Honey Badger the Y60

[BrazilianY60]

Hello everyone. This is the build topic, or rather, restoration topic, for my 1997 LHD wagon Y60. From what I have learnt online, the very last year of the Y60 series.

Patrols are pretty rare around where I live, but I managed to get ahold of one to call my own. It is LHD, so a bit weirdo for you good folks, but don't let that make you loose interest. It is SGL-D trim with the 3rd row seat (missing), over the top A/C for the 2nd and 3rd rows and the cooler box on the trunk. It came with a non-functioning blacktop TD42.

I would be lying if I said it has been beaten to death. If it had nine lives like a cat, it would be more appropriate to say it had been beaten to death eight and a half times... No rust though, which all in all, is a blessing. Also, at first impression, nothing worked, but it was absolutely complete, not missing a single bolt, which would help a lot a restoration project of a rare car since I didn't have the least chance to have another car to look and compare, nor to create parts or to discover what was supposed to go here and there. Whatever part was there, I would test it, if it worked, good, if not, I would go ahead and try to fix it.

This is how it looked:
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Every single panel need some sort of panel beating, some more, some less, some a lot... They manage to bend, crush or ding even the roof and the fuel door.

This is my very first attempt at car restauration, and having lost an opportunity to by a little better condition than this LC80, that is also very rare around here, I decided to man up and write the check. Loaded in to a car transport truck I have hired and drove back home to wait for the Patrol to be delivered and see what the missus and the kids would say about it...

[BrazilianY60]

I was told that, for absolutely pure negligence (aka stupidity), the engine has been run without the rad cap on.
At a first look I thought the engine was without the head, but at closer inspection it was without the valve cover and I could see no cam.

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Deep breath, let the anxiety fade away... kept looking around the car for bad surprises and actually had a good one. The valve cover was on the backseat, with all the rockers and whatnot inside.

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Back to the engine to inspect the head, and I figured it out... the cam was not overhead, so it was not missing. I had zero TD42 knowledge then. Also, the exposed top of the head was totally clean of dust or debris, just oil, and it was not dry. That reminded me to check the dipstick and the pan was full of oil up to the max mark. Good sign...

A whole lot of thoughts going through my mind as I drove back home...

[BrazilianY60]

While the car was still in transit to my location, I started to gather information about the car, the engine, etc. Downloaded the FSMs, started reading forum topics, etc.

I have decoded my VIN on Partsouq to learn that my Y60 color was actually "Dark Blue + Yellowish Gray". Searched for some references online and this is what my Patrol used to look colorwise when new:

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What a darn good looking color combo! Wow!

At some point in it's life it has been painted blue over the yellowish gray details and the decorative plastic stuff under the doors belt line (forgot how it is named) was painted plain silver. Not that it matters, since the paint was in super bad shape, sunburnt, clear coat peeling, etc, so it had to go anyway.

[BrazilianY60]

The truck driver, being a very conscious person, advised me to take with me in my car all the loose ends from inside the Patrol before loading it into the truck, to avoid the risk of losing small items during the transport, so I did it.

These arrived at home with me on the next day, two weeks prior to the Patrol being delivered:
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Being able to do nothing but wait, I decided to give the airbox a good clean, and was amazed with the amount of dust it was holding.
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With zero availability of parts locally, I started searching on nearby South America countries where Nissan have sold Patrols in a quest for either OEM or alternative parts suppliers. I knew I could always count with Aussie vendors, but being on the opposite side of the globe, shipping would be a major factor. Whatever I could find closer, would be a bonus. Right from the beginning I knew I would need at least an engine gasket kit, air filters and a brake booster/master cylinder. The later being for when I saw the car, I noticed the brake booster/master cylinder were adapted from another truck available in Brazil.

First thing I was able to source was the engine gasket kit, from an local parts supplier that was used to import parts for Toyota 4x4s. Not that he had it available, being a Toyota parts vendor, but he was able to find it with his suppliers. No-name gasket kit, but a complete kit nevertheless, with this car I am not in the position to choose parts brands, I have to take whatever I find. He would have nothing else, this was all of Nissan he could help me with.
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To be fair, it does have a name, PEACE GASKETS. :clownredpuff:

Later on, I got to know through a 4x4 online community of a bloke that owns an Auto Repair shop in neighbor country that from time to time have had helped some guys around here to find parts. He was available to quote parts in local (to him) stores and even on wreckers if needed for a fair fee. Through him, I was able to source a brand new non-OEM master cylinder, air-filters and an used brake booster. Yes, used... He searched around even in specialized brake places in his town and could not find a new booster, but happened to find a Patrol in a wrecker. That was good info also, there was the possibility of this parts car having something I may need in the future.
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The booster is still a bit of a mystery. It does look equal to Y60 brake booster pictures I see online, but it has a part number that I checked and belongs to a Nissan Frontier truck (which is available in Brazil, BTW). On Partsouq they are not the same part number though. Maybe it was already adapted on the wrecked car? Who knows... Maybe you good fellows can tell me about you being using Frontier boosters on Patrols...

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[BrazilianY60]

Car arrived a little bit less sad looking than it was on the yard, it probably liked it's new garage.
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Pretty dirty everywhere, a lot of dust, a lot of dirt, a lot of iron ore, a lot of spider webs.
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Cooled glovebox and a cooler on the trunk.
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Some decent amount of Kms on the clock.
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At this time I was mostly trying not to freak out and "see the beauty" behind that dirt mask.

[BrazilianY60]

With the help of the kids, we gave the car a good wash. Only laundry machine powder soap and pressure washer. No specialized products as I didn't knew any. Here you can see a good "before & after".
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[BrazilianY60]

All the grass on the area used to wash the car died on the following week... I thought all that iron ore was going to be "a mineral supplement" for the yard... bummer...

[BrazilianY60]

First time I saw a free wheel hub like this. I was used to either only manual or only auto hubs.
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Rotary injection pump.
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The day ended with some tears.
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[BrazilianY60]

Interior disassembly kept going for a few weeks.

A lot of dirt with some parts of the carpet also soaked in hydraulic fluid. They used to carry hydraulic pistons out of heavy tractors/bulldozers to maintenance in the car, carelessly leaking fluid everywhere.
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Found an rotten orange...
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Found out the reason for no handbrake was no handbrake cable... at least, the conduit was there.
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Some very nasty seats. Bear in mind that these are not of TAN trimming LOL, they were supposed to be light gray. :)
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Found out that one of the barn doors was poorly reinforced for spare tire weight or most probably bad rutted dirt roads. This was later all taken apart, fixed, mig welded.
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[BrazilianY60]

As my street is slanted and I live on the top of the hill, even without an working engine, a handbrake was on the top of the list of things to be fixed. With no Patrol reposition parts in my country, I am committed to use all the local resources I have available before importing parts.

Looking at the service manuals and at internet pictures of the handbrake cable, I decided that it was no big deal to build one. With the correct length, correct terminals and same steel cable diameter, it should be not that different from a reposition part.

I disassembled the handbrake drum on the end of the transfer case to take out the original handbrake cable conduit and found the remaining tip of the cable.
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With that at hand, I went to parts stores to search for a handbrake cable that had the same steel cable diameter, a length longer the the conduit I had, and with one eye connector already crimped on one of the ends. And I found this, the handbrake cable for a 1991 Fiat Uno, eye connectors on both ends and 2.8 meters long. I can actually make two handbrake cables with this and keep one as a spare.
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To do something faster then try and error to find the proper length to cut the cable, I printed the best picture I could find online that showed the complete cable unit and took measurements of that print and my existing cable conduit, to calculate a conversion factor between the printed image and the real part. With that, I have estimated the length of cable that should be left at both ends.
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Then it was time for the crimped fork holder at the parking brake drum end of the cable. After searching around for cable companies to crimp something similar to me, I didn't like the options I found. Only aluminium cable stoppers could be crimped, the smallest one was a bit bigger then the holes it had to go through to be installed inside the drum, and it didn't seem strong enough for me. I then drilled a hole in a steel solid bar I had laying around, drilled a countersunk drill on one of the ends, cut it to length and used it as my cable stopper. I have passed the cable through that steel stopper, untangled the end of the cable a bit to make it larger then the hole and welded the hole shut with some brazing material. Handbrake is working like a charm!
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[BrazilianY60]

With the handbrake now working, I have put the car on the street a few times to clean it up again and again and again. After a few weekends, it started to look somewhat decent and less of a bio-hazard.

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Ohh, what a feeling to stand behind the wheel of that thing... I would loose myself momentarily and imagine me driving it somewhere.
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[BrazilianY60]

Next item on the list were car keys. It only came with one broken key, where the broken part was still inside the drum (so you could actually turn the ignition on and off). I took the drum off and took it to a locksmith around the block to make one new key only. At this time, I had already found out that AliExpress sells a new key kit complete with new ignition + all doors drums for a reasonable price, so I was looking only at having the ignition drum sorted out to avoid the risk of it locking the steering shaft with the key tip inside it.

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Once I was there, I was surprised at how quick and easy (for him) the drum was fixed and a new key was made. Mentioned to the guy the whole dilemma of the car, and he asked me to bring him the door drums, so I went back home and grabbed those as well. For the price of only the two keys, he cleaned all the drums tested and adjusted them all to work nice with the same key. Total win form me, and he definitely got a returning customer, as I now send his way all the key and lock things I ever need fixing.

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[mudnut]

I've just re-read most of your thread. It is going really well. Sorry to be a bummer, but I read that you washed your Patrol in laundry detergent. That stuff has a very high salt content, and it also not good with the rubber. It is best to find a good vehicle wash and wax. I have used Armourall wash and wax for many years, and it kept the rust to a minimum. It has only started to appear because I have been very lax in washing the Old Trol.

[BrazilianY60]

I've just re-read most of your thread. It is going really well. Sorry to be a bummer, but I read that you washed your Patrol in laundry detergent. That stuff has a very high salt content, and it also not good with the rubber. It is best to find a good vehicle wash and wax. I have used Armourall wash and wax for many years, and it kept the rust to a minimum. It has only started to appear because I have been very lax in washing the Old Trol.

Hello mate! Thanks for checking my thread!
Not a bummer at all, all advice is welcome. Didn't know about the salt thing and it being bad for rubber. Thank you for the info.

After the engine was rebuilt and I was about to finally enjoy driving the car, I took it to a car washer and they did a great job with all their task-specific products, like one for minerals, one for degreasing, etc, etc. Undercarriage came out mint. But those are pictures for the next chapters! :-)

[BrazilianY60]

Well, this has actually done when the car came back from the shop with the rebuilt engine, but since we're talking about car wash, here it is...
Took it to a car washer to finally get rid of all that iron ore crust on the undercarriage. The results were amazing.

Original frame powder coat looks top notch except from minor dots here and there (where hit by debris and small rocks) and on the front right bellow the master cylinder, due to most probably to break fluid leak when someone adapted a different booster and master cylinder.

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That OEM Carlsonic muffler looks so new on a 23 y.o. car that makes me wonder whether it is just galvanized or maybe stainless...

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Here you can see my frame is missing a bracket for the stabilizer connection rod.

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Also noticed that I am missing one clutch lever rubber boot.

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I can already admire the beautiful body lines with pride!

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[MB]

Holy Moly BZ Mate, Top Pictures Added, LOVE IT, What a Clean Beauty [emoji106][emoji106][emoji736][emoji736]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mudnut]

That has come up brilliantly. Now its clean, have a good look at the rear spring towers. See it they have stretched up toward the floor or cracked at the chassis. It is a common problem for Patrols, especially if they were used for towing on rough roads. There are kits that can be fitted to strengthen them.

[Lawrence]

Nice build. Watching this post. Here in Jamaica, we have Patrols, but they're not that common here. We have a Nissan dealer here who we can get some parts through. Sometimes we have to do special orders to get parts. However, I do have a network of Patrol owners here who makes it easier to get second-hand parts.

Some years ago, there was a parts seller here who used to get parts out of Panama. Apart from that, some Nissan vehicles will have shared parts. The Nissan Civilian and some of the Nissan trucks will share engines. The gearboxes are similar with some differences. Right now I have a brake master cylinder from a Nissan frontier as it seems the booster wasn't original. Some of the interior bits are the same as in some of the cars, such as the lighting switches. If you check on Amayama or Partsouq, if you check alternative parts, you will be able to see what other vehicles share that particular part.

[BrazilianY60]

Nice build. Watching this post. Here in Jamaica, we have Patrols, but they're not that common here. We have a Nissan dealer here who we can get some parts through. Sometimes we have to do special orders to get parts. However, I do have a network of Patrol owners here who makes it easier to get second-hand parts.

Some years ago, there was a parts seller here who used to get parts out of Panama. Apart from that, some Nissan vehicles will have shared parts. The Nissan Civilian and some of the Nissan trucks will share engines. The gearboxes are similar with some differences. Right now I have a brake master cylinder from a Nissan frontier as it seems the booster wasn't original. Some of the interior bits are the same as in some of the cars, such as the lighting switches. If you check on Amayama or Partsouq, if you check alternative parts, you will be able to see what other vehicles share that particular part.

Hi Lawrence.
I saw some of the other vehicles that shared powertrain parts like the trucks and the Civilian (which is a bus) but none of those were sold here. Here on the 90's we only got the D21 minitrucks, Pathfinder (some people may know it as Terrano) and super small amounts of the Sentra.

