Frankensteins GQ Resurection

[OLY]

Alright guys, I'm about to embark on a what i can foresee being a very long mission to build up a 4WD. it will be a bit of a project/hobby to keep me entertained and to give that all important sense of satisfaction of building something unique and personalised.

I've decided to put up thread to show the progress because i have read a lot that you guys have put up and found them a great source of info and inspiration, it will also help me keep track of where i am up to and hopefully serve to keep me on track and not give up.

So here is the starting point or "canvas" for those of you playing at home. It is a 1992 GQ Wagon 4.2 Litre EFI Manual i think it is a RX Model although the rego papers say TI. it cost a grand total of $1700 dollars and still had a couple of months rego. It didn't run very well but after some new spark plugs, valve clearance adjustment, timing adjustment, and replacement of some leaking fuel hoses it was a hell of a lot better on both petrol and LPG. It is very rough inside and out and is sporting a total of 520 odd thousand kms. It's only saving grace is that it has all the electrical options i wanted ie power windows, power mirrors, A/C, Electrical aerial (even though it's broken) and it is 100% rust free. although there is a few dings and twists in the doors and front guards the body itself is straight and solid. or at least that's my justification of buying it as a good starting point.

it came with a pretty poorly made roof rack and some cheap roof spotties that weren't wired up so they came off pretty quick, i sold them for $50 bucks. (it all helps in the long run)

[MudRunnerTD]

Nice one mate, enjoy the ride. Parts are cheap. Consider finding another if you have the space as a parts car as there will be plenty flogged out on that and replacement 2nd hand parts will be cheaper as a whole car ;) in fact what you have is actually a pretty good parts car.

If you go that way its important to buy a parts car with the same engine as all the bolt ons will then suit your needs.

Or, put an LS1 in it when your 520 donk gives up, if it ever does.

Enjoy mate.

[OLY]

Thanks MudrunnerTD. funny you should mention getting another for spares, i'm actually a couple of months behind in getting the thread up, it's run out of rego now and i have picked up complete TD42 diesel one, rusty but fairly unmodified and not bastardised so should make for a good conversion. The EFI engine has great power but there is just something that i prefer about the power delivery and low down torque of the diesel. i'll get some photo's of the donor up tomorrow

[OLY]

a couple of shots with the rear windows out. decided to change from the sliders to solid windows, was pretty quick and easy only took an hour or so. I've lost the progress photo's somehow. this one shows there isn't any rust under the widows at all. I'll grab a couple of new ones of the solid windows fitted in. I put new rubbers in that i got off ebay for $60 each. they were a fair bit thicker than the genuine ones that were on the windows and I found that it actually made them easier to fit as i was doing it on my own, they kind of held themselves in place a little better and fitted in nice. pretty pleased with them
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I also changed the front doors as they were dented and i found the drivers side was a little second hand looking at the bottom hinge. I managed to pick up the pair of front doors complete for $30 each, I still have to fit the lower moulds but needless to say the drivers door closes alot better.
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[OLY]

Here is the installed photo's of the solid windows with the chepo ebay rubber seal, they seem to sit a bit better than the genuine seals i have used previously and are definitely thicker than what was on the windows when i got them

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[SharkyGQ]

Nice work mate. I wouldn't mind changing out my sliding windows.

[OLY]

So as mentioned before after driving in the GQ for a couple of months it's been good but just found the 4.2EFI somewhat lacking... so i thought over the usual suspects for engine conversions and what not and the more i thought on the subject it just seemed to come back to the TD42 Diesel as the best swap to suit my needs. before i could really give it any more thought one came up cheap as chips and not far away, the best part is it has all the power options (although in a state of disrepair) that i wanted so the wiring loom would be a simple straight swap over (I hope). the body is more rust than steel and the interior smells funky as. it hasn't had the loom chopped up luckily and hasn't had a whole bunch of random crap added and been messed about with. it winds over real slow on startup, i'm thinking either an earthing issue or the starter is gummed up on the inside so i'll have to have a look into that and it seems to starve for fuel at times, initial inspection seems to point to the primer pump bleeding back. i have a spare one there so will swap it over and see what happens. it's been living it's life on a turf farm so i wouldn't have a clue what sort of fuel has been running in it. i drove it the 150kms home on a permit and it seemed to run fairly well when it was up and moving so i'm hoping it is decent engine.. time will tell........

The Diesel Bucket
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Seems to have knocked into a few things in its lifetime front guards are both a bit bent and horrible alloy bullbar is only good for scrap
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This one shows some of the rust in this bad boy, in all the usual places
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This photo really doesn't do justice to how dirty the inside of this thing really is
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[OLY]

Thanks mate. :smiley_thumbs_up:
i'd recommend changing them, the sliders just seem to hold all sorts of crud and moisture and start to rust. not to mention how easy the slider clips are to break into and with the amount of patrols being stolen lately anything that might help is worth while in my opinion

[OLY]

now that the photo uploader has stopped being a pain in the neck, the heart of this otherwise dead patrol will be being put into the body of the white one
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will be starting the conversion over the next couple of days and hopefully will have it up and running fairly soon. i'll post some progress shots along the way

[rusty_nail]

looks good mate! cant wait to see how far along you actually are!

