2019 Siberia and Central Asia overland thread

[kiwi1973]

Awesome journey and a great read.
Congratulations on your amazing efforts to travel that part of the world with wife and kids.
I have a Pajero and I do a bit of camper trailer travelling in Australia and I must admit I will now be far more confident when attempting some of the more "rough" outback roads.
I'm just gobsmacked at how you managed to cram everything in. Clothing for 5 people plus tools and spare parts plus sleeping bags (I'm assuming you had these) and then food, cooking equipment and your tent heater.
Well done mate!!

Yes, sleeping bags too! I'm not going to say it's an easy fit, but with custom internal fitout and large roofrack we have managed with the Pajero for 8 years this way. It get's tougher as the kids get bigger and sadly I think whenever we do our next big international trip I'll build a new bigger vehicle. The Pajero is nearly back here in NZ and will continue to suit our needs in NZ and I've no plans to part with it.

The Pajero is easily up to the task of extended rough travel - perhaps more so than even some here realise. I don't hold the overheat/engine issue that occurred in Russia against the Pajero - a coolant hose coming off could happen to any vehicle and going forward I'm fitting an Engine Watchdog, which I believe would have alerted me to the issue in time. Any vehicle going 'outback', wherever in the world, needs these additional precaution devices, including extra fuel filtration, suspension upgrades and more. But my Pajero has been a super reliable and dependable family friend. I would say it's far more dependable than many other 4wd's out there these days, especially compared to some of the new utes. The only Pajero specific thing I would mention is that you should always carry a spare rear wheel bearing hub assembly in your spare parts box. I didn't need to use my spare of these across Central Asia, but then I set off from New Zealand with two fairly new OEM Mitsubishi wheel bearings fitted.

[kiwi1973]

One can gather no such thing as legal GVM in those woods

Just goes to show the BS the rated legal GVM actually is, once upgrades are finalised.

I get it law of court in these lands superseeds reality of capability, no one needs to remind me

I was trying to find an old photo for you from our first trip to Morocco in 2014, where numerous cars rolling off the ferry had roof loads piled so so so high! These cars were so heavily overloaded that their suspension was fully compressed - pretty much riding on the bump stops. More surprising was that we were queued at the police/immigration checkpoint on arrival into Morocco and the police had no concerns about these vehicles, allowing them all to enter. But of course this is North Africa! I've never actually put my Pajero on a weighbridge - we likely up around GVM, especially now with the long range fuel tank, but no police in the countries we go to are going to bother us on weight where they don't care about cars riding on bump stops. And the Pajero has never given me any hint of issue operating with our load. I've had to change spring rates a few times to get it perfect, but with the right suspension setup the Pajero has no issues handling our load - on road and off, and has done so for years now. My fully loaded Pajero easily out handles my normally loaded old Delica.

[farcanal]

Yes, sleeping bags too! I'm not going to say it's an easy fit, but with custom internal fitout and large roofrack we have managed with the Pajero for 8 years this way. It get's tougher as the kids get bigger and sadly I think whenever we do our next big international trip I'll build a new bigger vehicle. The Pajero is nearly back here in NZ and will continue to suit our needs in NZ and I've no plans to part with it.

The Pajero is easily up to the task of extended rough travel - perhaps more so than even some here realise. I don't hold the overheat/engine issue that occurred in Russia against the Pajero - a coolant hose coming off could happen to any vehicle and going forward I'm fitting an Engine Watchdog, which I believe would have alerted me to the issue in time. Any vehicle going 'outback', wherever in the world, needs these additional precaution devices, including extra fuel filtration, suspension upgrades and more. But my Pajero has been a super reliable and dependable family friend. I would say it's far more dependable than many other 4wd's out there these days, especially compared to some of the new utes. The only Pajero specific thing I would mention is that you should always carry a spare rear wheel bearing hub assembly in your spare parts box. I didn't need to use my spare of these across Central Asia, but then I set off from New Zealand with two fairly new OEM Mitsubishi wheel bearings fitted.

re a bigger vehicle.
You may need to go Hummer or, God forbid, Toyota Landcruiser.
I believe Toyota made a "Megacruiser" purely for their own military in Japan, so probably impossible to get hold of. These are nearly 400mm wider than the Pajero and 175mm higher. You could have some fun fitting that out.

