New 4.2 Ute 'Hexie'

[PeeBee]

Great detail and excellent photos. I agree with @Cuppa, ditch the felt as it holds mud and water and never dries out. I used a car builders closed cell foam on top of the jing ping sound deadener- similar to the car builder stuff and its only the carpet now that can get wet.

How hard was it to exchange the gearstick bush? I have them n the shelf but have not gotten to it yet. Whats a brief description of the process please?

[NomadTech]

Great detail and excellent photos. I agree with @Cuppa, ditch the felt as it holds mud and water and never dries out. I used a car builders closed cell foam on top of the jing ping sound deadener- similar to the car builder stuff and its only the carpet now that can get wet.

How hard was it to exchange the gearstick bush? I have them n the shelf but have not gotten to it yet. Whats a brief description of the process please?

Yep, I decided to order the back piece of vinyl to go behind the seats so I'm going to re-do the underlay when that comes. Originally I only ordered the front half as I was trying to manage costs but I liked the result so much I wished I'd done the back half of the cab too.

The process of changing the shift bush is:
-Unscrew the shift knob and transfer knob.
-Undo the 4 screws that hold the top cover on and lift it off.
-undo the 6 (?) Screws that hold the top rubber on. Take it off, then lift off the rubber heat shield under it too.
-pull the rubber boot off the gear shift.
-Take out the circlip holding the stick in.
-Lift the stick out and change the little bush on the end of it (add grease).
-Pull out the snapring. This is a pretty big fella, I used multigrips and a big flathead screwdriver to get him out.
-Pull out the big bush that everything sits in.
-Clean all the old grease out.
-Regrease with Hi-temp bearing grease (they recommend bearing grease, not black lithium grease if you're using plastic bushes).
-Drop the new bush in.
-Grease it thoroughly.
-Put new snapring in. This was the hardest part of the whole operation for me.I finally got it in by seating one end on the opposite side from where I was sitting, grabbing the other end with multigrips and pushing with my bodyweight a bit until it finally went home (It is a big snap ring).
-Drop the stick back in.
-Pop the circlip in. It seats under the snapring.
-Pull the rubber boot back over the top.
-Reassemble the rubber covers. You may have to put some body weight on the top metal cover to get the screws to bite as on mine the upholstery underlay needed to be compressed under it.
-Put the plastic cover back on and re-screw the shift knobs back on.

Tips:
-Have it in neutral and the stick will drop straight in, otherwise it's fiddly.
-The little bush if it's a bronze one can fall off the stick when you're trying to put it in. You don't want to lose it in the transmission.
-I've seen on some forum posts about this that the factory drawing is only indicating that you can use a snapring OR a circlip. This is 100% flat-out false! The snapring holds the big bush in, the circlip uses the snapring as its seat and holds the stick in.

...Hope that helps. It's not a complicated job. I could do it again very quickly now that I know how to do it and have a technique to get the snapring in.

[PeeBee]

Yep, I decided to order the back piece of vinyl to go behind the seats so I'm going to re-do the underlay when that comes. Originally I only ordered the front half as I was trying to manage costs but I liked the result so much I wished I'd done the back half of the cab too.

The process of changing the shift bush is:
-Unscrew the shift knob and transfer knob.
-Undo the 4 screws that hold the top cover on and lift it off.
-undo the 6 (?) Screws that hold the top rubber on. Take it off, then lift off the rubber heat shield under it too.
-pull the rubber boot off the gear shift.
-Take out the circlip holding the stick in.
-Lift the stick out and change the little bush on the end of it (add grease).
-Pull out the snapring. This is a pretty big fella, I used multigrips and a big flathead screwdriver to get him out.
-Pull out the big bush that everything sits in.
-Clean all the old grease out.
-Regrease with Hi-temp bearing grease (they recommend bearing grease, not black lithium grease if you're using plastic bushes).
-Drop the new bush in.
-Grease it thoroughly.
-Put new snapring in. This was the hardest part of the whole operation for me.I finally got it in by seating one end on the opposite side from where I was sitting, grabbing the other end with multigrips and pushing with my bodyweight a bit until it finally went home (It is a big snap ring).
-Drop the stick back in.
-Pop the circlip in. It seats under the snapring.
-Pull the rubber boot back over the top.
-Reassemble the rubber covers. You may have to put some body weight on the top metal cover to get the screws to bite as on mine the upholstery underlay needed to be compressed under it.
-Put the plastic cover back on and re-screw the shift knobs back on.

Tips:
-Have it in neutral and the stick will drop straight in, otherwise it's fiddly.
-The little bush if it's a bronze one can fall off the stick when you're trying to put it in. You don't want to lose it in the transmission.
-I've seen on some forum posts about this that the factory drawing is only indicating that you can use a snapring OR a circlip. This is 100% flat-out false! The snapring holds the big bush in, the circlip uses the snapring as its seat and holds the stick in.

...Hope that helps. It's not a complicated job. I could do it again very quickly now that I know how to do it and have a technique to get the snapring in.

Many thanks very detailed, I will have a look at it soon.

[gibbo_78]

Nice ute mate! Done well on the repairs too

[NomadTech]

Step 6: Door Cards.

So I had to change a door Latch out and when I got the door card off I noticed a couple of interesting things:
1. The Door Card was mouldy and rotten.
2. The vapour barrier has at some point in the past been cut away.

Both sides same story... This explains a bunch of things: Why me and mate both had headaches and sinus congested after working on the upholstery, why there's a patina of rust on all the unpainted steel in the cab, and why so many of the electrical contacts in the cab are a bit crappy.

So I ordered new ABS plastic door cards online along with new vapour barrier and thought I might as well do some sound deadening and insulation in there too. Also bought a tin of vinyl spraypaint to resurface the door pockets.
Re-did the butyl rubber for the barrier as most of it has been pulled away and is... Where ever most of the old barrier is, I assume.
20251229_160008.jpg
20260103_114551.jpg
20260103_143116.jpg
20260106_133554.jpg
20260116_191059.jpg
20260116_192552.jpg
20260117_102723.jpg
20260117_110724.jpg
20260117_135058.jpg
20260117_112953.jpg
20260117_141330.jpg

[NomadTech]

So even with the dead vacuum pump replaced, new booster, cylinder etc the clutch still felt very wrong, like crushing an unopened coke can. I went to a very reputable clutch shop in Western Sydney who talked to me like I was a complete idiot and told me if the pedal is heavy the booster will be dead. I said it's working, they insisted it'll be the booster. I said "Well I just put it in 3 weeks ago", they changed to "Well you've got no vacuum then". I started to get a bit heated, said "Vacuum's fine. I'm pretty sure there's a problem with the clutch", they jumped in, felt it, told me "You've set up the pedal and booster wrong." I went to another shop. They looked into it, found the clutch was ancient and worn almost down to the rivets, the release bearing was completely rooted (that's what was causing so much force in there) and the flywheel was thoroughly fatigued.
I've got a new fly wheel and an Exxedy Safari Tuff clutch in there now and the pedal is as light my mum's old 1 litre Alto.
20260122_144045.jpg20260122_144053.jpg20260122_144107.jpg