[interceptor]

Hi Lads,

I went out to the floodplains last week end to try and bag a pig. The place I went was 30 odd klms from the road and as usual I had a mate with me and all our gear on the Blue Meanie. She handled the load easy, On the Sunday around lunch time the grizz's overheating light came on so I pulled up in some shade and let it cool down a bit (It was stinking hot, probably around the 40deg C) and the grass on the plain was 5 feet high so the quad was not getting any clean air either. This happened twice.

We had cut a track with the quad for over 20klms to get to this part of the flood plain, I run down sand palm and small saplings and dead trees without too much trouble (except every now and then the trees are tougher than they look). About 20 klms from the car I pushed through a small shrub, unfortunately there was a sand palm stum leaning towards the quad...................and you guessed it.....................straight over the winch smashed the grill and slammed into the radiator pushing it hard against the fan and stopping it from turning.

We were a long long way from the car so the last thing I wanted was to break open the radiator core......... We stripped off the front rack and bonnet and managed to free tha fan by removing a c bolt from the radiator and the fan shroud. We then had a long ride to the ute worrying about the radiator or fan giving up on us and haveing to walk (A VERY LONG WAY)

The Grizz got us to the ute with no more problems. But I am going to strip it down over the wet season and repair/replace the radiator and grill and build a new front bumper setup with a quick hitch setup for the winch (just like CG, those pics will be handy mate) and I also intend to protect the front end with some light weight expanded mesh.

I will post some pics of the damage in the next day or so.

The moral of this story, you really should travel in pairs in remote areas..........you just never know.

Here is a pic of one of the buff we seen on the Saturday

Cheers Noel

 

[starky]

Glad you made it out all right. Sounds like a great trip even with the bent stuff.

 

[interceptor]

Starky,

I double posted this one, the pics are in the other one.

Cheers Noel

 

[robg]

Whenever your quad gets hot like that, it's worth pulling both of the black plastic side panels. The hot air coming out of there is **** hot, so if you're in shorts, you may get burned if you don't keep your legs away from it. Still, it's a great way to get hot air away from the motor. I learned to do this because of the **** fuel boiling problems that my Grizzly still has to this day (despite jet hot coating and other tricks).

That's a good idea about installing something to protect the radiator and fan. I think I'll do that too.

Rob

 

[interceptor]

Rob,

Yeah mate we took the side panels off as well, the grizz really is not made for the abuse i put it through. But thats how it is here, we went out on Sunday and most of our track has overgrown just from the good rains we had two weeks ago. By the end of the wet the tracks will be GONE.

I will post pics on the front end protection when I am done.

Cheers Noel