New 4.2 Ute 'Hexie'

[NomadTech]

Bought this ute last month.

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Workmate and myself drove down NSW South Coast to have a look. Looked great on first appearance, but test drive didn't go very well. Clutch was the most brutal I've ever felt; I'd liken it to crushing an unopened coke can under the pedal. Stalled it straight away as the friction point was down in the carpet. Drove out onto dirt road off the farm, had a panic moment coming downhill to a washed out causeway as I pretty much had to stand on the brakes to get her to pull up. Was struggling to change gears and get her moving as I was having such a fight with the clutch and brakes that I got flustered and couldn't pay attention to what I was doing... Wasn't that hopeful about this one. Down the mountain I threw the keys to my workmate to let him see what he thought. He got in and had a feel: "She's got no vacuum". Duh! Why didn't I twig to that. We drove back to the farm, decided to have a thorough look over the rest of her. Engine sounded very nice considering the k's, only a bit of surface rust. Decided to buy it and take a chance I could get her running well. Workmate had to drive her back to Sydney as he's a big guy and could work the clutch and brakes (It still cramped his leg up for a day afterwards).

At my place did an assessment on what it needed and ordered off the bat new:
-Vacuum pump
-Vac lines.
-Brake hoses.
-Clutch hose.
-Brake booster.
-Clutch booster.
-Brake master cylinder.
-Clutch master cylinder.
-Clutch slave cylinder.
-Clutch slave heat shield.
-Shifter bushes.
-Dash Fascia.
-Wiper arms.
-Wiper bottle.
-Coolant bottles.
-Heater hoses.
-Belts.

...Details and further work to come.

[NomadTech]

Step 1: New Vac pump installed. Yay: Now we have Vacuum.
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[NomadTech]

Step 2: New Boosters, Master Cylinders, lines etc.

This is new territory for me. The old brake master had been leaking for a long time, brake fluid had eaten off the paint a long tìme ago and the booster was rusted out. The fluid in both clutch and brakes was almost black. The clutch slave felt pretty rough which was probably contributing to the brutal clutch feel.

Did some reading that suggested if you have a 3" exhaust, the pipes are a little close to the clutch slave and over time it cooks them. While replacing the slave cylinder I chucked on a heat shield.
Had some trouble bleeding the brakes. The soft lines appeared a bit swollen up on the rear, a bleed nipple was blocked with crud (the rubber caps are long gone), and the proportioning valve was gummed up and stuck, as well as not being re-mounted for the suspension lift. The rear drums may be aftermarket, requires further looking into. I wonder if it was crabbing out after the lift kit misaligned the proportioning valve arm and someone has tried to fix it by putting larger drums on?

Disassembled, cleaned and reassembled the proportioning valve (after seeing what a new one cost), then decided to order all new flexible lines, as well as the flexible line to the clutch slave.

Took it for a test drive and... The brakes locked on. Realised I hadn't set up the pushrod lengths correctly on the boosters. Set them to the numbers in the Haynes manual and... They locked on again. I think this may be due to purchasing a non-OEM master which may have a different depth to the plunger: I had no freeplay in the pedal.
So I took the master off again, measured the lengths and depths of the pushrod, plunger etc and worked out the length to set the right gap.

Bled it all (again... Starting to question why I'm putting myself through this at this point, questioning whether I made a massive mistake taking on this re-build) and now the pedal goes to the floor. Disassemble the brake booster/master AGAIN, check all my adjustments, reassemble and bleed a fourth time. Pedal still goes to the floor! Around this time I notice a wet patch on the cardboard sheets I've been using to lay on under the car. I have a thorough look under the front passenger side with my worklight and notice on the rigid line there's a small worn and damaged patch that appears to have been squirting fluid.
I believe everything happens for a reason and it seems all my screwing around with the brakes, bleeding, pumping etc caused this damaged line to finally split and start squirting fluid, thankfully while I was working on the brakes and all my attention was on them. Imagine if it had gone on the freeway when traffic stopped in front of me!
Ordered new rigid brakeline assemblies for the front. This put a pause on things as it was over Christmas. When they came, re-bled the system (Attempt #5) and things finally felt right. I probably had the booster set right on attempt 2 but hadn't realised the brakeline was leaking under pressure at that point.