[MB]

Please do sing out if you Two Top Blokes get stuck for unavailable parts needed Overseas [emoji106][emoji106]
We’ve recently helped a British Bloke convert his Japanese Safari MQ/GQ Firetrucky into a full powersteering Tradesman ute [emoji41][emoji106]
Haven’t heard back since, unfortunately 🥲🥲


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BrazilianY60]

That is nice from you to offer mate! Will keep that in mind!

[BrazilianY60]

Searched around for a old school mechanic that would not be picky about dealing with this car. Diesel pickup trucks (UTES for you guys) and SUVs over here are all 4 cylinders (with the F250 being the only exception) so this was really the job for a truck mechanic. Finally found one that for decades only works with trucks and buses, had a conversation with him and he was solid in his speech. Showed him some pictures of the car and he said, 'that is from Australia, right?'. Well, Japanese, but I'd say he got it almost bullseye because it is almost Australian automotive history. He told me that some 10 years ago, he worked on similar vehicles from an Australian mining company that was prospecting on our state, and curiously enough, instead of renting 4x4s locally, they brought all their machinery with them for the job.

What could I say... he knew at least the car make/model, that made him an expert already! :smile:


Finally, it was time send the car to the mechanic, so we said goodbye over a beer. :smile:
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The Honey Badger needed a horseback ride.
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Once there, the mechanic borrowed a battery from another truck, checked fuel lines, glow plugs, etc. He put new belts, new oil and fuel filters, changed the oil, replaced the rusty water from the cooling system and was able to make the engine run. It ran very rough, he diagnosed it to be running only on 4 cylinders, while the 2 remaining were not generating pressure/temperature to burn the fuel (there was fuel being injected, he even changed injectors from one cylinder to another to see if the problem would move along). So we moved along into taking the engine out and disassembling.

Engine off, head off, we could see the damage to be exactly what he predicted.
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At this time, I had already selected an engine machine shop to rebuild the engine form me.

[BrazilianY60]

With the engine at the machine shop, I was getting ready for the shopping list. From the mechanic I already knew I needed to provide him a battery and engine mounts and he also asked me to try to either find a new radiator or build a custom one.

Don't know how it is in Australia, but here batteries are quite expensive. I figured out it would take a long time for this restoration to happen, either for engine rebuilt or for body work, so I bought a smaller amp battery.
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Took the radiator to a big radiator company in my town, where they have also a factory, to see if by any chance they made it for export, since this car was not sold here. They didn't, but the guy took a look and told me that my radiator seemed good, and offered to give it a inside-out acid bath to evaluate the situation. A couple days later he called me and my radiator was like new. Due to excitement I forgot to take a head-on picture of it, but I have these few of it inside the dirty trunk. I guess you can get an idea of how clean it got.
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Engine mounts were sourced from a neighbor country.
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[BrazilianY60]

Got a call from the machine shop and the news couldn't be better. Engine was in great condition! Sleeves/liners obviously had to be replaced, but engine block was perfect, head was perfect, water pump seemed to be replaced already, oil pump was in perfect condition and the crankshaft after polishing was still STD! The guy was impressed with the engine (first time he saw a TD42) and told me it was very robust.

Look at this beauty!! This is pure porn!!
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So, machine shop shopping list was all the basics: sleeves/liners, pistons, rings, rod bearings, crankshaft bearings, filters, seals, gaskets. In another lucky strike, I discovered that the TD42 was used in a Komatsu forklift sold here. I could find liners, pistons and rings right out of the shelf! Jackpot! Also, I got to learn that the TD42 sleeves/liners were the same of the TD27, which existed here in the Nissan D21 minitrucks.

Sleves/Liners
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Pistons
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Rings
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Engine bearings
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Rod bearings
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[BrazilianY60]

While the machine shop was doing their work, I took care of some other minor stuff. First, the fan clutch was solid. I read some posts here and there about the possibility to open/clean/replace the silicone inside it, but for the amount of coin I was going to put into the engine, I decided to buy a new one. I kept the old one in the "for when I am curious enough" bin. Maybe someday I recondition it myself just for kicks.

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New engine, new thermostat of-course. Read here and there also that an 82º C should be better then the OEM 76.5º C.
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Radiator cap I found it to be the same used in my Suzuki Samurai, that I can source locally. It is also used in some KIA vans.
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And these fittings that go on top of the thermostat housing were corroded. The smallest one I found a brass one in the right size. The bigger ones had to be done by welding two halves. They are brass as well.
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[BrazilianY60]

Engine assembly

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Engine test

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEmc1Apqcvc

[BrazilianY60]

I have tried a bunch of options to make the above video embed into the forum post, with no luck. If someone knows how to do it, please let me know.

:smileyvault-cute-bi

EDIT: It is now properly embedded. Not sure what happened on the first time.

[BrazilianY60]

I forgot what for I bought this ball bearing, I believe it was for a belt tensioner pulley.

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Build a battery tie-down for my new battery. I used a piece of threaded rod and a piece of galvanized angle iron I had laying around.

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I have also bought these quick disconnects. This is what is saving this battery so far, as I am firing the engine maybe once a month for the last 10 months.

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[BrazilianY60]

Fuel tank was actually cleaned prior to first start, before engine rebuilt. Here are the things I faced when dealing with the tank.

Tank was overall dirty, but no leak, no crack, no rust. It was actually a lot dirtier inside then outside, with a lot of gunk. It took several liters of gasoline and kerosene to dissolve the gunk.
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On the inside of the tank there was this white plastic thing that no one could find its place inside the tank. No apparent hook, bracket, rail, nothing to put it. And the thing was bigger then the tank inspection opening, so no way to get it out of there to examine outside as well. I ended up deciding to cut it inside the tank and remove the parts. To this date, I don't know what it was meant to be.
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The sender had some corrosion and the return tube was broken. Also, the wire from the thermistor to the floater variable resistor printed circuit board (PCB) was broken as well. It was broken very close or maybe even inside the thermistor. I look around to see if that was something I could find at electronic component stores in my town, and the closest one was something from motorcycles fuel reserve light, and it was quite expensive (for what it is), so I decided to leave it without the thermistor for the time being until I have an opportunity to find a deal in a complete sending unit. For anyone that may not know, the thermistor is a resistor that changes its resistance depending on temperature. So, when it is sunk into fuel, it is cooled by the fuel and has one resistance value. When the fuel is low, the thermisor gets exposed and heats, so the resistance changes. This change in behavior is used for the dashboard to lit the fuel reserve indication light.

Corrosion and the broken return tube. Note the "wireless" thermistor and where the return tube used to attach on the fuel tank opening.
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I took the complete sender unit home with me to clean the oxidation, clean the variable resistor PCB and figure out a solution for the thermistor while the mechanic was working on the engine to try to make it crank for the first time. I was able to clean the unit, to braze weld the return tube, to give up on the thermistor :p but was not able to clean the floater and its PCB in time for the mechanic. He needed to put the tank back to do the test so I removed the floater from the unit and returned the sender to him like that. So I have no fuel information on the dash now, been using the trip odometer as a reference (9.7 Km/L on the first 95 liters tank).

Variable resistor seems good though (June 1st 2020, exactly one year from today, what a coincidence)
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[BrazilianY60]

1) Anyone knows what is the purpose of that white plastic that was loose inside my tank? This is a diesel tank BTW.

2) My tank breather tube has this black thing on the end. I am not sure if it is supposed to be like this or if it is broken and missing some sort of filter or check valve. Anyone knows how it is supposed to be?
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PS.: filler neck and breather tube will be galvanized eventually when the car comes back from bodywork to my garage, so I can start addressing every minor detail one by one. Can't wait for that to happen...

[MudRunnerTD]

1) Anyone knows what is the purpose of that white plastic that was loose inside my tank? This is a diesel tank BTW.

2) My tank breather tube has this black thing on the end. I am not sure if it is supposed to be like this or if it is broken and missing some sort of filter or check valve. Anyone knows how it is supposed to be?
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PS.: filler neck and breather tube will be galvanized eventually when the car comes back from bodywork to my garage, so I can start addressing every minor detail one by one. Can't wait for that to happen...

Hi mate. nice build thread. the breather should have a big Bell like plastic case over it. it is designed to create an airlock if in goes into deep water. Think inverted glass pushed into a sink of water trapping the air in.

a 300ml or so bottle of water with the bottom cut off and the neck taped onto that black bung will do the same job.

[BrazilianY60]

the breather should have a big Bell like plastic case over it. it is designed to create an airlock if in goes into deep water.

Thanks MudRunnerTD.
Now that you mentioned it got me really curious to see how that look like. I could not find any reference in the FSM, but remembered this time to check the Partsouk catalog and it is listed as 17333 breather hose cover... Ended up finding a picture from Patrolapart. Looking now to find a picture of it in place, or maybe taken apart, to have an idea if the connection is sealed or what.

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[Brissieboy]

Looking now to find a picture of it in place, or maybe taken apart, to have an idea if the connection is sealed or what.
If it wasn't sealed at the top then it would not be effective as an air pocket. I would suggest that it does need to be sealed at the top.

[BrazilianY60]

Found a picture on this thread:
http://www.nissanpatrol.com.au/forums/showthread.php?51970-Fuel-Tank-Breathers!!

http://www.nissanpatrol.com.au/forums/images/imported/2021/05/80.jpg

[BrazilianY60]

Engine came back from the machine shop looking top notch. They even painted it black.

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New filter in the airbox:
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New belts and fan clutch. Looking back at it now, I should have bought a new fan as well:
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Those hose fittings that I had to work around:
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And finally, the first idling! Sounds pretty good to me! My first 6cc engine, my first diesel, all at once!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiO1ajBx5iw

How it sounds after warm. Very little noise from the tailpipe, but super loud at the cab. Later I discovered that the exaust flexible joint was toast. Fixed that. Still loud. Put the square intake tube and the cyclone back, still loud. Figured out a lot of the noise was coming from the square intake pipe to square airbox joint. Put some adesive foam tape to make it more sealed and that helped a lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jnR3wtS8Lk

Here it is intake+cyclone but I believe before the foam tape seal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsftNcwL1I0

Testing the A/C idle-up actuator:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuQnyVOA5pw

I was very happy with how the engine rebuilt went!

[Bigcol]

great job, very impressed with your resourcefulness, we sometimes forget just how hard it can be to get "goodies" for our beasties when we have everything we could need sitting locally on a shelf ........

[BrazilianY60]

Thanks Bigcol.
Yeah, my goal with this restoration is to use everything I can from local market, when it can be accomplished with small, non safety related adaptations. Other then that, I have been able to source some parts in Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina and the farthest of all so far, Australia.

[BrazilianY60]

I always knew I would have to check every single nut and bolt on the car, but the plan is to choose an area to work, disassemble, study the manual, evaluate needed parts, source equivalents or import, etc. But sometimes, you don't have the chance to choose an area to work, the work simply jumps in front of you begging for attention.

This was the situation with the front axle. When the tow truck dropped the car at the mechanic for the engine work, while we pushed the car into the shop, I noticed one of the front axle wheels was clunking when steering, and upon inspection, kingpin bearings were broken, allowing movement on the camber angle. So while the car was there, I studied the bearings and seals on the hub to find out that absolutely not a single one was used in any other car over here, so nothing available. Decided to do my first overseas order from OnlineAutoParts. Got a pretty nice swivel rebuilt kit plus some kingpin shims of different thickness to be able to properly adjust.

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Very stoked with how nice the kit was!

Unfortunatelly, in the anxiety of being "proactive and efficient" in getting parts, at this first time I failed to do things in the proposed sequence that I have stated above... "disassemble, study the manual, evaluate needed parts..." I have just assumed that was all I needed for the front axle without first dissembling it. I discovered that I had an issue with front brakes, front CV joint and may still have an issue with front pinion bearings. So, lets treat this one issue at a time...

All swivel/knuckle bearings and seals in place, when we were about to put the axles back in, we noticed one CV joint had a crack... frustrating... at this point the engine was close to be returned from the machine shop (it takes a while to import goods) so no chance to try to source another one, that could as well have been part of the freight of some brake parts that I had to buy and were already in country (more on the brakes later). I am ready to take all the flames, but I ended up taking the CV to a "parts recovery shop" to be welded, a very common 3rd world practice around here. Not proud of it at all... There, the CV was broken apart, welded inside and out, sanded inside/out, bearing races are bored to the smallest next available bearing-balls size to remove any wear hump it may have, balls replaced, put together and grease-packed.

The crack
83730

Outside weld
83731

Inside weld
83732

Final "product"
83733 83734

[BrazilianY60]

Front brakes were mysterious at first inspection. The pad didn't touch all the disc, leaving a gap of disk unused for friction. Upon removing the pad, I also noticed the pad wasn't touching completely the disc as well, leaving some part of the pad out of the disc, and thus cutting at the friction material instead of consuming it evenly.