[SharkyGQ]

Yeah I hear ya lot of them going off lately. What did they cost to get OLY?

[OLY]

Yeah I hear ya lot of them going off lately. What did they cost to get OLY?

picked up the pair of windows for $100 second hand and just grabbed some new aftermarket seals off ebay for $60 each delivered. pretty quick and easy to fit and look good i think.

[SharkyGQ]

Thanks mate would love to change them. Might be while before can do but will do it

[SharkyGQ]

How did ya go with the conversion OLY?

[OLY]

hey guy's unfortunately haven't had as much time to work on the patrol as i had hoped, i did get a small amount done though, but first i'll shoot up a quick shot of the poor quality dirty and worn steering wheel that i took off and the one i replaced it with, it's a little larger in diameter and much nicer to drive with.
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ok so i did find a little time to have a play with the diesel donor car. i pulled out the seats and most of the insides

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whipped off the bullbar and bent front guards

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undid all the cab mounts and phoned a mate with a hiab on his tow truck to lift the body off with a snatch strap through the front doors and another through the rear sliding windows

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[OLY]

:tongue: a spare boat trailer makes a good spot to store a spare patrol cab

it's about this point that i have to take a moment to commend the previous owner for some quality modifications starting with the exhaust (i'm not sure why they did this but at least it provides some amusement)

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and next up the quality repair to the lower control arm

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[OLY]

after living on a turf farm this shows some of the dirt that didn't get chipped away while trying to lift the body and really highlights the need to pull the covers off the front coil towers and clean them.

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the next part of the job is to pressure wash the chassis, engine, gearbox and everything to see what i have to work with.

Trying to decide if i'm better off to:

A. just cab swap and not have to worry about changing fuel lines and everything over and also having the chance to brace up coil towers and things while the cab is off and simply "plonk" the white cab on and wire it up

or

B. now that everything is easily accessible pull it off the diesel chassis and swap it onto the petrol chassis

[OLY]

So after a couple of days of heavy rain the yard turned to slush, it took 2 patrols just to pull the chassis out to where we could load it onto the trailer, in the dark, in the rain... lovely.

anyways got it to my parents and put in in my old mans shed after soaking it in degreaser, blasting it with the pressure washer, soaking it in degreaser again and blasting again. now it's a little more respectable and a bit easier to work on.

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I've decided to use the diesel chassis so i can play with it a bit with no cab on it. so today i ripped off all the bits of the horrible exhaust system

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removed the factory sway bar disconnect and split it apart so i can use the plate to run extended aftermarket disconnects

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i removed the rear shocks and springs, one of the shocks has a bent shaft must have happened when the control arm broke. here is a quick snap of the control arm removed from the car with the previous owners dodgey repair, .

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now with everything out of the way i started making some rear coil tower bracing plates, i just cut a strip of cardboard 100mm wide (same width as the steel i had and was the widest piece i could fit before the pressed curve started on the towers) then just bent and cut it to the shape i wanted and transferred the pattern onto the steel with a sharpie, grabbed out the grinder and started making noise, was going great until i ran out of steel and it was 4:50pm i'll have to get some more tomorrow and get the plates i have already cut bent to a 90 degree on the marked line.

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so as i had hit a roadblock for the arvo on the coil towers i set my attention to the engine mounts, pulled out the passenger side, you know the factory two-part engine mounts

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i cut what was left of the rubber off the base plate and trimmed up the sides, cut the bush housings off the busted control arm, then drilled through a piece of RHS steel with a hole saw

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that's as far as i got today. i'll get some more steel tomorrow and hopefully get the engine mounts made and the coil tower braces ready to weld at a minimum, have to see how i go, most of it i'm just making up as i go along, that's half the fun

[rusty_nail]

how do you remember to stop and take pics mate! i usually get so into it that i forget to pause and take a snap lol.

[OLY]

how do you remember to stop and take pics mate! i usually get so into it that i forget to pause and take a snap lol.

haha i have the same problem usually but so far i'm doing pretty well, i'm in my week off at the moment so just plodding along relaxing and enjoying it while i go

[OLY]

i got the coil brace brackets folded and grabbed some more steel to make the last 3 brackets

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the tacked the passenger side engine mount on

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made the plate to bolt to the engine, i made sure i had a cutout for the oil feed for down the track when i turbo it, i haven't seen any of the aftermarket ones where they have this. and i made the connecting pieces using the same cardboard template method

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tacked the side plates into position

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pulled it all out and welded it up on the bench

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i added a gusset in welded them all up and blasted them with some satin black killrust enamel but it got a bit dark, i'll throw up a finished off and installed photo tomorrow, i got everything cut out for the driver side, just have to chamfer off the corners and stick it together, that's another job for tomorrow

[OLY]

a quick snap of the mount welded and painted up. today i bolted it together and put it in place, came out alright.

