Category: Vehicles

Pat’s Product Review: Maxxeon WorkStar 2000

Way back before computers completely took over our lives, life seemed a lot simpler. If it were up to me, I’d live without computers, microprocessors, cell phones, texting, e-mails and tweets (whatever that is). I long for the time when cars were more simple to work on, I used to love tinkering with my own cars, improving on them, repairing them, and just playing around with them. Heck, I even worked as a dune buggy mechanic in Hawaii for a time. Today, with all the computers running cars and trucks, I can’t hardly figure out anything on new vehicles, you …


Letter Re: Diesel Fuel Storage and Dyed Diesel Issues

Greetings, In a short response to Simon S. from “Across the pond” and his letter about using heating oil for diesel vehicles, please let me add one small bit of first hand advice;  The heating oil that you buy for your home is not only dyed differently for tax reasons, it isn’t filtered as well either.  I also live in Europe and I got the idea to burn heating oil in my diesel vehicle once most people started converting (wrongly I might add) to Natural Gas from Russia.  The people who converted were expected to pay a lot of money …


Helicopter and Fixed Wing Drones for Retreat Security, by Long Jim

I recently stopped by our local farmers market, and while ambling along with a fresh home-made fig newton, I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw what one vendor offered. There amongst the crafts, and farm produce, was an enterprising fellow standing behind a table with a large three rotor drone helicopter. Marketed as the “Draganflyer” it has 3 dual sets of rotors stacked in pairs atop each other. It was equipped with a gyroscope-stabilized digital video, and still camera, set-up. He was contracting with folks to fly his drone over their property and take very detailed pictures of …


Letter Re: Thoughts Trailers and Towing Capacity for Times of Fuel Scarcity

Jim: InyoKern’s comments [about living in trailers] are right on. My brother is [living] in a 21.5 foot long toy hauler and it is built stronger than a conventional trailer and you can haul a lot in it. It is very comfortable and has extra large storage capacity for fuel, water etc. He has 200 watts of photovoltaic panels on the roof and four 6 -volt golf cart batteries cabled together to provide most of his electrical needs. I have a 9 foot truck camper and though its good the trailer is much more versatile for moving about from city …


Letter Re: Thoughts Trailers and Towing Capacity for Times of Fuel Scarcity

Dear Jim, I’ve been having blinding flashes of the obvious lately that I wanted to share.   A friend of mine just got a few AS degrees in IT, not realizing just how FUBAR the business world is for his new profession. IT professionals are no longer employees. They’re contract workers, rarely working in a position more than a year, and often a lot less. They don’t get benefits or retirement packages. They get specific tasks, get done, get paid, and get shown the door. This is not conducive to stable living. The career has changed so much that they …


Letter Re: The Heavy Equipment Threat

Captain Rawles: I’ve been enjoying and learning valuable information from your books and your blog, and thought I’d share some of my expertise in hope of helping others to prepare.   If, like me, you’ve been slowly adding more security to your bug-in location or retreat, you’ve been adding perimeter defenses such as fencing, detectors, etc. in order to prevent people and/or vehicles from easily gaining access to your property.  If you have more funds than I do, then you’ve probably installed harder defenses, such as bollards, ditches, and maybe even concertina wire.  These measures will stop most vehicular threats, …


Two Letters Re: Observations On Bugging Out By Foot

JWR: “Observations On Bugging Out By Foot” was a great article by J. Smith.  Like him, we use the Military Modular Seep System.   It can be purchased new on eBay for $120 to $150.  We keep them in our bug out bags here in cold country.   Another item we have tested and found to be very useful is the Solo Stove wood gas stove.  It only weighs 9 ounces and you can cook a meal with just twigs.  It has an alcohol stove option that fits inside and only weighs a few ounces.  You can get both stoves as a kit for …


