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Northlander '94 Safari turbo

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2016 11:01 am
by FarNorth
Howdy~

Long time lurker in the Far North (surprise) with a few questions.
First off thanks to Tuckertrucker for answering my pms today. Really appreciated.

I'm looking at slowly giving the old girl ('94 Safari factory turbo) a bit more zing as she's starting to show her age. I'm wanting to put on a 3" straight through exhaust from the turbo back. TuckerTrucker has put me onto muffler services in Whangarei so I'll call them up today to see what the go is there.

Just wondering if there are any reputable diesel tuners in the Northland area that anyone knows of? I would like to get a dyno/diagnostic done on the old girl just to see where she's at mechanically before diving right into bigger turbo/IC etc. etc.

I'll be going ahead with the exhaust (and snorkel/air box ) regardless but it would be great to get an proper engine diagnosis done.

Cheers in advance~

Re: Northlander '94 Safari turbo

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2016 6:15 pm
by zukmeista
Welcome, best place I know of is Diesel Maintenance in Whangarei.

Re: Northlander '94 Safari turbo

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2016 8:31 pm
by FarNorth
Cheers Zukmeista.

Will give them a call up some time. Have to schedule in a few trips to Whangarei from the sounds of things.

Muffler services quoted $1150 inc. for 3" exhaust so will call them back tomorrow to confirm the details and hopefully get the ball rolling.

Re: Northlander '94 Safari turbo

Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2016 9:05 am
by zukmeista
Sounds like a reasonable price, the guys there do a great job have had them do quite a few exhaust jobs. Just make sure you are specific about the routing so that it gets tucked up out of the way to avoid it being damaged offroad as they don't know where we take these trucks :mrgreen:

Re: Northlander '94 Safari turbo

Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2016 10:48 am
by MihiT
Kamo mufflers have done some good work for a mate of mine. Straight piped a TD courier, the thing purrs! Inexpensive, too.

Re: Northlander '94 Safari turbo

Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2016 6:33 am
by teamorange
Ditto Kamo Mufflers, very helpful, they have done 2 exhausts for me, worth a chat IMO, just to check prices.

Re: Northlander '94 Safari turbo

Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2016 10:01 am
by FarNorth
Cheers for the info guys.

I gave Kamo Mufflers a call and got an estimate of around 1k. Will see where I go to from here over the weekend.

Diesel maintenance were great as well. I will get a compression test/tappets etc. checked some time in the near future. They recommended Trans Tune if I wanted to dyno the old girl to see where she was at power wise. Will look into that as well. Has anyone used them before??

She's a work in progress as it's my daily driver and getting the time to work on her is a bit tough at the moment but I'll keep on keeping on.

Cheers.

Re: Northlander '94 Safari turbo

Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2016 8:22 pm
by FarNorth
Have sorted out details on the exhaust system to be done in Whangarei. Will have to take a day off work some time in the week to get down there.

Only problem is I got my 2" lift (springs & shocks) put in on Friday and now I've got vibrations/noise at 90ish kph. Don't wanna take the old girl on a long trip with that so bought a spacer kit from Trundles after reading up on it on patrol website. Read it was unnecessary but will also look at getting the front/rear panhard rods/bushes and HD adjustable draglink in the near future. Rather err on the side of caution and beef up what I can.

On a side note, I'm looking at putting in a fuse box/relay bank for my accessories (spots/worklights/headlight wiring loom upgrade etc.) and was looking at mounting positions. The glove box looked pretty good to me but I don't know about having a bank of wiring running into the cab. Do you think this would be unsafe??

I've removed the factory headlight wiper motors/wiper reservoir and now have a small space there where I thought I could mount a fuse and relay box. Might be the go. With the reservoir gone I also thought about whether or not the battery tray vertical supports(??) could be cut away and the battery moved back 150mm or so. This would free up some space for a larger air filter box as I want to put on a 4" stainless snorkel/larger air filter box in the future. If they are structural I won't be touching it though.... Any thoughts?

Cheers~

Re: Northlander '94 Safari turbo

Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2016 8:28 pm
by zukmeista
UJ's on the driveshaft tend to wear in one spot and when you lift it they are operating in a different spot and this can cause vibration suggest you check them for play shouldn't be any.

Re: Northlander '94 Safari turbo

Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2016 8:51 pm
by FarNorth
Universals are nice and tight. No play at all. Just guess I lucked out and got one of the SWBes that have problems when lifted even 2 inches. Perhaps some castor correction bushes in the future but as I need the wagon most days the spacers seemed the quickest fix until I can have her out of commission longer.

Re: Northlander '94 Safari turbo

Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2016 4:39 pm
by MihiT
FarNorth wrote:On a side note, I'm looking at putting in a fuse box/relay bank for my accessories (spots/worklights/headlight wiring loom upgrade etc.) and was looking at mounting positions. The glove box looked pretty good to me but I don't know about having a bank of wiring running into the cab. Do you think this would be unsafe??

I've removed the factory headlight wiper motors/wiper reservoir and now have a small space there where I thought I could mount a fuse and relay box. Might be the go. With the reservoir gone I also thought about whether or not the battery tray vertical supports(??) could be cut away and the battery moved back 150mm or so. This would free up some space for a larger air filter box as I want to put on a 4" stainless snorkel/larger air filter box in the future. If they are structural I won't be touching it though.... Any thoughts?

Cheers~


If you are going to "common rail" the box, ie, bring one big hot lead in and run all your circuits off that, you can get cable glands/grommets that will protect your cable where it runs through panels/ the firewall. also waterproofs it for if/when you go wading. Running lots of wires through could be a bit more PITA. Perhaps get some 7 core trailer cable, which could run 7 circuits and would only need one hole...