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Time to start the driver side. again the factory two part Nissan mount

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Cleaned up the base plate and zapped the bottom together, cut out the engine plate with clearance for the injector pump bracket ready to make the side plates

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the cardboard templates bolted firmly in place, should hold??

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all tacked together, welded up on then with a gusset and painted up. popped it in and fits a treat.

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as the old mounts were so sagged and stuffed i didn't have much of an idea of heights and such, i use a spirit level on the shift plate to gauge it.

[OLY]

the next little project is the tail shaft crossmember. i was looking at how to notch it to gain clearance for when it gains some height and suspension travel, and just when i had it all worked out in my head a mate came around and said " why don't just cut the crossmember, spin it and weld it back in"

well that's a lot easier than what i had planned!! so that's what i did. i used my exhaust pipe cutter to scribe a nice straight line around the bar and ran through with the thin cut off disc. cleaned up around the cut and put a V groove to weld it up.

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this photo doesn't quite show the amount of extra clearance gained but when i spin the tailshaft i'll make sure it is enough but i'm pretty confident that it will be heaps and with a bit of black paint over the top it doesn't stick out like a big notch would have so hopefully i can fly under the radar a bit with it.

[rusty_nail]

wish i had your skill also man! its awesome! where bouts in the world are u?

[OLY]

wish i had your skill also man! its awesome! where bouts in the world are u?

Thanks man! i'm in Goulburn nsw

[rusty_nail]

oh nice! just up the road haha! looking forward to seeing this frankenstein on the road one day!

[OLY]

oh nice! just up the road haha! looking forward to seeing this frankenstein on the road one day!

haha yeah me too. will be a while off yet though as I have a fair few idea's rattling about in the noggin' that I want to try to put into practice and see if they work out :)

[OLY]

After wondering what the next piece of the chassis that might benefit from some attention was, i decided to have a play with the rear lower control arms. to make it easier to get to the mount on the chassis i started but cutting the body mount off, marking it accordingly of course, then i cut the control arm mount off, used a hole saw to cut out the crush tube in the rail

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after a fair bit of measuring, double checking, then checking again i re-drilled the hole for the crush tube and welded it in, tacked the mount back on in it's new home and gave it another measure to make sure it would all work out then zapped it all up properly.

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i just tacked the body mount back on in place until i make the arms and do the other side so i can run them through their travel arc's and make sure i don't have to modify it any further then i'll weld it up. I'll cut a couple of tubes and weld them in to fill in the holes i left and give the chassis back it's strength.

I cleaned up and painted the control arm mount on the passenger side, but didn't get a photo, i'll grab one tomorrow. I cut the driver side control arm and body mount off and cleaned up the rail, i'll weld the mount in place tomorrow so it matches the passenger side. hopefully i can find some steel tomorrow that i'm happy with to make the control arms out of and i'll get them made and see how it all works :)

i also had a little delivery in the post

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now i can finish the bracing i started making and there is no way the rear coil towers will move crack or bend like they are well known to. After a bit of research online I decided that the brackets alone wouldn't be enough but would probably only move the point that cracks and the only real solution is a solid link between the two coil towers. because i have already made the brackets and the fact that the towers are slightly bent up i think the brackets might give back the strength so i'll use them as well as the brace plate

[OLY]

as promised the pic of the mount with some paint

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the other side snipped off, cleaned up and tacked up blasted and painted.

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A quick Tip for those of you playing at home.. notice i didn't weld the front side of the base plate of anywhere that it met up to the curve of the chassis. you can weld on the top and bottom flats and the sides but not on the curve, now i am in no way a boily or qualified fabricator so i may be a little off with my reasoning for this but i believe that it creates a stress point and will cause the chassis to crack. even if you take a look at the factory mounts there is a gap at the curve off the edge of the chassis.

so now that both the mounts have been moved and re welded i'd have to say if i were to do it again i wouldn't move them quite as far back. i moved them 410mm as this was the maximum length i could get with the arm working properly and not hitting anything. if i had only moved it 380mm or so then i wouldn't have had to make the mounts suit around the pipe crossmember and it would have been a lot quicker and easier..

anyway now that all that is over and done it's time for the control arms... sounds easy right? not many steel places around here had anything suitable, in fact the piece i did find was on a rack out the back of an engineering company that nobody knew was there and apparently they don't make that size anymore or something and there is just enough to make the arms with all of 30mm to spare or something. lucky

this shows the difference in wall thickness, a factory arm that measures up at 2.42mm wall thickness and the pipe i'm using for the long arms measuring 8.75mm. time to dig out the old tube notcher, i'm reducing the offset on the chassis side to 1.5 degree to compensate for the extra length in the arm

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hopefully i'll get to finish the arms off tomorrow

[ns3474]

the next little project is the tail shaft crossmember. i was looking at how to notch it to gain clearance for when it gains some height and suspension travel, and just when i had it all worked out in my head a mate came around and said " why don't just cut the crossmember, spin it and weld it back in"

well that's a lot easier than what i had planned!! so that's what i did. i used my exhaust pipe cutter to scribe a nice straight line around the bar and ran through with the thin cut off disc. cleaned up around the cut and put a V groove to weld it up.

