Recovery Equipment

Chris

The amount of recovery gear you may require depends on the type of travelling you intend to do .
A lot travellers carry all the stuff they think they need and they end up never using it .

If you are doing remote desert travel than will will need a well setup vehicle , but apart from that a bull bar maybe all you need . ?
Winches normally die from lack of use .

I live in Melbourne so the intention in to do some of the high country tracks and some of those that are near to Melbourne. So far I have only used a snatch strap to give some assistance when a friend was hung on an edge.

Chris, first thing set up some decent front and rear recovery points.
Usually if you have a towbar fitted with square hitch, you can just get the simple > hitch receiverSupercheap Australia < has some decnet gear at reasonable prices, especially id you wait for the 20% - 25% sales days (like Easter Saturday just gone).

If you are doing much beach driving, a pair of Maxtrax or Treds is invaluable.

You may or may not NEED a bullbar, but they are handy for mounting spotties, lightbars, UHF antennas, sand flags etc.
A nudge bar is a reasonable trade off, but try and get one with at least a few mounting points, many only come with 2 for spots, and you then need to go to a welding place and get some extras tig welded on (gusset high stress ones like the sand flag mount).

Of course if you decide your 4WDn is more the type that could require a winch, you will have to get a heavier duty full on winch bullbar.

This may add weight that then requires a suspension upgrade, lots of pros and cons of mods.

LEDS lighting is a whole other kettle of fish, well discussed on forums.
Personally, I feel they are fine if you get good quality output lights, maybe a pair, and have them slightly angled outwards to each side in front, this is usually a dead light spot where you need it if driving a fair bit at night, the kangas seem to love coming in from those dead light areas.
I have HID spots out front, which give good light to about 700m, a smaller 17" Stedi 80w straight light bar mounted under them really didn't do anything for the side lighting (even though it had 4 centre spot 10w, and 2 each side spread 10w leds), but did help out front in close.
I ended up also fitting a Stedi 42" 240w curved light bar up on the front back roof bar, it lights up the sides very well :)

Again, all this needs somewhere to mount this gear.
The 17" LED bar I had to get some gussets and another ali plate welded onthe alloy nudge bar, between and under the spot mounts, that was a couple of cartons of beer ($100) to the fabrication boys when up on a Brissy trip.

The Stedi LED gear is a piece of cake to fit yourself, ensure the harness is included, or order it extra, it's all just plug and play, some cable ties to keep wiring neat, and you are done in under an hour if a bit of a handyman.

Enjoy the new toy and the fitting out, it's a lot of fun getting it set up for your needs.

Please do NOT use the tow ball to attach snatch strap.
Use and buy australian standard recovery gear.
rated shackles.
and just always think safe.
soo many have died and near fatal from tow balls breaking off.

HAVE FUN

The first things you need are a decent set of All Terrain Tyres.

You have a snatch strap so then a UHF

Hi Chris,
Agree with many of the comments mentioned previously. Light truck tyres are really worthwhile. They will cope with the lower pressures you will need to travel over the outback roads/tracks.
Another thing to consider is the danger element associated with snatch straps and inadequate attachment points. As mentioned tow balls are definitately not recommended as an attachment point. Tow hitch receivers, although seeming a good idea, also are potential missiles and are generally not recommended for recoveries. In my 4wd club the recommended attachment point is the pin that would hold goose neck part of the tow bar.
As recommended do a 4wd course or join a local club as I did a number of years ago. The clubs often provide access to training and there is so much experience amongst the members.
Best wishes for future travels.

Being you are new to 4wd'ing, I'd suggest you look at joining a local 4wd club if that is possible to help learn more about your vehicle and safe recovery techniques etc.. Most clubs have in house driver training courses that they do these days, and many are accredited courses also. Most clubs will let you come on 2 trips before you are expected to join their club, this will give you an opportunity to see if the club is right for you or not as far as what sort of 4wding they do and the type of people that are in the club. Whilst 4wd clubs aren't for everyone, I met some great people over the years from the club I used to be a part of. These days I still go camping with families I met in that club, and when out 4wd'ing I know I can trust these people in recovery situations. Joining a club and doing a course through them can work out much cheaper then using private companies to do training, but either way it is surprising how much you learn by doing these courses.

Most useful thing I carry is a long handed shovel.

I would also recommend joining a club. I have been in two with a 27 year gap between leaving one and joining the second one. If you choose one that covers family based trips everywhere from the High Country to the deserts, you will learn heaps.

Even then you have to be careful. There were no snatch straps when I was in my first club and recoveries were never a problem. Their main trip area was the Snowy Mountains.

The second one told me to use the tow bar as the rear snatching point. A local major 4x4 shop said the same thing. I was not convinced so I started looking at snatch strap failures and fatalities on the net. It did not take long to find two incidents of tow bars being ripped off my model car. In both cases the last 100 mm of the chassis was also torn off with them.

The number of hooks or whatever coming off the front and slamming into or passing straight through the back of the tow vehicle is endless.

Keep that in mind when snatching. You rarely if ever know the condition of the recovery points on the other car. Have they been over stressed on previous snatches? Are the retaining bolts or the captive nuts inside the chassis rusted. Unfortunately you can't tell by looking.

As for other recovery gear: My wife and I do a lot of solo travelling in both mountains and deserts. The golden rule is don't get stuck. That is not hard to do. Get local advice on track conditions and weather. Walk over anything that looks difficult, don't just drive in hoping for the best
.
We always carry a hand winch. That can pull the car in any direction but so far the only use we have given ours is pulling fallen trees off the track. They can save a lot of cutting.

In deserts we have a tow rope, a shovel and a very extensive puncture repair kit that is capable of fixing a hole that would take a whole packet of temporary plugs and then some to seal it.
.
Once again the same rule applies, don't go where you are not sure if you can get through.

I travel alone with my wife and carry this.
long handled shovel.
2 -1100mm treads,
10mm x 300x 300 aluminium jack base and timber pine packing to drive up on if
can't get the jack under.


Depending on the hassle, I have been known to sit down, have a beer and think about it, then decide the best way to solve the problem. So beer must be part of the recovery or tea will do surfice for the non partakers. Not joking here but sitting and thinking about it is a great way to solve a problem.