V6 Hilux Surf Project

[suzukisport]

Thanks guys

[suzukisport]

Bit of an update on the Hilux,
Finished the rear drive shaft, had it balanced and then re painted it which came up good.


Made up the rear drive shaft hoop,
Cut off a piece of 100mm pipe


Cut the pipe in half and welded some plates to the sides,


Welded on some legs and bolted it to the cross member with 4 M10 Cap screws,


Went down to Hamilton a couple of weeks ago and picked up this,


I got the Air locker off suzolla. He is great to deal with and would recommend him to anyone looking to get one.
I'm waiting on a 4.8 low pinion diff head to turn up so I can fit it to the front diff.

Finally got my front shocks of Friday thanks guys. New one sitting next to the factory shock.


Spent today changing the front panhard rod mount. Since I moved the steering to the front, the bracket off the chassis for panhard rod was hitting the steering shaft. I looked at our winch truck which has the same suspension/ steering set up in the front and the panhard rod clears no problem as the mounts are factory Prado. So the panhard mount has been welded too far forward anyway so needed to be moved to clear.

So this is where it needs to be moved to,


Spent a few hours today mucking around making up a new bracket to weld onto the side of the original mount,




So I now just need to weld the new bracket on to the original mount and then trim on side of it to clear the steering shaft.

[suzukisport]

Got a little more done today, hopefully not too long until the body is ready to go on. Spent Saturday out at The Farm helping organise a club trip.

Got my old man to weld in the new panhard mount as I'm a machinist not a welder.


So the next problem I ran into was since the steering has been moved to the front the two steering shafts were hitting each other about 80mm from the bump stops.


So I took the top steering arm off the left hand hub off and took it into work this morning and set it up in the mill. I bored out the existing taper for the tie rod end boring it parallel.


I bored the arm from the largest diameter (16mm) out to 21mm to allow for 2.5mm wall thickness on a sleeve.
Next I machined up a new sleeve to be pressed into the arm out of some 25mm 4140. I bored the inside to suit the taper to suit the tie rod taper, then machined the outside to 21.02.mm to allow for a good press fit.




Pressed the sleeve into the arm


All done now, has heaps of clearance now, even when sitting on the bump stops.


Just waiting on some new tie rod end to replace the old worn out ones now.
Fitted brand new brake hoses all round too,


Also thought I might give the rear diff head a little bling to match the winch truck

[catalystracing]

Real nice work .
The diff graphic will look good upside down too

[suzukisport]

Haha thanks, hopefully it will never be upside down

[jeremy]

Are you worried about high speed handling now that your ackerman angle is reversed with the tie rod in front using those arms?

[suzolla]

I would have thought that there would be very little effect on high speed as the angle the wheels turn is only small when going fast, on hard surfaces that is, i would have thought it would have the most effect when doing sharp turns as the LH and RH wheels will be fighting each other, the outside wheel will be turning sharper than the inside wheel which is the opposite of how it should be.
Cheers
Tim

[suzukisport]

Yeah I talked to the certifier about this awhile ago. He seamed to think that the ackerman angle should be ok, I guess time will tell. We did the exact same mods to the winch truck and the steering is fine at high speeds, have driven it on tar seal many times and it handles fine other than the 35" Silverstones

[jeremy]

Ah ok, interesting.

...for some reason I thought you'd used 70series cruiser arms and tie-rod on your winch truck, but obviously I thought wrong

[suzukisport]

Have been slack with photos again but I have made more progress.
I have finished the steering off mostly, just need to find a new place to remount the new steering dampener. I've fitted brand new tie rod ends on every steering arm and repainted all of the arms as well.

Finally got a new front diff as well so I set the locker up in that on Saturday and fitted new bearings as well.

The new diff awaiting the ARB Locker,




Fitted the crown wheel and pressed on the brand new bearings,


All done and reset up, I also checked the gear mesh with some gear marking compound to ensure the gears were meshing correctly.


Fitted the head back to the housing, now with the low pinion head the drive shaft clears now when sitting on the bump stops by about 25mm.


So today I finally got the body sitting on the chassis. First though we had to get it out of one of the other sheds it was being stored in and put it onto the trailer to bring it up.






Back in the shed




So I'm pretty happy getting the body on, although it has revealed a few more problems. The front is sitting noticeably higher than the rear and the engine doesn't fit under the bonnet. So I am looking at a fibreglass bonnet that the centre is raised more than the factory bonnet to clear the alternator and power steering pump. It doesn't need much to clear probably about 20mm higher and the engine should clear. Still not sure about getting the front lower, need more time to think about that one

[ChurchurDan]

With that stance it looks like a trophy truck

[suzukisport]

It kind of does. The photo of it in the shed is how it currently sits, the ones outside the front wasn't sitting on the body mounts.

[suzukisport]

Got the grinder out today and started to make a few changes.....



Marking the tray out






Cut 320mm out of the rear


Rear will now have far less over hang


Need to weld it back on now but I have run out of Argon for my Tig, so will have to wait until I get some more. I don't really want to Mig it as I don't want to put too much heat into it to risk it warping a lot.

[suzukisport]

Little more progress, I have been stuck having to work the past couple of weekends.