83735

83736

83737

Then I checked the pad part number... WTF!!! It was for a Ford Fiesta!!!
83738

Removed the caliper just to find this monstrosity! A new "ear" had been welded to the hub to accommodate for the smaller size of the Fiesta caliper! Just looking at it you can imagine the difference in order of magnitude of the Patrol and the Fiesta caliper.
83739

Took some measurements to see if the "ear to ear" distance would match some local truck, maybe an FJ40 or something, but no luck. If I had found a match, I would definitely use it, but I was not intended to adapt anything on the brakes.
83740

So I ground down the 3rd ear and new overseas order from OnlineAutoParts it was.
83741

83742

83745

83744

83746

Patrol calipers are huge in my opinion, despite being single piston. Here is a comparison with an UHF radio.
83743

These are the pads I chose:
83747

83748

In place:
83749

83751

To my surprise, the Patrol specific pad doesn't touch the inner center-line of the disc, as I was expecting. Also, what the frigging expensive thing those brake pad anti-rattle shims are! Wow! I just can't see myself spending that kind of money into some tin cans! Just used some high temperature silicone.
83750

As for the brake hoses, the Patrol caliper needed one with a pass-through hole fitting. Searched around and the FJ40 had the required fittings, and the length was similar to the one used on the Fiesta calipers.
83752

That turned out to be too long for my needs. It left me with a big loop in the hose, that was eventually touching the tires.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaxMdfhI90c

I had to improvise with some nylon clamps.
83753

Later, talking to a friend about this issue, he told me he uses Opel Corsa brake hoses on axle swaps he does, that it has the fittings I was looking for and a shorter length. This is a picture he sent me. I have later bought such brake hoses, but have not changed them yet because the car is still in doing body work.
83754

Car break is decent now. Not the "head to the windshield" type, but pretty decent. I still have to change the master and booster for the Patrol ones I already have, and will replace the hoses at the same occasion.

[mudnut]

Keep plugging away and it will be almost a brand new vehicle. You should get many years of service out of it.

[BrazilianY60]

A couple of short clips of me driving the beast during the covid nights of 2020. I was putting some Kms on the engine for it to break in. The engine is very torquey but feels very "held back" (for the lack of better vocabulary) at high end. I guess that is the deal with 2 valve per cylinder NA diesel right? I suppose it doesn't get happy at high end unless turbo'ed. This comment aside, it is a blast to drive.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8_z9u_pTMc


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsKPIN6rqrw

Also, I found a picture of the only thing that made some difference in engine noise that I mentioned previously, some sticky foam around the square airbox junction. That really brought the noise some notches down. Later down the road, when I start to proper sound deaden the cab, I will add some more layers or maybe a thicker sticky foam tape to seal this some more.
83764

[BrazilianY60]

As you can see from the videos, my windshield is pretty scratched... I will attempt glass polishing to see if it gets any better otherwise, go through the hassle of sourcing something big, heavy and fragile...

[BrazilianY60]

Clutch seemed to be in good condition, fibers on the friction material still apparent, some decent amount of material between the rivets and the surface, so I kept it.
83767

83768

83769

83770


The clutch bearing on the other hand had a "sandy" feeling to it. So I sourced a new one. Curiously enough, I found ONE BEARING in country.

83771

83772

83773


Clutch has a good grip and hasn't slip for a second, so good decision to save that money. I have noticed a clutch or transmission related noise, though. Sometimes when idling I hear rattling noises from the clutch/transmission, like it was flapping/rattling inside. When lightly touching he clutch pedal, the noise disappears. Bearing is brand new, so it is almost like if the fork is a millimetre loose of something.

[BrazilianY60]

Good morning mates! Let's talk about the steering wheel. The poor bastard has seen better days, I hope. If not, it is for sure going to see'em better now.

This is how it looked:
83774
83775

Horn piece is missing the solid plastic center piece that presses onto the horn springs. It also had some strange white shavings which I hope were from the broken/missing center piece and not from something once stashed there. But this is all past now.
83776

83777

Gave it a good soapy bath, cleaned contacts, etc. I still have to create something to be between the horn springs and the flexible cover. I am thinking about carving something out of EVA.
83778

83779

83780

83781

83782


Took the steering wheel to a place that do these types of restorations. They took part of the foam from another (wreck/junk) wheel to complete what was missing in mine, glued it and then covered it all with genuine leather.
83783

83784

Man! How good it feels to the touch now!
83785

Somebody else is beginning to enjoy staying on the Patrol, listening to his tunes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYVRUV9NdBE

83786

[BrazilianY60]

I am not the only one imagining me relaxing behind the wheel and the Patrol cruising the roads into memorable destinations. The green guy does that as well and here you can see him so relaxed he is going back to Bruce Banner config mode.

83794

And sometimes one gotta rush to take a pee...
83795

[BrazilianY60]

With a driveable car, its time to hear it singing and notice what notes are out of place in that melody. Easiest one to notice was some squeaking from the exhaust piping. Pushing the tailpipe with my foot, I could notice it swinging loose. Went under the car to search for any hook missing its rubber hanger but actually found a broken bracket. That one was an easy fix/weld.

83796


Then, the loud engine noises coming from the open transmission tunnel were much related to the flexible steel joint being torn. Took it to a muffler shop and got the flex joint replaced by a new one.

83797

83798

83799

Exhaust test: I have no reference for standard/OEM exaust NA TD42 noise as 99% of the YouTube videos when searching for such thing are either direct pipe or turbo exhaust sounds. Also, notice the very little smoke when sending it at 1st, 2nd and 3rd. I had nowhere close to test a full send up to 5th. With nothing to compare, I BELIEVE it is sounding and smoking properly. Please let me know what you good folks judge of it in terms of sound and smoke.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eutHf6XA8wk

[MB]

Very hard to see and hear properly off my crappy little icrapple phone BZ Mate but appears like it’s hauling pretty well to my nuffy knowledge and senses [emoji23][emoji106][emoji106]
Top secret…….Australian’s have for decades been religiously installing OEM 76.5C Tropical thermostats in our TD42 engines across this massive continent, foolishly (guilty too) even in southern mountains with snow atop.
Fact: There is 3 x OEM thermostat variants available, 76.5C / 82C / 88C and all have the exact same top end maximum temperature tested once fully open. Unsure of your yearly climate there in Brazil but it is definitely worth running a suitable TS to suit (seasonal changeovers maybe required) to have your lowest operating temperature somewhere greater than 85C with a hopeful system average of 92C which is truly their “Sweet Spot” for power & efficiency [emoji123][emoji123]


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[BrazilianY60]

About seasonal changes in Brazil LOL.
Our perception of cold is quite distorted!83810

[BrazilianY60]

Driving around, I could hear some nasty clunks when accelerating/decelerating, either suspension or driveline related. Mounted a camera on the frame cross-member and took it for a ride. Shitty suspension bushes were the problem. I was surprised on how much it was allowing the pinion angle to change.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO_Pq7LdYU

So, next battle to fight, would be to completely overhaul the suspension.

[growler2058]

Try to get genuine Nissan bushes mate.

[BrazilianY60]

Try to get genuine Nissan bushes mate.

I have already manufactured poly bushes for it. Noticed the enormous amount of poly bushes options in Australia, and figured out it was kind of an upgrade. I will post some pictures. Thanks for checking!

[Touses]

I have already manufactured poly bushes for it. Noticed the enormous amount of poly bushes options in Australia, and figured out it was kind of an upgrade. I will post some pictures. Thanks for checking!

Hi mate. The suggestion re genuine bushes is sound. The poly bushes will be as squeaky as a bull riders voice after 8 seconds on Chainsaw ( legendary Aussie rodeo bull).

[BrazilianY60]

Hi mate. The suggestion re genuine bushes is sound.

I recon that. But at the time I did it, this is what I could do locally without importing anything.



The poly bushes will be as squeaky as a bull riders voice after 8 seconds on Chainsaw ( legendary Aussie rodeo bull).

I recon that as well, LOL. Squeaky indeed! :biggrin:
Let's invest the saved bushes money on sound deadening mats and forget it squeaks! :clownredpuff:

[growler2058]

I have already manufactured poly bushes for it. Noticed the enormous amount of poly bushes options in Australia, and figured out it was kind of an upgrade. I will post some pictures. Thanks for checking!
Fair enough. I believe in 4wd application they will not flex as much, thus wearing out quicker also. Not a problem if you are staying on the blacktop though.

[mudnut]

I have found that Neoprene bushes actually chew into their metal components. I have also been advised that they fail quite quickly, where as the black rubber takes a lot longer to do so, giving you more time to fix it.

[Danyael]

Dude! The biggest problem of those cars (in Europe) does not concern you - I mean rust. On those picters after underbody wash, your beast looks like new! If I ever could buy one in THAT of a good shape ;-)
Keep up the good work, I will surely check on your progress :-)

[BrazilianY60]

Oh, just figured out I missed two important topics that have been addressed before I started driving around, so they come before our suspension talk. Spare tire and alternator issues...

[BrazilianY60]

My Patrol came without a spare tire/wheel. There is a Brazilian wheel manufacturer called Mangels that used to produce steelies with round, D shaped and triangle slots, this last one very similar to the "sunnies" as I've noticed it is how the Patrol wheels are known in Australia. Here, the models are called Orion (round slots), Daytona (D slots) and Triangular (sunnies). Mangels no longer manufactures them, so I had to keep looking at local classifieds just like your Gumtree site, keeping an eye for 15 inch Triangular Mangels steelies. A long time waiting and nothing like that showing up for ages. Then, an 16 inch Mangels Orion pops up, not what I wanted, but brand new/never used with minor scratches, out of an store display, for almost half of people usually asks, so I took it. The idea was to keep looking and in the event I could find one Sunny, I would then sell this one and maybe had it for nothing since the Orion had been gotten really cheap.

Mangels Orion (steel):
83831

Good backspace, similar to the Nissan sunnies:
83832


Then, a friend gave me a call, he was at a tire shop replacing two of his 32" BFG mud terrains and was keeping one of them as spare, asked me if I wanted the other one for my Patrol spare. Off course I wanted! When I got home with the tire I realized that the tire he gave me was 15 inch, while my current spare wheel was 16 inch, LOL. At least I got to have an idea of how a 32 inch bald tire would look in the car.

83834

83833

83836


At the end, car was ready to drive for engine break in purposes and I didn't find any 15 inch steely. Another friend gave an old 16 inch tire from his van and that became officially my spare.

83837


I had also to buy a jack to fit the OEM place. Over here, Toyota Hiluxes come with a screw-type bottle jack that would fit the place and would probably look just like OEM. But used units were more expensive then new hydraulic-type bottle jacks so a new one it was...

83838

[mudnut]

As long as the outer diameter of the tire and rim offset (back space as you called it) are the same, you shouldn't have a problem.

[BrazilianY60]

So I started driving around, headlights not working, turning signals eventually, etc. Stop light was good. Just a few daylight rounds around the block to satisfy the itch... I knew I had to fix that before any serious driving. On top of that, voltage on on the dash voltmeter didn't seem to go past 12v and measuring at the battery terminals it was just 12 something with engine running, so I had issues with cabling (grounding usually) and/or alternator.

Checked on the alternator area for some interesting findings. First these two wires were broken, and for the coloring/lack of copper shine, for a long time.
83839

Also found this skinny black wire, that came from the positive post of the alternator, hanging loose:
83840

Alternator is a 70A unit. Not sure if that is the same capacity you get in Australia. It is definitely different because it does not have a vacuum pump as my blacktop TD42 has a gear driven vacuum pump bellow the IP.
83841

Uh-oh, something weird over there, let's unwrap that cable...
83842

The black one on the bottom of this picture was a ground wire. The white one was positive, with a "T" derivation totally exposed going nowhere.
83843

83844


Kept unwraping it and found matching wires for the broken ones from the alternator housing. Looking at the wiring diagram downloaded from the forum, the white with a red stripe was a signal wire for the dash battery light to go off once the alternator field is "up". I fixed the broken wires.

83845

83846

83847


Traced all the wires from that loom into headlight, turn signals, corner lights, etc to find some of them with slightly melted isolation that could possibly be grounding to the fender and thus not lighting their bulbs. Fixed all of those. Then, I looked into that ground wire. It was not worth it to fix, so I crimped connectors to a new wire, and seeing what happened before, I used an very over-sized (comparing to the original) wire.

83850

83849

83851


And the last step, I found the origin of the skinny black wire connected to the positive post of the alternator. It once came from the butt of this small piece, which is screwed to the alternator body and thus grounding to it. The part itself is a condensator, which I assume to be a capacitor, and sitting between ground and positive post, I suppose it is some sort of high frequency noise filter. If someone knows for sure, please share with us. Since I could't just stick the wire back to it, I left it alone (and removed the black wire from the positive post, off-course).

83853

83852

83854


So, time to see if it did any good... Started the engine, watched out for smoke signals or smells, all good. Checked the voltage at the battery terminals and voilá! It is charging!

83855


Quick run around the car and it's all working! Yessssss!

83857

83856

83858


Also, all the indicator lamps on the dash were in working order! Dash backlight has a few burnt bulbs but that's nothing. Easy fix for the time I need to take the dash apart.

[BrazilianY60]

As long as the outer diameter of the tire and rim offset (back space as you called it) are the same, you shouldn't have a problem.

I believe you are referring to outer diameter of the 15 inch wheel/tire in comparison to the outer diameter of the 16 inch wheel/tire, and that is correct, thanks for the observation. On the other hand, these bunch of old tires will find their way to the recycler once the time for new ones arrives. At this time the focus was to fix things until I got a chance to do bodywork, and interior, and seats and, and, and... My goal "was" to drop money on wheels and tires only at the very end, but it happened to happen before, LOL.

As for backspace, it is the distance from the wheel mounting surface to the edge of the rim. It is a more direct and thus more interesting measurement of the wheel offset. And it is actually the info that manufactures stamp on the wheel instead of offset. I was looking for similar backspace to the OEM wheels to keep them inside the fenders to the same amount.

[mudnut]

Yes, the driveline does not work well with different size tyres.

