Ghosts 2008 D4D Auto build

[Ghost Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ghost]

Well the big white girl is starting to take shape, this weekend is going to be busy installing the new Billie/ dobinson lift and my new beudesert 2 3/4 system should arrive so I will attempt to get that fitted aswel. Plus the recent addition of my O/l steel Bullbar. Very happy :-)

[mackayvx Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close mackayvx]

Hey craig. Your truck is certainly coming together really wel! I think I need to find some time to start my own rig build up thread... We should have a PP day in mackay mate!

[Ghost Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ghost]

Hey craig. Your truck is certainly coming together really wel! I think ed to find some time to start my own rig build up thread... ee should have a PP day in mackay mate!

For sure!!! Have to catch up at some stage! My mate with a 2006 prado and myself hit cape Palmerston last weekend. I got hung up on a log had to be snatched off haha.... Sadly the muffler copped a big hit hence the new exhaust ;-), always happy to give u a hand to mate.

[Ghost Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ghost]

After a busy day the new suspension has been fully installed and the wheel alignment completed. I would like to say a massive thank you to Zordo (John from Zordos 4WD suspension), his knowledge and being only a phone call away to answer any questions was a massive help. Not only did he get my new suspension to me quickly he was on hand at well past 1800 last night for further queries, and again before 7am this morning.

The hardest part and most time consumin of the whole installation was compressing the front springs, this took a fair bit of time and but once i got the knack it sped it up immensly.

I am extreemly happy with the end result, the car rides fantastic without any weight in the rear and i have certainly gained some height.

Fronts:-
strut hight spacer set at position 1 (lowest position)
Bilstein struts:- BE5A712
Dobinson coils :- C59-302

Rears:-
Bilstein shocks :- BE5A713
Dobinson coils:- C59-327

Before measurements were:-

Approx 120lt diesel onboard.

Front RHS :- 730mm
Rear RHS :- 760mm
Distance from rockslider front to ground :- 370mm
Distance from rockslider Rear to ground :- 380mm



Front LHS :- 725mm
Rear LHS :- 765mm
Distance from rockslider front to ground :- 360mm
Distance from rockslider Rear to ground :- 380mm


After Lift
Approx 120lt diesel

Front RHS :- 800mm
Rear RHS :- 825mm
Distance from rockslider front to ground :- 425mm
Distance from rockslider Rear to ground :- 430mm



Front LHS :- 800mm
Rear LHS :- 825mm
Distance from rockslider front to ground :- 425mm
Distance from rockslider Rear to ground :- 430mm









CV angles after lift



You can also see my new OL steel bull bar to shes coming along real well, Monday my new Beudesert exhaust arrives so will install that and throw some more pics up

[mackayvx Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close mackayvx]

Geez Craig, its certainly looking the goods mate. Top work on the suspension install... did the spring compressors do the job ok?

[Ghost Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ghost]

Geez Craig, its certainly looking the goods mate. Top work on the suspension install... did the spring compressors do the job ok?

Thanks mate, yea was a bit dubious at the start with the compressors, but they worked awesome! With using a pair it spread the load evenly over the spring and the compressors didn't flex or bend at all. $50 bucks well spent. Got a chance to take it for a longer drive today, it's a firm ride over te harsher bumps, but very bearable, I'm guessing it will be even better with a bit more load. Certainly is easy to spot now hahaha!!

[Ghost Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ghost]

a few more pics of the before an after comparison...
before

after

before

after

[Ghost Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ghost]

before


after

before

after

[Ghost Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ghost]

First strut fully assembled ready to go on, just needed to remove the spring compressors.

RHS front fully installed

LHS front fully installed

LHS rear fully installed

[Ghost Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ghost]

RHS rear fully installed

Recent trip to cape Palmerston... after being recovered... got hung up on a log, resulting in a very dented exhaust

[Ghost Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ghost]

Well the new exhaust arrived and I was keen as to get the old one off and the new one on by the time I headed back to work (in 2.5 days) yea easy as I thought!....... wasn’t I wrong!!! I started by unpacking the new Beaudesert 2 and ¾ exhaust and laying it out and checking that everything was there before I started to dismantle the old system, everything was there and was looking very good indeed, so I got under the car and started trying to remove the two bolts from the back of the muffler to the exhaust... after smashing my hand numerous times and cursing quite a lot I opted for the hack saw! This got the job done quick smart, once I removed the cut piece of the exhaust I moved forward to remove the muffler to cat pipe bolts, these were removed very easily as these had a spring between the bold.



Damage to the old muffler


Great I thought this is going well..... and this is where the fun started....... I decided to leave the cat pipe to dump pipe attached as it wouldn’t be to hard to remove the whole unit once I got the three bolts off the back of the turbo.... I have read about these three nuts, but was confident as Toyota only replaced my turbo 5 months prior..... yea we all know what assumptions are!........