I've found that finding places to put things to be a real hassle in mine, there just isn't a whole lot of spare space!

My idea (still no progress) was to put the air intake straight out the side, rather than having it snaking forward as the stock one does, which would free up the space where the water trap is.

The square section of the intake on my n/a works out to about the same as 75mm pipe, dont know what size the turbys are, but 4" sounds overkill!

Re: Northlander '94 Safari turbo

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 9:12 am
by FarNorth
Cheers for the info MihiT.

I've removed my headlight washers and the reservoir as they were just a pain in the ass. I bent up an alloy bracket and will mount it to the reservoir bracket. This will hold my RedArc Charge Stabiliser, Circuit breaker and Distribution block from the 12v side. I've bought a narva fuse block with the "common rail" and will rearrange the relays etc. under the metal cover on the 24v side to run the lights etc. under that area. Have given up on running anything in the cab.

I put in the cross member spacers on Sunday and man that was a hassle. The bolts didn't want to line back up and it took forever. After all that I still have vibrations at 95ish k/h, albeit slightly less than before. I have some 2˚ casters but I'll have to take it into the mechanics to get them to put them in as I don't have the time, nor the press to do it myself. More money....

I'm just trying to see what order to do the rest of the steering in as I'm a bit tapped out on funds so not sure what to do next. Extended lower arms>Panhards>Draglink>Steering Damper>Adjustable Upper arms (and new bushes as each part goes in.)

As for the 4" snorkel, it's just what was recommended for turbo td42 on a couple of the aussie 4x4 sites. I would like to go to a td05 16g large so yeah... Bigger the better I guess.

Re: Northlander '94 Safari turbo

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 12:14 pm
by Twodiffs
My snorkel is 4" all the way to the turbo, includes custom airbox 4" in/out obviously.
Imagine breathing through a drinking straw....then breath through a bit of 25mm pipe. That's the same effect I had in going 4" induction. Massive difference.

Re: Northlander '94 Safari turbo

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 8:31 pm
by Craydiver
Twodiffs wrote:My snorkel is 4" all the way to the turbo, includes custom airbox 4" in/out obviously.
Imagine breathing through a drinking straw....then breath through a bit of 25mm pipe. That's the same effect I had in going 4" induction. Massive difference.

x2. ive in sep stages: turbod, intercooled, modified pump, 3 inch exhaust, increased boost, etc, but the most impressive overall gain in 1 mod was putting in 4inch SS snorkel, custom airbox with 4dia filter at least 6 inch long.
If I was starting from scratch again - big intake would be done at same time of turbo install, then all the others at later stage
As for your arms etc, my suggestion is in priority: (ie those bits in my experiences have bent first).
1.Rear lower arms
2.Rear Panhard (bent when others winched me sideways in sand)
3.Draglink (Front Steering arm)
4.Tie rod (Trailing arm)
5.Front Panhard - only recently changed it but its never showed any issues, and the front is more often winched sideways, esp by yourself
Havent touched upper arms yet. Note im only really interested in the more aggressive tracks so it takes a pounding.

Re: Northlander '94 Safari turbo

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 9:41 pm
by FarNorth
Thanks TwoDiffs/Craydiver. Lots of good info, much appreciated.

I should have said from the get go that I'm not looking to build an offroad monster like your guys ones. It's my daily driver and I do probably 80-90% on road (but the gravel roads I live down are so shit they would qualify as offroad). I tow a trailer pretty often, mostly fairly light loads. Every so often I'll tow 2+ tonnes. When I'm offroad it's just because of necessity - back of the farm to tow stuff in/out, forestry roads, paper roads and beaches etc. I absolutely want it strong/reliable because if something breaks or she gets stuck (especially on the beach) and I'm way up North by myself with no reception and an incoming tide..... you get the picture.

But as she's mostly on sealed/gravel roads, I need to keep her on road manners as good as I can. Which is why this shudder is pissing me off. Hopefully these casters will see me right. So with that in mind, I guess extended lower arms>adjustable HD draglink must be the next things on the list for her. Look into panhard/trailing arms as funds allow/necessary.

I've looked at all the bends and can get someone to tig her up for me but the custom air box is another thing I'll have to look into. There was a quote on trademe for a 4" stainless snork @$500 which is something else to think about.

Many thanks again and will keep banging away at it.

On a side note TwoDiffs, do you know if those 9" paper filters from fatz fab in aus are available in NZ? I saw them on one of your threads a while back. I figured if there was a good filter available, I'd just get a custom box done to suit.

Re: Northlander '94 Safari turbo

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 9:24 am
by Twodiffs
Dunno mate....find out the part number etc and ring around.
I found the LS panel filter I use are easy to find....cheap too.

Re: Northlander '94 Safari turbo

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 10:44 am
by FarNorth
Yeah, had another look at those threads and saw the radius style airbox using a ryco a360 panel filter for a commie. Was for y61 but gave a good idea for shape etc. might shoot and grab one and fiddle with it in the engine bay to see what kind of space I can work with.

Re: Northlander '94 Safari turbo

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 4:22 pm
by zukmeista
Go to BNT in Whangarei and ask to have a look at their shelf there's about a million different shapes and sizes of Donaldson cartridges designed for trucks tractors and everything else that needs a big heavy duty air filter.

Re: Northlander '94 Safari turbo

Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2016 7:31 pm
by slowGQ
Have you tried greasing the ujs in the two drive shafts to stop the vibration when driving?
Happens to my swb gq around those speeds and I give it a bloody good grease and it stops.
Just a thought.