BEFORE surfing the Article, I consider it important to first drive thru some the introductory information, which aims to provide the reader with additional grip during the ride. The following gives a view from a "falcon eye" level down to the ground level:

Knowing the Land:

My Country is the United Arab Emirates (UAE), located in the Middle-East region, neighboring the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, spread over about Sqr.Km. 87,000, with a geo-nature mixed of mostly sand, gravel-yards and mountains. It has a nice beach of about Km. 700 long. The weather is severe; a long summer with a temp gauge indicating at about 120 F in shade, and, in winter (+/- 50 F). There are hardly any Spring or Fall times.

Before climbing down of the "Fossil Rocks" Mountain and before conversion to a Pick Up.

Knowing the People:

UAE hosts a population of about 4 Million Residents, mixed of all-nationality-foreigners and Locals. The foreigners are pretty well mixed and going well with the locals, whom are born with the warm hospitality & kindness and are well known of their welcoming nature.

Knowing the Writer:

From the Capital City, Abu Dhabi, is a Chemical-Engineer, in mid-thirties, working in a Major Company in Oil & Gas field, married with 3-kids. In winter free times, does lots of sand-duneing in weekends, and, jetsking in summer. Additional activities include some light-mechanics and gym works.

ON GROUNDS…WE FLY!!

Taking a rest after being slammed inside the truck, passing thru the Empty Quarter.

Having heard enough, let's 'walk the talk' and hit the real ground, off the road of course. Before going further, reader to note that this article does not touch on the basic information about fourwheeling, but assumes that those are well-known for a typical/average off-roader. So, the article talks about some UAE sand-trials' characteristics, associated difficulties and tricks, some personal experiences, my car specs and other related subjects.

Now, let's use our imagination skills to visualize and build up some pictures and dimensions of the sand trials we go thru. Depending on the trial, the sand's softness degree is ranging from static-'n-soft to extremely-soft with some unpredictable dynamic spots.

In UAE, namely in Abu Dhabi, the desert is either 'close-to-city' (with little moderate dunes) or 'deep-'n-remote' (with series of super-high dunes, which we locally call as "skyscraper Dunes", the highest being of 1000 feet & an angle of +/- 40). The latter type of deserts is considered more challenging and enjoyable to explore and recommended only for those seriously professional drivers.

Sliding down from a mid size Dune, 2005 Hummer H2 and heavily modified Jeep

Where time permits, we head to the well known "Empty Quarter Desert" territories, surely being very far from the city. In there, the dunes are extremely high, soft-sand structured, endless & numerous, many of them are complex & multi-dimension-shaped, others are sharp-curved. Another nightmare that you must avoid is the 'bowl-like sand traps', some of which are impossible to exist or to be recovered from except by a helicopter or an extremely long-cabled & powerful super-winch. This makes sand negotiation next to impossible.

We enjoy crossing series of sharp dunes upwards and downwards by driving over and around the tips of the dune one after the other, to achieve which it is important to properly balance and control multiple parameters being the car's speed & agility, gearing, momentum, side-angle and side-pulling behavior of the car due to its center-of-gravity force.

For a tough change, we do night fourwheeling thru such trials, which sometimes takes 6 to 7 Hours to cross around 30 Miles only. During one of our night trips, a friend wrongfully drove into a relatively small bowl. It took him 45-minutes of unsuccessful rough, high-rev & high-speed attempts (reaching 50 MPH) to confirm failure to exist. We did too. Luckily, we managed to anchor three trucks in a row; one to each other to create the multiple winching effect and finally succeeded to recover our friend's car.

The elder brother "Jimmy" recovering the younger (but fattier) brother. Shot in Liwa, soft sand area being in the Empty Quarter.

Another interesting activity we do, besides high-sand-dune climbing, is the high-speed off road driving (rally type) for long distance (about 100 Mile long) at an average speed of 65 MPH (sometimes reaching speeds of 100 MPH GPS reading, which happens only when your friend's truck nose start challenging yours). For information, such soft-sand service driveways are not natural but man-made for serving the Oilfield remote sites, facilities and camps. The only real danger associated in driving thru such a route (which may lead to a roll-over) is 'getting stuck in a rug' that is made by a recent pass or crossing of the giant "Kenworth" service rig, which creates behind it a two valleys (one per each tire). If your car is captured in such a situation, just slow down to a reasonable speed that enables you to negotiate a way out, then back on the racing track.

The elder brother still looking after the young one…till night watching his steps. Note the dangerous tilt of the H2, which was just about to roll over, due to sand side trapping.

Due to the need to enjoy every second of the weekend, the friends rush each other to reach the trial shortly after leaving Office. In such a case, it happened that a friend forgot his car-jack with no suitable one with others. When having a flat tire with the same car with no jack, then as a tip, you should place a spare tire under the car and dig out the sand under the flat tire, after some earth-work, your other good tire can find its way.

Needless to say, we really do enjoy every foot we pass. If interested, please visit the UAE website for sand dune competition on: www.almor3eb.com .

The Jimmy side-speeding over a long curved (crescent-type) sand dune…you don’t want to know how was the landing at the finishing point (way to the right of the photo – not shown- but you can

Enough said as above, sure you are wondering what "thing" I was riding to surf the sand with? Probably, a real camel comes into picture…Well, you have to flash this idea away. My car is the benevolent ex-US Army servant, a 1987 full-size GMC Jimmy with a 4X4 Drivability, OEM fitted with the first generation TBI 5.7 Ltr. Engine, mated with a TH700-R, stock wheels and tires and 10-bolt axles fitted with 3.08 gears (I know you are already choking reading these specs, bare with me a little).