After starting the car and flooding the nuts with RP7, and let it sit for five, i had a crack at removing the bottom nut, with a bit of effort i heard the tell tale crack as the nut released, great!!! Two to go, this is going well!....... yea well this is where the perverbial hit the fan...... the next nut i attacked was the one closest to the right hand tyre.... very quickly i realised this was not going well, the nut rounded quick smart and i proceeded to feel my backside start to pucker!..... after trying every tool i had, the thing wouldn’t budge and only made it worse, so i mad a phone call to a local exhaust place to see what they could do, i was advised that i could be up for quite a bit of money as all they would do is cut the stud off and try and get the remainder of the stud out, and then install a new one......

I knew i was in a world of hurt, so i started thinking outside the box, then turned to the good old file to try and file the nut down enough to hopefully release the nut.... well this was a very slow, tedious job, and the day was really starting to get on now, then i put a post up on here, and within 10 minutes i had a call from Drew,

[Ghost Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ghost]

He was actually calling for a completely different reason lol, but very quickly realised i was in a world of pain, he then offered to come over the next day with a few more tools to give me a hand... i very quickly accepted his offer, and made sure i had a good stock of cold beverages ready to go!! He also advised to give it away for the night and start afresh tomorrow.. so with my spirits at an all time low and now thinking i have just a bit over a day to get this sorted i wasn’t confident.

The next morning i was up early (due to our children) so decided to start setting up..After having reinforcements arrive (mackayvx) we got into assessing what actually would be the best plan of attack with removing this rounded nut, we tried many different methods but in the end we had to resort to the good old elbow juice, a small file a cold chisel and a hammer....
Drew attacking the nut with a file


After what felt like ages and a few cold beverages and undoing the steering coupling to be able to gain better access, Drew exposed the thread of the stud, we had filed the nut in such a way that it left plenty of meat so he could then bring the coal chisel into play, after a few hits the nut budged! I couldn’t believed it, and my exact word were “i could nearly kiss you man!”




After a few handshakes and maybe another coldie, we got stuck into looking at the best method for removing the hardest nut (the one next to the transmission bell housing, after trying many different combinations of extensions, a knuckle, and removing the belly plates (finding that one of the bolts off the belly plate has sustained a hit at some point and had bent the actual bolt! Good pick up!!
We let the car run for a good 15 minutes to help heat the turbo and dump pipe and then gave it our best shot with our extended contraption, but sadly the bolt rounded, this was our worst fear as this was impossible to get to with a file due to the location we considered using an angle grinder but then decided this wouldn’t be the best option as it would expose the turbo internals to sparks and metal fragments. So after a bit more thinking we decided it was best to go and buy a dremel tool with plenty of small bits, so in Drews mighty prado (very nice unit this one!!).

we hit porters, after some blank stares from the shop attendants we worked out that the Hitachi pieces also fit the dremel tool. So off we went, the advantage of the dremel tool is that it came with a flexi extender head which allowed us to get into a smaller area, at this stage drew had to take off to get his little girl from school, so left the grinding in my hands....

[Ghost Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ghost]

To say i was a bit worried was an understatement, it was 1400, and the day is starting to get on, after a couple of hours of slow grinding i exposed the thread of the stud, but in my haste i went a little to deep, i managed to damage the last two turns of the thread, but again outcame the mighty cold chisel and hammer and gave the nut a couple good hits, it didn’t looked like it budged at all, so sat back for five just to chill and then re attack, once i went back with a clear head i noticed that the nut had actually moved.. so gave it another hit and yep! It was moving.


By this stage the nut was ¼ of the first turn around and I had no more meat to hit, so after grabbing a couple of spanners and sockets, I settled on a ½ inch socket with a ¼ inch drive wrench, it had a good bite on the remainder of the nut and began to slowly edge it out... then I noticed the actual stud turning, the damaged thread had bit into the nut and wouldn’t budge but the next best thing, within a couple of minutes the stud was out!



I was absolutely elated! I knew I could get a new stud easy!.. so a quick celebratory call to Drew to let him know what happened, he was also on his way back in with his precious cargo, and was able to detour past an exhaust shop for me to grab some new studs. While I was waiting for drew, I got onto the job of removing the old nut off the stud, after a bit of mucking around I had the nut off, and had a good look at the stud, the thread was slightly damaged but once drew arrived we compared the new studs to the original units, the genuine studs are better as they have the torx head, so we (drew)cleaned up the thread and it was back to the final install, the new dump pipe went on without a hitch, and of course another coldie was required!. We’re assembled the steering and made sure the steering wheel and tyres were all straight and then tightened the bolts, and also put some paint marks on the bolts to check in a couple of days to make sure nothing has shifted.

At this stage, it was getting late and Drew had to head off and left me with the task of installing the last straight pipe from the dump pipe to the muffler, this was done without any hiccups, the front wheel back on tightened up and back on the ground. Fired her up to see that everything was working as it should and all was good...

[Ghost Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ghost]

[Ghost Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ghost]

So finally, job done, another mate made and some lessons learnt! However, I couldn’t have done it without Drews help! Thanks again mate you’re a legend!

As a bit of advice for anyone wanting to tackle this job, some essential tools required are:-

Dremel tool!
Cold chisel
Hammer
Good quality sockets, spanners and at least two elbows
Plenty of wd40
Massive amount of patients and some strong hands! In addition, of course have a mate on hand to lend a hand and bounce ideas off each other, two heads are better than one! And of course plenty of cold beers!! Haha!