http://www.nissanpatrol.com.au/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=60960&stc=1 http://www.nissanpatrol.com.au/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=60961&stc=1 http://www.nissanpatrol.com.au/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=60962&stc=1

http://www.nissanpatrol.com.au/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=60963&stc=1 http://www.nissanpatrol.com.au/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=60964&stc=1

this photo doesn't quite show the amount of extra clearance gained but when i spin the tailshaft i'll make sure it is enough but i'm pretty confident that it will be heaps and with a bit of black paint over the top it doesn't stick out like a big notch would have so hopefully i can fly under the radar a bit with it.
you might wont to turn your tail shaft around so the thin end is bolted to the transfer case other wise with a bit of suspension travel you will be making some nasty grinding noises.

[OLY]

you might wont to turn your tail shaft around so the thin end is bolted to the transfer case other wise with a bit of suspension travel you will be making some nasty grinding noises.

Thanks for the advice :) i have new uni joints to go in so i'll switch it when i fit those, for the moment it's helping to hold the diff in place while it has no lower control arms in

[OLY]

so today i finished making the control arms zapped the ends up Ready to bolt in, popped them in and ran through the arc's of travel to make sure clearances are sweet. Right down to standard bump stops, and nothing hit - perfect :)

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welded the body mounts in, again paying attention to not welding on the curve of the chassis, and zapped in some tube to fill the holes down the bottom

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the overall length of the arms is 1100mm. the factory arms were 680mm, plus the 410mm i moved the mounts, plus 10mm to shuffle the axle back when i put a 4" lift in :)

[OLY]

Now i was having a look at this coil tower brace and i noticed a slight problem.....

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The rear shocks can't be fitted/changed with the brace fitted - that's slightly less than ideal!!

for a start i plan on getting this on the road with a 2 inch lift to start and i'll be changing to a 4 inch lift in the near future. also i know this thing is likely to have a fairly hard life and i don't want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere struggling to change a destroyed shock, so with the brace sitting in position i traced around the coil towers on the under side. my original plan was to run through with a holesaw and put a half section of pipe in to replace the section i cut out but the cutout was way to close to the coil tower for this to work... damn

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had to resort making it look pretty horrible but hopefully i haven't robbed to much strength, i think it'll be alright and i didn't have much choice but to compromise looks for functionality. now at least the shocks will be able to be changed without disassembling half of the vehicle!! hopefully will look a little better with a coat of paint and covering it up when i put the body back on!

also got a set of these to go in :cool:

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After seeing how much crap accumulated in the front tower and the rust that followed i wasn't too keen on putting them in with no way for dirt and water to drain out so out came the holesaw again, then a quick coat of "nothing to see here officer" black. I've read on countless posts on here that POR-15 is the paint to use but it's pretty hard to find. i'm using a KBC version of the same stuff and it's awesome. self priming, self leveling, rust proofing, hard wearing, urethane coating.

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i'm off to work again tomorrow so there won't be any progress for a fortnight now, but the idea's will definitely keep flowing

[NEKMNIT]

looking the goods man :bigthumbup:

[OLY]

Ok Guys, it's been a while since i have given any updates. I haven't got too much achieved, most of it is as it was left. I did give a mate a bit of a hand to convert his RB30 GQ to a diesel and the donor car he used was a leaf sprung Ute so we needed the Gearbox Cross member, Drive shafts, and diff flanges out of my white one as i'll be using whats in the diesel chassis. So I pulled the engine Gearbox out

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This should make it a little easier when i go to lift the body off having these out of the way. I sold the engine as it won't be needed and the more cash i get back for unused parts will help fund the project

[OLY]

also picked up a duel Battery tray, not quite up to this stage yet but for $30 it can sit up in the shed for later

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[blocko05]

what a big job you have undertaken there mate. love the read and pics that you have posted so far. Keep up the good work mate. Will you be getting the rig engineered or just taking it over the pits.

[OLY]

what a big job you have undertaken there mate. love the read and pics that you have posted so far. Keep up the good work mate. Will you be getting the rig engineered or just taking it over the pits.

Thanks mate, hoping to get it all engineered. will just have to see how i go

[OLY]

i managed to grab a second hand bull bar the other day for $60 bargain

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it's a solid base and not to twisted and busted up, i plan on modifying it a bit then having it sandblasted and powder coated black but i'm not quite up to that stage yet so it can just be set aside with some of the other parts.

so yesterday i was pretty much just procrastinating over having to actually do anything so i was just playing around with some fiddly little bits, i removed the Grill and horrible looking alloy bull bar, it kind of sucks that it has bent up into the front guards at some stage in the past and bent all of the lower part of the front, i think i might just try to find some new ones with the corner lights in them to make it look a little better

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for no real reason other than i had one there and there was a hole for it in the the radiator support and a wiring plug already there for it i decided to put the horn disc off the diesel cab onto the white cab and run twin horn discs, i doubt i'll ever notice it but it did fill in 5 minutes :) then i ripped out some of the bit's i'll no longer need like the LPG converter and the carbon canister

