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Hi,
There was at least one or two threads around the net in relation to updating the narrow maverick front end to the wide guards. Unfortunately I cannot find them again. Does anyone know what is required or of people who have done this?
I've been told it can be done with wagon front guards and radiator support panel. However it was pointed out to me at PatrolAPart that the GQ utes had a longer gap between the start of the guard arch and the firewall and that I'd have to find a leaf GQ ute.
Confirmed that Leaf and Coil wheelbase are exactly the same. However Leaf axles sit 100mm further forward on the chassis than coil. Thus Only leaf guards will fit leaf vehicles.
Cheers @dare92 mate, awesome research it sounds found top sharing bloke!
GQ’s are new to me but loving currently running a ute variant as my daily too.
I’m wondering if the leafy/coily guard differences are due to travel arcs or the like?
Radius arms on my front end work coily must swing forwards to level, does your leafy tough beast have its fixed fulcrum springs front or rear, honestly keen to learn mate [emoji106][emoji106]
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@MB Honestly, I don't know a whole lot about the specifics of how suspension works. But I've been told leaves move the axle forward under load which is the reason the guards have a larger gap between the start of the arch and the door. I was told by the guys at PatrolaPart that the Leafy's have a chassis very similar to the MQ. It was suggested that it was about 100mm difference and when I checked they were right. When you measure from the door of a Leafy to the hub then do the same on a Coil Wagon, there is 100mm difference. By eye you can tell that the tyre sits further forward and that there is more guard behind the wheel and less in front. Comparing the two you start to realise how far forward the front hangars sit on the Leafy's as they are super close to the end of the chassis. I have not measured tip to tip length of the two chassis (coil & leaf).
Further investigation turns out that there are 3 guard types for the Leaf models. The Maverick had the narrow guard with MQ style grill. The Early GQ had the same MQ style grill but with a flared guard similar to the Wagons and the way to tell is that it has the same flashers as the Maverick on the guard. The Late GQ had the same guard style as the series 1 Wagon guards including front grill in which I ASSUME that the radiator support panel is not the same as the early GQ/Maverick.
From my understanding I do not believe the GQ Ute ever got the series 2 update.
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How did you go @dare92? I am doing a gq leaf to coil conversion now full chassis swap. I want the later GQ look so I have taken guards and radiator support from the donor car...now you have me wondering if the inner guard will line up properly...I plan on doing a detailed write up when it's done as the info I could find on the swap was patchy and some just completely wrong.
@Family4x4
So last year over covid I sourced some Ute guards and it took some time. I have the front end all lined up, all that I have to do is make some minor modifications and the vehicle has a wide style front end.
The donor radiator support panel I bought is the same as my narrow body. However I have a suspicion that when I looked at the car in the wreckers that the front headlight buckets had been modified so the question is, are wagon radiator support panels different to narrow body Ute's? Yes. Is there a difference between the narrow guard Ute radiator support panels and wide body Ute's? I don't know and cannot confirm. So to specify, I have a suspicion that the owner of the donor panel vehicle realised that you could do basic modification to a narrow body to make the wide guards fit. So with that caveat out of the way and to clarify the donor was an all leaf Ute. I also have a second set I removed from a leaf Ute by hand and not by the wreckers but do not recall if the radiator support panel was different. I purchased the rad support, inner and outer guards but couldn't be bothered removing the inner guards and radiator support panel from it but assumed the were the same (unsure now about the rad support) but I paid very little so wasn't something I cared about at the time, I just got a spare set of guards.
So, the inner guards line up with the wide guards, you just bolt them up, with one exception the wide guards use a bolt hole on the edge of the inner rather than the bolt hole one in. So a simple nutsert fixes that and all other factory inner guard bolt holes line up. The grill clips up to the outer guard and radiator support panel. The indicators are housed in the grill (I bought a series 1 grill, just because).
Now, there are two modifications that need to be done. First the narrow headlight buckets are different from the wagon and widebody and as I recall my first donor car I think had welded buckets. So you have to relocate the bucket mounts by cutting and welding new tabs to make the headlights fit the grill because they sit further down and slightly wider but there is plenty of space for the headlight relocation and wiring.
The second is that the wide body radiator support panel has these little ears that just protrude as an extra addition to the panel which do nothing but have a hole for wiring and one bolt hole to the outer guard behind the corner of the grill to help side stabilise the outer guard. All you need to do is make some flat tabs and extend them from the radiator to that corner just to stabilise it but does effect the actual lining up of the fascia what so ever. There will just be a slightly larger cavity between the rad support and outer guard corner.
The only extra bit of work is extending the side indicator wiring from the front part of the outer guard where they live on the narrow to near the firewall where they live on the wide body.
So to sum up. It's a basic modification to go from narrow to wide and all you need is wide leaf outer guards, wagon grill and front indicators, a grinder and welder and some panel steel. A few hours in the shed to make the narrow or wagon buckets fit and your tab from the radiator support panel to the outer guard, bolt it up and you're done. Unfortunately I don't have wide Ute buckets so unsure if they are different to the wagons or if they'd bolt up. Also inner guards are the same for all leafs from what I can tell and if you want a wider radiator support panel you could do a cut and weld but it's a huge job. As I prepped the donor one until I realised, hang on they look very similar and took the tape measure to just find out they were the same. But given the wide radiator support panel literally just supports that one front corner and is really even a minor stabilising design element (even on the narrow that had the front panel that went across), its irrelevant just use the narrow. All in all this is a very easy cosmetic modification and requires very basic workshop skills.
I will add photos start to complete once it's all painted as a record for anyone else who would like to do the same mod.
Also in regards to the images above, reference the last two of the white Ute with winch bar. Those are guards that have been panel beated from what I can tell as either a wide with indicator relocation or more than likely a wide arch cut and weld from a wide body guard to the stock narrow guards. Note the indicators are different with narrow front end grill fascia. Also that vehicle has a coil high mount arb winch bar which would have had a new set of chassis mounts welded to fit into the leaf chassis rails (note leaf bull bars slide into the chassis rails due to leaf hanger mounts vs coils which wrap around the chassis), so a lot of work has been done to make it look that way. A coil high mount bar will be my next modification.