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Mon May 14, 2012 10:01 am

Did you "Air Down" before you entered the sand?

Mon May 14, 2012 2:20 pm

Your Syncro badge fell off.
Get a Sharpie and write Syncro just below your GL badge and you should be good to go.
Has worked for me several times, not really.
d

Mon May 14, 2012 3:26 pm

It was a spur of the moment let's park on the beach with my girlfriend at 1am.

Did not air down, and pulled up 10 ft too far onto the soft sand. I was very close to making it out. Sand ladders would have saved me, I have good friends that awnsered my call at 2 am and yanked me out before the police spotted me.

Getting stuck like this here can get you some serious tickets.

Mon May 14, 2012 3:37 pm

Good thing that the New Jersey Customs Officials didn't catcha - it's a $1,000 fine if your girlfriend isn't smacking gum and wearing tight slacks with stiletto heels!

A Syncro in New Jersey! I betcha felt like Marty McFly or Doc in their DeLorean coming out of the sand!! See ya later Biff!!

A Vanagon Syncro really is a vehicle that could be termed

BACK TO THE FUTURE.

windnseas

Mon May 14, 2012 3:56 pm

Last Thanksgiving as I was driving in some gravely sand my wheels started spinning and the van was not moving. Before digging myself into a hole, I aired my rear tires down from 45 PSI to 25 PSI, almost doubling my tire contact patch. I popped out of the sand just like that and I slowly rolled into the nearby gas station and aired my tires back up. Whew!

Mon May 14, 2012 5:18 pm

So you were stuck on the beach at night, with your girlfriend, in a van.
Whats the problem?

Mon May 14, 2012 5:45 pm

summer samba wrote: So you were stuck on the beach at night, with your girlfriend, in a van.
Whats the problem?
Maybe he's married? :lol:

Mon May 14, 2012 5:47 pm

SS - that's what I was wondering as well. Sadly, we all know the problem. Which is that our society has completely lost its collective sense of humor. We gave away control of decisions like "should I give this kid a ticket, or help him and his girlfriend out?" to the government and in that state of affairs all decisions get made as if the person (kid stuck with girlfriend) were an enemy of the state. It's true. Left to the decisions of people, he'd get no ticket and helped out because all of us were once young. But in today's world a kid can't just be a kid - they're held to the standard of worst case scenario.

Anyhow, on behalf of someone else who was once a kid - glad you got out without mishap.

DougM

Mon May 14, 2012 6:30 pm

GrindGarage wrote: It was a spur of the moment let's park on the beach with my girlfriend at 1am. ... I was very close to making it out. .
Remove red text and sentence now reads correctly. :wink:

Mon May 14, 2012 6:46 pm

OK.. let's get some humor...

did you have a good time?

you knew that you get stuck before or after?

:D

Mon May 14, 2012 6:58 pm

Had a great time.....

Getting a little too old to get away with these things when the man shows up.

Did have to wait awhile for the yank and passed out in the back.

Mon May 14, 2012 7:03 pm

My family had to part ways with our Syncro when it ate a transmission in the Jersey sand :cry:

Mon May 14, 2012 7:48 pm

That's an old trick. Oh no the car won't start, what should we do now....

Tue May 15, 2012 3:23 am

Quote: Did not air down, and pulled up 10 ft too far onto the soft sand. I was very close to making out.

Fixed it for ya :wink:

Tue May 15, 2012 3:56 am

.

DO NOT THINK ..... AIR DOWN ...... In muddy rocks air down to, say, 19psi. In sand you can go lower, such as 14psi.

This picture was taken in the outer banks of North Carolina. The van also spent a lot of time on the beach on Long Island, NY (after we purchased the required fishing pole and contended with driving through the nudist beach).

The little guy who is in the van there getting a cold one with the blue bathing suit is a little bigger now. This is Seth at 18, in this case driving a borrowed Doka last summer for 3 weeks in Uganda:

Tue May 15, 2012 8:06 am

Fellas, the OP doesn't have a Syncro, its a regular, front-heavy 2WD Carat with an open diff...guaranteed to get stuck.

Tue May 15, 2012 8:45 am

I used to hang out on the OBX a lot in my younger days. The old surfer that lived down the way used to drive his Nova out onto the beach with tires that were down around 10 psi. It can be done but you can't stop until you get to the hard packed stuff.

Fri May 18, 2012 4:36 am

Well looks like the trans wasn't happy with the quality beach time. My new torque converter seal is now dripping. Have 2 on the way going to double pack them for safety.

Any conversion owners think that the 6,000+ red line on the Subaru is too much for these transmissions? I don't feel like the power output of this motor warrants for the governor mod and now may start looking for a OG unit.

FYI was not hitting red line in the sand, just daily on the street.

Fri May 18, 2012 7:58 am

Was the picture from Beach Haven? The background looks rather familiar.