[MB]

Please do be aware BZ Mate that whatever tyres/rims you finally do choose all around your 5th spare if it’s 1.0mg greater size/weight than a standard OEM spare will overweight flex and crack your rear door pillar eventually between the barn door closing lower window points if that makes sense. Across Australian only slightly outa city roads/tracks it is a longevity ‘must’ on both Y60’s & Y61’s to get all rear barn door weight off and onto aftermarket steel rear bumper bar best built carriers [emoji120][emoji106][emoji106]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[MB]

Love em, unfortunately not cheap, but did thankfully shove my old GQY60’s front ute log forward approximately 20mm extra needed and instantly corrected angles of the dangles same time [emoji106][emoji106]

http://www.nissanpatrol.com.au/forums/images/imported/2021/06/117.jpg


https://roadsafe.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/RANPBV2-BH_Fitting-Instructions_RANPBV2-Nissan-Patrol-High-Clearance-Radius-Arm.pdf

Best part for me personally was BZ Mate that I could retain OEM front guards as is with OEM flares with only slightly butchering/trimming the rears of them to fit and properly ‘flexy work’ 35” x 12.5” R15” old faithful BFG moderate lugs [emoji12][emoji106][emoji106]


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[BrazilianY60]

Love em, unfortunately not cheap

Do you know what I consider to be not cheap for what it really is? Drop boxes. It is a very smart idea, easy to construct (once you have seen one) but are sold for a lot of cash.

With regards to spare tire load onto the wider barn door, how do people do when running factory rear bumper? Do they reinforce the door? My wide barn door was cracked, shitty welded and had a junk plate inside to reinforce, but all very shitty overall. I took the reinforcement out, the door was straightened, properly mig welded, some spot welds that had poped were welded as well. My friend who is the body shop guy working on it said it is now properly done and should hold it. I have an idea in my mind that, if I notice the door may not be holding the weight well, I will drill the aluminum step and put some "L" bracket with such height that the spare tire can rest on top of it, taking away that weight from the door, if that makes sense.

[MB]

I’m guaranteed to get ‘flamed’ here BZ Mate but in regards’Drop Boxes’ IMHO we may as well be running Toyoda hook up/hang up leaf spring hangers…..ignite fire [emoji91][emoji23]
Off-road it makes total sense to me to keep our toughest old faithful Nissan chassis lines as obstruction free, as smooth as slippery cat shit as possible underneath [emoji106][emoji106]
IMHO, there isn’t enough strength in any vehicles body panels since about 1957 to hold a half sized 4x4 tyre canterlevered…..chassis real steel is where it’s safely at proven across Australia shitty roads let alone adventure twacks [emoji1037] [emoji23]


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[BrazilianY60]

No reason for flames mate, I have an 105 myself and was astonished to see the way that both front and rear suspension brackets were all boxed to frame level on the Patrol, in contrast with the hanging brackets on the Toyota frame.

[BrazilianY60]

A full suspension rebuild was on the order of the day... That provided a lot of challenges to me and my hobbyist tools. There were some serious torques at some points that I didn't have proper tools to deal with. First I started taking a look at the rear shocks. I have a trail built Suzuki Samurai where I use nitrogen rear shocks for a Ford Ranger that are pretty long and most important, readily available off the shelf. So I took a shock out of the Patrol and one out of the Sammy to compare.

83868

83869

83870


First issue was quickly noticed. The Ranger shock, despite being good size, had a super small eyelet/bush compared to the Patrol one. That made it very clear that the Patrol suspension needed that amount of bushing to flex. Patrol front shocks were a no-go as well. The bolt-bolt design is not that common for the options of large shocks I have here. Most are eye-eye or at least eye-bolt design. So I gave up on that and ordered OEM style shocks (Kayaba) from a neighbor country.

As for the link bushes, I had already in mind to make them locally in poly, after seeing the vast amount of poly options and brands available in Australia. I understood that it was a common replacement or even maybe an upgrade. My plan then was to take out the rear panhard bar and one of the four rear links. The idea was to do it in two steps so not leave the axle free to move too much. I would then take those to the machine shop, have new bushes made for the panhard and for the four links (despite having just one at hand). Back home, I would reinstall those, remove the remaining three links and replace bushes. First issues were with my tools not being good quality enough for the panhard bolts.

83871


I didn't have the strength to turn it with a short socket handle, so I put some pipes to provide leverage. The socket handle poor material was the next weak link and bent. Those were not CrV tools.
83872


Found this contraption in my tool box, something I built some 20 years ago for a specific job and never used again, but the handle was not up to the task as well, LOL.
83873

83874


A lot of cursing and bending handles back to position later, I was able to remove the parts as planned.
83875


Examining the rear link, a surprise... It had already been tweaked at some point in life! Some bastard had replaced one of the bushing eyelets for a new one with the same OD and smaller ID, to use some sort of commercial vehicle bushing.
83876

83878

83877

83879

83880


I even took the time to try to find out which car/truck that bushing was from, but no luck.
83881


I could no longer ask the machinist to turn 8 identical rear bushes all at once, oh boy. But poly bushes would be the way, nevertheless. For reference, this were all the bushes I planned to have made:
83882


Talking to the machinist, he showed me a red poly material that he uses to make 4x4 bushings day and night, and he also had some blue poly material that was a bit softer. So we decided to use the red one for panhard bars, to position the axles with less give for a more precise alignment/driving and to use the blue material for the other links to provide more flex capability (in comparison with the red material, not with the OEM rubber) and more ride comfort. The first batch came out sweet!

83883

83884

83885

83886

83887

83888

A trick I learned from an Internet mate called TheCrazyLatvian: to jack the diff housing close to the pinion to facilitate the alignment of the bracket and bushing holes for the bolt to pass through easily.
83889


Second batch came quickly after:
83890

83891

Another tip from TheCrazyLatvian: rear lower control arms are slightly tilted outwards. Knowing that before hand was great!
83892

83893


These were all the bushes accomplished this far:
83894


Also, I have replaced my rusty/scrap pipes I have been using for leverage with a proper CrV breaker bar. Man, how nice is to work with the correct tools! I have bought an torque wrench as well (not in the picture).
83895

[BrazilianY60]

Forgot to mention that the driver side rear lower control arm bolt interferes with the muffler. I needed to jack the muffler up to remove it. Oh, and this is a LHD car, so "my driver side" is what I meant.

83896

[BrazilianY60]

With the rear suspension covered, and new shocks on their way, I started working on the front suspension. I have never liked bolt-bolt design shocks (or should I call them stud-stud design shocks?). The drama on the front suspension disassembly started with the shocks. Top bolt, impossible to grip them on that ridiculous 10mm (maybe less?) flatten part of the bolt to unscrew the mega-frozen nut. I ended up winding some tie-down straps several rounds around the shock upper part (dust cover) until it locked and I could then only focus on the nut. Bottom bolt had a better sized grip thing, maybe 15mm or 17mm, where the bolt is welded to the shock body, but then, it is like 1/3 of the width of a common open end wrench. No way to fit a regular wrench there to hold it. Since the shocks were destined to the recycle bin anyway, I used vice-grips to hold the shock body while I was working on the nut. One of them was so frozen, the stud broke.

83908


In one of the sides, I found this "rattlesnake" there. You can imagine how that added to the already super rattling panels noise I was experiencing when driving.
83909


This time I decided to take it all apart instead of the two step approach used on the rear suspension links. No dramas to remove the front radius arms other then loosing one of the cross-member bolts to allow for some room to wrench on the mushroom bushing nut.
83910


Radius arms bushes were cracked.
83911

83912


I can't come up with a good reason for the Nissan engineers to suit the upper coil buckets with a cover plate... My buckets were so packed with dirt, that it was full to the top. Had to excavate that to be able to reach the upper suspension bump stop nut, and of-course it was pretty frozen. Used an wire-brush attachment to a cordless drill to clean the nut and the last bolt threads and then soak it in penetrating oil to be able to remove the bump stop. All that dust with all that oil, you can imagine the mess.
83917 83918

83913 83914

83915 83916


The coil spacer/cushioning thing was completely disintegrating. I measured what seemed to be the original width at a non-compressed part of the rubber and it had 10mm. I decided to have a 30mm coil spacer made to replace the OEM rubber one, with 10mm to account for the disintegrated rubber and 20mm to account for an eventual sagging on the original coils after 20+ years and 280k km on the clock (with no way to figure out if that was true).

83921 83922

83919 83920


Took the old rubber, front and rear coils to the machinist for him to turn me new front/rear coil spacers. For the rear ones, since there was no previous rubber spacer/cushioning, I had to provide him with some more measurements.
83924


Rear coil springs have the last loop flat, while the front coil springs don't, so he made me different front and rear spacers to suit. They turned out very cool in my opinion.

Rear spacers:
83925

83926

83927 83928


Front spacers:
83930

83931

83929 83932


Then these babies arrived!
83933

83934 83935

83936

83937 83938


And not so long after, these ones arrived!
83939

83940 83941


Front radius arms, panhard bar and new shocks all went in in a single night after work, and then on the following night, replaced the rear shocks. Suspension is all buttoned up and the car drives like a train on tracks now!

Let me approach the subject of wheels and tires on another post, and then I show you how the car instance is now. It is looking amazing.

[mudnut]

One tip for replacing all suspension components is to have the vehicle sitting at normal height as you tighten the bushes. This will allow them more flex both ways.

[BrazilianY60]

Thank you for the tip. When the car comes back from bodywork I plan to take some of the components out, for example the coils for painting, and plan to re-torque everything to FSM spec.

[BrazilianY60]

I love the looks of the Y60 from the middle east. Brand-new-looking rigs with golden wheels. I must confess that I never liked the look of the steel sunnies, but some of the rigs I see pictures on Instagram with the sunnies painted in golden tone, man, that looks mad!

83948 83949

83947


So for some time I looked around trying to find a matching spare wheel, with no luck. One day, I saw an add for a set of 4 very scratched Brazilian made Mangels Alloys, 16 inch tall, 8 inch wide, gorgeous design. Since I wanted the wheels to be painted golden, being scratched was no problem for me they would go over blasting, preparation, painting anyway. And the price was a steal, so I got them. Look at this picture and imagine the car with 5 of them!
83950

8 inch wide rim, great for an 285/75r16 tire.
83951

Backspace was about spot on!
83952


As it turned out, one of the wheels was in brand new state (the one in the pictures), two were scratched as expected, but one was severely damaged. It went straight to the recycle bin... So I was back to searching... Either one sunny or two Mangels alloys, LOL.


Also, I have been monitoring tire prizes for opportunities, maybe a warehouse closeout, tire sales, buy 4 take 5, etc. My plan for tires was for it to be the very last expense of this restoration, to avoid leaving tires aging without being driven, but I would not close my eyes for a possible bargain. During that monitoring, I realized something: in the past, 15" MT or AT tires were the standard here. Now, 15" has fewer options, and they are becoming more expensive then 16" and 17" tires. There is no much aftermarket options here, and the trucks being sold here that all had 15" rims in the past, now are coming with 17" rims from factory. Because of that the offer of 17" tires are the majority at tire shops now. There was more to chose in 16" and 17" sizes, with better prizes... Oh boy...

Back to the admiration of the middle east beauties, I stumbled across this picture of a fully restored/restomodded Y60 from Dubai (the red one). What a dream car! and What a wheel set! Very similar the D-slot steelies, but in alloy.
83953


The search goes on, and look what I found... Not the same one, but very close design! And it was 17" so I had to bite the bullet on that one!
83956

9 inch wide, that would be just perfect for 285 tires or even 315 if needed, although I like somewhat skinnier tires a bit more.
83957 83958


So I settled in the tire size I needed, 285/70r17. Stored the wheels for the end of the project and kept working on stuff. Then, when I was working on the suspension, I was face to face with this surprise: one of the front tires that I had been driving for 1000 km during engine break in was stitched like frankenstein... Wow... What did I know when I was enjoying my driving nights... Not that the other tires were that better in terms of the thread, but this was too much.
83959


So, tire expense had to be anticipated. 285/70r17 Three-A ECOLANDER (Chinese tires are dominating the market here) is what I could get. They look quite decent despite the unknown to me brand.
83960


It is virtually the same size, maybe just a hair wider, than my favorite tire size, 33x10.5r15 that I have on my trail Samurai.
83961 83962


Off to the tire shop we go!
83963


And here you can see the final results in two ways...

When I first set them, with suspension done, but before the spacers were installed.
83964 83965


And at last, with spacers in.
8396683967


One more step done! The dream goes on!
83968

[Danyael]

Lookin' good in new shoes :-)

[mudnut]

Noice! Get into the habit of checking the lug nuts, periodically and more often for offroad driving. Patrols have a history of loosing their back left hand side alloy wheels.

[BrazilianY60]

Really? Any reason for that? Something I didn't mention that could be useful for other owners in places where this may be a rare car: the lug nuts for the steelies are not the same used for the alloys, and the compatible one I found locally (proper size, thread, capped/closed end, chrome) was from another Nissan, the Nissan Kicks.

Please keep the good advice coming, I really appreciate you sharing bits of experience with these cars. I've been offroading and messing around with cars for some time, but no Patrol specific experience here.

[Danyael]

How is it with those polybushes now? Did the rear axle quit jerking around? ;-) Didn't it get too stiff now? I am considering this upgrade aswell, cause mine jerks alot...

[BrazilianY60]

How is it with those polybushes now? Did the rear axle quit jerking around? ;-) Didn't it get too stiff now? I am considering this upgrade aswell, cause mine jerks alot...

Hi Danyael. The axle did quit playing around. I have only driven it on pavement, so I consider the behavior to correspond to my expectations with old OEM springs and new OEM shocks, which is, comfortable, no play, precision handling. I am not sure if that will translate into stiffness or less flex when going offload but I don't plan anything more then dirt roads for this car.