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after this i decided to get a little productive and removed the dash from the diesel cab so i can get to the wiring loom, i disconnected everything from the front and started feeding it through the firewall, i'll get some masking tape and label where most parts go to make it a little easier to hook it all back up when i transfer it to the white cab

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[OLY]

so today i slowly plodded around the shed i whipped off the rear bumper ends and unfortunately 2 bolts had snapped so i'll have to drill them out. I took off the rear alloy panel, took off the tow bar and pulled out the fuel tank. i gave it all a bit of a clean ready for some chassis paint

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I coated it all with some adhesion primer and mixed some penetrol in with the urethane chassis black, i hope it does what it claims. I've read a few threads on here with guys swearing by it and it isn't very expensive so i don't mind giving it a bit of a whirl

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i did actually brush a coat on the rear section of chassis but i didn't take a photo of it, i'll get one tomorrow. i plan on using two coats on the chassis to hopefully stop any chance of rust and with the two coats it should give me at least 3mm coating thickness.

[OLY]

after it's life on a turf farm the front driver side coil mount was rusted through, there isn't much holding the coil in.

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I managed to get a couple of second hand ones from someone wrecking a gq they just cut off the whole chassis section for me

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I had a bit of a go with the grinder and buzzed one side off the section of chassis, I'll give the edges a bit of a clean up when i'm ready to put it on

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unfortunately a mate has borrowed the welder so i'll have to grab it back before i can can zap this on

[OLY]

i didn't get any work done yesterday, but i did manage to pick up a set of silverstone muddies 35x11.5x16 on GU steel rims. just can't go past a bargain $600 for the set wasn't too bad i though.

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[OLY]

new tyres fitted :)

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here is a shot of the first coat of paint on the rear section, it's pretty thick and smoothed out alright. doesn't look too bad

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[threedogs]

Good read mate well thought out.
That rear chassis cross member if you beef that up you'll be able to recover a 4x4 from those for bolts
I sell a rated recovery point but with your skills You could whip one up in no time, hole cnts 85mm x 45mm

[OLY]

Good read mate well thought out.
That rear chassis cross member if you beef that up you'll be able to recover a 4x4 from those for bolts
I sell a rated recovery point but with your skills You could whip one up in no time, hole cnts 85mm x 45mm

Thanks mate!
i'll probably have a crack at making some form of rear bar down the track and try to incorporate recovery points, i kow i'll need them i'm generally the one to figure out how not to get through a track and need to be recovered :P

[BigRAWesty]

i got the coil brace brackets folded and grabbed some more steel to make the last 3 brackets

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the tacked the passenger side engine mount on

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made the plate to bolt to the engine, i made sure i had a cutout for the oil feed for down the track when i turbo it, i haven't seen any of the aftermarket ones where they have this. and i made the connecting pieces using the same cardboard template method

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tacked the side plates into position

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pulled it all out and welded it up on the bench

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i added a gusset in welded them all up and blasted them with some satin black killrust enamel but it got a bit dark, i'll throw up a finished off and installed photo tomorrow, i got everything cut out for the driver side, just have to chamfer off the corners and stick it together, that's another job for tomorrow
Here ya go BA.. 21st post

[OLY]

so after making a set of engine mounts for a mate, i wasn't quite happy with the first set i made for this so i made another set

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they turned out pretty good and using the toyota bush they won't be as harsh as the patrol ones

i made a full write up in the DIY section

check it out here
http://www.nissanpatrol.com.au/forums/showthread.php?35474-Unbreakable-Engine-mounts-A-step-by-step-guide&p=638233&posted=1#post638233

[OLY]

Finally stopped procrastinating over repairing the coil tower today

jacked up the chassis and took off the front right wheel and took the spring out, this shows just how rusted out it was...

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a few careful cuts with the grinder and then bash the last bit out with a cold chisel and bam! no more coil mount

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i carefully positioned the new mount and tacked it in, then melted it on

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a bit of the magical paint and nobody will be any the wiser :)

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[OLY]

i spread a little more paint over the chassis rail but the weather started to turn dodgey so i'll leave this bit to dry and come back to it tomorrow

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[OLY]

i did a bit more painting but ran out and they are out of it at the shop so have to wait until more comes in

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so i pulled the engine and gearbox out ready to paint the front half of the chassis took the steering box and everything off as well

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thought i might have a go at making some front drop out cones while i'm here so i got some 4" - 3" steam pipe reducer and a 3" hole saw, cut out a base plate and welded them together

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cut out the centre section of the coil seat and lined these up and welded them in, i still have to drill the centre hole out to 8mm to mount the bump stop and i'll have to drill a couple of drain holes then paint but so far it looks alright

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[BigRAWesty]

Why did you cut the spring locator out??
Sound have just welded them on the end..

[OLY]

i found some time to start removing the interior while i was waiting for the weather to heat up, looks like the last owner had kids... chips lego and food scraps everywhere under the seats

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carpet is up, no rust under there. winning!!!

