Surviving the desert by building a motorcycle from a broken car? (2017)
historygarage.com
historygarage.com
He was a logger in the Pacific Northwest. At one point he was hauling logs up the Oregon Coast, and his truck broke down in the middle of nowhere, stranding him. (Probably an old Gary truck, which was practically made from cast iron.) I don't remember the exact part, but it was something to do with a wheel... the rim, or part of the axle or mounting.
He happened to have some ingots in his truck (a soft metal, I forget the term). So he built up a large fire, melted the ingots, and sand-cast a replacement part using the broken piece as a template. Once it cooled and was cleaned up, it worked well enough to get him to civilization, or whatever passed for civilization in Oregon in the 30s.
Seeing all the logging hacks I've seen when growing up, I completely believe this story.
I guess it depends on your definition of "double" -- Al @ 1221°F / 660°C vs. Pb @ 621.5°F / 327°C, but sure, in Kelvin it's 1.55 thanks to the higher baseline. Still ~twice the delta-T from room temp, though.
> I've melted aluminum many times by accident, even 1000-series aluminum.
Really? With a wood-based fire?
It's easy enough to melt 1000-series aluminum foil with a wood fire, and people commonly melt parts of beer cans in wood fires as well (ten times thicker but with a lower melting point). Aluminum ingots usually require at least a charcoal fire, and usually forced-air convection as well. But, as someone commented in another thread, babbitt is a much more likely candidate for the metal in question, because why would a logger be carrying around aluminum ingots in their truck? Especially in the 01930s. Ingots are for remelting, and that's a sensible thing to do in the field with babbitt in a non-emergency situation, much less so with aluminum.
I particularly like how the base trim provides splash based oil lubrication only.
[0] https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/mycompanies/images/f/ff/Ga...
What are the chances you have enough tools to tear down and rebuild a car in a different format like this, and you choose to do so instead of hiking? You'd have to have done it, or something like it, before.
Maybe I am just mad because swapping out shocks and springs would take me several weekends with full tools and a jack.
German cars tend to have a bunch of hex and star wrench requirements, in addition to specialized tools for certain parts.
On the other hand, older cars did mostly have way more space in the engine bay.
Is this true in new trucks? Half the time it seems maintenance begins with removing the cab and removing the truck from the engine.
Realistically it doesn't really matter because it's easier to optimize for not breaking shit or fixing it before is strands you.
There are various unusual things about this particular car that make it at least hover on the edge of plausibility, rather than being a completely absurd idea as it would be for most models. As the article said, they did fail, but it's not too hard to believe they could have figured something out that would have at least been faster than walking if they had a bit more time (and by that I mean a few more hours, not a few more weeks). The Mythbusters did a lot of interesting things but where a normal scientist is driven mercilessly by grants, the Mythbusters were always driven mercilessly by TV production schedules.
From the article though it didn’t sound he drove very far, so carry less than 10 days would have been possible too.
Difference is that you can make trips to set up fuel dumps wherever you want.
The standard guidance is 1 gallon (~4 liters) of water per day, via all sources (includes food). A gallon weighs a little more than 8 pounds, so that’s 80+ pounds of water for ten days (not counting container, backpack, and whatever else you’re schlepping). Weight will decrease each day, but that’s a lot of weight up front. Backpackers usually try to carry half that, but 80 isn’t out of the question if you’re conditioned for it (eg US ground military carry 60-100 lbs).
A gallon a day is probably overkill for a short term survival situation, though. Having less, especially while you’re exerting yourself, may cause damage, but the survival goal is just to come out the other side.
Some quick googling on actual minimums to survive turned up this thread, where someone calculated it to be 1 liter per day while resting in a cool environment. So that’s 20lbs that needs to be adjusted upward for carrying significant weight offtrail in potentially hot conditions. https://www.backcountrysurvival.co.uk/2016/05/20/minimum-amo...