Letter Re: Automotive Preparedness

JWR; After reading the follow up to automotive preparedness, (I am Toyota fan) I figured I would share a few thoughts. Some background , I use to be a tractor mechanic for several years, repairing all kind of engines, transmissions, and other systems. I have also owned four  1980s-era Toyota trucks since I was in high school  (all 4x4s). I  progressed from no power steering or air conditioning as a kid, to wanting all the extras later in life. I also have many friends and family which have Toyotas that I helped work on. I also have a neighbor that …


Letter Re: Automotive Preparedness

The author has laid out many very important ideas regarding keeping one’s vehicle(s) in working order and having the tools and know how to do repairs “on the fly”. I’d like to add one very important consideration – the MANUFACTURER and vintage of your vehicle. It hit me like “a ton of bricks” when the author mentioned his vehicle was a 1995 Chevy 1500.   I had one!  Without a doubt it was the worst vehicle I’ve ever owned. Brakes were worthless off of the showroom floor. By the 62,000 mi mark when I finally traded it the metallic blue paint had peeled …


Automotive Preparedness by P.D. in Northern Missouri

I am a firm believer that a TEOTWAWKI situation will happen, and in my lifetime.  I consider myself a prepper, and am a daily reader of “prepping articles,” and almost always read about “bug out bags,” or “72-hour kits,” call them what you will.  I also read allot of articles devoted to bug out vehicles.  A bug out vehicle is a great concept, but is only as good as the distance it will take you, or for the length of time that it will last.  I do believe that bugging out is a necessity in prepping for a TEOTWAWKI situation, …


Two Letters Re: Survival Bikes

Mr. JWR: A suggestion for the old bike tubes when they need to be replaced; cut out the stem and slit them along the inside of the tube curve, all the way around.  Lay it inside the wheel and nestle the new tube inside it.  You now have an additional rubber layer between the new tube and the puncture threats of the road. – Adventane Dear Mr. Rawles, I have “lurked” for several months on your site and have learned a great deal from it. Regarding Banjo’s article about survival bikes, he did not mention these solid rubber inner tubes, …


Letter Re: Survival Bikes

A few more thoughts on survival bikes, especially two readers’ recommendations to use Presta-valve tubes. Mark L. might be a bit of a bike snob; I understand that, having myself been into high-end bicycles and raced and toured thousands of miles, but his comments on Presta valves and suspension bikes I think are off the mark in a TEOTWAWKI situation. You cannot buy a Presta valve anywhere except a [high end] bike store or online. In my area, in the winter, there are no bike stores open within 150 miles in the best of times. Of course, if you’re thinking …


Three Letters Re: Survival Bikes

Hey James; I just want to comment regarding the article just posted about survival bikes.   It was a generally good article, but I have a few points of disagreement with the author.   The first point where I would disagree is in regard to the type of tubes he recommends.  His recommendation is bikes with Schrader valves as opposed to Presta.  I believe Presta valves to be far superior and more durable than the Schrader valve.  His reason for using the Schrader valve tube is that it is more universal.  While that is true, generally, most bicycle pumps have …


Survival Bikes, by Banjo

Lots of people are getting out of their cars and onto bikes these days, because of the high cost of gasoline , parking hassles, and concerns about staying physically fit. When natural disasters or terrorist acts strike, people repeatedly find that a good bicycle is a fine thing to have. On a “bang for the buck” basis, the bicycle is one of the finest travel machines Mankind has devised. When the motor vehicle was still in its infancy, armies the world over were putting their troops on bicycles. The armies knew they could move a lot of soldiers, with gear, …


In-Extremis Travel; Red Light, Green Light, Yellow Light, by Will Prep

There has been a lot of debate over whether or not to remain in place or to leave your home and retreat to another location within the prepper community. Both have their advantages and disadvantages but that is not the scope of this article. I simply want to address the moment that all of us may come to, both the bug-in crowd, when they realize their initial plan is untenable, or the bug-out crowd, when they have made their decision to move to “higher ground.” We all remember the game “Red Light, Green Light”, we played as kids and tried …