On the other hand, people here on the forum highly recommend staying with OEM rubber bushes. If that is an option for you, it could be simpler, easier and more predictable.

[BrazilianY60]

I love the Patrol Clinometer look and fortunately, mine came with a perfectly working unit. It was dirty inside-out, but nothing that could not be solved with some attention.

84206

84207

Disassembled, parts cleaned.
84211

84208

84210

Some screws were missing, so I replaced them with similar sized ones.
84212

These little buggers were burnt. I am not familiar with lamp/bulbs sizes/names, it took me some time to figure out how it was called (W1), but ended up buying the correct replacement ones. Interestingly, the lamps are not green themselves, but rather, wrapped with this blueish silicon sleeve.
84213

84214


84209

Final result.
84215

[BrazilianY60]

Internal light sockets were a bit dusty and not providing good connectivity for the bulbs, and are also missing the clear covers.
84216

84217

Took some measurements to evaluate cover options.
84218

Gave them a good clean sanded all the contacts and oiled the ball retainer on the lever. It now clicks very softly to the lever action.
84219

Was driving on the highway someday and noticed clear covers on the side markers of an 18 wheeler (they are usually amber). Bought two types of those to experiment with the looks of it. Good thing is that they are darn cheap, so if I don't like them after the required trimming I'll just trash them.
84220

This one looks almost ok :smile:
84221

This one, not that much:
84222

I bought these festoon type LEDs to change the internal illumination of some of my cars some 10 years ago, and it doesn't fit anywhere, as they are longer then the festoon usually found on this application. I am considering taking the end caps and soldering maybe three of these together in an arrangement that fits this roof lamp. Still debating about doing it.
84223

[BrazilianY60]

Headlights are foggy old, with dust and unfortunately already loosing some of the reflector chrome plating, one of the turn signals has broken amber lenses and one of the cornering lights is very damaged. Took care of it the best way I could, before I can replace all the parts. Here on the fenders you can have a clue of its original second color (yellowish gray) that was covered with blue at some point in its life.
84225 84224

Front turn signals before and after cleaning.
84226

Notice one of the front turn signals missing a big part of the amber lens.
84227

Washed the front grill very carefully, as I want to keep it chromed if possible. If not, I will try to keep at least its "eyebrow" chromed to contrast with some dark gray on the grill.
84228

84229

84230


Aussies are probably too used to the Patrol looks to think of it, but the front end looks darn mean in my opinion! It is a mean looking car!
84231

84232

Gave the front end lights a good wash. Notice here one of the corner lights missing some part.
84233

84234

This is how it turned out, for the moment:
84235


Front lighting updates:

For headlights, I got these LED ones with DRL from AliExpress:
84236

84237

84238 84239

For turn signals, on a work trip to Argentina, I was able to score these:
84240

For the cornering lights, the only thing I was able to do so far was to make up for the missing part with resin. Not that good, I must admit, but I left extra material to be sanded once the car is painted and then will paint the surroudings with a similar gray color. I hope that it looks a bit better after that of if I can hopefully be able to find new ones for an affordable price.
84241

84242

[BrazilianY60]

The tail lights were pretty rough and filled with dust. Left side had a big hole in it and both had bad contacts all over.
8444584446

Took them out, gave them a good clean, checked all the wiring and cleaned contacts up to the point they worked. I had priced replacement ones from AUS and neighbor countries but all the quotes turned out very expensive. I had heard about some local companies that fix/refurbish tail lights and decided to give it a shot. What they do: they break it apart, clean all the parts. Then they search among their inventory of scrap yard tail lights for one with a close enough color to be used to patch the broken part. They square out the broken hole, cut a matching section of the scrap yard donor part, heat/bend/mod it to fit. Then glue and polish it. The result surprised me.

Here you can see the patched part:
84448

There is no crack on the reverse light white lens. It was also glued and polished, so it is all watertight.
84449

Now compare with other side, which was polished as well:
84447

Final result:
84450

[BrazilianY60]

OEM horns were working properly (when hardwired to the battery at least) but looking ugly. Greenish/moldy kind of ugly. So one of those days with nothing interesting to work on the car, I decided to give them a good clean an paint. Only external work, I didn't pop them open.

After some wire wheel:
84452

84453

84454

84455

84456

And after some paint:
84457

84458

84459

Now the fun part... They are sounding like crap now they are cleaned and painted LOL. Not sure what the external paint coat could have done wrong LOL.

[BrazilianY60]

So, by now the bodywork is done and the paint job is halfway though, but I'd rather post the complete work for specific parts so one can see the evolution. Also, at some point I was able to buy a donor junkyard car. Rusted to death but with several hard or impossible to find bits and pieces that I can use on mine.

The actual choosing of the colors was made after bodywork was complete, but again, since I am going to show parts evolution from start to finish, the chosen color will be there, so let's start with the color.

Since beginning of the restoration I felt in love with the 2020 GM Onix called Seeker Blue:
84570

One day, on the drive-through to take my COVID jab, the car in front of me was a 2021 Fiat Toro in Jazz Blue:
84571

Indecision had been planted! Also, for the "yellowish gray" part of the car, I was in doubt for a very light gold/beige or a bit more presence beige. So I ordered small samples to be mixed at the local paint shop.
84572 84573

Left to right we have Fiat Jazz Blue, Toyota Aurora Beige, GM Seeker Blue, Honda Shoreline Beige.
84574

I feel it very hard to realize the tone of a color looking into a small paint card, so I decided to test the samples using the barn doors of the parts car. Gave them a good wash, some very light and uncompromising sanding and gave them a go. I combined darker blue with darker beige (Jazz/Aurora), not so dark blue with lighter beige (Seeker/Shoreline):

84575

84576

Both combinations came out stunning!
84577 84578

84579

84580

And the verdict: I stood with the original pick, GM Seeker Blue. I am glad I took the time to do the comparison, though. I would possibly have second thoughts when looking at that Jazz Blue on a car on the road. Also, my end product is a tidy more dark then the Seeker Blue in the tests, for the reason the test doors were white, while my real car had a light blue primer applied. That enhanced the final color perception a bit.

[BrazilianY60]

The roof on my Patrol had at some point a roof-rack, but not the type that goes on the rain gutters, but rather, the one where the roof is drilled. Rack was no longer there, but the 8 holes were... Also, the back left corner was dented towards the inside of the trunk, most possibly due to carrying too much weight on the roof, or maybe due to someone standing on top of it.

First, I took all the roof inside parts apart. The roof lining is completely stained of iron ore dust. I saved it for now, to be used as a template for a new one when the time comes.
84581

From the inside the roof had surprisingly nothing to deaden the sheet metal sound other then very few patches of cotton/wool blanket. Tapping on the roof would make drum-like noises.
84582

Here the roof dent had been roughly beaten back in place and the holes were welded shut. The roof panel was later softly beaten to a better finish.
84584 84585

Some more gently beating, light coat of bondo, lots of sanding and some protection primer.
84586

84587

84588


All the parts are being primed with a multifill primer tinted with blue paint for the final sanding phase. Here the roof is ready for final paint and can be seen in such light blue primer.
84589

After the bodywork was complete, we used SILOC 44 rubberized PU adhesive to fill the gap between the roof sheet metal and the roof cross-member supports I don't have a good picture of it now, but the same was done on the hood/bonnet and for that I have pictures that I will post here later. Now, tapping at the roof makes a solid thud. Very good already but proper sound deadening will be addressed at reassembly.
84583

And the final result after 6 layers of Seeker Blue paint and 4 layers of clearcoat:
84590

84591

84593

84592

[growler2058]

Far out! That looks really, really good mate

[BrazilianY60]

Far out! That looks really, really good mate

Thanks mate. There is some real dedication being put in it to make this dream come true!

[BrazilianY60]

The bonnet under-structure was broken in a couple of places and poorly stick welded. it also had some dents on the front lip.
84594

My friend grinded that out and mig welded it back. Even so, he admitted that it was not looking much better then it was before, for the sheet metal being very thin. Also, there was nothing else gluing the sheet metal to the under-structure anymore, so I redid the gluing with SILOC 44 rubberized PU adhesive, same mentioned in the previous post. Instead of putting glue just on the pockets available on the under-structure, I chose to put it on 100% of the structure. Tapping the bonnet now gives you a solid thud. Will probably do more appropriate sound deadening when the time comes.
84595

Here you can see some of the mig welding that my friend was upset with the appearance. I have also later regretted myself for not cleaning up the excess glue right after application...
84596

I bought myself a 120psi / 130L /5 cfm second hand compressor and a orbital sander and got to work.
84599

84597


That compressor ended up being insufficient for the task. I did some more research and found out that at least 10 cfm was needed for the orbital sander. After a couple of weeks monitoring local classifieds for a deal, with people asking almost the price of a new unit for their used ones, I figured it was a better idea to bite the bullet and get a new one.
84600

Work then started to move faster.
84598

84601

My friend noticed some bondo spots on the front lip and some other parts and decided to bring it to bare metal and do some panel beating. That was quick work for a flap disc on a grinder.
84602

After some filler primer and lots of sanding we got it to this point.
84603

And after full priming the top side of it.
84604

Back to the underside, it was being a pain in the butt of a job to remove the excess rubberized glue, so I decided to wire wheel it and then sand out the wire marks.
84605

84606

84607

And right before we moved into the next primer, my friend decided to give his welds some better finish, so he grinded them down some and then primed it all. The bonnet was now in pre-paint stage.
84609

84608

84610


Then came paint day, and after 6 layers of Seeker blue and 4 layers of clear coat, it was almost impossible to take a picture of the full bonnet showing its color such shiny it was. The pictures were reflecting the walls and not showing the blue in its entirety.
84615

84614

84613 84612

84611

[Rossco]

WOW looks bloody amazing mate, I have a respect for the patience needed for body work (and skill of course), both I certainly do not possess lol . .

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[MB]

Crikey, that looks Brilliant BZ Mate [emoji322][emoji106][emoji106]


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[mudnut]

That is a great colour and the finish is excellent.

[BrazilianY60]

All the door hinges had some severe play on it. And I really mean ALL the 12 hinges!

Someone suggested me to take them to a certain shop specialized in in door adjustments. I took only the second row hinges (4) for a service test, as I was a bit skeptical about the shop appearance not inspiring me much. They worked the hinges and returned them on the next day.

What they have done: they POORLY grinded down (as can be seen in the pictures) an old hinge pin they had laying around to match the worn bushing and tacked it to the hinge "C channel". Then, to take out the extra play of the worn bushing height, they added a copper washer. I must admit it does work, no play at all right now, but damm it, what a dirty work! That is light years away from my OCD demanded quality control levels! I decided to use them for the time they last and control the impulse of having it redone.

84702 84703 84704


Front row hinges were a different story. Took them to the machinist that did all the suspension poly bushings and there the job was executed like a piece of art. The hinges were taken apart, the parts that were clearly bent were flattened, new bronze bushings were turned. And instead of making the bushings ID to match the original pins, he even made new pins to the precise measure of the old one taken at a section not driven by the bushes, so "his work is not influenced by any worn part". What a pro. Here you can see the result of his work.

84706

84707

84705


For the rear/barn doors hinges it was a no brainer. Left them on the machinist as well. Here you can see how bad the play was between pin and bushing when the hinges were disassembled:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7ELtKAx8LU


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFy7sAdaPbs

And here is the final result for the barn doors hinges.
84711


The front row hinges were also missing their springs. I used the same technique I used to make the parking brake cable: printed a picture of an OEM hinge unit and compared the measurements with my real one to come up with a scale factor, and from there, I took the closest assumption I could take about the number of turns, wire diameter, etc. Found a local spring factory and ordered some made to my numbers.

84708

84709

84710

Here you can see the new springs working. I am pretty happy with the result.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DD6FUz-BDY

[BrazilianY60]

Wheel wells were somewhat in good condition. Front-left side had a crack that was nicely welded and sanded down but that's all.

84719 84720

84722

84721


Cleaned them all, applied some wash prime on any exposed metal part and then coated them all with a product called Siltex 400. It is a rubberized/urethane thick coating that both protects the sheet metal from rocks and debris and sound deaden the wheel well. It is marketed as "body protector" and you use a plastic disposable paint gun to apply it, because it will clog the gun if you left it dry for a few minutes. My gun is still good to use as I have cleaned it good right after applying the product, but the idea with the disposable one is not to risk a good paint gun with it.

84716

84715

84717

84718

84714 84713

[BrazilianY60]

Front fenders required some beating to get into shape. One of them wasn't the car original anymore and curiously it was from a Patrol without the corner light, and the hole for it was clearly hand cut.

Weekend arrives, sand, prime, store, repeat...

84723

84724

84725


Weekend arrives, sand, prime, store, repeat...

84726

84727

84728


Weekend arrives, sand, prime, store, repeat...

84729

84730

84731


Applied that same Siltex 400 used on the wheel wells to the fenders, despite them being protected by the OEM plastic wheel well covers and not being supposed to be exposed to rocks and debris. I had product left over, and it does sound deaden the panel, so why not...

84732

84733

84734 84735

[BrazilianY60]

All doors had some kind of bend or kink from the outside. From the inside, all passenger's doors were OK, driver's door was broken in a couple of places, small barn door was OK, tire carrier barn door was damaged in more then one way, with cracked spot welds, with a thick but totally crooked reinforcement plate torch welded to the inside.

