Sharky's rebuilt GU

[Sharky1]

Hey all, new to this forum but not new to 4x4's. I had some time to kill so I thought I'd paste some dribble about my current car since it's taken the majority of my waking hrs lately. It's a 1998 GU TD42 DX with flares & carpet. Due to a recent disastrous river crossing attempt, I was forced to give the whole car a rebuild & fit the snorkel I had sitting at home lol. I'll add pics towards the end of next week. While it's been off the road it's had a few trick bits added. It was pretty capable before but now it's features include:

Exterior: Stock GU flares, ARB winch bar, HID spotties, LED reverse light, Safari copy Snorkel, Runva EWX 12000lb winch, full length alloy roof rack, tail light kit, Stock GU bonnet scoop, light bar to come.

Interior: TX3200 UHF, 600W inverter, aux utilux plug on inner rear 1/4 panel for fridge etc, Reverse camera & TV screen, sheepskin seat covers, dash mat, carpet with genuine floor mats, A-pillar gauge pod with oil pressure & vacuum gauges, Momo sports s/wheel on short boss.

Entertainment: Pioneer DEH-7250SD CD player, Pioneer GM-X944 amp, Pioneer GM-X544 amp, 2x 12" Pioneer Bullet subs, 2x sets 6" 300W Pioneer Bullet splits, 35 farad Boss audio CAP350CR stiffening capacitor.

Engine bay: Rebuilt 4.2L Dsl, K&N filter, Deep cycle gel aux batt with waterproof 20A DC-DC charger, aluminium radiator, 2.5" exhaust with pacemaker extractors & powerflow muffler.

Driveline: 5spd man trans, Exedy Safari clutch, LSD rear 4.11, Spartan locker front 4.11, manual hubs.

Suspension: 4" lift king springs SP4, Tough dog 9 adj shocks, Tough Dog adj panhards, Tough Dog 5deg castor plates, extended roller link pins & brake bias bracket, extended brake lines, oversized drag link & relay rod, all new rubbers.

Wheels/Tyres: Black 16x8" Kings sunraysia style rims with 305/70/16" Maxxis bighorn muds (Mickey Thompsons or BFG's next).

[Dave_H]

Welcome to the forum mate, lots of useful information on here as well as a wealth of knowledge from it's members.

Looking forward to some pics.

[Sharky1]

Cheers mate.

When I bought the car 6 yrs ago it was a blank canvas. It had the ARB winch bar & dual batts. I fitted the lift in 2009 along with 305/70/16 BFG muds, entertainment sys, UHF & decent spotties. I was happy with that for a while.

This rebuild has been a very expensive exercise. What was supposed to be a $3500 engine exchange has turned into an $11000 makeover mostly due to a little friendly competition between 4 mates. New alloy roof rack, winch & GU bonnet scoop were fitted just before the car was drowned. Since then I completely stripped the interior (except dash, roof lining & rear 1/4 trims), cleaned & refitted. The next day we pulled the seized motor out & started the strip down & clean process. While I waited for motor I rewired the stereo (not as cheap & easy as it sounds) with new stiffening capacitor.

I fitted the tail lights & snorkel last week. Snorkel is a Safari copy & had to modified to suit my GQ style air cleaner.

We put fully rebuilt motor & new clutch in on Monday. Fitted new exhaust yesterday.

Fitted new window regulator, all new locks & ign barrel, & wired in new aux gauges today.

Tomorrow I'll be fitting HID spotties & new air con condensor, fit radiator, add fluids & do initial start up. Hopefully locker will go in on weekend if all goes well. Sports steering wheel & boss are in the post.

[Sharky1]

This is what it looked like right before we left.

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And then 3 days later........
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[Sharky1]

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Spot the straight one lol
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[Sharky1]

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Motor is finally here.
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More pics to come tomorrow.