Keeping in mind the deep-sand application, this OEM turtle-package is good for nothing but to rotate the tires to move the truck back and forth between points A & B. On the other hand, if keeping the wish of the old grand mom to keep the truck as a 'heritage' is unavoidable, then you may need to avoid reading the rest of the article.
WHAT DID I DO…

The desert mechanical Mammals taking some rest and breathing some fresh pure air.

1. Dump the auto with a stick-shift (four-on-the-floor). This was ranked No. 2 best change, as it enhanced the truck's endurance capability to suit our hard, long & tough way of driving, crossing hundreds of hard sandy miles a day.
   
2. Swapping the stock weak 10-bolt axels (3.08) with tougher 3/4-Ton 14-bolt semi-float axles (4.10). This was ranked No. 1 best change. For sand application, I strongly recommend 4.10 ratio with 33" tires. For my case, I preferred the semi-floater over the "full" one; being lighter and yet strong enough. On the other hand, the full-floater is heavier in weight and slower in mechanical movement, which results in a 'downwards sinking force' due to the mechanical and natural gravities created.
   
3. The Transfer-Case was borrowed from an ex-Army diesel truck (keeping the same model and ratio, was not considered a real change).
   
4. The stock 5.7 Ltr. TBI engine was swapped with a healthier & younger Vortech 5.7 Ltr. Engine. To keep the reliable-for-sand TBI, I had to procure the TBI Intake from the sole-source that is "GM Perf. Division". This was ranked No. 3 best change.
   
5. With this much of off-road readiness all around, a communication upgrade between the engine and the trans. had to be made thus, the Centerforce Clutch stage-III package found its way in there and acted as the negotiator. I must admit it did the job very well and helped pulling out other stuck cars numerous times, and still does. This was ranked No. 4 best change.
   
6. Body Works. This was ranked No. 6 best change. Works included swapping front and rear stock bumpers with double-hook steel 1-ton bumpers that were obtained from an ex-US Army truck (used to be working in a regional military-base and found its way to our salvage yard). Removing the heavy-fiber hard top and closing the bid area with some wood panels plus some nylon fabrics with a zipper-type window. Relocating the spare tire to be mounted on the top of the bed, which hosts two poly-fuel-tanks, the Hi-Lift Jack and a professional shovel. Also, hanging externally on a rear bracket are two water-tanks with an outlet for fast hand wash and use. Among all, the most useful at night is the GE rotating side-cop-light, and, the truck-liner wide-spread beams. |
   
7. The best change ranked No. 5 was the suspension…four (4) new Gabriel shocks, each is setting at a corner, but the fronts having couple each side. In the back, each side received one additional bottom leaf from a HD truck, to reduce tail-bouncing.
   
8. As for the Cooling, thanks for the 4-core radiator and the stock HD 11-blade plastic engine fan, which sucks lots of air from around the truck's nose.
   
9. Other works like shortening the drive shaft to suit the new 3/4 ton axles and manual gear and fixing a safety chain underneath (there was a vibration in the first time. Another shaft was shortened with success, knowing that we have no local workshop offers shaft balancing services). All moving & rotating parts were renewed/replaced like: any thing bearings, rubbers, cross-members (there was a persisting vibration, which after thorough search was found to be the ones in the front axle). Truck-Liner's 3.5" Exhaust tip.
   

Future Plans are:

The rescue continues to include those little brothers too…at least. There are similarities in color and shape (!!).

i) To fix Detroit Locker in the back axle, to help improving the traction, especially when side-crossing a sharp dune, in which case tire's contact suffers, ii) upgrade the 4-spd. into a 5-spd. manual gear, for fuel effieciency, engimes durability, as we drive hunders of mile on the raod some times to reach the trial and iii) upgrading the engines with either Vortech 6.0 Ltr. Engine or the ZZ3 420 HP 5.7 Ltr. engine.

You will note that most of the parts I used are stock and OEM, in order to ensure availability, durability & reliability and operation integrity/compatibility.

You may be asking why these changes!! Until you hit the trail, the changes would not only speak out loudly, but others will notice them too.

Driving tip:

Poor me under the truck trying to position the jack underneath to air-up the tire; after side-jumping of a small dune (the reason was found later being the tire valve leaking air).

For deep sand, all heavy American trucks can handle the soft sand better if equipped with a wide-track wheels & tires, deflated tires to (15 PSI max) or (12 PSI min), transfer-case is in Low-Range (& gear not in over-drive if in short travel between dunes). In my case, the best combination that busts the sand is: 15 X 10 wheels fitted with 33/12.5/15 BF Goodrich Mud Terrain, deflated to 12 PSI.

How do we survive? We do traditional way of cooking, using the natural woods and fresh lamb meat. The best recipe is lip-licking; irresistible; slowly-under-ground baked (5-hours) baby lamb. It is juicy, tender and rich-flavored.

CARE ABOUT IT, IT TAKES CARE ABOUT YOU…

A last word to all friends of the environment, the land we step on today is not only for us, but for our kids, others, the next generation, the animals, mammals, birds, insects, reptiles, plants etc which all have to live together and make our life cycle in good balance. Let's keep it clean 'n green.

At last, attached are some of the selected photos, which were shot using my personal mobile (sorry for the inadequate quality) and others were shot by some friends (in an acceptable quality). Hope you enjoyed reading the article, found some useful information and looking forward to assist in any possible way by contacting me on email GMC454 @ gmail.com . Why the email starts with "GMC454"? I will share with the readers the reason. Well, in 1990s, I used to race using my truck with others on the external roads (just like Road 66). The pick up truck was a 1979 Chevy step-side, manual gear, with a streetable blown 454 Engine (+ 420 HP). I dusted away Nissan Maximas and other similar sport cars; as the truck was able to reach speeds of +140 MPH. The truck is now sold and replaced by a safer one, the Jimmy.