Honey Badger the Y60

[BrazilianY60]

Hi Muddie, I bought it locally, but it is for sure the same you see on eBay, AliExpress, etc.


https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005...d=6GvWZ07xZN7F

On the add above, it is the one called "big head 0.9bar".

It does fit, it does seal, there is spring tension to it and the gauge marks correctly. I have measured the temp at the top of the thermostat housing with an infrared thermometer and it matches (in order of magnitude, at least).
My main concern is if it will leak through the gauge. Time will tell.

[BrazilianY60]

Now with the GQ moving inside the garage under its own power, it was time to secure the doors closed. Got the box labeled "locks and window lifters" from the "My-Patrol-In-A-Million-Parts" shelf and stared at the locks, levers and rods for a while. Not that complicated to be honest. They were just the way I have disassembled the car in 2020, that is, full of crud, so first step would be cleaning.

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Here are just barn door stuff, but I have done this for all 6 doors.
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The fixed side of the locks (latches? loops?) have all been zinc plated a while ago. Time to put them to use.
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New rubber door stops:
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Some good old fashion door lock sounds!

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qrIqnBpkojI

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HolFc4jECeM


Every day looking more like a real car! The dream goes on!
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[BrazilianY60]

Since the first rides I noticed play and clunks from the steering links ball joints, and the dust boots were very old and cracky as well. Took the links off and went shopping for similar sized ball joints.

Closest in size I found was this one for an old Ford truck we had locally called F-1000. Unfortunately, with that truck being IFS, there was just one ball joint thread direction and I wanted ball joints that worked in pairs, one threading left, one threading right. Also, being this Ford a very old truck around here, I was only being able to find parts with far from OEM quality.
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I decided then to go a tad bigger, and picked Mercedes-Benz delivery trucks ball joints. They can be easily found here, cost is low, and you can find OEM quality parts. Oh, and they work in pairs just like I wanted.
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Side by side comparison. Just a tad bigger. It doesn't seem in the picture though.
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Trying on the knuckle, the tapered pin is just a hair wider than the original one.
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Now, to find the means to widen the holes of pitman and knuckles. Searching around I learned that the tool for the job was a tapered end mill, a machining shop tool, not a shed tool. And it was bloody expensive! Kind of tool the machinist buy to produce 100s parts a day otherwise it doesn't pay for itself. Ok, so I would have to pay someone to do it for me then. Ringed several machining shops in town and none had the tool. Turned out that mostly only car parts manufacturers used expensive tools like that on production line kind of environment. Time to get creative...

I have talked to A LOT of people about this and ended up discovering, in another state where most of the brazilian car part manufacturers are, a place that buys industrial used metal to re-sell or on a last resort, recycle. They have steam pipes, high pressure valves, a lot of cool stuff that you can spend a day there admiring and... tools. Enlisted a friend that lives some 50km from the place to go there investigate this for me and he sent me these pictures. Jackpot! He paid about the price of a six-pack for a pair of milling tools!
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Took tools to the machine shop that did all the PU suspension bushes I am using on the GQ for the guy to test them for me. I was not sure if they would cut or not, maybe they could be dull. It turned out that they were cutting metal like butter. The guy's theory is that in a big industry that produces 1000 parts a day, they have to replace the tools before they dull, otherwise they may end up with 1000 out of spec parts at the end of a work day. Also, as my plan was to use the tool in the car without taking the knuckles out, the guy gave me this sample cast iron block with two straight/parallel holes for me to practice, because according to him, the tool was cutting cast iron so easily that I could end up ruining my knuckles.
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I was able to make the tapered pin seat properly on the test block after using the tool. All good.
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I have lost the pictures of the mechanical tubes I have bought to do the new steering links, they were massive, very thick wall. Anyway, after machining, they were looking like this:
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I like shiny stuff so I had to zinc plate them.
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Putting the milling tool to work:
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This small amount of material on the floor is all it takes to fit the new ball joint tapered pin.
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Pitman arm before the milling tool. The top of the pin sits about half way into the castle nut.
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Pitman arm after the milling tool.
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Final result:
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And the reason for me wanting the ball joint ends to have left and right threads, for anyone that don't know, now I can loosen-up the clamps and turn the bars one direction to shorten it and the other to lengthen it. Easy peasy to do alignments.

[BrazilianY60]

I've been working on windows/glasses, window regulators and sound deadening latelly. Windshield was cracked, 1st row windows were ok, 2nd row windows were stained by a reflective metal/material as well as the 3rd row/trunk windows. Sliding window frame and glasses are ok, but the rubber channels are toast. Barn door windows were damaged with a grinder, unbelievable. It seems that on my GQ, all glasses from the 2nd row to the rear were OEM metallic, but not like a film tint, more like a metal layer deposit on the glass surface, and that layer has been poorly removed from the side glasses somehow leaving behind a lot of stains and the barn doors were attacked with a grinder, you could see the circles of the abrasive disk.

