Drive to sweden with trailer, cross bog, recover old **** drive home!

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Just hire one of these.

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Fook hiring one. Where do I buy one from?:D:D:D
 
Balloon tyres plus dump truck tyres then, for either scenario. Looking to make sleds 1/2m widex3m wide for the car trailer to ride on instead of wheels, will bolt through tread base.

Anyone know a good UK source of balloon bog tyres? :cool:
 
i think your mad !!
what sort of cost are you going to pay here ??
all this to retrieve a scrapper !!


i just don't understand WHY ? ? ? ? ? ?

i also think Meany people may have tried and failed over the years !!

it could be a long standing joke to locals, lol
 
Okay guys, a bit of background here. :cool: I am very enthusiastic about old VW busses, and have a few of the earliest ones around. I do travel far and wide to collect vans and/or parts, and put the time in to restoring them. In the past year, 2 of them have had complete new chassis fabricated, so the resto to sort out the one you cant see (red dot) is not a problem. Im currently working on replacing an 8ft length of rotten/missing roof gutter on a 1953 panel van, while collecting parts for my '54 samba, and currently organising a trip to Belgium to collect my '52 pick up, so as you can see, I am an enthusiast, so the bottom line is that I want to save this bus. Nobody has attempted to do it because it was only recently found in the depths of the Swedish woods, and is in the middle of nowhere. Some pics of me and my busses below...

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The above were taken on the Winter Trail 2010, camping in -18 in the Ardennes, 20 VW busses. some of us with no heating... ;)

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The above is the recovery of one of 20 RHD barndoor deluxes left. :)
 
I agree with ratty ... don't try to take the RR on the boggy bits it'll just cause much grief, whatever tyres you use. I'd adapt the trailer or make a few add-ons, bolt-ons, such that it will partially float/skid/roll with the tyres/wheels maybe only the depth of the tyre below the skidplate .. enough to roll on when on firm land, but not enough to catch and drag in the bogs. Think Scrapyard Challenge type stuff and maybe use van roof sections with strengtheners ....

Anchor the RR/winch very well on good ground and use a snatch/pulley block arrangement (or manhandle as it's empty) to tow the trailer out to the stuck vehicle, do the removal to the trailer, then winch it back. Far easier said than done ... ;) Reverse winching the trailer out to the stuck vehicle will give you a good guide as to which skids work best and which don't.

Many years ago we recovered an articulated lorry from Hatfield Peat Marshes doing this .. couldn't get traction and when we did we just dug down until we couldn't again! Eventually we made a sled for the front wheels and a skid plate under the tractor unit rear wheels from scaffolding planks screwed together. Then used another farm tractor pto to a large winch doubled over a couple of times round a tree about 30m away from the stuck units. The tractor had tried to simply tow the units out ... it sank .. and had to be winched out. What really helped us was an old boy ex REME who made up (showed us how to) an A-Frame from scaff planks that lifted the front of the sled every time we winched. OK, it had to be re-positioned every few feet or so, but it worked well and probably halved, or more, the load being winched.
 
Cheers for the help and advice so far guys, I didnt go to Glastonbury, so whoever was broken down wasnt me! ;)

I'm thinking that as time goes on, it will be getting towards the cold (-30) season reasonably soon, so there might not be enough time this season to get the RR built up to whatever specs and get all the kit/prep needed before it gets too cold to recover it until next March... At least if this is the case, it gives me a good winter to practice getting totally properly stuck and dealing with the conequences of it while in the comfort of the UK! :eek: If this is the case, then I might fly out and do a recce of the area, as I am basing my presumptions of the area on a few photographs and the guy's roughly translated opinions of the terrain. Unless I actually go there, and check out the place, then I am assuming it to be very inhospitable, which i'm sure you'll agree is the wisest choice, better to be overprepared than underprepared.

My intention is to stay as close to the tree line and out of trouble as possible, who knows, I might get lucky and find that its dry enough to get around the perimeter reasonably easily, that would really be the best luck ever!! :D
 
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