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front guards are off, that bar is just sitting there at them moment, the panels are cracked at the spot welds where the front clip meets the firewall, pretty common, will just have to add more bracing

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[OLY]

Why did you cut the spring locator out??
Sound have just welded them on the end..

yeah the reducers i had were a bit to big on the OD to stick on the end and i though it would put them down a bit to low so i decided to cut them and drop it through the top

[BigRAWesty]

yeah the reducers i had were a bit to big on the OD to stick on the end and i though it would put them down a bit to low so i decided to cut them and drop it through the top
Sorta wasted all that time replacing the mount now lol..

Guessing your going 80 series bump stops?

[OLY]

Sorta wasted all that time replacing the mount now lol..

Guessing your going 80 series bump stops?

haha the other mount was rusted a lot further back, kind of surprised the spring hadn't pushed through, so had to be changed anyway. yeah i think 80 series bump stops will be the go for now but down the track i was toying with the idea of hydraulic bump stops

[OLY]

almost forgot to mention i got one of these.. GU H260 rear diff

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[BigRAWesty]

almost forgot to mention i got one of these.. GU H260 rear diff

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Now you just need the front..

Yea fair enough.
I am jelous of this build mate. I'd be in heaven doing this..
Any plans for the td?? Or just keeping to reliable?

[OLY]

Now you just need the front..

Yea fair enough.
I am jelous of this build mate. I'd be in heaven doing this..
Any plans for the td?? Or just keeping to reliable?

thanks mate, it keeps me occupied :)
yeah i'm on the hunt for a GU front and steering box to match, this one came up for a few hundred bucks, couldn't say no

[OLY]

Now you just need the front..

Yea fair enough.
I am jelous of this build mate. I'd be in heaven doing this..
Any plans for the td?? Or just keeping to reliable?


nah she won't stay reliable, i'll give some life to the old diesel, down the track a bit, when it's finished this car will be here for a good time, not a long time :)

[Petenwen]

OLY, I haven't read your whole thread but I’m interested in the black & silver Patrol you’ve got, are the 2 front doors any good I would be interested in buying them off you if they are.
Cheers
Peter.

[OLY]

OLY, I haven't read your whole thread but I’m interested in the black & silver Patrol you’ve got, are the 2 front doors any good I would be interested in buying them off you if they are.
Cheers
Peter.

sorry peter, at this stage i'm going to wait until i finish the build before i start selling bits and pieces, never know what will be needed down the track

[OLY]

well it has been a fair while since i have updated this so i guess i better post up some more, after all this thread is pretty much my "how to" for reassembly when the time comes.

i was procrastinating over doing much for a couple of days and, although i'm pretty sure i won't be using it, i decided to notch the gearbox crossmember because apparently the front tail shaft hit's with lifted patrols. so i took to a little bit of grinding and welding and splashed on some paint.

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and after all that i'm pretty sure i didn't take enough out of it :) i'd say if i don't end up using the setup i have planned and actually use this crossmember i'll cut it again and take a little more off closer to the gearbox mount

[OLY]

I finished painting the rest of the chassis

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fitted the bolt in rear dropout cones and the coil tower brace top plate

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then i though I might get a little creative for a second and pop in a hard line for a rear diff breather while everything is out of the way, i used a spare 5/16 fuel return line and just drilled and tapped holes to mount in place

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i'll just put a propper breather block on the firewall and plug the on here for the gearbox and everything aswell

[OLY]

next i turned to the cab and removed all the doors, pannels and glass, all the dash, wiring, heater and air con (which the cores were full of 23 years of dirt and junk)
What was left of the factory sound deadener was brittle as and useless and just fell apart as I was taking the heater core out, i just pulled the few bit out that did manage to stay in place

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and pulled all the excess junk out of the engine bay

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[OLY]

there wasn't much else to unbolt so i wheeled it into the shed and lifted the cab up. i'm sure there would have been a much better way of doing this even without a hoist

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the underside needed a good clean, i degreased it a few times and hit it with the pressure washer but it wouldn't get all the crap off and had to resort to a bucket of sugar soap and warm water and a sponge :( then a wipe with some thinners and i could spray the underside with the urethane rust proofing under coat and a chassis coater of the top

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[OLY]

there was six cracks in the lower side of the front clip so I ran through them with a cutting disc and welded them up while i could easily get at them and also ran some weld down the sides where the patrols have a habbit of breaking the spot welds and pulling away from the firewall

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i made some 20mm polyurethane spacer blocks for the body mounts, pulled the tube washer off and cut the little fluted parts off the top of the factory mounts, coated everything with sikaflex and pushed the tube washer back through the two rubbers, i noticed that moisture and rocks had been getting under the factory mounts on the chassis so i sikaflexed them to the chassis as well to keep all moisture out and stop any rust starting there, after cutting the bit off the factory part of the rubbers i'm left with just under 15mm of body lift to clear the fuel lines and things where i added the rear tower bracing

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then gently lowered the cab in place

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[OLY]

time to make some longer rear upper arms now that I can see how much clearance i have around the body so I cut the old mount off....