Got the back welded back on, It came up really well, ended up mig welding it with 0.6mm wire as I'm still waiting for my Argon bottle to be filled


Cut out the old body mounts and relocated them,






Still have to finish grinding the welds flush. Once I have finished that I will start sanding the underside of the body to under seal it. Thinking of using some of this stuff, If anyone's had experience with it and what you think of it let me know.

[suzukisport]

I have been busy sanding on the Hilux lately. Haven't made a lot of progress but its better than nothing. The Hilux will be put on hold soon, as the winch truck needs some attention before the next comp.
I spent a good day or more degreasing, sanding and cleaning the underneath of the body to prep it for under seal. I sprayed it on a couple of weeks ago and it came up really well.





I have also been doing a huge amount of sanding in the engine bay. The engine bay had already been painted, but they had painted over top of shiny paint and it could easily peel off using a finger nail. So I have been sanding all of the paint off and also cut out the rusty battery tray and couple of unwanted brackets. Also put some rust killer on a few patch's of surface rust.



All etch primed


Now time for some more sanding, then paint. Looking at using a Satin black again as I haven't decided on a body colour yet.

[suzukisport]

Well going to have a slight change of plans with the Hilux now. I brought this last night,



2002 VX Commodore with the 3.8L V6 Supercharged engine
Plan now is looking like robbing the engine out of it for the Hilux then refitting a standard Ecotec VT/VX V6 to it and on selling it. The only downside is its down in Christchurch. So I have booked flights for next Friday for a big road mission to drive it home. I may be able to help out with ORE courier service if someone needs something moved not too far out of the way and not to big. Flick me a PM if anyones interested and I will see if I can help out.

Also had my new gauges turn up last night from the states,

[Ashohman]

Nice. Supercharged v6 drool! haha

[Checkerhead]

Where did you order the gauges from?

What did they cost landed?

Cheers.

[suzukisport]

More progress this weekend. Primed the engine bay on Saturday then spent this morning sanding ready for paint.



Got it all sprayed, 4 coats of PPG Satin Black,

[suzukisport]

Well I have got back into working on the Hilux again after doing nothing to it for over a month. Did the big road mission down to Christchurch and back in two days to pick up the Commodore and 1217kms later,



How the Hilux is looking at the moment,


Had these follow me home during the week


Virtually brand new set of 32x10.5x15 Simexs still all very sharp.

Shortened up the chassis today,

[NB42]

Hey mate sorry to bring up an old thread with a silly question but in regards to the commodore motor and box going in. Do these boxes have overdrive and did you just run it connected to the ecu as standard for its shifting or did it require some special wiring to shift correctly? Im going down the commodore v6 and auto swap in my truck and just want to sort my ideas out before diving into it.. Cheers

[suzukisport]

Hey mate sorry to bring up an old thread with a silly question but in regards to the commodore motor and box going in. Do these boxes have overdrive and did you just run it connected to the ecu as standard for its shifting or did it require some special wiring to shift correctly? Im going down the commodore v6 and auto swap in my truck and just want to sort my ideas out before diving into it.. Cheers

Pm'd

[pisscrate]

Hey Thor the old trucks looking mint , glad you got it as there is no way i would have the time to throw at it you have had to .

Cheers Ross

[suzukisport]

Cheers. It's still along way off being finished yet. Although I should get around to doing an update on this page as I have done quite a lot more since the last post.

[Checkerhead]

I am looking at a fibreglass bonnet that the centre is raised more than the factory bonnet to clear the alternator and power steering pump.

Not sure if this still applies now you have moved stuff around, but 4wdfibreglass in Hamilton have the mould that was made for Tim's carbon bonnet. It is about 30mm higher from memory, but you don't even notice it's not factory unless you are looking for it.

Also, yeah, post an update.

[suzukisport]

Yeah I have been useless on this at the moment. Sort of lacking a shed at the moment while other projects are in the shed. So we are tacking onto the existing shed and extending it out 4.8 meters so the Hilux will have its own bay in a shed again which will be mint once that's finished.
Also I have been useless taking photos of what I have been doing so not really much to show. I have fitted the 3.8 Supercharged engine into it along with a lot of other boring little jobs.

Most recent thing I have been working on is the fuel tank. Never liked the factory position of the fuel tank, they hang down way to low plus with all the coil set up in the rear now there isn't much room there for it. Also wanted to have a decent size fuel tank too. Looked around a little for another fuel tank that may have suited but nothing was really going to work and look right. So I have decided to make a custom tank.
Had a mate fold it up for me awhile back and have just got it tacked up for now. It's made from 1.5mm 304 Stainless,


Two baffles inside


This is where it will be mounted,


I still need to make up some flanges to weld into the tank for the fuel filler, pump and sender unit. Instead of running a surge tank I'm going to make some sort of bowl that will drop down around 150mm and be around 4-5" diameter for the fuel pump to sit in which should still allow fuel to sit in there for the pump while its on angles.
I have brought a 255 LPH Deatschwerks intank fuel pump for it as they seam to be pretty good after talking to a few people and pretty well priced.


Also made up a smaller pulley for the supercharged awhile back too, this should make it run around 10 psi of boost,


So not much of an update. Once the shed is finished I will be able to get back into it more so there should hopefully be more updates in the near future.