Barn door and 2nd row glasses situation:
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3rd row/trunk glass; here you can see a bit of the reflective metal material/deposit on the edges:
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Windshield situation was sorted in 2022 while the body was being repaired. I was able to import from a nearby country a replacement (not OEM) windshield but could not find any replacement windshield weatherstrip, but the shop was able to find me an OEM strip. I was glad to have it sorted but the OEM strip costed me more than the windshield itself. This wood crate is sitting under my bed since then. Happy missus... Green glass for the win at least.
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I was considering to have new glasses cut for the barn doors until I got my hands on a donor car. The very first thing i did with it was to take the barn doors glasses off. Unfortunately the donor car has clear glasses while my car has green ones. Well, it is what it is, just glad to have all those glasses available anyway.
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Fast forward to 2024, after searching all over town for window weather strips from all car and truck models available here and the effort to adapt one of those, I finally found barn door replacement ones in RoadRuner.com.au. The add said aussie made replacement, made to OEM spec, perfect fit, and the price was much better then OEM so I have ordered them. When they arrived, I went straight to business... Cleaning the donor car barn door glasses I realized the had an old an stinky tint film.
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I have left the glasses under the hot sun for a couple of hours to easy the removal of the tint film. Super careful and smooth pull and... it started pulling the defrost tracks! Bugger! Heated it some more with a heat gun, twice the care, and it was still coming off. It appears though that just the track protection paint came off. Maybe the actual metal resistance track will still work.
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Back to the RoadRunner barn door replacement weather strips:
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An absolute perfect fit. That made for a very happy brazilian!
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[BrazilianY60]

After I did all the cleaning on the large barn door window and was ready to install it, I discovered that the second plastic bag on the box was actually a windshield weatherstrip mistakenly shipped in place of the large barn door strip.
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This was me working on the garage Sunday arvo so I just sent RoadRunner lads an email and picked something else to work on the GQ. Guess what... Brazil Sunday arvo is Australia Monday morning and less than 30 minutes later I got a reply from the lads apologizing for the mistake and were shipping the correct item right away! Can you f*ng imagine reporting a wrong item received and having another one shipped overseas 30 minutes later?! Mind boggling for me! I offered them to ship the windshield strip back to them, despite shipping cost being probably more than the item itself, and they politely refused the offer and told me to keep it. This was my first order with them and I didn't know the quality of the strips, so it was a test purchase. If I hadn't bought the OEM windshield strip years before, I would certainly use this replacement one (and pay for it, off course), because I liked the quality of the strips very much. I have then placed other orders for bailey channels, brake flex hoses and whatnot.

Maybe some 10 to 15 days later I got the correct item and it went straight into its place.
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[BrazilianY60]

Took me some time to put together the required material for working on the doors glasses.

Bailey channels were easy, got them from RoadRunner. Rear doors quarter windows (the fixed ones) strips were the harder to get. Had to go OEM from Amayama. Despite Amayama being in Japan, I got the item shipped from UAE, go figure. Another curiosity on the quarter windows, is that the one on the left side is actually clear, not green. It has been replaced at some point in time.
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For sound deadening, I got a butyl rope to fill the gap between the doors "safety" bars and the metal skin. I have also sourced locally butyl+foil sheets for sound deadening the rest of the skin doors. This is a heavy material and too expensive for my likings, so I ended up buying just two boxes to give it a try. The amount of sheets provided for good internal deadening of all 6 doors.

The butyl rope and where I have used it:
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The butyl sheets and where I have used them:
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Bailey channels in place and now I have 4 working rolling windows with a temporary manual crank!
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Honorable mention to the hidden philips screw on the removable metal channel for the quarter window, what a prick!
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I am now only missing the installation of the windshield and the 3rd row/trunk side windows. Those 3 glasses should be installed only after the roof lining is in place, because the lining flips over the sheet metal lip where the weather strip attaches, such that the liner doesn't rely only on the glue to stay tight. But I am in a bit of a pickle with the roof liner, as I want the interior upholstery of this car to be something special to me and I am not good with choosing colors to go together. I will probably open a new thread asking for some help about that.

I have yet to decide what to do regarding the sliding window as well. Glass is good, frame is good but inner channel is bad and loose and the external strip is toasted. I am inclined to have a new glass cut using the other side as a template. That glass would be flat though, as I don't think any of the glass places here would be able to heat it to obtain that slightly curved angle. I could also make a "DAZWING" although I have no use for it.

I have also taken all the locks off and lubed them, along with the regulators, with that white sticky lithium soap grease. Locks were originally installed super clean but dry because I knew they would be coming away again. Doors now miss only the electric motors for the power windows and power locks. I have yet to clean, test, refurbish each one of those.