Passenger's doors
84737

84738

Driver's door
84736


Took off all the doors for the necessary panel beating everywhere. The driver's door was welded on the inside panel where needed and here one comment: what a surprisingly thin sheet metal! The tire carrier barn door had the crooked reinforcement removed, panels were beaten back to place until they properly seat on the internal OEM reinforcements. Everything was squared/aligned before remaking the spot welds everywhere and some extra weld beads were laid on the sheet to internal structure places that hold the spare tire weight.

Than it was the "new weekend, sand, prime, store, repeat" all over...

84739

84740

84741

84742


New weekend, sand, prime, store, repeat...

84743

84744

84745 84746


New weekend, sand, prime, store, repeat... x1000 LOL!

84747

84748

84749

84750

84751


We have also sprayed the inside of the doors with Siltex 400 for some level of sound deadening, but I have plans since the beginning of this restoration to do proper sound deadening techniques to the doors, like stuffing butyl rope between the safety crash bars and the sheet metal, applying butyl metallic tiles to the sheet metal, etc. That will come at the proper time.

84752

We then had the doors installed and adjusted/aligned to prepare for the final sanding and get ready for all the masking required for a two color job. I was pretty excited with the way the alignment came out.

84755

84754

84753

[MB]

Fair Dinkum (Great Aussie Gold) you are an absolute Meticulous Champion BZ Mate [emoji106][emoji106]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BrazilianY60]

...when I saw the car, I noticed the brake booster/master cylinder were adapted from another truck available in Brazil.


The booster is still a bit of a mystery. It does look equal to Y60 brake booster pictures I see online, but it has a part number that I checked and belongs to a Nissan Frontier truck (which is available in Brazil, BTW). On Partsouq they are not the same part number though. Maybe it was already adapted on the wrecked car? Who knows... Maybe you good fellows can tell me about you being using Frontier boosters on Patrols...

Time to do some body work on the firewall, so it was time to access the brake booster situation again. The car came with an adapted brake booster from a local Chevy C10 truck from the 80's. The booster seemed to be somehow shorter and then the lip of where the firewall upper and lower sheet metal sections meet was hammered to make it fit. Time for a fix...

This is the booster that came out. Note the stack of washers used to do spacing to some degree. What a rattling can of loosen parts, LOL. I can only imagine how silent my Patrol will be when I sort out all the crap stuff that has been done to it. Also note the weld at the tip of the shaft. It seems to have been shortened. Can´t complain about the brake pedal position though, it was spot on when driving.
84766

84767


This was the firewall situation. The goal was to fix that lip on the sheet metal but I was surprised to realize that the firewall booster holes were also fckd-up to fit the adapted booster, something that honestly never occurred me. I was naively thinking boosters bolt pattern were somewhat of an industry standard.
84768 84769

But wait... the firewall is sandwiched between the booster and the brake pedal bracket... if it is like this on the engine bay side, the cab side must have been fckd-up as well, right?
84770 84774

Here is an OEM pedal side by side with the "creative people" pedal.
84772

84773

84771

The lip and the sheet metal with the offending holes were beaten back to place.
84775 84776

[BrazilianY60]

Here you can see a comparison between the adapted booster with an OEM unit. The adapted one is quite smaller in diameter (and so in effective diaphragm area which is what provides the force factor) and smaller in volume (which influences in the "amount of vacuum" available for consecutive brake pedal pressings. The pedal was hard before, but not as hard as if there wasn't any servo assistance. With the OEM unit being such a larger area as it is, I have high hopes for the car breaking behavior after I am done with this.
84777


The OEM booster also has this aluminum spacer to space it from the firewall. Remember the hammered sheet metal lip? I guess that happened with Nissan engineers as well, LOL. It was very handy, being a removable part, to be used as a template for creating an adapter plate to fix the booster mounting holes on the firewall.
84781

84782

84778 84779

84780


Now, comparing the OEM Nissan Patrol booster with the OEM Nissan Frontier booster I got from Paraguay back in 2019. Exacly the same diameter, exactly the same volume, should provide the same braking experience as the Patrol unit. Note that the booster to firewall studs are more then double the length on the Patrol unit to account for the spacer. Also, note the pedal pressing shaft on the Frontier unit being fairly longer.
84783

Trying to understand the reasons behind such differences, I started searching online for pictures of the Frontier unit. It turned out, that the unit I got from Paraguay back in the day, was not complete. The Frontier unit actually uses an spacer as well, much longer, with its own mounting studs on the firewall facing side. That was the reason for the shorter studs on the booster unit, as they didn't need to reach the firewall but rather, just reach the spacer. Also, note that there are no threads left on the booster studs once the spacer is in, so there was no way for me to use my Paraguay unit with the OEM Patrol spacer.
84784

84785


I ended up buying another used Nissan Frontier booster, this time locally and complete with the spacer.

It turns out that the mounting face to pedal clevis pin distance of the Patrol and the Frontier units are exactly the same, with the same amount of adjustment threads on the shaft still available for fine tuning.
84791

84792


And this is how the Nissan Frontier booster looks on the Patrol firewall, with its larger spacer. Good enough for me and now I am confident that it is an easy fix whenever I need (I also have an spare booster from Paraguay :D)
84794 84793


Now back to the firewall fix. I have drilled 4 more holes to the adapter plate for plug welds. Aligned the plate with some screws, welded, primed and seam sealed it all.
84786 84787

84788 84789

84790

[BrazilianY60]

BTW, I am going to change my signature to Booster Collector, LOL.

84795

[BrazilianY60]

The OEM Patrol brake booster had this bracket highlighted on the pictures. It was bolt to the booster-to-master studs and has a tab with a captive nut to hold something.

Anyone know what it is supposed to hold?

84798 84799

[MB]

Our little 1989 SWB Ford Maverick ( AKA Y60 Patrol) bracket I believe you may be enquiring about BZ Mate holds the vacuum lines between boosters safely up and over the top?

http://www.nissanpatrol.com.au/forums/images/imported/2021/12/74.jpg
http://www.nissanpatrol.com.au/forums/images/imported/2021/12/75.jpg
http://www.nissanpatrol.com.au/forums/images/imported/2021/12/76.jpg

EDIT: 1989 model

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[BrazilianY60]

Thank you MB. I see your Mav bracket is a bit different as it tilts backwards while the one I have here is flat, but gives me a good cue. I will see if I can find any specific arrangement of my vac hoses to make use of it when putting it back together.

[BrazilianY60]

Left side quarter panel had a deep dent that required some more difficult hammering as at the time we didn't had access to a spot welder. After the initial brute force approach, some more cautious hammering with a dolly support, then some filling and only after we were satisfied with it, a little bondo. Then, it was sanding, priming, sanding, priming... This is how it evolved.

84830

84831

84832

84833


Right side had only minor defects and came out pretty good.
84834

84835


At some point, my friend got himself a spot welder, and used the rocker panels to play with his new tool and practice. Came out really good. I don't have before pictures unfortunately.
84836

[BrazilianY60]

Without a proper paint-booth and it being rainy and windy over the last weeks, I was looking for a cheap way to close the front part of the garage/shed to get the best results possible as our place is almost "in the wide open". I ended up buying some 15m x 4m greenhouse plastic, the type used to cover flower greenhouses or covering the soil for farming strawberries and stuff. It was the cheapest I could find with enough thickness to be able to hold itself hung without tearing. This is how our "shady paint booth" came out! We filled buckets with water to hold the lower section down, otherwise it would fly into the work area.

84837

84838

84839

[BrazilianY60]

Blue paint was applied without the need to mask the lower panel section, we just eyeballed where the color separation would be and let some over-spray to go over that line without much concern.
84840

84841

84842


Then we took a loooong time marking the color separation line with a very thin tape. I may have walked around the car some 200 times looking corner to corner looking for parallelism and natural curves.
84843

84844

84845


On top of that delimitation tape, we masked the blue paint.
84846

84847


And then it was time for "yellowish gray" A.K.A. "shoreline beige".
84849

84851

84850

84848


Delimitation tape taken out, check this precision cut between colors! WOW! I am SOOO HAPPY with it!
84854

84852

84853


"Precision" work was done! We took our time for a few beers before moving into clear coating.
84855


We also decided to store these guys again and leave them for the next opportunity, when we will be painting the front panel, the core support and the engine bay. Blue paint is done, at least.
84856

[BrazilianY60]

Can't say how happy I am with it. I'll let you check for yourselves over the pictures and videos.

84857

84858


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofzLnNhsjls


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcjUg1W9b94

[MB]

Quite simply Friggin Beautiful work BZ Mate [emoji106][emoji106][emoji106]


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[Rossco]

Wow, bloody awesome mate absolutely top notch [emoji106][emoji106]

Sent from my SM-G781B using Tapatalk

[BrazilianY60]

Thank you folks. There is some real dedication put into this restoration and it is really good to hear from you.

[Cremulator]

I agree. Top work on the restoration, it's really looking fantastic.
I'm also enjoying following your progress, keep it coming!

[mudski]

Wow! Thats come up beautiful. So precise is the colour separation.

[PeeBee]

Looks great, well done, certainly not something I would have a go at.

[BrazilianY60]

Long time since we were able to tackle painting again. It has rained a lot since December, and the humidity in our garage/shed was very high, making it improper for painting. We had to wait for a couple of weeks of full sun/heat to be comfortable enough to bring out the paint gun again.

All I can say is that the paint job is almost done! We were able to finally paint the front fenders and the front panel/front clip.

To call it done we still need to paint the cowl piece, the fuel door and the side cladding thing. Well, at least for the body... bumpers and front grill will be painted separately, as they have a different color, different clear coat, etc.

Here is a sample of the result. Low quality video though, as I had forwarded it from one mobile to another using WhatsApp and it has heavily compressed the video.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhjfVYe05F4

[PeeBee]

That colour combo is delicious!

[mudnut]

Nice job. Wish I had the patience to fix my old Trol up like that.

[BrazilianY60]

As I would not take the engine out just for an engine bay paint job, we decided to give it a good clean and spray some paint around it on a best-effort basis. Whatever came out of that, we would call it good and never talk about it.

To start, the part right in front of the battery tray where the washer bottle stays was (still is) "fuglly". Bed liner was spray'd over that section to hide it (from whom? LOL).
85195

Anything over the firewall like brake lines, A/C lines, etc were removed. We popped the rubber grommet with the engine bay harness towards the cab and removed all harnesses from the engine bay into the cab. Whatever we were not able to move or remove, we tied to the engine with cords and then wrapped the engine in painting paper. It was looking like a patient ready for surgery.
85196

After some spray, this was the result:
85197

85198

85199

85200


We also have painted the top grill, hood/bonnet hinges and the jack housing. No pictures of them after the paint, but I believe we're done with blue paint.
85201

[BrazilianY60]

Cornering lights update:


Gave the front end lights a good wash. Notice here one of the corner lights missing some part.
84233


For the cornering lights, the only thing I was able to do so far was to make up for the missing part with resin. Not that good, I must admit, but I left extra material to be sanded once the car is painted and then will paint the surroudings with a similar gray color. I hope that it looks a bit better after that of if I can hopefully be able to find new ones for an affordable price.
84241

84242


I was finally able to source from China these aftermarket cornering lights at an affordable price. Definitely not OEM quality but hey, mine were epoxied/resin to shape by hand...

85377

Paraphrasing MB, "happy as a rat with gold tooth"!

[BrazilianY60]

Bumpers were pretty damaged and twisted:

85689

85692

85690 85691


I even hammered it myself a bit after the engine was rebuilt to be able to drive around without it touching the body and making a lot of noise. But then, it was time to proper address the situation. Since it was chrome plated, hammering it back to shape would leave hammer marks, so I decided to go for dark gray bumpers as some OEM models had. First step was to de-plate the chrome. The interesting part is that to chrome plate a steel part, you first copper plate it, then nickel plate it and only then chrome plate it. So after the de-plating process, it was left down to copper plating.

85693

85694


A stretching jig was used to stretch it while it was being hammered, for the steel to find its place with the tension. It stretched quite ok. Then, the square holes for the carriage bolts that were rounded, were filled and later filed back to square.

85695 85696 85697


Test fitting:

85698

85699

85700


Filling, sanding, priming:
85701


Dark gray paint with satin clear coat:
85702

85703


Final result:
85704

I am still working on those big bumperettes or whatever it is called. I am going to have to drill the tapped holes through the rubber and use carriage bolts. Also, they are cracked, so I am planning to fill the cracks with black windshield glue and try to cut the excesses with a utility knife or something.

[BrazilianY60]

Last Saturday, after exactly two years of bodywork and paint (approximately 90 days of work total), my Patrol came back!
This is a personal milestone in this restoration and I am very happy that this day finally arrived.

85705

85706

85707


I have to reinstall the pedals, the boosters and the radiator to be able to take it for a drive around the block.
Then it will be time for sound deadening, roof lining, windshield and other windows installation.
Then it will be time for upholstering.

[BrazilianY60]

Today I have personally met one of the eight Patrol owners in the country. He has a donor car as well and he gave me a super nice gift!


LHD passenger side (Aussie driver) front flare.
86201

86202


I only had 3 of them and now I finally have the full set! Those will be restored and painted matte black.
86203


It's like finding that last piece of a 3000 pieces puzzle!



Enviado de meu SM-G990E usando o Tapatalk

[MB TD42]

Coming along great...
I ended up taking the rear bumperettes off mine...they kept smashing the tail lights when dropping into ruts.
Looking great so far.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

[Bigcol]

was able to finally get back to this thread, man, what a job you have done

how you finally finished?
or side tracked to something else?

