TheHaflinger.com

Yesterday the local club held a challenge where you were given a rudimentary map and had to navigate to 27 points where a cane was planted with a letter written on it; a coloured pen was used to enter the letter on to your entry sheet. The canes were in some cases well hidden and in inaccessible places, which involved creative and skillful driving to get your vehicle right to the cane.
This was a highly enjoyable day with much off-road driving - I managed to get a few snaps..











And some of the competition..



He shouldn't have tried to follow me through that soft bit - lol - these big wheels and tyres are heavy; I offered to tow him out but he thought I was being optimistic..



A casualty.. the whole hub came away from the axle, it made for an interesting recovery back to the carpark.



I did manage eventually to get to all of the canes but didn't win the event; no matter it was a good day - great scenery, driving and good company.

(PS you might notice that there's no glass in the windscreen - I broke both sides taking it out of the trailer - D'oh!)

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Shame we don't appear to have any thing like that down here! Sounds like you had fun.

John

jhon wrote: (PS you might notice that there's no glass in the windscreen - I broke both sides taking it out of the trailer - D'oh!)

Please explain

Looks like a great event and lots of fun - I am surprised that the bogged Nissan Patrol has registration with those wheels and tyres.

Garry

garrycol wrote:

jhon wrote: (PS you might notice that there's no glass in the windscreen - I broke both sides taking it out of the trailer - D'oh!)

Please explain

Looks like a great event and lots of fun - I am surprised that the bogged Nissan Patrol has registration with those wheels and tyres.

Garry

Ah, yes... haruuumph.. this is a bit embarrassing; you may remember from an earlier thread that I'm using a converted caravan for a trailer - I was rushing to get the Haf out for the event - thinking I was in reverse I let the clutch out and the damn thing lurched forward!
I dipped the clutch but too late - the windscreens caught a pair of handles for the high-level cupboards (that I had left in thinking that they would be useful for storage). I ended up with a lapfull of glass - a great start to the day. So now I have the pleasure of trying to find a pair of windscreens; best option I think is to get a local glass company to cut to size from toughened glass - shouldn't be too expensive (I hope). It stayed mostly dry on the day so it wasn't too much of a problem. Lesson learned though - more haste - less speed (and less cash in the wallet!).

The Nissan - when he has these tyres on it, it gets trailered to events. They build these things strong - I've seen it taking some abuse.

Standard Laminated glass, should be less than $50(US) each, you could also opt to go tinted(AS1)

Getting nice and wet here.....

Good pic - I love seeing them being used off-road! How are you finding the Haf with these new tyres - great grip in the mud I bet - what about on hard surfaces? (Much vibration, increased rolling resistance, etc?)

Czechsix wrote:

Bogged again

Jhon - certain types of mud, yep, work very nicely indeed. My particular mud here has lots of clay in it, and you can scrape down through the lightweight loose top until you hit the teflon slick bottom layer....and I don't care what you have, lugs, chains, tracks, you name it, you're stopped right then and there. But in general, they work very well. Next big testing area will be Mojave during a big rock crawling comp, I go there to spectate each year. This year if I can get the Haf reliable enough I'm going to mount a mast over the rear with a GoPro camera mount and do some video. Should be fun, hope it works, might test it here first to see what happens.

On the hard pack, the tires ride rough, definite knob feel. So yes, more vibration, bit more rolling resistance, stopping isn't as good as a street tread either. But all that was expected, these tires work well off road, not so well on road. I won't be driving the Haf out to the trail, will be loading onto a trailer, and then it will be miles and hours of off road in sand and rock. FUN!

Garry - that's in my front yard hahahah. Seriously...that's my front yard.

Czechsix wrote: Next big testing area will be Mojave during a big rock crawling comp, I go there to spectate each year. This year if I can get the Haf reliable enough I'm going to mount a mast over the rear with a GoPro camera mount and do some video. Should be fun, hope it works, might test it here first to see what happens.

Would live to see some photos/footage of that!

I found the same issue with these tyres on hard-packed surfaces - pretty horrible really; it would be interesting to see how different they would be if put on a 6-8" rim. I've been tempted to go with a wider rim, as much for the potential extra stability on side-slopes as well as any benefit in ride/handling - just haven't committed to the cost yet.

Let us know how you find the stability when you get to Mojave.

Cheers!

John

Yep, if it works out I'll be editing and posting. KoH is very entertaining, usually one huge party with a bunch of gear heads.