[Jasonmc73]

I was trying to find an old photo for you from our first trip to Morocco in 2014, where numerous cars rolling off the ferry had roof loads piled so so so high! These cars were so heavily overloaded that their suspension was fully compressed - pretty much riding on the bump stops. More surprising was that we were queued at the police/immigration checkpoint on arrival into Morocco and the police had no concerns about these vehicles, allowing them all to enter. But of course this is North Africa! I've never actually put my Pajero on a weighbridge - we likely up around GVM, especially now with the long range fuel tank, but no police in the countries we go to are going to bother us on weight where they don't care about cars riding on bump stops. And the Pajero has never given me any hint of issue operating with our load. I've had to change spring rates a few times to get it perfect, but with the right suspension setup the Pajero has no issues handling our load - on road and off, and has done so for years now. My fully loaded Pajero easily out handles my normally loaded old Delica.

Thanks for reply, I followed your blog.

Breaking a spring or pulling an airline off, diff or wheel bearings etc doesn't matter any mecahnical equipment will happen sooner or later.

But you certainly gave the overall integrity a workout at what I suspect was GVM & above, across country, stiff springs, 10 ply tyres, all climates, terrains & altitudes.
On more than one trip & few k's under her belt as well.

Testimate to the integrity of the Pajero I feel.

[kiwi1973]

re a bigger vehicle.
You may need to go Hummer or, God forbid, Toyota Landcruiser.
I believe Toyota made a "Megacruiser" purely for their own military in Japan, so probably impossible to get hold of. These are nearly 400mm wider than the Pajero and 175mm higher. You could have some fun fitting that out.

Well I learned something new there. I thought I knew pretty much all vehicles, but had never heard of the Megacruiser. Just looked them up. Really impressive - all independent suspension AND portal axles! Tyres look massive too, so the ground clearance must be extreme. As I've travelled around the world I've often enjoyed checking out unusual looking military vehicles and more often than not they end up being all independent suspension. So it's interesting that when Toyota wanted to make a 'Megacruiser' they too went all independent, like the Hummer. Yet in civilian 4wd circles we sometimes hear a myth perpetuated that Pajero's can't be very good offroad or durable owing to their all independent suspension. I'm not suggesting that one is necessarily better, just that military vehicle designers didn't get totally hung up on 'flex'! Picture attached is an old Soviet Era military vehicle now displayed in a park in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. It's 8 wheel drive and each wheel has an independent suspension setup, each with a driveshaft. The driveshafts are removed now, but you can see where they went in one of the images.

[DAVIDHHH]

I'm still curious about the specifics of that diesel heater and how you have it plumbed directly into your secondary fuel tank. That would be heaps better than having a small 10L tank attached to the heater like most other ones have.

I think you mentioned in an earlier blog post about doing a write up on it?

Enjoyed following your journey and thanks for the posts!

[kiwi1973]

I'm still curious about the specifics of that diesel heater and how you have it plumbed directly into your secondary fuel tank. That would be heaps better than having a small 10L tank attached to the heater like most other ones have.

I think you mentioned in an earlier blog post about doing a write up on it?

Enjoyed following your journey and thanks for the posts!

I installed a t junction into the fuel pickup line for the auxiliary fuel tank and from there ran a thin gauge fuel line to a safe position inside the left rear wheel area. So I can just connect the heater to that fuel line, and also open the back door and electrically plug it into an anderson connector I've located there that is powered from the auxiliary battery.

All this usually works really well, except for when temperatures dropped well below zero - which of course is when we needed the heater most! The issue there was that the diesel waxed in the very thin fuel line and stopped flowing. Obviously this caused the heater to shut down. Though we embark on these adventures, we very much like our comforts, and once you've become accustomed to a warm tent, regardless what's going on outside, there's no going back. So I had to quickly come up with a solution. In one photo attached I had drained some diesel from the auxiliary tank to an empty 5L water bottle. Positioning that bottle just the right distance from the heaters exhaust gas stream meant it could preheat the diesel and keep it from waxing. This worked well and is how we kept it running for the remainder of the trip, with overnight lows's on the wrong side of minus 10 degrees Celsius.

[DAVIDHHH]

Awesome, thanks for the quick reply!