[BrazilianY60]

Not finished yet, my kids are killing me for that...
I am currently working on brake lines for it.

I got sidetracked a bit with a UN GU that I was able to get my hands on...

[BrazilianY60]

Back to the GQ, finally!

I have resumed the work on the GQ by the bonnet, time to tidy up things there. To begin with, I have installed these bonnet stoppers I got form China:
87188

Put back the freshened-up cyclone with some adhesive foam where it press against the left fender.
87208

87207

87209


Next, I installed the fuel filter/lift pump bracket and the vacuum solenoid that goes next to it. When I took the rubber boot out of the solenoid to give it a good clean, a small foam thing just disintegrated in my hand. I figured it was an air filter as a vacuum solenoid needs to VENT AIR IN to equalize pressure, so the need for the filter.
87189


Kitchen sponge looked like a perfect candidate, so when the wife was not near, I took my chances, LOL. Hole punchers for the job and the sponge was quickly returned to the kitchen with a "new factory feature".
87190

87191


All put together, with the zinc plated bracket:
87192 87193 87194

87195


I have also been cleaning absolutely every electric connection, fuse holder, relay holder etc. I've been taking them apart, rinsing/washing, spraying with contacts cleaner and putting back together.
87196

87197

[BrazilianY60]

Engine bay harnesses were all fugly, with crispy dry corrugated wraps, super dirty with a lot of dried mud in between the wires.
87199

87198

Some harness diagrams over the garage walls since the going back and forth over the computer to check was being a PITA.
87200

87201 87202

Some interesting surprises when getting up and personal with the harness: a winch sub-harness and fog harness already built-in.
87203

And one mystery harness branch with connector not present on the FSM diagram.
87204 87205

Just waiting for an order of some OEM-style nylon clamps that have a self hooking thing to attach to panel holes to arrive, to properly attach the harnesses to their original spots as I have cut most of those clamps when unwrapping.

I have been unrapping each individual harness branch, cleaning the wires (sometimes even washing with soap and water), checking for cracks or exposed wires and fixing it, re-wrapping 100% of the harness with that fireproof harness cloth tape and re-wrapping the corrugated hose protected sections with new corrugated hose. I am very happy with the result, that cloth tape has a very professional look.
87206

[BrazilianY60]

I have replaced the H4 headlight connector with a new one, although I later found it a useless change as the new H4 connector that I was able to source was as low quality as the one that was previously there (and was also not OEM). The connector at the end of the combination light harness was missing on the left side harness and was very crispy on the other side, so I have replaced both with an different, but new, waterproof EFI connector.
87210

87211

87212


Also took the chance to splice into the parking light and turning light leads of the combination harness to have the halo of the LED headlight cabled for DRL and turning functions (the halo blinks amber for turning).
87213

[PeeBee]

Today I have personally met one of the eight Patrol owners in the country. He has a donor car as well and he gave me a super nice gift!


LHD passenger side (Aussie driver) front flare.
86201

86202


I only had 3 of them and now I finally have the full set! Those will be restored and painted matte black.
86203


It's like finding that last piece of a 3000 pieces puzzle!



Enviado de meu SM-G990E usando o Tapatalk

Can I ask how you cleaned up the front flare with the paint on it? I have one like that as a replacement to my set.

thanks

[BrazilianY60]

Can I ask how you cleaned up the front flare with the paint on it?

Have not done that yet PeeBee. The wider tires are currently on the GU as I am a bit skeptic about my brake job capabilities and the possibility of ruining the bronze/gold paint with brake fluid so the GQ currently has the narrow steelies on it. And BTW, the brake flaring tool I ordered for this job has just been delivered this arvo. I reckon I will have these renewed/painted before moving those tires back to the GQ, to avoid throwing stones on the paint job. I'll keep you posted.

[BrazilianY60]

I have followed the great instructions from the forum in order to fully flush my cooling system. This is the topic I have based myself onto:

DIY TD42 Cooling System Overhaul (http://www.nissanpatrol.com.au/forums/showthread.php?35050-DIY-TD42-Cooling-System-Overhaul)

Unfortunately on my GQ the TD42 block drain plug was absolutely unreacheable. Add to that a brake booster and master, as my car is LWD... Only solution seeming possible was to reach from the left side wheel, well where in the majority of recommendations I found online, there is a removable rubber screen that gives you line of sight to the drain plug. Mine didn't have that rubber screen but was all sheet metal instead. I took PeeBee advise and cut it out. I´ll hand made a rubber screen for it later, to keep dust and debris out of the engine bay.

87299 87300

87301 87302


With the block drain open, not much water came out to be honest. Most of it came from the radiator. To make sure I was expelling anything old in there, I connected the garden hose to the block-to-heater core fitting and blocked the other end with my thumb to force water to come out of the drain plug. Once I was happy with it, put the plug back with some teflon tape. Including some minor waste while running the engine with the radiator cap open to vent any air bubbles, it took shy of 12 liters of coolant.

I also took the chance to replace the coolant expansion bottle with a new aftermarket one.
87303

87304


Thought this radiator cap would be cool. I am going to keep a "normal one" in the car just in case.
87305

[mudnut]

That cap is pretty cool. Can you please post a link for buying the cap? There are so many online, I don't want to order the wrong size.

[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/1005004550893336.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.1 .41d36211LwanES&algo_pvid=db726d31-87ba-43f2-be59-bb7429a37acc&algo_exp_id=db726d31-87ba-43f2-be59-bb7429a37acc-0&pdp_npi=4%40dis%21AUD%2110.10%210.77%21%21%216.39% 21%21%40210318b916945355278548220e3286%21120000295 78027750%21sea%21AU%210%21AS&curPageLogUid=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.

87314

87315

Here are just barn door stuff, but I have done this for all 6 doors.
87316


The fixed side of the locks (latches? loops?) have all been zinc plated a while ago. Time to put them to use.
87326

87325



87320 87322 87318

87319

87321

87317

87323

87324


New rubber door stops:
87327 87328

87329


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!
87330

[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.
87650


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.
87651


Side by side comparison. Just a tad bigger. It doesn't seem in the picture though.
87652


Trying on the knuckle, the tapered pin is just a hair wider than the original one.
87654

87653


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!
87674 87673

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.
87657

87658

I was able to make the tapered pin seat properly on the test block after using the tool. All good.
87659


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:
87660

87661

87662


I like shiny stuff so I had to zinc plate them.
87663

87664

87665

87666


Putting the milling tool to work:
87667


This small amount of material on the floor is all it takes to fit the new ball joint tapered pin.
87668


Pitman arm before the milling tool. The top of the pin sits about half way into the castle nut.
87669


Pitman arm after the milling tool.
87670


Final result:
87672

87671


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:
87963 87964 87965

3rd row/trunk glass; here you can see a bit of the reflective metal material/deposit on the edges:
87966


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.
87967

87968

87969

87970




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.
87971


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.
87973

87972


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.
87974

87975

87976


Back to the RoadRunner barn door replacement weather strips:
87977

87978[


An absolute perfect fit. That made for a very happy brazilian!
87979

[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.
87980

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.
87981

87982

[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.
87983


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:
87984 87985


The butyl sheets and where I have used them:
87986

87987

87988

87989



Bailey channels in place and now I have 4 working rolling windows with a temporary manual crank!
87990

87991

87993 87992

87994

87995


Honorable mention to the hidden philips screw on the removable metal channel for the quarter window, what a prick!
87996


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" :049: 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.

[BrazilianY60]

Internal light sockets were a bit dusty and not providing good connectivity for the bulbs, and are also missing the clear covers.
84217

Was driving on the highway someday and noticed clear covers on the side markers of an 18 wheeler (they are usually amber). Bought two types of those to experiment with the looks of it. Good thing is that they are darn cheap, so if I don't like them after the required trimming I'll just trash them.
84220


Getting the Patrol ready for the upholsterer work on the roof lining, I had some tasks to complete before handing the car over to the guy. Roof lights, rear view mirror and roof sound deadening required fixing/working on.

Roof Lights:
The lens from the 18 wheeler side marker has a smaller diameter than the Patrol one, so it fits inside the roof light base. I have used a small Dremel disk to cut the slot for the lever and drilled new holes for screwing lens and light base all at once.
88089 88090

88088 88091

It looked quite ok. I know these lenses are available at PatrolApart, but for the simulation I ran, one pair of lenses would arrive here after tax for the same price as one brand new 285 tire. Someday, maybe.
88092

88093

88094


Rear View Mirror:
My rear view mirror had the centerpiece security collision thing missing (guess why), and I have opted to fix it.
88095

Found a washer with OD slightly bigger then the ID of the mirror base and a very small ID. Filed the OD of the washer to match and cut some slots to it for the glue to grab and keep it from spinning under tork. Pressed a rivnut to the washer and glued it all to the mirror base.
88097

88096

88098

88099

88100


Roof Sound Deadening:
88101

First stage which is butyl rubber for holding steel panels from flapping and resonating is done. Second stage which is heat insulation will be done over the weekend. I'll have it finished and post the complete work once it is done.

[PeeBee]

Getting the Patrol ready for the upholsterer work on the roof lining, I had some tasks to complete before handing the car over to the guy. Roof lights, rear view mirror and roof sound deadening required fixing/working on.

Roof Lights:
The lens from the 18 wheeler side marker has a smaller diameter than the Patrol one, so it fits inside the roof light base. I have used a small Dremel disk to cut the slot for the lever and drilled new holes for screwing lens and light base all at once.
88089 88090

88088 88091

It looked quite ok. I know these lenses are available at PatrolApart, but for the simulation I ran, one pair of lenses would arrive here after tax for the same price as one brand new 285 tire. Someday, maybe.
88092

88093

88094


Rear View Mirror:
My rear view mirror had the centerpiece security collision thing missing (guess why), and I have opted to fix it.
88095

Found a washer with OD slightly bigger then the ID of the mirror base and a very small ID. Filed the OD of the washer to match and cut some slots to it for the glue to grab and keep it from spinning under tork. Pressed a rivnut to the washer and glued it all to the mirror base.
88097

88096

88098

88099

88100


Roof Sound Deadening:
88101

First stage which is butyl rubber for holding steel panels from flapping and resonating is done. Second stage which is heat insulation will be done over the weekend. I'll have it finished and post the complete work once it is done.

Hey Brazzy,

I have a TI over windscreen light with the big double illuminators if you want it - can post it to you . You just need to run a Pos and Neg power cable across to the centre of the windscreen, now is the time to do it before the upholsterer does his magic. It screws into factory holes. Let me know. Phil

[BrazilianY60]

Hey Brazzy,

I have a TI over windscreen light with the big double illuminators if you want it - can post it to you . You just need to run a Pos and Neg power cable across to the centre of the windscreen, now is the time to do it before the upholsterer does his magic. It screws into factory holes. Let me know. Phil

That is a nice offer mate, I really appreciate it! Can you find an online picture of how it fits around the mirror? Reason I ask is because my GQ model is SGL and it has the clinometer around the mirror, so this lights of yours may be incompatible. If they can work together, I'm in for it!

Do you think it is compatible with this?
88107

88109

It attaches around the mirror on these two holes.
88110

88108

[BrazilianY60]

Searched for GQ TI map reading lights and found these images:
88111

88112


Map reading light and clinometer are mutually exclusive... either one or the other...

But thanks for the offer mate, very generous of yours, I really appreciate it!

[BrazilianY60]

I saw multiple times the videos from the Car Builders blokes on YouTube, they have great knowledge of their trade and have some very nice products. Being sound deadening products very heavy, shipping from Australia would not work for me. I tried my best to apply the knowledge they share using locally available products.

For what they call stage 1, steel panel vibration dampening, I was able to source foil covered butyl rubber sheets, very similar to what they use on their videos, and I was very happy with the quality of the product. Something sold locally under the name of Technoise. There are a lot of videos online of people fully covering the roof and floor at this stage, but the CB blokes themselves tell this is not really necessary. If you make sure flat steel sheet areas have at least patches of the product, you should be good. I opted for such approach to save on the material and weight, as this is quite heavy.
88136

Then for stage 2, heat shielding and sound absorption, I could not find anything exactly as CB sells. I went on finding closed cell products (for heat) and open cell products (for sound). Found a local manufacturer with several products on their line and a very well spoken technician to explain and provide orientation on where to use their products, how to apply, etc. I ended up buying the recommended product for the roof and sample amounts of every other product they had to see the difference myself. The product I picked for the roof is a soft foam made out of PVC and poly-ure-thing this and that. It is their product with highest heat blocking graduation other then the specific stuff for engine compartment/under the bonnet usage. It absorbs sound as well but the heat part is where it is supposed to ace.
88137

Now I have to wait for the upholsterer to finish the roof lining and install the windshield. After that, he will let me take the single-seater Patrol home for a weekend to work on the floor deadening and then return the car to him to work on the carpet. He has already picked the best parts of two complete seat sets to make just one out of it. Seat structures are already blasted and painted. Yet to start is the foam work and the cover work.

I told him to bin the rest except for something on the driver side for that weekend sound deadening operation.

Door cards are maybe 80% done already.

[PeeBee]

Your system is very similar to what I did, and the ride is quieter and a bit cooler as well. Only challenge might be fitting the spring hoops and the roof sheet. I went with a 4 way stretch front runner carpet which was glued in place. The outcome was good for me.