If you split the difference and assume strict rationing, you’re looking at 50lb start weight and suffering significant but not incapacitating dehydration. Brutal, but conceivable.
Unless you are in the Italian army, they need more.
In the nearly nude photo his hands are visibly dirty.
As long as you carried some spare wiring harness smoke.
http://www.whereisbobl.com/tiger/smoke.html
"Q: Can I use this device to replace the smoke in my Alfa Spider? Is Brit smoke the same as Italian smoke?
A: Only if it's pre-Bosch."
Seems like a fairly easy walk to me. Uncomfortable and a bit long (roughly one day), certainly, but less-so than a dozen days in the desert.
I agree this was likely a preconceived stunt because locals walk that distance, in much more rugged conditions,, all the time without making a big deal about it.
10 days of water in the desert probably becomes a lot less when you're hauling it without a combustion engine assisting. I've done a lot of manual labor in the mojave. When rebuilding a roof in July I was going through 5-10 gallons a day - and that's not dragging heavy shit across the wilderness.
I doubt the motorcycle rode particularly well, it probably more resembled a self-powered wheeled sled for precariously carrying him and his supplies with less effort than without fire. My assumption is it tipped over often and was quite graceless...
This was 120F ambient air temps, much hotter surface/roof-in-progress temps operating in close proximity to.
Basically every drink break put down 2 Brita pitchers worth, refilled from a 5-gallon water cooler bottle. Typically I'd have to go down and refill the 5-gallon bottle once per day... hence 5-10gals.
It sounds like he used the cab as shelter once removed intact. Presumably he hid idly in its shadow during the hottest hours of the project as well...
But yeah at some point if the hack isn't bearing fruit you have to cut your losses and walk.
Edit: This article says: "The nearest village was 20 miles away and Leray didn't want to risk making the trek on foot." http://www.nydailynews.com/autos/photos-man-escapes-african-...
I could even imagine that he did get stranded out there and knew worst case he could just walk back, so why not try to build a motorcycle for the fun of it and then dramatize the story years later.
Is a marathon a huge athletic feat, that the fittest people you know spend months in preparation for, and even then may only do once in their lifetime? Or is it the distance a person of average fitness can walk in a day?
Myth Busters proved this was possible. Not that this story actually happened, just that it could have.
1. They build it and it works. That would prove that building a useful MLTFTC (motorcycle-like thing from that car) was possible, but would not prove that Leray had done so.
2. They are unable to find a way to build an MLTFTC. This does not prove it cannot be done, but they are smart and inventive builders and had accounts and photos of Leray's alleged MLTFTC to go on, so if they could not figure it out it would cast very strong doubts on Leray's story.
3. The result they actually got. They are able to build an MLTFTC, but it doesn't work well enough to ride.
That is the least satisfying possible result. It tells us that MLTFTCs are possible, but doesn't tell us if useful ones are possible. That theirs was not useful fails to rule out that others might be useful because two-wheeled vehicles are quite sensitive to geometry. It has not hard to have two such vehicles that look very similar, but one is rideable and one is not due to a few degrees difference in part of the geometry.
https://www.google.com/maps/@28.03012,-11.1617356,3a,75y,89....
And I note no mention of food. 10 days of hoofing it without food isn't going to happen. A day of hoofing it with a pack burns 4000-5000 calories/day. Your body quickly depletes it's ready stores and you're down to fat reserves--and the rate that you can use those is limited.
I know something of the terrain and even without looking at a map my first reaction to what he attempted was that it would be impossible even by survival standards. I do not believe the terrain could be traversed even with mountaineering gear. (Too much of it is loose material near the maximum stable angle--it won't bear weight.)
I'm probably doing 3 litres a day of pure water (plus water from coffees / food etc.) in 30 degree temps, but spending most of that time inside with air-con. It's probably not enough as I am pissing orange still.
