Bought a secondhand 8274, made a bumper and went on clubtrips. moved to Dunners in 06 and left the truck in Tga for a year with a blown auto.
Moved to Hamilton in 07 and had the truck repaired. Mid 07 Started looking at building a 6 point cage so I could do the roto winch challenge (no club class back then). Found (on ORE) that Madaz was building a cage in ham and went to have a look.
He gave me some ideas and advice and next thing you know I have started building a cage using a borrowed pipe bender (Thanks Fatboy).
Here is where it all went wrong. The plan was to take the truck off the road for 6 weeks to build a cage (Im not an engineer, I work in retail so figured it might take me a while, I did have the help of my fitter welder flatmate though). Half way through this Madaz says "I know a guy selling the coil rear end from a surf cheap, might as well throw that in seeing as you're allready getting it certed" "yeah I spose, how hard can it be?" and 4 weeks later "Oh and I have the front end of a prado, you should put that in also" "ok, what the hell, its only time and money"
So before I know it the list goes from "roll cage" to
rollcage
surf rear coils.
Prado front coils.
35" simex.
Rear disks, and 'cause the hand brake now becomes a pain,
transfer disk brake.
Rewire the massive f#&k up that was there.
front diff lock.
new rear tray.
new exhaust.
batterys in the back.
winch on the back.
new crossmember and lifted trans combined with,
take 50 mm bodylift out, which requires,
new trans tunnel.
holden radiator.
add some gauges etc.
Due to skiing, mtb, white water kayaking, girlfriend and work (in that order lol), 2 years later I'm getting somewhere.
Buggered If I know how you guys with Families get anything done.
This is the first photo once I could afford 4 simex (thanks to Tony at Speedy lube). I made the bumper as "pipe bending 101" before starting on the cage. (you can see some of the cage in the back ground). I made that bumper before I removed the body lift so that will need moding or junking. Front axle is 70% done, the rear axle 90%.
Also needing attention as a result of the newly located axle was the sump. its now a rear droper with about half the oil volume. yes I know thats bad but its the best i could come up with.
This pic is where im up to now (so dont expect anymore updates for another two years). To the left you can see an engine oil cooler and remote filter to help deal with the smaller sump.
You can see the chopped out front to accommodate the holden radiator and electric fan (my theory being that it worked well from factory so hopefully it will work well here)
Also you can see wires every where. The original wiring was a bloody mess so I borrowed a holden book from Richard at Glenview automotive (the same guy who supplied the surf rear end) and bought a vn loom. I labelled everything and removed the engine loom, laid it on the floor next to the new loom, absorbed the wiring diagram, and then started removing what I didnt want and re-routing etc.
Now the cab looks like this. on the far left you can see a kill switch, just out of screen are the four relays needed to run the motor etc. I have also pulled the lux loom out and removed what I didnt need (and now the full beam light on the dash doesn't work, S&%T f#@ken crap).
I cut the instrument panel up to remove the clock (which strangly had pride of place) and put a tacho in its place.
Have also moded the heater switches/ash tray etc to take some gauges.
This is a while ago, trying to figure out where steering and other related unimportant things will go.
.13/9/10
Got truck cert'd, went to Canada for 8 months the next day.
moved to Taupo, went for a trip with Telexus. "will i need a snorkel" "nope". an hour later and a nervous minute with water over the bonnet I moved snorkel up the priority list.
So starting with this
Where to put a snorkel?
Took a page from Telexus and Rokhound and started chopping.
Went to Manukau WC and tried it out. Can hardly see the snorkel in the end, happy with how it turned out.
12/11/10
I have been told that every mod necessitates two other mods. With that in mind I got a different winch. Of course it doesn't fit where the other one did. So I have to move the fuel tank, so I have to move the battery, so I have to move the compressor and the fuel pump. oh and an exhaust mount. Better be a good winch.
Forgot to take a before picture but this is the petrol tank and winch etc moved.
The ammo box houses the compressor, incidentally this compressor from 4wd fibre glass still goes fine despite me leaving it submerged in this ammo box for a week after a brief stop in a river.
And this is me realising that I need to do something about the rear shock travel. Flexes like a brick.
