August 2007 .......... First
article ......... Desert
driving impressions
.......................... 
MAN
movie (8mb) ................................................................ Tour
movie/slideshow
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motorcycle content)
This
summer's adaptions to the MAN include increasing
the fuel range and adding some water storage. Bike
fuel storage will have to be a locally bought oil drum or
two again; it's just too complicated to work it out while
maintaining space to get the bikes down to Algeria in the
first place.
There
are plenty of cheap artic tanks on ebay from £25 (left)
with huge capacities up to 600L, but the problem is they
all seem to be about 700mm deep (from chassis to outer
edge of lorry) and the MAN has a limit of around 640mm.
Asking around at lorry breakers
one then finds that your average 7.5 ton truck has good dimensions
but a modest capacity of only around 200L, not much better
than the 140 + 4 x 20 at present.
The space we have to play
with is around 1500+ L x 640 D x 450 H, giving a very useful
potential capacity of up to 430 litres if
L x D x H = V. So it may have to be the expense of a custom
made tank; we have a quote in the pipeline.
The
spare wheel arm (left)
gets
in the way of a smooth line and maximum height from front
to back so to simplify things the fuel tank will extend behind
the arm to the back wheel arch (red bit) and in front will
fit a tall water tank (blue), as in the picture right.
Other
than that, the biggest expense is hunting down a set of XZL tyres.
I've been searching the web and calling around and it appears
my preferred size of 365/80 R20 is
only used on European Mogs and the like. Plenty used in Germany
and a few end up here with used Mog tyre dealers. Other than
that I have a tip for a yard near Senas, south of Avignon
which has masses of 20-inchers. At the very worst I could
buy and fit a set on the way down to Marseille for lot
less that £500+
each new in the UK. But that's a bit too last minute, even
for me.
I hope to go tubeless which
will mean another adventure in search of 20-inch 10-stud
tubeless rims, but how can hard it be? They say the world
is getting smaller every day.
Talking of which, I had
a puncture on the way up to
Matt's; luckily just outside the Costa at Unknown Services
on the M1. Heavy work as you can imagine; when totally flat
the jack does not have the reach to raise the wheel enough
so it took an hour and a few lattes.
And of course separating
18-year-old split rims is no
picnic but eventually we bashed them apart, fitted a new
tube and pumped it up. No harder than Tojo splits and again,
heavy work but as long as you do it right I do wonder where
this urban myth of killer split rims ever came from. These
splits weigh a ton though. I dread to think of the price,
but I wonder what some 20" tubeless alloys would cost - the
ones with the cool 'turbo-vane' pattern. Steels are best
I suppose.
..................
Spotted
this Bending MAN in Germany recently. It hurts just to look
at it.
(It featured twin and pivoting
shackles, in case you're wondering).
Suddenly my MAN finds
itself sold so the
story ends here. Shame, I would have liked
to take it a bit further. Thanks for watching. The next project
vehicle is in the pipeline.