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had a bit of a measure and cut up the arms i have to put in it

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I bolted the arms to the mount that i had cut out to hold it in its new position and then made some joining pieces out of thickwall steampipe bends and thickwall tube then braced the corners with 6mm flat bar cut at angles and tack welded it into place

i'm not 100 % sold on the way i have made the upper mount so i have been pondering a better way and procrastinating over it :confused:

so that's where i'm currently up to

[blocko05]

what a great thread. looking forward to the rest of your build. What a great rig that you will end up with

[DaveGQ]

Loving this thread. Great progress and some amazing achievements. Keep it coming!

[OLY]

So I got a little enthusiastic today and lifted the cab back off the chassis and welded in the rear upper control arm mount and gave it a paint, I'm 110% sure it'll be strong enough as i added extra gussets and fish plates across the welds but it just doesn't look very pretty :( oh well not much else i can do to have the extra length and still clear everything.

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I doubled up on the rear cab support to compensate for the body lift...

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[OLY]

Picked up a 150L long range tank for $200, Bargain!! it's for a GU though, i hope it fits :confused:

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Gave it a clean up and a bit of a paint

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[OLY]

So i got the cab back down on the chassis..... again....

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Bolted the tank in, was a tight squeeze to get in there but it fits ok. lucky i have the 15mm body lift, being a GU tank they must be higher as i only have about 10mm clearance to the floor so worked out pretty well really

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[King_ady1]

Nice work on the tank. Wish I could wick one up for that price!! Been looking for ages :(

[BigRAWesty]

Cold you have not just put a new cross member in further down the chassis??
Or cut the old one out and moved it down??
And nice work on the tank. Bargin for sure..

So with all these long arms etc are you caculating any of it or just going for it??

[OLY]

Cold you have not just put a new cross member in further down the chassis??
Or cut the old one out and moved it down??
And nice work on the tank. Bargin for sure..

So with all these long arms etc are you caculating any of it or just going for it??

I wish it would have been that simple, it would have made making an exhaust pretty difficult, made a dog's breakfast of the fuel lines and where it mounts to the chassis is a main brace point so would still have had to have some form of crossmember there which would have been in the way of the arms..

[OLY]

Nice work on the tank. Wish I could wick one up for that price!! Been looking for ages :(

thanks mate, you have to be quick when they come up that cheap, i got the one for my last GQ for $150 and this GU one for $200, both of gumtree and both in under an hour of them being posted up!! just have to be patient and keep searching :)

[DaveGQ]

Nice work! It does look a bit "ballsy" from behind. Are you going to try and incorporate it a bit better so it doesn't stand out for Mr Officer?

I'm not implying that LR tanks are illegal, but I do know from experience anything that doesn't look standard tends to draw the attention to the vehicle.

[OLY]

Nice work! It does look a bit "ballsy" from behind. Are you going to try and incorporate it a bit better so it doesn't stand out for Mr Officer?

I'm not implying that LR tanks are illegal, but I do know from experience anything that doesn't look standard tends to draw the attention to the vehicle.

haha yeah i know what you mean, that's why Painted it black so as to attract a little less attention. i think when the tow bar goes back on and I make a rear Bar for it the tank will fairly well disappear

[BigRAWesty]

I wish it would have been that simple, it would have made making an exhaust pretty difficult, made a dog's breakfast of the fuel lines and where it mounts to the chassis is a main brace point so would still have had to have some form of crossmember there which would have been in the way of the arms..
I was thinking more of move the whole main brace. So year fuel lines etc would need attention but the brace is still there.

[OLY]

I was thinking more of move the whole main brace. So year fuel lines etc would need attention but the brace is still there.

correct it would still be there, but unfortunately not in the place where it is needed most on an obvious weak point in the chassis

[OLY]

so time to bolt the cab down firm, new bolts of course and nice big washers. the rear two had done what they all do and split the nuts out of their captive housings and the factory hole isn't big enough to fit a decent sized washer through so i ran a hole saw through and made them the same size as the others in the floor, i'll just put a grommet in to cover them up and they will look like that's how they were meant to be

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pulled the roof lining out

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and the factory insulation, no sign of rust at all :) no wonder these things rust so often though there is bugger all paint under the roof lining, pretty much just thin primer.

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splashed the first coat of paint on, couple more coats on the roof and a few on the floor and I can start to put the insulation in.

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[Rossco]

Awsome mate, it's coming along well. Looks like so much fun would love to do this to my GQ, maybe one day. . .

[happygu]

You might as well spray some fish oil along the sides of the roof in behind the roofside support panels and the roof itself, as this is where any rust will start on the inside and eat its way out to the outside in the gutters.