[sooty_10]

Doing a fair bit to it straight up, you might run out of things to have on your 'to mod' list..... Hahaha who am I kidding, we all just add more to it ;)
I take it that it was a non-turbo been a '98 DX? Are you planning on adding a turbo to the new engine?

[Sharky1]

Heya Sooty,

My "to do" list has been there for a while now & I usually do go overboard when I do things. I've had this car for 6 yrs. I did the major stuff like lift etc within 12mths of getting it. I'm an ex-mechanic so working on cars is no longer interesting for me. That's why I'm doing it all at once, to get it over with, & since it was off the rd anyway & while it's off the rd I can't work so......... lol.

Yeah it's a non turbo. I won't be adding a turbo. I'd like the power of one but I do a LOT of km so for me, simple is best. It's cheapest & requires the least maintenance. My car has enough power really. I pull a tradesman's trailer daily so it gets used for what it's designed for. If I was going to put a turbo on it, I would have exchanged it for a silver top as they have stronger internals & an extra oil squirter to the pistons. But in all honesty this motor would have easily done 1,000,000km if I hadn't overheated it so badly & then drowned it 18mths later. I take responsibility for that. I pushed the limits too far. It made it to 472,352km, 60,000km of that with a cracked head & other than a slight usage of coolant, I couldn't tell. I had my suspicions something was up with one of the back cyl's which, as you can see in pics above, #6 was pitted & rusted due to the intake of water over 18 mths but other than a educated suspicion, there were no signs of it so that's how good these motors are. I'd have no hesitations of taking this car into the unknown now. It's proven itself very well. Much better than the HZJ75 cruiser I had before this......

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Here's a pic of it 1 hr before I drowned it....no lockers, just a 4" lift, worn 33" muds & sway bars still in.
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[Sharky1]

Here's a couple of car I've had when I was in my 20's........I found these while looking for other pics.
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[threedogs]

was a guy a few years ago put a landcruiser TD engine into a defender 110 with patrol 5 speed and dana diffs
very neat job too.
anyway welcome to the forum

[Sharky1]

Cheers threedogs.

If I had the coin, I'd put a Toyota 1HDT-FTE 24V turbo diesel motor in it. Dana diffs are good but I think nissan diffs are strong enough. My rear LSD is tight like a locker & works well. I'm a little skeptical about this spartan mechanical front locker but they rate well & the price was right so I'll give it a go.

I fitted the HID's earlier but have yet to wire them up. I just picked up my new air con condenser so I'm off out the front to see if I can get it running today.

I'll have more pics this evening.

[Sharky1]

#^&#*(@#%^@!!! @&^@*&^*)!!! (@#^&@#^@!!!

All that effort just to find it doesn't start. 1stly it wouldn't crank so I pulled the starter out & it was cactus. It took in more water than the titanic & rusted right up.....cheap ebay crap!!! Luckily I had my old original one that has been sitting in the rain for mths & has been through many river crossings & still works fine. Anyhoo.........

So I've got power to the glow plugs, which aren't very old anyway. I've got power to the shut off solenoid on the pump, presuming it's working correctly.

I was pretty thorough when I reassembled everything & I've been over it all twice just to check anyway. Everything is plugged in, connections are clean.

The only thing I keep coming back to is contaminated diesel. I'm pretty sure I had 1/4 of a tank when this happened & now there is slightly more than that. I'll try pulling the filter off & maybe syphon the tank. Beyond that I'm stumped. I could start testing voltages at the glow plugs & resistance at the coolant sensors etc but I doubt it's any of that.

I've gone from elated to depressed in about 2 mins lol. Any suggestions?

[Sharky1]

Ok forget that. Old mate wanders up & says "mind if I crank it over to hear how it sounds?" Be my guest I said. So as he cranks it spluttered & coughed ever so slightly. I walked over & cranked it myself & she fired right up. Now I'm smiling again lol

[Rossco]

Sweet, result!! Must have just taken a bit of priming. Bet you'd be glad to have it running again, looks like it took a fair bit of work, the poor old motor looked pretty sad.