One of the big factors here with access to "off road" areas (meaning dirt roads, unimproved roads, and unpaved back country access roads) is that many of them are legally part of our road system, and anything on them needs to be a registered, road legal vehicle. Registered off road vehicles are limited to legal off road areas, and can be cited if used on roadways. The areas that are actually accessible for any and all off road access (meaning you can pretty much ignore road ways and just cut cross country) are actually fairly sparse. Having something road legal opens up a really big area to exploration, and pretty much all of that can be done on dirt roads. So even though these tires are knobbed and suck on tarmac, you still legally need them (according to the feds, and bored officers of the law that are looking for any and all reasons to harass you) on these crappy dirt roads.

I agree with the wider rim idea...and yeah, that cost. Which reminds me I should still call our wheel supplier and ask for a solid price quote. How much have you been quoted, John?

Hi Cz - here's the link to the thread where i was exploring the options..

http://www.thehaflinger.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=3102

There were three options..
1. Buy secondhand
2. Band the original wheels (certainly doable and works out at about £50 ($80ish) per wheel)
3. Custom made (haven't had a quote yet)

Of the three I was going to go with the banding but decided to wait a bit - as I only really use the quad tyres off-road and the Haf hasn't fallen on its side recently, I couldn't justify the expense.

I'll see how it performs during events this year.

Thanks for that link, John. I think I did see that a while earlier, reminders are a good thing though.

I'd rather not permanently modify the stock wheels. Over on this side of the pond they're kinda hard to find

Custom making them...well, it looks like Stockton Wheel doesn't do anything as small as 12", nor do any other manufacturers that I've found. So it looks like that's a dead end.

If I can find UTV steel wheel, that's a solid disc and has the right offset to account for an adaptor ring, I might go that route. If I can't find that combination, then I might still go for some sort of wider UTV steel wheel that'll flatten out these tires under proper inflation, and might even go bead lock. Then re-dedicate the stock haffy wheels to a skinny 12" street tread and save the more expensive off road rubber.

But the reality is that I'll probably run these for the next few years at the least. Especially with most of the usage being off road. Time will tell, but I'll keep posting results up, for sure. Just took a look at the schedule, KoH is coming up early in February, so I've got to target that for the first big run. Need to swap fluids, figure out that frikking trans leak, and do a tune up before it's ready. Might also fab a couple of doors up...that area can get mighty cold with some high winds.

In the US you can get 1" spacers that will change from the 98mm Haflinger PCD to the smallest ATV PCD of 110mm. If you shop around get alloy wheels with 110mm pcd pretty cheap.

http://www.oponeo.co.uk/steel-wheels/4x98

These people make steel wheels of the correct size etc.

John

They do, reasonably priced too - it's just a damn shame they don't do a 12" version.

Czechsix wrote:Might also fab a couple of doors up...that area can get mighty cold with some high winds.

If you're inclined and got the time post up what you do about the doors.

There are a number of options that you could consider - metal-frame, etc. For info, I made up a set last year - I was going to get a local fabricator to weld up the frames but he was always too busy, so made them from marine ply, canvas, perspex and Land Rover window frame pieces.
They actually work well, satisfying to do and cheap with it!

Here's a couple of photos to give you an idea.





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Those doors came out very nice. I was thinking of something similar, but I'll probably do mine with steel tubing or rod, some vinyl paulin material that I have (old 6x6 5 ton truck kit), and use sewing plus contact cement for bonding. Have to fab up the hinges too, and figure out a way to attach without drilling any new holes. Probably be some kind of clamp arrangement, but from the outside will look much like yours.

Yesterday was the first club trial event of the season and it started off pretty damn cold – this first photo is just outside my garage before setting off.


There was a good turn out of vehicles but sadly mine was the only Haflinger – I’ve only got static shots to share this time (and as you can see, some of them are ‘posed’. Hey! I was feeling ‘artistic’ ).











Here’s a few of the other vehicles that attended – some of them may be of interest to you.

A classic 101” – this has been converted in to a camper and is available for hire. (My wife saw it trundling through the town en-route to the trial and said to me later in the evening 'Hey - I saw a big Haflinger today! )



These big-wheeled triallers belong to the ‘young team’ – they are very enthusiastic and love modifying their vehicles, often to the detriment of the drivetrain components. They compete in a different class to the likes of the Haflinger – their sections are (generally) much more severe.







For reference purposes, that is Loch Ness in the background.



This is my sons Range Rover; we literally only got it running the day before, after swapping the engine over to a 3.9 EFI unit.





And finally, my young nephew in his dad's G-Wagen - this poor vehicle gets some abuse and still (mostly) keeps going.



It was a good day – we ended up doing the last section in the dark; downsides were that you couldn’t see the hazards very well, the upside was that the marshall couldn’t see you hitting the marker canes!

Another report next month hopefully.

Cheers,

John

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