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FINE TUNING
We've gone from different extremes. We're now in the jungle.
PAUL MARSH ADVENTURE MECHANIC
The jungle is the most extreme conditions we'll be running.
The first extreme modification was to lift the vehicle.
We've lifted the vehicle almost 4 inches to give us ground clearance.
And this is enabling us to put big, 33-inch mud tyres.
Not a normal mud terrain tyre,
but extreme ones, for jungle conditions.
We've moved the front bumper.
The whole bumper's come off and that exposes quite a big area.
It's going to be replaced with a big steel bumper.
This will give us a lot of protection on the vehicle front.
Any branches that get hit
will help protect the front of this vehicle.
This is a winch bar.
The winch is mounted on the inside
so it's a really strong fixing to the vehicle.
That's going to allow us to recover ourselves in difficult situations
in the rainforest.
The most common reason for breakdown will be something like water.
Water is going to be our enemy in the jungle.
High humidity. The rivers we're going to cross
will probably flood the engine bay.
In preparing the vehicle for the wet and mud,
the first thing to protect is the air system.
We've fitted a snorkel, or a raised air intake.
This enables the water level to come up.
If it filled the engine bay,
the air intake will be protected
at a much higher level of intake.
We're doing a quick demonstration to prove
what it's going to be like driving through the jungle.
The amount of resistance and suction of the mud
plus dragging the underside of the belly through the jungle
is equivalent to dragging 1 or 2 tons
up and down a tarmac road all day.
This is the extra load on the engine, the vehicle,
the transmission, everything.
It's a demonstration we're doing now
to show how tough it's going to be out there.
Here it comes.
We've got the vehicle in low-range four-wheel-drive.
That's a very low gear.
It's putting a lot of drive and torque through the engine.
That builds up a lot more heat.
The revs are running high.
So all the components in the engine are under huge strain
to try and drag this enormous load up this road.
That's amazing.
It looks heavy.
The size of that log.
That's impressive