Thread: Urgent Advice - Would you buy this 4WD?

Originally Posted by XR500

Believe it or not, spray cans of mud is a real thing....for those that have to look the part but don't have the wherewithal to actually have the terrain apply it for them

Not saying that these dudes were that type though.

Before we traded up to our Jayco caravan we had an Aussie off road trailer tent. It folded up and out, had a floor built in, queen sized bed, pull out kitchen…sold it cheap to one of our sons down south as age and arthritis challenged us with the putting up. Son takes it gnarly places behind his Prado as trailer has proper 4wd rotating hitch, heavy springs etc. It’s a good bit of kit for younger people.

Originally Posted by Ingrid 51

Before we traded up to our Jayco caravan we had an Aussie off road trailer tent. It folded up and out, had a floor built in, queen sized bed, pull out kitchen…sold it cheap to one of our sons down south as age and arthritis challenged us with the putting up. Son takes it gnarly places behind his Prado as trailer has proper 4wd rotating hitch, heavy springs etc. It’s a good bit of kit for younger people.

When we can afford it, this is exactly the sort of thing we want to upgrade to. We’ve been looking at the BruderX campers made in Australia… they look mint, but they don’t miss you on price!

@Flyblown really interested with your experience of the V6 petrol.
What would you (or anyone here) do to improve the riverproofness of the petrol engine?

Cheers

Father said they used to take fan belt off going into Haast before road done.
Land rovers.

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Originally Posted by mimms2

50/50 real and toy-motor... Second from the right an mq or narva? Picking narva just for the shape, but I know the boys like to mod...

L-R safari, landcruisr , landcruiser, safari, terrano, landcruiser. I think.


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All I see is three Nissans with their accompanying recovery vehicles.

Originally Posted by imaca

@Flyblown really interested with your experience of the V6 petrol.
What would you (or anyone here) do to improve the riverproofness of the petrol engine?

Cheers

I just liberally cover the HT components in spray on lithium grease and pack the plug recesses with grease. Spray or wipe on, wipe off. The mechanics at the one mine I worked at prepared our vehicles using a bright blue spray on the waterproof coating that semi hardened. I can’t for the life of me remember what it was called but it was extremely effective at repelling water.

Our vehicles run numerous 12 V accessories under the hood and I never run into any problems from water ingress despite several quite exciting river crossings in the Pilbara monsoon.

I ran 4Y and 22R petrol Hiluxs for years in Africa and did countless deep water crossings in the Okavango. Never had a problem with a motor cutting out with suitable grease protection.

Guys tend to get freaked out about the water problem with petrol engines, which is easily solved, what they don’t think about is how they are going to look after their diffs and transmission. On a number of times I’ve leaned down unobserved and looked underneath an expensive ute after observing someone complete a water crossing - no rear diff breather extension. Which almost certainly means no gearbox transfer case or front diff breeder extension.

The other thing to triple check is the watertightness of the air intake system. I remember one guy finding to his horror that a previous owner had used a hole saw to cut a 50 mm circular hole in the bottom of his air filter housing, so that his engine made a sexy induction noise. Imagine his surprise when he crossed a river and his air filter filled with water and unsurprisingly he suddenly developed nasty rod knock… Ouch.

In the early 90s I worked for a while as a volunteer (for parts) at a legendary place called N1 4x4, north of Pretoria. I was building my overlander vehicle and was too poor for some of the stuff I wanted, so I worked weekends for it. Bloody great! They’re still going strong. They were / are the Land Cruiser / Hilux authority in South Africa, and supported the older models all the way through Southern Africa with a MASSIVE horde of well organised and cleaned spares stripped off wrecked vehicles.

(Hilux used to be manufactured from scratch in SA, Land Cruiser was either fully imported or assembled from CKD kits and matched with locally derived engines and gearboxes to suit local conditions. Nowadays the Hilux is CKD I think.)

Anyway, one of the things I remember doing was draining the transmission and drivetrain fluids on incoming donor cars. Holy crap! Many of those diffs were running on 50/50 oil and water, and the overpressure from sucking in the water made them all leak. So yeah, diff and trans breathers are always the first thing I do to a new vehicle.

When it comes to water however, the absolute best advice is don’t go in above your wheels unless you absolutely have to in an emergency… have got some priceless experiences from Cape York of guys writing off their you beauty SUVs and utes by floating them on stupid, unnecessary river crossings… Not an argument I want to take on with my insurer for a $75k vehicle (after the $10k recovery). Vehicles have max wading depths for a reason, only the very well prepared and experienced (and brave) should ignore this advice.