Have you got any photos of it drowned in the river?

[Sharky1]

Yeah I primed the heck out of it but obviously wasn't quite enough.

Nah I was too worried about getting it out & how much damage I'd done to think about pics but I do have a pic of a different section of the same river we did a few weeks earlier....
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I got a few more pics today. Will take more tomorrow once it's tidied up a bit. I've still got a full day's work to go I reckon.
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I had a visitor as I was packing up for the day...........a big hairy wolf spider.
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[Sharky1]

Here you go Rossco....

This isn't anyone I know but here's a youtube clip of a guy doing the same river crossing. If the link doesn't work search "Hilux river crossing" on youtube & it's about the 3rd or 4th one down, it was near dwellingup in WA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4GOA-COj3s

It's basically the same situation except when I did it, it was about a foot deeper & the water wasn't muddy.

[Sharky1]

To do list includes:

Wire up spotties,
fit locker,
spray entire engine bay & undercarriage with Lanox,
finish fitting exhaust,
wash car & do final detail,
get windows tinted & air con re-gassed,
buy light bar & LED rear work lights.

I think I'll consider the car "finished" by then..........until something else needs replacing lol

[Sharky1]

It's alive again..............FINALLY!!! I drove it yesterday with 3/4 of an exhaust. This morning it's down the shop getting the tail section fitted & brackets welded on. But even as it is it sounds great....like a healthy diesel should.

The motor is pretty tight. Can't wait til it's run in. No real dramas so far. Lost of hill climbs & trailer pulling for me.

I spent half the day yesterday modifying my steering wheel boss so that the indicators self cancel & the horn works. The other (hotter) part of the day was spent cleaning the outside.

I worked out I've spent 21 days @ 10-14hrs/day on it to get it this far. As a result I've found I've become very 'protective' of it lol even (read: especially) from the Mrs & kids.

But here it is............
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[Sharky1]

Thanks to Jack, Graeme & Matt for all their help & those late nights under lights, all the trips to & from the workshop Matt, Graeme for taking me to work while my car was off the rd & helping me drop the motor back in, Matt (again) for driving 2 & 1/2 hrs home to get Jack (to tow my trailer home) & get a car trailer & drive 2 & 1/2 hrs back to the bush to get us & then 2 & 1/2 hrs back again at 1:00 am just to get up 3 hrs later for work. A rescue well executed under the conditions. What a mammoth effort!!! Thanks Matt for donating all the degreaser & acid & all the other little bits that add up like using your MIG to modify my engine crane to lift the motor high enough. What a set up that was. That was pro rigging that night. Thanks to my good old mum for being my personal finance supply for this emergency project. I couldn't have done it without you.

Aaaagh what the hell.........thanks Jason, Shane & Graeme for coming round to keep me company, drink moonshine & dribble 5hit while I worked on it.

I really appreciate it. All the yrs of helping everyone else out.....it feels weird having so many ppl chip in to help me out but it made things so much easier. Thanks again to everyone. Cheers

[Stropp]

epic mate, sounds like she is much more capable now.

[Rossco]

Cheers sharky, looking good!

Looks like bloody beautiful country where that river crossing is.

[Sharky1]

Yeah I hope so. The clutch isn't right so I won't be doing any off road work until I've sorted that & run it in properly. I can't select gears well, especially 1st & 2nd & particularly on the downshift & the grab point is too close to the floor. The whole clutch is new minus the hydraulics. I did bleed the clutch before this all happened but maybe it got water in it so I'll try bleeding it again.

I got a dodgy oil pressure sender unit so my oil pressure readings aren't accurate, which is annoying because I wanted to closely monitor this during run in period.

I can feel the motor loosening up a little. It tells you when it's ready to go a bit harder. Luckily I live in the hills & pull a trailer for work. Still, I think I'll load it up & go away in it shortly......once clutch is sorted.

[Vinnie]

Congratulations, that's really a Rebuild :)