BigMav's TD42 Turbo Maverick

[BigMav]

I had a couple of pics in the intro section but now see this is probably a better place to have a build thread.

Pics...............

[BigMav]

- Dealer fitted AIT turbo kit running 8.5psi
- TJM winch bar
- Approx 3" spring lift (EFS springs and shocks)
- Worn out 33x12.5R15 Goodyear Wrangler MT/R's
- Long Ranger fuel tank
- 3" mandrel bent exhaust
- Airtec Snorkel
- Home made rear Bar
- Rear quarter chopped (and folded)
- Home made drawer system
- Cargo Barrier
- Dual Battery system
- 2" Body Lift

The paint is a Holden Sting Red colour, after painting I put a bit of bling on with the patrol chrome door handles and the focal headlights, I also have an upgraded loom made ready to fit to the headlights. I plan on upgrading the front grill with a chrome one also. A whole new suspension system is on the cards as well as tyres/wheels. Once all thats done its just getting everything overhauled like the brakes/clutch and power steering which is all getting a little bit tired. I've owned this car since about 2003 and it has served me very well but its at the stage where everything is starting to wear out. At least the biggest job is out of the way. (paint)

[BigMav]

Here is some pics of what has been keeping me busy recently in the last couple of weeks.

I did some research on the AIT turbo kit and it turns out that it was fitted to a very select few vehicles by dealerships from new. Apparently, only dealers in regional queensland did it and it was covered under warranty by Ford. It uses a garrett turbo which is externally wastegated. Its quite an old design obviously but it is still a pretty good turbo I guess and definitely still gives the old girl a bit of a boot in the arse.

Well I wasn't too happy with the performance recently and it became painfully obvious why when I opened up the wastegate actuator. The actuator was not actuating and was holding the wastegate open at all times so I was pretty much getting no effect from the turbo at all.

[Yendor]

Great looking truck mate, love the colour.

[BigMav]

The turbo had quite a bit of crud in it so I took it to a specialist for a verdict. He said it should be rebuilt for the cost of about a grand. I decided not to worry about it for the moment because there was still no endplay at all but there is a bit of damage to the fins of the turbine so it will be replaced down the track eventually, for now a new actuator was purchased and fitted after a few mods to the bracket to get it to fit correctly. More pics.

[growler2058]

BIG RED TRUCKare three words that come to mind mate hahahhaha

[BigMav]

While I had it all out all of the turbo lines were old and perished so I ducked down to pirtek and got some replacements. I didn't worry about getting any bling braided ones just the standard heat rated lines for coolant and oil. I also picked up a bung for where I was drilling and tapping in the manifold to fit a pyro gauge at a later time. It was after this point where the problems started. I had noticed when removing the exhaust manifold that one of the exhaust studs had been snapped off at some stage. Of course it was the very end one up against the firewall. To say it was difficult to remove would be an understatement. It required the use of a right angle drill and because I didn't get it dead centre the easy out would keep grabbing on the edge of the thread which was useless. Out came the die grinder bits and about 4 hours later it was removed. We noticed another bent stud, the next one closer to the front and gave it a wobble and it also snapped. So did it all over again but this time was able to get in and centre punch prior to drilling allowing us to use an easy out properly. Anyway with all that sorted the new gasket went one and everything was bolted back up into place. I also bought a replacement intake hose but I will make something up a bit better at a later stage.

You can see here where I put the bung for the pyro and the replacement exhaust stud


All bolted back in, boost gauge line temporary installed for the time being

[BigMav]

After bolting the turbo back up and making a few adjustments to the actuator arm length I managed to get it up to 8.5psi boost without touching the fuel pump or anything else. I probably don't want to take it too much further than this in the condition the turbo is currently in though I would still like to see the temps pre turbo after I get my pyro fitted.

[BigMav]

The next little job was a ripper too. After spending some time trying to fix the aircon up (its starting to get bloody hot up here) I found that my problem was an electrical gremlin in the fuse box. I have had some issues with the fuse box for ages but never did anything about it because I knew it was going to be difficult and time consuming but I finally decided that now was the time. The problem lies with the contacts that the blade fuses slide into, on numerous circuit the contacts have cracked causing high resistance and leading to massive voltage drops and loss of power completely sometimes. I temporary fix the problems as they came up on the go by bending the legs of the fuses to make a better contact.

You can see here the kind of crack in the fuse box I'm talking about where the arrow is. yes it took a while to find this was the problem.

And again here the terminal was completely broken and you can see the heat damage where I've circled.

[BigMav]

So a replacement fuse box was sourced from a wreck.



The terminals were in much better nick but again there was a couple of holders which had cracks in them but I repaired them with a few good ones off the old box. The slow and frustrating process then began of pulling each terminal out of the relays and all the wires and swapping it all into the new box. This took a long long time but was rewarding in the end to finally have it done and no more electrical gremlins hopefully. Here is more pics of the progress. I had to solder a couple of the wires together to replace some of them but it turned out pretty good.

This little slide needs to be removed before you can pull the terminals out with a small flat blade screwdriver and plenty of patience.


Relay plugs all transferred across at last


What a nightmare!!




All Done!!!