Originally Posted by Mauser308

Actually that reminds me of a funny story with the SWB, it was a black top higher compression motor with the larger valve size I think it was - and that thing could haul arse. It was easily the most powerful stock non-turbo TD42 SWB Safari I've had anything to do with. I took it in for a tune and service when I got it, and the guys at the old diesel place in Tga that I took it to were quite confused - they initially thought I had done something to it. They chucked it on their dyno and it wound it off the dial in every gear (factory sized 31's). I got them to set the diesel rack to the point of haze at full throttle for sea level, it used to surprise people at the lights who were expecting it to be a slow as crap diesel slug. It was hugely torquey and pulled like a schoolboy during swimming week, you had to watch the thing on roundabouts during rain as it would break and swap ends if you got heavy footed despite the LSD.

The light haze at sea level was fine. Not so much on a run over the Napier Taupo SH5 - you couldn't see behind it and no one passed... I used to have to keep the service report in the glove box as it was not unknown to get an 'inquiry' about the smoke screen!

I had similar in my leaf suspension Landy. Didn't build it to be a sleeper, but was absolutely had it with anemic thirsty donks in my Landies. Read an article in a pommy 4WD mag about a GMC 6.5 conversion, so spent a year doing so. Heading back to Waiberia from a shopping trip in Palmy I hit the bottom of the Taihape deviation at 110, and got to the top at 120. Guy followed me very very closely all the way to the housing area, and got out and ran over and said "what the fuck have you got in there?!" I said 'just a diesel". Then lifted to bonnet. Not much room in there for even a starling to make a nest.
Goes without saying that I replaced ALL the LR wiring when doing the repower.

Oh, and the whole family did have to wear ear muffs

Originally Posted by Mauser308

Interesting on the grease on HT, most grease is conductive - would have thought it wouldn't have done a huge amount to help.

Most lithium grease is non-conductive. White lithium grease definitely isn’t conductive, says so on the can and has never caused me a problem. Neither is the silicone grease I use, which is specified for use in protecting electrical connections.

CRC white lithium spray on grease.

The silicone grease is Chemtools (Aussie).

The blue one is E-Max dielectric grease (also from Aus). That’s bloody good stuff that one. I’m glad this came up in this thread because I went for a look in the shed and found a tub which I didn’t know I had.

You have to be careful to clean components of silicone grease at service time, else it can harden and crack. But the blue one stays pliable and you can leave that one for years.

I imagine your NLGI2 grease is conductive because it is supposed to be, there’s lots of electrical contact greases that are NLGI2 grade. But there are also lot of non-conductive lithium greases that are NLGI2, you can buy dielectric grease of NLGI #2 grade.

Ha ha served the apprenticeship for Denso tape application. I was always given the task to wrap electrical fittings, j-boxes, motor terminal boxes after the tradesmen had done their bit.
All these years later and it is still available. Says something about its effectiveness.

Originally Posted by zimmer

Ha ha served the apprenticeship for Denso tape application. I was always given the task to wrap electrical fittings, j-boxes, motor terminal boxes after the tradesmen had done their bit.
All these years later and it is still available. Says something about its effectiveness.

I did a storm water job a few years ago. Sched10 8” stainless, 300m, with bends aplenty. The whole lot was denso wrapped, then pvc wrapped. I was welding, the hairy was doing the denso.


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Yep and me, there is nothing else I know of that makes that sort of mess of the hands. I used it in the electrical trade but I always notice it on the threads of the anchor points of the DOC swing bridges too.

The beauty of these 4x4 of the late 80- 90 era is that at one time us country boys could travel to the big smoke and purchase a reasonable second hand 4x4 for about as much as a second hand quad.
They all had an easy life, had hardly ever been in 4 wheel drive, and were generally just a status symbol for soccer moms.
Made great bush/beach hacks and WOF and REG meant you could head off to any corner of the country.

Now those same utes or in high demand as they get tricked out with raised suspension. raised bodies, flares, snorkels, bigger wheels and you guessed it more as a status symbol than a practical application. Problem is the affordable beach/hunting wagons getting snapped up, and some pretty sick prices for older models as OP has highlighted.

Originally Posted by Mauser308

Nitrile medical gloves, the stuff doesn't seem to stick to the nitrile material. Makes it a lot easier to smooth and mould the tape around fittings...

Mate, when I was an apprentice and given the task to apply the Denso there was noting namby-pamby around like Nitrile gloves. "Harden up boy". Likewise we got exposed to transformer oil (PCB) and asbestos in insulation boards, gamlin electrical solvent. (Transformer oil was supposedly good for blight on peach trees or so the old tradesmen said.)

Although of them all Denso would have had to have been the most benign.

Now my hands are sensitive to even gun solvents and even humble Hoppes #9 and I do wear black Nitrile gloves (don't need to be medical type) for tasks where I get that shit on me. Likewise electrical cleaning solvent gives me hell now if I get it on my hands.

Registered on the govt Asbestos Database many years ago but to date I've had no issues.