...That adventure over, I adjusted the clutch pedal. riction point is no longer in the floor, it's in fact a little higher than I'd like it. More tweaking to go there.

The car is now driveable though. 20251214_144943.jpg20251214_165308.jpg20251214_200037.jpg20251216_140643.jpg20251220_074757.jpg20251220_083208.jpg20251225_112540.jpg

[NomadTech]

Step 3: Dash & A/C controls.

The A/C controls were all siezed into position. Years of gunk from being on the farm had jammed the rack and pinions. I got the control pack out and put a whole can of contact cleaner through it before regreasing all the plastic gears and slides. Unfortunately forcing the siezed controls to move has over time stripped the teeth, so even though it now ran freely, the controls would slip positions. I got a new control pack from a wrecker and installed that one instead.

The Fascia has been cut with a saw to install an entertainment unit. I wanted to restore the original look so I got a single DIN Pioneer head unit, a spacer and an intact fascia from a wreckers. Also got ISO adaptors and cleaned up some of the wiring back there, including putting in a new ground stud.

Dash is now re-assembled.20251208_134916.jpg20251212_154100.jpg20251212_165351.jpg20251215_183426.jpg20251213_113320.jpg20251213_113308.jpg20251229_144640.jpg

[NomadTech]

Step 4: Upholstery.

The interior was a bit of a mess. The last owner had started doing a restore but hadn't got too far. The butyl rubber layer is great, but over the top was a layer of sound deadening, some heavy rubber matting and then marine carpet. Workmate gave me a link to a company that sell vacuum-formed vinyl interiors. Ordered one for the vehicle and he helped me install it over Christmas.

We gutted the interior, pulled out all the layers except the butyl rubber, vacuumed it out twice then cleaned everything down with alcohol before installing the underlay and vinyl. 20251226_121524.jpg20251226_145455.jpg20251226_165529.jpg20251226_190930.jpg20251228_182544.jpg20251228_182550.jpg

[NomadTech]

Interior Before/After:
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[NomadTech]

Step 5: Gearshift.

This wasn't too bad, I think the bushes have been replaced in the past but I've opted to put in Patrolapart's Bronze-Aluminium upgrade kit anyway. Along the way discovered every single rubber in the gear selection was split or completely gone so had to order in replacements for all those too. Ordered new circlip and snapring at the same time as I know of too many stories that begin with "So I decided to re-use the old snapring...". Lubricated it all with hi-temp bearing grease. Did the rubber boot on the transfer case lever too since I already had everything open.
New shift knob on there too as the old one was pretty worn.

Gearshift now moves like a rifle bolt and grabs gears like a magnet. Feels amazing��
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[Cuppa]

You are going well. Two thoughts.

Yes that heat shield is essential with a 3"pipe. It can take a long time for the damage to occur, but when it does, as in my situation you can lose your clutch at the most inopportune time.

Nice job with the sound deadening on the floor plan ,but I suggest you turf out that terrible felt stuff. When it gets wet - which it will at some point, it stays wet & stinks. Had it happen twice, once from a water leak in the rain, & once stalled in the middle of a creek. On both occasions the cab had to be stripped & the soggy stinky & now heavy felt had to be hung out to dry & each time took around 10 days! Replace it with something which doesnt soak up the water like blotting paper.

[NomadTech]

Cheers for the tip! Funny story about moisture: I haven't got to this part yet but at some point in the past the Vapour Barrier in the doors has been cut out. Both me and mate had headaches and congested sinus while cleaning out the cab. I took the door cards off to replace a door latch and found the barrier gone and the door cards rotten and full of mould (I've been poisoned badly by the stuff before in an old apartment so I don't mess around when it comes to chucking anything mouldy. It just goes). I've ordered new ABS Plastic cards but that accounts for the patina of rust on all the unpainted surfaces under the dash and a bunch of bad electrical contacts on switches and things that I've had to clean or replace... I'd been wondering how it got like that when my old wagon was still pristine inside at the same age.

[BrazilianY60]

Gearshift now moves like a rifle bolt and grabs gears like a magnet.

Haha! Loved that! Incorporated to my vocabulary!