Percy - 2003 GX Love

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

A 6 month trip towing the camper around Australia has taken its toll on Percy leaving us with cracks in the inner guards, a motor in need of a tune-up and a lot of cosmetic issues to fix (chipped paint, dirty engine bay, wiring clean-ups, etc) and plenty to be serviced.

I had the guard cracks welded, the guy even used some plate to re-enforce some areas which is a good idea. His welds were sturdy but not pretty. When I got the car back the first thing I noticed is the large hole in the metal where my redarc had ripped the nut through the metal leaving a star shaped hole. Not sure why he didn't fix this and so resolved to repair it myself. First I removed the side panel to get better access to the area and see what work had been done on the patching.



After removing the side panel I noticed one of the factory welds had let go and a long crack had formed in the internal bracing.



If you look carefully you can see that the two other factory spot welds are beginning to crack and rust too. If these let go then that would be a lot of the reinforcement lost and a lot more flex in the guard and more cracks.

I've been keen to learn to weld so I picked up a mig last weekend and have been practicing on thin sheet since. More practice required and then I'll post more about the repairs.

[Madkore Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Madkore]

None of that sounds particularly good...

Good to see you chipping in and giving some of the repairs a go yourself though.

Will be keen to see how you go.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Percy had a winch installed when I bought him in 2006 so it's always been on my mind that I should pull the winch down and service it. After our huge trip the winch had a bit of use and certainly a lot of creek and river dunkings. I half expected bits and pieces to ping out everywhere as soon as I loosened the first nuts but bless the Superwinch for being a very simple and serviceable piece of kit. After taking the gearbox case off the unit I could see straight away that the old grease was pretty stiff and in need of replacing. I also noticed that there very very little water ingress, rust or mud to deal with which was a nice surprise.



Grabing myself some degreaser I started removing the old grease and further disassembling the winch.



I had a few photos taken to make sure I was clear on which way it went back together. I needed more than photos though and found the Superwinch X9 service online which was very handy.



I used petrol for some of the clean-ups when the degreaser wouldn't shift the grease. Afterwards I used compressed air to dry the pieces.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Picked up some grease from Supercheap - I wasn't sure which grease to use. I selected some stuff that promised to stay put where water was present and smeared it on thinly.





When re-assembling the unit I lock-tighted all the nuts and bolts. The casing had a lot of flaking paint and surface rust around the winch drum so I pulled this all down and brushed off the rust. In raw metal wear areas such as on the winch drum I sprayed on some lanolin to preserve the metal and where the paint was flaking I gave it a quick respray.



I didn't pull down the motor end as it appeared pretty well sealed and I'll service it again in 12 months (after I see how my gearbox service faired). I was surprised how simple the winch was to service and since Percy is a touring car rather than a serious rock climber I'm pretty happy with that simplicity - I don't mind winching slowly as long as it gets the job done reliably on the odd occasion when I get stuck.

The final result before the wire goes back on.



I was planning on getting some $240 dyneema rope off ebay to replace the wire but I've just spotted leaks around the radiator so looks like I'll be keeping the wire and replacing the radiator and coolant instead.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

I found the winch control connector pretty corroded and dodgy and had already given it a make-over before our trip but mounted low on the front of the car it's very susceptible to wear and tear so I'm replacing it with a remote control and master switch in the cab.



My 6 year old loves remotes so I thought I'd better have a two part system to activate the winch so the missile switch will need to be on before the remote will work (which also needs to be switched on using a sliding switch on the side). These things were $10 on ebay so I'm also curious to know whether someone else with the same unit could activate your winch so just another reason to install the isolator.

Not completely sure how the in-cab isolator will work but I figure I just wire it inline with the power switch on the receiver unit. This gives me a chance to relocate the remote sensor to a higher and safer place in the engine bay.

I'm in two minds about buying a new wired winch controller and connecting the wireless and wired in tandem so if the wireless units fail I can go back to wired control. Wins on reliability but then I'm back to carting around the wired controller lead...

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Here's a nice photo of the hole my redarc ripped in the inner guard - shows what corrugations can do to extra things bolted into and onto the car. Of all the extra bits on Percy this is the only thing that came loose.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Well it's not pretty but it's a lot more together than it was.



I ground down the weld to check them and clean up the job but it was a mistake as I thinned out the sheet near the top tack weld and then had to do further welding to build it back up. Lesson learned, it's internal and doesn't need to look pretty, just hold on. It's ready for some paint now so that's tomorrow's job then re-assemble the panel. I also used a stepper bit to clean-up the star shaped hole - now I have a nice round hole instead.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Cold Gal on the welds and anywhere else that looked like bare metal so it's not as scary to look at as it was.



Next is to install an ARB battery tray to further strengthen that entire area of the car.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

And the reason we do it, went camping for the weekend in Deua National Park.



Not long after that crossing we got hopelessly lost (have not reloaded the detailed maps onto our Dig Options unit) but happily we ended up at Bakers Flat and a beautiful campground (be even nicer if they removed the bollards). Had a fire and a great camp by the river.

[fluffychaos Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close fluffychaos]

I downloaded RealCADD for the Mac and had a crack at getting the dimensions entered properly, hopefully all the mistakes are made on paper which would be a bit of a change to my usual make-it-up-as-I-go-along approach.

Try google sketchup...free and very easy to use

[fluffychaos Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close fluffychaos]

fantastic build write up!!!

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Thanks Fluffy, I have had others recommend Google Sketchup and will give it a go next time around with the drawers - it seems like I'm always planning my next set of drawers.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Anyone got any tips on the porousness of 3M coldgal - I haven't painted over the top of mine to seal it but read on the weekend that you should paint an enamel over the top of primers to prevent rust as primers are porous.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

I originally installed my Polyair lines through the rear bumper plastic but go sick of fiddling about trying to get the air connector attached and I think I've lost a couple of plastic clips in the bumper as I've shoved things about. Inspired by great set-up I found here on PP I took to the air lines and towing electrics to clean it all up.



Obviously red will make it go faster. I'm not sure how the Anderson will go on its side, it's a very positive connection so hoping it will hold on in this position. I'll find out this weekend anyway when we're out camping.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Put the Superwinch back in the car today after the tear-down and re-grease. I connected it all up on the bench to check that I had it wired correctly and it appears to work fine. I did notice that it'll run fine on the line-in wind but if I do line-out the winch drum gets very hot very quickly as if it is working against the break. I pulled it all down again to check the brake and it looked to be working as designed, that is, line-in runs easy and line-out goes against the break. Not sure how this is supposed to work but it makes me reluctant to use line-out and especially worried about using dyneema rope in-place of winch cable due to the heat.

I made a bracket up from some angle steal and bolted it to the ARB battery tray.



After I drilled all the holes and test fitted I pulled it down and painted the bracket to match the ARB box.



With the solenoid and winch all wired up I extended the wires on my new wireless controller and fitted it to the new bracket. Lots of split tube as usual and it's all working well. I haven't fitted the isolator switch in the cabin yet and Nadine suggested I just remove the fuse instead of fitting an isolator - I guess that would be simpler but it sure won't look as awesome as the missile switch I had planned...