[OLY]

You might as well spray some fish oil along the sides of the roof in behind the roofside support panels and the roof itself, as this is where any rust will start on the inside and eat its way out to the outside in the gutters.

great minds think alike, that's the plan. i'll coat everywhere in fish oil that i can't paint and hopefully it will stay rust free :)

[threedogs]

Awesome job if only I had the time and space to be able to do this, well done
Might want to think about putting some acoustic batts down inside the 1/4 panels
makes a big differece

[OLY]

so this turned up with a courier yesterday :)

it's 12sq meters of butyl rubber (doing the firewall, roof, floor and doors), 8sq meters of dense foam underlay, (firewall and floor under carpet), and 4sq meters of thermal quilt insulation (for the roof under the roof lining)

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now i just need to finish painting the inside so i can start to lay it all down :)

[OLY]

even though the picture doesn't show it the best, i scrubbed the floor with sugar soap and got all the crap off it, after it dries i'll wipe it over with prepsol ready for paint.

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drilled out the spot welds to a couple of unnecessary brackets

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[mudnut]

Excellent write up of a great build. I look forward to seeing more of it.

[OLY]

Excellent write up of a great build. I look forward to seeing more of it.

thanks mate :) i'm just looking forward to it being finished

[BigRAWesty]

How's this going mate?

[Kimbo63]

How's the build coming along OLY great thread mate

[Shummezz]

Hey Oly, I have a 91 Nissan GQ - she's in great shape but had a hard life with the dirt roads over here in Tanzania. I would like to take the body off the chassis for two reasons - the first, to brace the rear suspension mounts as you have done and the second, for a complete respray before fitting some sound insulation and new carpets etc and third, to replace all of the bushes and engine mounts. How hard is it to remove the body from the chassis? What time is involved? Have you got a diagram of all of the bolts holding the body to the chassis? Sorry for the hundred questions, relatively new to the forum and looks like you are doing more or less what I'd like to do...

[BigRAWesty]

Hey Oly, I have a 91 Nissan GQ - she's in great shape but had a hard life with the dirt roads over here in Tanzania. I would like to take the body off the chassis for two reasons - the first, to brace the rear suspension mounts as you have done and the second, for a complete respray before fitting some sound insulation and new carpets etc and third, to replace all of the bushes and engine mounts. How hard is it to remove the body from the chassis? What time is involved? Have you got a diagram of all of the bolts holding the body to the chassis? Sorry for the hundred questions, relatively new to the forum and looks like you are doing more or less what I'd like to do...
It is a big job that's for sure. Unsure on a time frame though..
There are 10 bolts in a wagon.
4 do either side of the cabin and 2 next to the radiator.
There is a main loom plug under the passenger seat (we have right hand drive cars so unsure if it's the same for left hand drive)
But then you also have to strip out things like air conditioner hoses to body, heater hoses, brake and clutch lines, fuel lines, battery cables and whatever else there is in the engine bay..

[OLY]

hey fella's sorry about the late reply, have been flat out lately, and the mrs car sh!t itself so that's taken a bit of my spare time too (who'd buy a cruiser, honestly)

I have done a little bit i'll have to load up some photo's cab is nearly ready for paint..

Shummezz it's not a technically difficult endeavour to lift the cab and if you plan on putting down sound deadener then all the carpet and inside goodies will already be out. Westy is fairly onto it with having to pay attention to making sure everything underbonnet is disconnected such as air con and things and all of the wiring does unplug so not too bad there. the crappy bit to look out for is the two rear cab mount bolts that come up from the bottom have a really weak cage holding the nut so spray with WD40 and some freeze and release every day for at least a week before attempting to undo them. sometimes they break anyway and you have to cut a larger hole as I did anyway. a hoist also helps because the way I lifted the cab was sh!t too..

[OLY]

so as i mentioned progress has slowed down alot. but hasn't completely stopped

these photo's show where the front clip had separated from the cab below the windscreen

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welded the back up and welded the last few cracks in the front inner guards

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then i went and found myself one of these brace kits, painted it up as it would be a bit hard to get to after its welded

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and set about zapping them in

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i had to run through the passenger side brace with a 3 and a half inch hole saw for the snorkel hole before i could finish welding it in and i'm going to try slip a piece of pipe in to fill the hole so i'll head to the steel shop tomorrow to try to find some.

after bracing the front i started on the back...

pulled these little trim bits off

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bit of marking out 10mm down from the crease, a bit of duct tape gives me a nice straight edge

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then i very lovingly cut the f*#kers off with a grinder. It was getting a bit dark so i didn't get any more photo's but i'll grab some tomorrow and hopefully weld the plates on the bottom

[Rossco]

Looking good mate. Where did you get those brace kits from, i like those. Have a suspicion mine is making some clunks from that area.

[OLY]

Looking good mate. Where did you get those brace kits from, i like those. Have a suspicion mine is making some clunks from that area.

if it's a GQ then it's more likely cracked than not. i phoned andrew at Big-O 4x4. it was about $110 delivered i think from memory

[OLY]

a few quick snaps of the rear quarters cut off and the plates being tacked on

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a few little dents sanded. then i beat them out as best i could and filled them up

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after sanding back the whole cab it's now in primer, starting to get to the pointy end of the stick

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and a couple that i forgot to put up before of the pipe where the snorkel hole is

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