Luke,

I was thinking of running XZY's tubeless, on tubeless rims of course, but are you saying that when deflated they can slip off?

Andrew.

I've never tried them on tubeless rims. I don't think the problem will be that they'll slip off, more that they'll slip round.
That's not really a problem until you have a tube. They may leak at the seams if they slip round, but the sidewalls fatigue quickly when you run them soft.
If you take a guide don't let him let your tyres down as much as he'd like; their experience is with O/R and sand tyres, not long distance HGV tyres (albeit miniaturised)
Reinflate the moment you get out of the soft stuff; if you hear the slightest crackling as you inflate it's too late...



[This message has been edited by Luke (edited 12 October 2005).]

When you say the sidewalls fatigue quickly, how soon is quickly? I ran my all over Algeria at 1-1.5 bar, overloaded and in high temps as well as more modest Morocco trips and no sign of fatigue, even after a tube blew explosively at 70 mph racing a Land Cruiser on broken tarmac! There is now some sidewall cracking on 2 out of the original 6 but I think that's only age.

Andrew

Andrew,

Did you lose ;-)

Is this why you have now bought a TLC?

------------------
Cheers,

Julian
Euro Landcruiser Owners Club
http://www.landcruisers.info/lists/

__________________
Cheers,

Julian Voelcker
Overland Cruisers - Specialising in Land Cruiser preparation and servicing.

Thanks guys for all the input.I have made up my mind and ordered them. Looking forward to trying them this weekend.

Nice one Julian

Hi Andrew, there are so many variables onf loading, speed and temperature it's difficult to tell.
My XZY tyres had never been run soft, they already had over 50000kms in them.

It took two days of desperately trying to keep up with the guide's car/convoy through the Banc d'Arguin to destroy two back tyres.

My Iveco is SLOW and heavy/underpowered, the guide bullied me into letting them down to 1.5 bars for the dunes to the south of the park. 4 hours later, in site of the tar the first one blew, the second went when I stopped to inflate once back on the road.

A little exercise for the curious: find a piece of stranded steel wire about 2mm thick (like a bycicle brake cable), bend it to the profile of a deflated tyre and straighten it. Count the number of times you can do that until it breaks, divide by approximately 4 to take into account the heat and pressure in a tyre and you've got the number of turns your tyre can do before bursting.

Actually don't bother, there'll be as many good stories as bad, Andrew is clearly a good driver, and although his LR may have been overloaded he'll have been nowhere near the upper limit marked on the tyre.

The XZY is the only tyre I can use in 7.5x16 because nothing else has a high enough load rating, and even then I have to run them at 5 bar on the tar.
I'm on 235/85x16 XZLs now, much comfier, softer and grippier.

In prolonged soft sand it is a better ride for most vehicles to run at about 1.5 bar(between 1 and 2 bar depending on yr setup.If you change direction at very low speed or,from standstill there may be a tendancy for the tyres to slip off the rims.Don't do the above and you should have no problem with slipping.Learnt the hard way!!

After running on soft sand with deflated tyres the temp in the tyre is massively increased.When transfering onto harder surfaces we have a tendancy to be going faster than in the sand and this stresses the tyres and blow outs are caused.I found that if I stopped for a few minutes after getting back on a harder surface even after reflating,I did not have blow out problems.Also learnt the hard way(with others).

Julian,

Musing on the possibility of a VX80 TLC, or maybe rebuilding the 110 for half the money...naturally the TLC beat us on speed - 200 vs 110 bhp !

Must say I was not aware of the XZL in 235-85 size, it has a good load rating and must be pretty reasonable in dunes/soft sand, better than XZY especially at very low pressures.

The XZY is a very skinny but very tough tyre but is not brilliant in soft sand - you just sink straight away if you hit it but we discovered that determined driving and shedding weight helped enormously.

Will now consider XZL in 235 over XZY or BFG M/T for desert and Sahel trips planned.

Andrew.

Andrew.
The standard diesel 80s are actually only around 160bhp but agree it wasn't a fair fight;-)

If you want to find out more about TLCs do come along to our day out on Salisbury Plain on the 20th November - we should have a few desert ready TLCs there and also have Chris Scott coming along to do a talk on the ones he has had.

------------------
Cheers,

Julian
Euro Landcruiser Owners Club
http://www.landcruisers.info/lists/

__________________
Cheers,

Julian Voelcker
Overland Cruisers - Specialising in Land Cruiser preparation and servicing.

Julian,

This particular LC virtually lives in the desert and has been modified to give just over 200 bhp, he gave us a 5 minute start but it took him 50 miles to catch us.... I may well come along to Salisbury, sounds most interesting and would be intrigued to meet some of the names.

Andrew.

Most likely had an intercooler fitted - one of those 'wish they came as standard' mods for an 80, they are begging for them and apart from cost there aren't any real downsides if fitted properly.

------------------
Cheers,

Julian
Euro Landcruiser Owners Club
http://www.landcruisers.info/lists/

__________________
Cheers,

Julian Voelcker
Overland Cruisers - Specialising in Land Cruiser preparation and servicing.

From experiences I know of, and as above, they will probably give you the least hassle, but if you need to change a tube on one of them in the wilds, make sure you have a few days water & food supply. They are very tough. You will need to know what you are doing

Can't agree with You on that. It took me an hour and a half to mount 4 tyres with tubes on landrover steel rims using two tyre irons and some dishwashing liquid to grease rims and tyres. The first one took me 45 mins, because I didn't realize, that the rim has to go in with the deep side facing down. Anyway the last one of the four took me only ten mins, now having experience and all ;-)

Getting them on's easy, it's breaking the bead to get them off that's not.
Even on my split rims which don't have that shoulder it's a fight.
Fortunately the sidewalls are nice and flexible, so they don't complain about being squashed with the foot of a Hi-lift.

I'm waiting for someone to tell me a story about XZLs and tyre pliers.

What sort of story? I have used both the Tyrepliers and XZLs for nearly two years now and find them both irreplaceable (except by maybe the XZY).

Couldn't do without the TPs - make the job a piece of piss.

Must say I disagree with Chris Scott on the Michelin Airstop tubes though, Dunlop Airseal (in the 750 x 16 LT size) are much stronger. Also the locally (Kenyan) produced Firestone tubes look good although I have not had to use them yet.

Split rims are brilliant although they must be kept free of internal rust - have just spent the last week wire brushing and painting mine as I cannot afford grit blasting and powder coating!

__________________
Enzo

Thank you Jeremy;
The only things I have heard about tyrepliers has come from salesmen.
Being instinctively tight as well as mistrusting salespeople in general I was interested to hear from someone who has used them elsewhere than workshop conditions.

They're on the list of things to get before the next departure, I already need to get away again...