Edit: someone like me wouldn't hike in deserts though, so by survivorship bias people that do it often probably need less water to stay cool. But 2l/day even if walking only dusk/dawn seems tight still.
You took off the back cover with the TV on, looked at all the tubes, and found the one whose filament was not glowing. You then turned the TV off, pulled that tube out of its socket, went and bought a replacement, put that in, and that almost always fixed the TV.
You get could the replacement tube at many supermarkets. They would have a self-service kiosk that had a tube tester built in. It had a bunch of sockets covering all the tubes you were likely to find in a home TV or radio. You'd plug yours into the right socket and hit the test button, and the tester would verify that the tube was indeed dead (or tell you were wrong in which case maybe it was something other than a tube that failed so time to call the TV repairman).
There would be a book attached to the kiosk that listed all the tubes likely to be in home TVs or radios. You'd look your tube up in that and it would tell you what equivalent tube available at the kiosk could replace your tube. You'd grab that tube and go pay the cashier.
Last time though, I used tape and labeled every single hose, wire, screw, etc. Unsurprisingly, there were no extra parts afterall :).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flight_of_the_Phoenix_(196...
Movie stuntmen getting hurt - even dead - has been happening long after that movie. Even non-stuntmen can have close shaves on-set (I've had three, just as an SFX tech, safety is probably much better these days since the '80s); always seemed to be the cameramen who ran the highest risks.
They say that logging is one of the most dangerous jobs. I am not surprised but I think a good factor in that equation is the loggers themselves. (And some of the trees, which can be downright treacherous.)
In comparison what I've seen on film sets has always been pretty mild.
US loggers seem to take more risks and have less sophisticated equipment.
Is my impression correct?
If it were even close to that eventful people would live-stream it. Note the release schedule of all the <insert workplace more dangerous than an office> youtubers and how little of their content is sketchy stuff.
I'm aware of that. The question was about risky behaviour being more visible in videos from the US than other rich countries.
Source: my father owned several cars of the 2CV family and we rode in them for years.
Did he actually build it in the desert? Without tools it seems rather difficult.
Here's the central point of https://sahara-overland.com/tag/emile-leray/
> I believe the 2CV bike was indeed built in the desert, much as Leray claims, but he set out from France with the explicit intention of performing this task. Otherwise he’d have walked out like any normal person in a similar situation.
> His claimed unease about leaving his stricken car doesn’t ring true, let alone the spontaneous idea of making it into a two-wheeler. Tellingly, in 2006 Leray went on to build a ‘2CV boat’ in Mali. He clearly likes mucking about with 2CVs. Fair play to him!
That was it, the bottle was now our fuel tank. Dangerous, but worked perfectly. We had to stop at every gas station we found and refill without stopping the engine to prevent air entering the hose.
It was a fun day.
This made an alcohol powered utility vehicle very attractive for the region at the time. It was probably the cheapest pickup one could buy.
Thanks for bringing this back :)
A diagram of the 2CV drive system can be found here: http://www.lightauto.com/fwd8.html
I wasn't there of course.
If anything of this story is actually true it might make sense to put yourself in his shoes. You broke down trying to sneak around a military outpost. What are you going to tell people when they find your car or you go get help to recover it? You are only 20 miles out so just throwing a match on it draws a little too much attention to yourself and you have 12 days of water and supplies. The way I figure it, you have at least 11 days to destroy the evidence and any fun you can have in the process is a bonus.
"The insanity of this creation couldn’t be better expressed than in the episode of Mythbusters, where they tried to recreate his process."
"Without following a manual, the hosts disassembled a 2CV, which they found easy, then set about making their bike. That part was not so easy. They failed twice."
"The first, was when they tried to make a better version, requiring two to operate it. Fail."
"Then, they tried to recreate Leray’s machine from the images they’d seen. They couldn’t balance it long enough to save their lives. Fail again."
"Considering the boys had two good brains, intelligent, experienced, and endless time to make something, they failed two-times-twice."