Doomsday Preppers - the Car Fail

"505Turbeaux" (505turbeaux) 10/03/2014 at 13:34 • Filed to: Doomsday losers

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So 505 doesn't watch too much TV, but last night I was looking for some comedy, and figured I would check out some Doomsday Preppers from Nat Geo (via Netflix). The first episode I saw was a "suburban dad" named Tim Ralston. So this guy's biggest fear is that an EMP will be the end of society by rendering pretty much anything with a circuit board dead and causing general mass chaos and much idiocy.

So I am watching, and the guy obviously doesn't know how to handle weapons. He holds his pistol like a rookie, and though he brags about having an arsenal, gets a misfire from a pistol and blows his thumb off. My first assumption is he has so many damn guns that he can't clean them all. Sure, that's cool. Learn your lesson. Of course since this is a TV shoot, there are EMT's on site and bandage him up. He passes out for some damn reason, his kids make fun of him, if I were a zombie I would have ate him by the time he woke up. Cool, whatever.

He is also the inventor of something called a "Crovel" that is marketed towards preppers. Kind of like a sharpened shovel that you can cut an already cleaned pig in half with with a solid blow (if it is hung from something). And the damn thing will open your beer. You can hammer or pull nails with it etc. Nothing my WWII army folding shovel won't do, but hey, it is a free world. People got to make money somehow. Ok thanks for bestowing the Crovel on the masses.

The thing that really sticks in my craw is this. So the guy is worried about an EMP. He trains his kids to do this: when he says "lets go on vacation", that means we are bugging the fuck out of town all geared up. Kind of a weird thing to subject your kids to, but still cool. They pull out the timer since it is a drill, start packing stuff into a trailer for the end of the damn world. Trailer is packed, sweet! So I look real closely to see what kind of ancient diesel or non electronic fuel injected vehicle he was hauling out of town on. Dude jumps in his damn 2000 era Wrangler and backs it up to hook up. Now tell me this, wouldn't that thing be fried too?

And not only this the "experts" missed that little fact. Later on in my viewing there was some hippy in a W123 wagon who makes biodiesel who would totally be rolling deep in the hood. In this spirit I am going to keep reviewing the vehicular selections shown on this show and will vet them out. Since the show has a panel of expert judges who doesn't know anything about them.

FJ80WaitinForaLSV8 > 505Turbeaux 10/03/2014 at 13:40

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These shows are so bad it hurts.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > 505Turbeaux 10/03/2014 at 13:42

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Jalopnik actually looked into this a while back: modern vehicles are actually a lot more "hard" against EM than you'd think. Unless he's close to the epicenter, there's a very reasonable chance that the Wrangler is fine. That left-handed longgun grab, though, and the "crovel":

I think we can safely assume he became a scripted reality show target due to the amazing combo of photogenicity and lack of common sense. I also question his gun choices somewhat, but that's me.

505Turbeaux > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 10/03/2014 at 13:45

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yeah I know they are harder than usually given credit for, but if your sole method of transport out was something at all to chance, give me mechanical injection or a carb and points all day

CAR_IS_MI > 505Turbeaux 10/03/2014 at 13:46

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Umm... Most modern electrical equipment is so well shielded that an EMP wouldn't do much. I mean if you were at ground zero then maybe, but for an EMP to be large enough to effect most modern electronics in a significant manner, it would have to be so huge that it could actually cause disruptions in the body...

505Turbeaux > CAR_IS_MI 10/03/2014 at 13:53

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shielded? With what? Most computer boxes I have opened in cars have none besides what the plastic case provides

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > 505Turbeaux 10/03/2014 at 13:58

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I need to research whether my Landie is inherently harder than a normal vehicle due to having paramagnetic skin instead of magnetic. It would depend, I guess, on how the eddy currents induced by an EMP would be soaked in different grades of aluminum, including (like on the Landie) high-copper alloy. Maybe. I did just look up the halving thickness of aluminum, and as one might expect, it's shit - so ionizing radiation blocking is something it blows at, but a magnetic field presumably less so.

505Turbeaux > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 10/03/2014 at 14:00

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huh, now I am curious myself...

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > 505Turbeaux 10/03/2014 at 14:03

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It seems that the *best* way to shield is with a nickel-iron - i.e. very strong ferrous qualities but no permanent magnetism. Your typical car, though - I don't think it has any resistance to, say, the whole hood getting lightly magnetized. Which, as you can imagine, doesn't bode that well for anything beneath it, but probably isn't *disastrous* outright.

BRB, building lead box and sleeves for megasquirt and injectors.

CAR_IS_MI > 505Turbeaux 10/03/2014 at 14:03

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Whats the newest car you've opened up? I'm talking post-mid-2000s. Many ECUs are now podded and the casings are often set up to act as Faraday cages to help prevent excess interference.

505Turbeaux > CAR_IS_MI 10/03/2014 at 14:05

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ah yeah. It isnt anything that new at all. late 90's/00's Volvo boxes, stuff like that. And there sure wasn't any shielding in there.

CAR_IS_MI > 505Turbeaux 10/03/2014 at 14:07

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yea, the two biggest concerns for an EMP would be the ECU and the fuse block (which is easy to bypass). If the ECU is decently shielded, most cars, even those relatively close to the blast radius, would have no major issues. Sure your radio might not work, or your windshield wipes might be permanently stuck on... but you could still drive.

505Turbeaux > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 10/03/2014 at 14:18

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hahaha I would say just toss the 2.25 diesel in there, but I am sure the megasquirted one has slightly more juice

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > 505Turbeaux 10/03/2014 at 14:22

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You misunderstand - the Ranchero is going to be Megasquirt, hence it may be vulnerable. I should have clarified. The 2.25 I have has a GM Rochester and mechanical points, running off a primitive voltage regulator you'd probably have to hit with a rock to damage.

505Turbeaux > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 10/03/2014 at 14:23

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spectacular. Yup I was confused a little! Megasquirt on the rover engine for the Ranchero. Got it

Justino6969 > 505Turbeaux 10/03/2014 at 21:48

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"The gun malfunctioned and my thumb went in front of the barrel." uh, what? How can you possibly do that? E