Damo's GU IV 4.2 STS

[Rip'n'Shred]

Yep I'm trying to anyway. Lol. I think the intercooler will be next, but not too soon. Gee they are expensive!

[Rip'n'Shred]

As a bit of a fan of decent sound, I have recently installed some Focal 165AS 2 way splits in front doors with crossover mounted behind door card and tweeter mounted in black triangle trim behind side mirrors on an angle kinda towards seat area. They are 60w RMS nom., 120w max



The rear doors have Focal 165AC in the original speaker location in doors. These are also 60w RMS nom., 120w max



I replaced the speaker wires with some copper heavier speaker wire from supercheap. Hope this wasn't a mistake.

I run an amp I have had for years so I wouldn't be surprised if it is the weakest link in the chain. It's a Response amplifier.



The head unit is an old Sony MEX-2600BT. I don't know how old as it was a second handy from other car but it has Bluetooth so it works for me at the moment. It has front and rear/sub rca out set to rear.



I am now seriously considering dynamat for the doors to improve sound quality.

I was thinking about getting a head unit with front, rear and sub rca out as I have a mono amp and a Sony Xplod sub kicking around but would prefer a slim sub to mount somewhere out of the way if I go a sub at all. I know nothing at all about matching a sub to an amp or to the system.

[Rip'n'Shred]

I have had enough of my cheap Chinese rear view mirror camera and found a great idea on Facebook in a Nissan Patrol group.

So I bought a slim 4.3" screen and modified the useless sunglasses holder in roof to mount the new screen into it. It even folds away when not required. I actually have 2 reverse cameras mounted. 1 on the LH side of the number plate light aiming towards drivers side which is hooked up to reverse so it automatically turns on when in reverse, and another directly above tow ball tongue under rear bumper operated by a switch mounted between the map lights in roof console.

Here's some pics of the mod, they are not my pics but I've done it exactly the same way.

[Rip'n'Shred]

I've also read a few posts on various forums about the restriction in the snorkel just before the airbox. Every post I've read talks about the Nissan Airtek snorkel, but I have a Safari snorkel.

I decided there was only 1 way to find it if the Safari had a similar restriction. I dismantled what seemed to be 1/2 the front end to get to the tubing between the snorkel and the airbox. I ended up removing the whole snorkel to clean up the guard and the hole and ensure the join was sealed 100%.

Whilst not as bad as the Nissan Airtek snorkel restriction, the Safari also drops down the diameter of the pipe at the last elbow before the airbox. I found the airbox inlet to be 3.5inch which is pretty close to 90mm. The diameter of the snorkel before the restriction is also 90mm.

So I cut off the flange from the airbox and the restrictive part off the snorkel. I hunted around for 2 days trying to get a silicone 90 degree 3.5 inch elbow with no luck. Plenty on ebay, but nothing local and I needed the vehicle back together for a trip away. So I used some 90mm pvc pipe, a 90mm elbow, and some rubber joiners with house clamps from local plumbing supply store. The end result was very pleasing. Unfortunately I didn't take many pics but here's some from the drawing board stage after removal.





So now I have a 3.5 inch snorkel all the way to airbox with K&N filter and a 3.5 inch outlet on airbox lid to turbo. It had definitely helped to let the engine breath easier. Even the snorkel mod seemed to help a bit.

Still hope to get a 4 inch snorkel and airbox one day.

[Rip'n'Shred]

Been a long time. Not much changed until recently. Just normal short camping trips and nowhere near enough offroad 4x4ing.

We have just sold our rural property in the search of a better lifestyle cause fixing fences and feeding livestock ain't all its cracked up to be, lol. Anyhow, we have decided that now is a great time to put the house money away, take all my long service leave, pull kids out of school, and travel our beautiful country.

So we leave our house forever on Saturday week (10th Sept) and head off on the trip of a lifetime for 5 months. Heading towards Cape York, via the east coast NSW/QLD highways. Stop off at Tweed to see family before a tune up at Caboolture Monday morning. Then off to Cairns for a few nights and reef snorkel tour, train ride, etc amongst other things. The onto the Cape, not interested in the easy way, but not prepared to wreck my rig for no reason. Very keen to make the most of the cape but not sure of an itinerary yet. So far planning Bloomfield track, visit Weipa, and that's it so far. We are not very organised lol.

