to prop it up safely while in use.

For the most part, once your vehicle gets really stuck in the mud avoid attempting to recovery it unless you are very experienced. Alain Hoffmann of the Internet Landrover Club puts the danger of recovery in mud driving into perspective. “The stress on all components involved in a recovery situation is tremendous. Winch cables break, tow straps snatch back and recovery points are torn right out of their mounts. Any of those can be lethal. A steel winch cable breaking under 5tons of load is easily capable of snapping through a tree the size of an man’s leg. I’ve seen this once myself and don’t want to see it ever again. Considering the resistance of a human body is about that of an 1 inch (2,5 cm) thick wooden board I leave it to your fantasy what happens in the worst-case scenario.”

Air lockers work the same way, using compressed air to actuate a differential, which then completely locks a set of tires to force them into a equal rotational velocity. All other times, the air locker will act as an open differential (for turns and elevations in the terrain) for a maximum amount of control in any given driving condition. Off-road situations certainly present more of an opportunity to get use out of air lockers. Having to negotiate over muddy/snowy/sandy terrain gives lockers a key role in maintaining momentum and traction for both sides of the vehicle—an important task when avoiding hazards that could require costly or dangerous off-road recovery efforts.

Although air lockers gives the driver the ability to lock or leave open differentials, it’s important to know when to utilize this feature. The default option should always be to keep differentials unlocked—especially when driving on dry pavement as the ability to steer will easily be compromised when locked. Snowy or icy roads present an opportunity to lock differentials to prevent wheelspin (especially when braking or taking off). Likewise, uneven surfaces give drivers the necessity to control tire rotation with locked differentials. As a rule of thumb, you can lock the differentials at any speed, provided your RPM falls on or below the 1000/1500 mark (for manuals/automatics).

Locked differentials give 4×4 drivers a ‘true’ 4WD experience. Giving ultimate traction to a 4×4’s wheels, any off-road terrain that compromises traction enough to distribute 100% torque to one wheel can make the car move as long as the differentials are locked. This helps keep drivers going even in the roughest driving areas by simply knowing how to utilize their air lockers effectively. Of course, practice makes perfect, and the ‘on/off’ nature of air lockers will mostly benefit educated 4×4 drivers that realize the brief windows of opportunity to lock/unlock the differentials to avoid ending up in an off-road recovery situation.

Hydraulic winches offer the benefit of weighing less, meaning that your front end has less chance of sagging in a recovery operation and are not dependant on battery power. The downside is your engine needs to be running for operation, which can cause problems in river crossing scenarios.

Electric winches come in two different types: permanent magnet motor and series wound motor winches. A permanent magnet winch is preferable for light and medium duty tasks, although there is an increased risk of overheating. Series wound motors, although typically more expensive, are the only option for heavy duty winches. Typically, electric winch installation will also require beefing up your electrical system to cope with the extra load, another benefit of using a hydraulic winch.

Of course, winches must be incredibly strong, so getting a winch that has too little weight might not be right for your particular 4×4. You always want to make sure that a winch is capable of pulling 1.5 times the gross vehicle weight (GVW)—which refers to the full weight of your vehicle with a fully-loaded gas tank, loaded cargo, off-road tools and all recovery items included.

Winch cables are extremely durable, and carrying extras are both needless, and costly. The cables have a capacity strain much higher than the actual winch itself. Speaking of strong cables, safety precautions should always be taken when operating your winch. Use leather gloves instead of bare hands to avoid slicing off skin (or shearing to the bone). Always use a remote control cable when winches, and stay far out of the range of the cable. In the case that a cable becomes disconnected to the 4×4, or if it breaks, people should always position themselves uphill from the 4×4 in case it begins to roll down.

Draping a heavy cloth over the cable will also limit the whiplash effect if something does snap. In the event that steering is required while winching, ensure that the hood is up to protect the driver at all times.

The exhaust jack shines in situations where the terrain presents challenges with traction. Snow, sand, and mud are all highly-unstable driving terrains that have fluctuating levels of thickness for any given area. An exhaust jack used when a vehicle gets stuck in these situations can ultimately be the fastest, most effective way to get your vehicle un-stuck. For example, placing a regular jack under the side of the body while a portion of the vehicle is stuck in mud can end up ruining the frame depending on the conditions. An exhaust jack uses the air from a tail pipe, and thus doesn’t damage the frame when lifting a vehicle in a similar situation.