[BrazilianY60]

There was nothing on the roof before, so it should be a lot better now. First time restoring a car and first time sound deadening, so let's see how it behaves.
I don't plan to glue the carpet, otherwise if I need to remove it, it would tear the deadening material.

[BrazilianY60]

Can I ask how you cleaned up the front flare with the paint on it? I have one like that as a replacement to my set.

Hi PB. I finally have something to show you regarding the flares.
The cleanup was manual, no chemicals. It was painted without proper plastic painting preparation before, so it was chipping very easily. After that, sanding and prepping with something over here called "plastic sealant". I've seen it called "adhesion promoter" as well. I is basically a primer appropriate for plastic, it adheres better and it provides some level of flex allowance without cracking. Once prepared, a couple of runs of filling primer and sanding and then polyester paint.

Some "bondo" was used along the edge of the yellow tape and later sanded down to nothing basically to highlight that line/shape dividing the flat face and the rounded face of the flare.

Oh, forgot to mention that before it all some missing tabs were made of cuts of a random broken plastic bumper and melted/welded into place with a later coat of epoxy glue with fiberglass cloth. These were not drilled yet, to allow for better fitment when the time comes (drilling and possibly trimming as well).

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[PeeBee]

Thats a spectacular outcome, great job! I ended up with a pile of flares of differing quality and all needed attention in the area of the mounting tabs. I ended up manufacturing the rear guards for the tray chop, and they bought a set of light weight aftermarket front flares. Initially I was not happy with the mounting system and almost headed down the pathway of new ones ex PAP, but in the end I discarded the supplied mounting system and bolted the flares on instead of using the plastic push tabs. Once completed the job came out really well. They dont feel as strong or robust as the factory units, certainly are thinner, but I just need to be aware of not leaning on them when working on the car. Now that I have the side steps/sliders in place I can work on the front guard protection rails to the bullbar, which will further improve their life.

[BrazilianY60]

It was time to do upholstery and I had not yet picked the colors. The only think I was sure was that I didn't want to go with the original gray. I suppose brand new it looks good, but I had been living with it so disgustingly ugly and dirty that I'd like it not to be part of the new look and feel of the car. I took a tour to all the upholstery material shops in town looking for inspiration but it was hard. At one of the stores, I saw this tan/orange synthetic material that rang me a bell. I am sick for the UAE Super Safari GUs they have there, and the interior seems a lot like that color in my opinion.
88205


I also had a feeling the roof lining should be light in color, to make the interior lighter, shinier. I found this cloth to be very close to the "Honda shoreline beige" metallic paint used on the bottom part of the body.
88206


Then, at the paintshop, I found a matching plain/non-metallic color for the beige from an old Benz truck from the 70's.
88213

Was looking for a plain color to match the tan/orange but only found a metallic one. Didn't seem too shiny though, so I gave it a try and got samples of both colors. I used the dashboard from the donor car for color tests.
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88208


The orange paint, although metallic, was a close match in my opinion.
88209


The beige was spot on identical.
88210

It even matched the beige interior of my GU.
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[BrazilianY60]

I had an idea of how the car interior would look in beige, from the GU experience, but was having a hard time imagining the car interior in orange. I got 1m of the synthetic material to cover things and look from afar to give me brains some kickstart.

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88215 88216

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88218

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88220

And I didn't like it! Too out of place. Maybe someday on the GU, to make it look like the UAE ones. This one requires something more out of the 80's.

[BrazilianY60]

Thinking about color schemes from the 80's and 90's and how car makers were really bolder than today, I remember some cars with a full red/burgundy or blue/navy interiors. Bumped into this picture on the internet and spent some time admiring it.
88221


Fark! That is a comfy, nice looking interior! Blue it is! These are the samples I got with the upholsterer to absorb it over the weekend before biting the bullet.
88222


On the next monday the GQ was left at the upholsterer for a full blue interior! All parts that need painting would be painted by me, any assembling will be done by me. He will do all the leather and carpet and cloth and sewing stuff. He sure due "turnkey" stuff, but I just didn't want to. I want to put things together myself.

[mudski]

Looking good mate. Your not going to want to drive it when its done.

Blue interior is a winner for me. That other colour is just yuck!

[BrazilianY60]

Took a blue leather sample to the paintshop and they came up with a perfect match formula.
88223

On the following pictures, if I say something is blue and it seems gray, you have to take my word for it that it is navy blue just like the picture above. It turns out that cellphone camera does a bunch of auto correcting things that are not wrong and make the blue look gray all the time...

Separated all the required parts for painting (and of course later found out that I had missed a lot of other parts, so a new batch to be done).
88225


Gave all the parts a wash with some strong car washing products, they came out brand new.
88226


1st batch of blue parts.
88227


Here you can see that although they seem gray, the color matches the blue leather sample (that also looks gray in the picture). Here I chose not to sand down the plastic scars to not lose the texture on the interior parts.
88228


More blue parts (and there will be a 3rd batch still).
88229


The dash foam covered in blue leather that I got back from the upholsterer.
88230


And here a mock-up of the dash parts.
88231

[BrazilianY60]

Looking good mate. Your not going to want to drive it when it's done.

Quite the opposite mate! It isn't done and I am already eager to drive it!
Once the seats are ready, he will install just the driver's one and I'll bring it home for a weekend. I will then proceed with the floor sound deadening and return it to him on a monday for him to continue with the carpet.

[BrazilianY60]

Roof lining installed! With all blue handles in place!
88232


I hadn't washed the pinch welds because I am still looking for navy blue ones to replace them all. No luck so far. I'll give it some more time and if I can't find anything decent, I may need to use black ones.

[mudski]

Is the plastic paint a special type of paint? How does it go with the usual wear a tear of daily use?

[BrazilianY60]

Automotive paint, just the prep is different with the use of an adhesion promoter. Then, after the paint some heavy coats of clear coat to be the sacrificial surface. With use things will eventually need touch ups.

[PeeBee]

You can use a product avail here called BIN22 which etches the surface of just about everything and then you apply paint over it - have paint a pile of stuff with it at home.

[BrazilianY60]

Started to work on the floor sound deadening and noticed this hole that I either didn't notice before or never understood how someone could have done such damage to a firewall. Front collision could have sent the engine against the firewall? Maybe.
But then after years working on the car and learning from here and also from my own sweat replacing the TB45 on my GU, I now know that the bell housing top bolts are a pain in the but to reach. Looking closer at it, I believe someone at some point got really pissed with it and punched a hole through the firewall. The (AUS) driver side bolt does not have a corresponding hole but has a nice dent/crack on its direction, so I suppose that one is now reachable from the engine bay. Thought about fixing it but then, fark it... I would never do something like this but since it is already done, I will benefit from it in the future when I need to replace a clutch or something. I have only bent the sharp edges back in and sealed it with the butyl material used on the sound deadening. On the engine side I sealed it with a more heat resistant material.

88337

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88339

[mudnut]

In 1985, a Nissan engineer was designing the upcoming Y60 series. He realises the difficulty that mechanics will have accessing that bolt in the future. He draws that particular hole in the plans, with a rubber plug to be installed. A day later, a tight-fisted Bean counter scrutinises the plans and spots the hole. He does a quick calculation and deduces it will cost Nissan 2 cents to punch the hole and 3 cents to obtain and fit the plug. He multiplies it by the expected run of GQs and screws every poor bastard over by removing that well thought out addition. You are lucky to have that hole :)

[BrazilianY60]

I have sound deadening almost finished now. I have covered the whole floor pan covered with 3 layers of different products, except for the trunk, where different products (yet to be acquired) will be tried. On the higher part of the firewall I will also try something different.

Passenger side (AUS driver) start, then using the rear A/C piping cover to find the plastic bushes that I forgot to take a "before" picture and that side complete with the A/C piping in place.

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Then driver side (AUS passenger) start, some work over the transmission tunnel and that side complete.

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Final result of the 1st layer (butyl).

88349

[BrazilianY60]

Second layer was (I think) open cell foam.

88350

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Nothing of the 1st layer was left exposed, I am missing a picture here.


Then, to cover it all, the 3rd layer was (this I am pretty sure) closed cell foam. This time I covered even the A/C piping covers. I was contemplating "what if" I need to take this pipes off and then, well, there is nothing there to damage, places where people step over it are covered with a steel plate so I did it. I am missing a picture of the 3rd layer also, it was very late on a Sunday, tired, I totally forgot.

On the firewall I remember when taking the old stuff out that it was a very thick vinyl panel with a very thick layer of that bitumen impregnated wool. Always remembered that when watching Car Builders videos and they showing their mass loaded vinyl product. So, for the firewall, in the absence of a similar product of the shelf, I plan make it myself from the basic components as I can buy those here. Plan is to glue them together, template the shape, cuts and wholes and transfer those.

For the trunk I am going to use butyl on the wheel wells (wheel arches?) as this would probably benefit the region from gravel expelled by the tires, but I will wait for the time I tackle the rear fridge installation to make sure it will fit. The trunk floor I am not much keen of glueing anything as I see it as a zone more susceptible to getting dirty and requiring some cleaning or washing, even though with a lot of care. So for the trunk I am considering something similar to what I have in plan for the firewall but thinner.

[BrazilianY60]

I have lost the pictures of the mechanical tubes I have bought to do the new steering links, they were massive, very thick wall.

Found the picture of the steering links tube, it was on my GU picture folder.

88355

[BrazilianY60]

2nd row seats were rocking a bit after fully rebuilt and I noticed it was the rubber pads fault. Took a Saturday arvo going in and out "anything rubber" stores and found this one to be promising (ended up finding a good rubber strip for the wheel flares and a good strong air hose to be used in place of the old vacuum hoses). The new pad is quite taller than the old one, but it completely took away the rocking.

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88368

[BrazilianY60]

Finally got to make the front fender anchor link, that anchors the fender to the front panel. Before that, fenders would shake like crazy, specially when idling cold. I have used the corner lights to find the appropriate length of the link by holding the light in place and pulling the fender out until there was no gap between the parts. It is rock solid now.

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[BrazilianY60]

Door switches were pretty muddy and crunchy, with dried and cracked boots.
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Found new boots on AliExpress and decided to give it a crack.
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In place. To be honest, the front door ones came out perfect. The rear door ones are still very crunchy, one not working at all and the other with a high resistance, so it interferes with the light intensity. These rear ones (the brown ones) do not seem to be glued, I may try to get them open for better cleaning and getting rid of contact corrosion. I haven't checked yet, but they may be the same type for every Nissan car, so a replacement is not out of question.
88375

[dinoska88]

Door switches were pretty muddy and crunchy, with dried and cracked boots.
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Found new boots on AliExpress and decided to give it a crack.
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88374


In place. To be honest, the front door ones came out perfect. The rear door ones are still very crunchy, one not working at all and the other with a high resistance, so it interferes with the light intensity. These rear ones (the brown ones) do not seem to be glued, I may try to get them open for better cleaning and getting rid of contact corrosion. I haven't checked yet, (https://likes.com.ua) but they may be the same type for every Nissan car, so a replacement is not out of question.
88375

This is a common problem with rubber bands, you need to control it

[MudRunnerTD]

Door switches were pretty muddy and crunchy, with dried and cracked boots.
88371

88372


Found new boots on AliExpress and decided to give it a crack.
88373

88374


In place. To be honest, the front door ones came out perfect. The rear door ones are still very crunchy, one not working at all and the other with a high resistance, so it interferes with the light intensity. These rear ones (the brown ones) do not seem to be glued, I may try to get them open for better cleaning and getting rid of contact corrosion. I haven't checked yet, but they may be the same type for every Nissan car, so a replacement is not out of question.
88375

Where the switches all knackered? did you just buy the rubbers or plug and play switches? can you give me a link to the switches please. My GQ ones look fair ordinary.... not sure why? im known to be gentle on my gear!

[PeeBee]

Second time post Daz. PAP have them, the front are different switches to the rear and the rubbers come with the switches, or at least they did when I bought mine.

[BrazilianY60]

did you just buy the rubbers or plug and play switches?

In my case I just bought the rubber covers from choina. I bought them before actually doing any work to the switches assuming they would be ok.

[BrazilianY60]

Hi.
Anyone still has/run the 3rd row seat could help me with a doubt? Does the seat pin that goes into the pivot hinge has a rubber or plastic bushing?
88450

Also, does the pin goes into the hole (which is bigger, a bushing would be needed IMO) or does it go into the half moon/smile cut of the hinge. There is no internal pin running on this "smile cut" so I wonder if that is where the seat pin should travel.
88451

[KURD PATROL 2008]

after more than a hour of reading your thread, i think i finished reading 5 pages of it all in once, tried to finish reading all of them but maybe later, i got tired just by reading all that man, how it could feel doing all that, you should have loved this job of restoring this beast,my 2008 TB45 needs some most of these works, i already spend some money, the biggest amount was on the LPG kit, since it's too expensive to use gasoline, that was first thing i did, i'm think about selling it or maybe fixing it, since i use it as a work car, and it paralyzes me at times, i need a very responsive car for work, a new one, but i love the Patrols and that's what i could sell at that time, biggest things it needs now are the paint job and the tires which are expensive, and then suspension, rust removing and exhaust system which is fixed wrong, not patrol parts and it's load, also the engine was fixed but kinda poorly, only the piston rings and bearings even, it has a rough sound in cold idles and loses oil even though i use 20w50 which is thickest for gasoline engines... after all that i'm in deep thinking weather to fix all that or sell it, buy a better Patrol who knows when since i need an economic work car now, but these posts are refreshing for me, idk if the Patrol will worth all that efforts and money since i will sell that one day anyways!