After the Cape, we are heading around and through the gulf, Arnhem Land, Kakudu, Katherine Gorge, and Kimberly if the wet holds off long enough, otherwise we will head south via Alice and The Rock, hopefully into Flinders and then finally Great Ocean Rd, and either Victorian High Country or Tassie, before heading back through southern NSW and ending up back around Newcastle area.

So my whole life lately is revolving around preparing the Patrol and our new (second hand) hard floor camper for our trip, and apparently I am running out of time very quickly to pack everything up.........

[Rip'n'Shred]

Just a quick "work in progress" update.

Rewired everything not standard basically.

Main Battery area, more to come


Fuses for 2nd battery. Mich tidier than previous temporary attempts and additions. Not much room with ABS and cruise. Feeling much safer now without the fire risks or dodgy shuit wiring.


2nd Battery. Less is more. Work in progress.


LH side panel of cargo area, preparing for dual battery / dual fridge setup mounted on drawers. More to come. Work in progress.



Lots more to do, even before this turned up today!!!! Very excited! !!!

[Stropp]

Good stuff mate, you have sold up at singleton them, my daughter works out at leibherr at the moment and I worked at hunter valley no1 for a while but moved back west, hope it all goes good for you and you have a great trip.

[mudski]

I really like the cover you've made over the relay box. Something i should do.

Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk

[Rip'n'Shred]

After a very crazy 3 weeks I have achieved more than I could have imagined in preparation for the trip of a life time.

We decided to sell the soft floor camper we had due to the time it takes to setup as well as the degree of offroad ready it was. We decided it just wasnt up to the task. We found a second hand Modcon Oasis hard floor rear fold locally that is apparently 9 years old, but you definitely wouldn't think so looking at it. Very good condition and hasn't had much use.

So I went over the camper with a fine tooth comb looking for issues. I replaced the wheel bearings, and added another new set as spares, replaced all 3 tyres with brand new 31x10.5x15 BF muddies, welded some minor cracks in toolbox mounts, added another aluminum toolbox for extra storage.

The trailer came with a redarc BCDC1225 and 120 amp hr AGM battery setup on RH side of toolbox. Because we decided not to run the fridges off the camper, we down sized the camper battery to a N50 sized gel battery to run LED's and water pump, but left the BCDC as a means of charging it correctly.

When it came to the patrol however, aside from the usual pre trip maintenance items associated with a trip of this scale covering 30,000km, I thought I would go over everything I could think of. So the big patrol got a birthday (10 this year!!!). New injectors, belts, all coolant hoses, all oils, swivel hub seals and king pin bearings, new wheel bearings, changed the rear siff before changing it back (playing with ratios lol), remote speaker for UHF, replaced faulty UHF antenna,

I also completely rewired dual battery setup, fuses under bonnet, wiring to rear cargo area and rewired accessories off the starter battery. I also ran 25mm cable to rear of wagon through a ctek 250s and smartpass to charge another 2 AGM batteries in rear. These 2 batteries run a 40L Engel and a 50L Waeco, and the batteries sit above the wheel arch each side. I made up some brackets which bolt to the 3rd row seat mounts to secure the batteries to and hold their weight.

I also hooked up a solar input anderson plug to the ctek, and ran a 6 B&S cable to towbar for camper power. To make this job possible I had to completely remove the rear drawer setup and most trim panels from rear cargo area.

I also installed a Cross Country Ultimate intercooler hoping for better fuel economy for the trip.





Fitted a Powerful4x4 rear bar dual spare wheel carrier for a bit of rear end protection and somewhere for 2nd spare to go.



I stuck with the ever faithful BF muddies for the 2nd spare, and replaced the first spare due to different size tyre fitted.

Also finally fitted my superior engineering lower trailing arms that I bought a very long time ago. I had to unbolt and lower the sliders to get the front bolt out of trailing arms, hence the delay in carrying out the unpleasant task.

I stripped down my 6 year old cheapo tigerz winch expecting a gearbox full of rust and couldn't believe it but not 1 drop of water had been in there. Unreal! Greased it up, replaced corroded cable to battery and refitted for another 6 years.

Installed a cabin filter, and eplaced leaking swivel joints on 2 of the Amada shocks.

And finally after and during all of this we packed up our 5 acre home of 8 years, packed my out of control shed, moved everything into storage and cleaned the place up for the new owners after a very quick purchase. We left and followed our noses north to greener pastures.

Now I'm exhausted.

[Rip'n'Shred]