In addition to these benefits, exhaust jacks do not have the problems that high lift jacks do on not-so-solid ground. Sand, snow, and muddy surfaces will probably sink the traditional lift more than raise the vehicle out of the hazard. Off-roading in general will most often find uses for the exhaust jack more than the high lift version without some sort of base plate. Of course, the presence of extravagant off-road bumpers/bull bars may also detract from the utility of using high lift jacks, and won’t be as effective in the case that you need to lift heavier vehicles like trailers, caravans, trucks with heavy loads, etc.

There are disadvantages to using exhaust jacks, of course. The nature of using exhaust air to lift presents issues with the easily-punctured bag used for the exhaust jack. If the bag is punctured, you’re pretty much out of luck when stuck in the middle of a hazard without a high lift jack as a backup. Also, rocky terrains that can easily puncture an exhaust jack are more suited for the high life jack or bottle jack quite obviously. The placement of an exhaust jack in your recovery kit is not necessarily the replacement of a regular jack, depending on your particular vehicle off-road usage.

What is a snatch strap?

Think of a snatch strap is a heavy duty elastic band, it’s made from a special webbing that’s design to stretch like an elastic band when put under load. When the recovery vehicle pulls on the strap it extents then contracts giving greater pulling force than a non-extendable tow rope.

Even a small 4×4 can extricate an off-road beast from a sticky situation using the extra force of elasticity.

There so many different snatch straps on the market in rainbow of colors, brands and importantly price. Your most expensive snatch strap might set you back about $100, while you can pick up a Cheepie for about $30.

Normally I’m all about saving a few pennies, but in the case of a snatch, pay the extra $70. It’s something you’ll use again and again and you want it to last. I’ve just picked up up a brand new ARB snatch, after using my old one without issue problem for nearly 15 years.

How to use a snatch strap

• Finding the right attachments on the bogged and recovery vehicle.

  
  Most snatch straps have a loop at each end, which you use to connect to your vehicle. Ideally you’ll use a recovery hook or alternatively you can use the pin of a Hayman and Reece style tow bar. Don’t under any circumstances attach the strap via a shackle to the bull bar or tow ball. In both instances you run the risk of a heavy steel projectile flying through the air at a considerable pace. It’s either going to take out the recovery vehicle or at worst innocent bystanders.

  As a general rule, you want to ensure that the strap is attached directly to the chassis of the vehicle. Before you go off-road take the time to locate the recovery points on your vehicle. There are plenty of aftermarket add-ons if your current setup is inadequate.

• Position the recovery vehicle

  
  Try to position the recovery vehicle about 1-2 meters closer to the bogged vehicle than the length of the strap. You’ll need to make sure that the recovery vehicle has somewhere to go once the extraction commences. Connect the strap to both vehicles and position the strap in an ‘S’ pattern. This ensures that there are no kinks when the slack in the strap is taken up by the recovery vehicle.

• Get bystanders out of harms way

  Ensure all bystanders are either in vehicles or at a distance that is greater than the over length of the strap. If something does break, with the forces being applied, will be like a steel missile that could inflict serious damage.

  Nothing will sour your 4×4 trip more than a visit to the hospital.

• Smooth take off

  
  Okay your ready to start the recover. Ensure both vehicles are running and if possible select 2nd gear in low range. For manual cars, the bogged vehicle will need to have the clutch in. If your in the recovery vehicle smoothly accelerate, don’t overdo it, a nice moderate pace is all you need. You’re going to feel two things. The point where the slack is taken up and the strap begins to stretch then point with the strap begins to contract. At this point, you should see the bogged vehicle start to move. If momentum is gained, continue to move forward at a constant pace.If you’re in the bogged vehicle, when you feel your car moving, start to slowly apply acceleration to assist in the extraction. Don’t accelerate to hard or you’ll wheel spin or run up the back of the recovery vehicle. Let them, and the strap, do all the work.

• If at first you don’t succeed, try again

  You might find that starting at a conservative speed isn’t enough. That’s fine, just get the recovery vehicle to slowly increase the pace, until you reach the point where enough force is applied. You’ll find that once you get more failure with using the strap, you’ll know just how much speed you’ll need. If you still have trouble, try laying some sticks in front of the bogged vehicle to aid in extra traction, or take another look at your extraction angle.

• Connecting two straps together

  There is a right way and a REALLY wrong way to do this.
  Simply follow the pictures below. Don’t ever use a shackle to connect them

  

In Summary…

So there you have it. Recovery with a snatch strap is simple and easy. With a little practice it’s going to become your greatest friend in your recovery kit.