Percy - 2003 GX Love

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

OK, next job was to replace the leaking radiator. There were a few points around the radiator where it was clearly leaking and it would drip coolant on the shed floor.



I purchased a radiator on eBay from Nationwide Auto Parts after measuring the dimensions of my existing unit - they were very well priced. They shipped the radiator the same day as I ordered it! Delivery was fast but unfortunately Aussie Post had done a number on it and the box was damaged and so was the radiator. I sent Henry at Nationwide an email with a photo of the box and he had me covered with return post and a new unit shipped. This time there were no dramas with the post. I would definitely go through these guys again.

I compared the connectors on the two units to make sure the replacement radiator would fit.



I then drained the existing coolant from the radiator and when it was empty I disconnected the hoses. The coolant in my car was replaced not that long ago so I wasn't concerned about leaving a few litres in the engine / heater. Side by side the old unit looks very old!



Some of the bolts were a bit fiddly to get access to but with a socket extension bar and a shifter I was able to get in there. The new toyota bull bar mounts are really in the way here and I couldn't connect the ratchet to the socket and so used a shifter to turn the socket extension. Not an easily serviceable bolt but got there with a bit of persistence.

Earlier in the day I dropped in at Toyota and purchased genuine coolant - I hear their's is the best. I also grabbed some of the little plastic lock pins that hold down the facia over the radiator - I broke a lot of these removing the facia piece to get at the radiator. I also replaced the hoses and will keep the old radiator hoses as spares.



All up the radiator swap took me about 3 hours including shed clean-up and test drive. I had to re-arrange all of my (just redone) winch loom to get to the bottom radiator bolts. I've never replaced a radiator before but with all the parts on-hand I found it enjoyable and glad to be rid of the stress of a dodgy radiator.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

On our trip in 2010 we spent six months living out of the car and camper and one thing that drove us nuts was the fight with the fridge slide - these things cost $300 which seems a big outlay but when you are in the fridge each day they're essential kit. We bought the Engel slide and made the car drawers around it.



On our trip we found that half-way out the slide seized and made you fight to get it all the way out, as I said, when touring this was a real bur in our saddle. Down at the Queenbeyan 4X4 show this weekend we were taking a look at the Off Road System drawers and Nadine tried their fridge slide - that was it, there was no way she was leaving the show without that fridge slide. I have to say it worked a lot more smoothly than the Engel unit. The release handle was easier to operate and because they use drawer slides the operation was very smooth. Installed it in the car when we got home.



The ORS slide comes further out of the car allowing the Engel lid to fully open without contacting the car. Not a big deal but the Engels are a bit of a pain to clean so the extra access will be handy.



The other nice thing about the ORS slide is that it is narrower so I've been able to make a bracket that allows our camp table to fit between the slide and the drawers. I just need to make a little bungee handle that hold the table down and also to act as a handle to pull the table out.

[matt150 Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close matt150]

Bloody hell

I only just found this build up thread and what a top read.

I am now a follower !

[Smac Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close Smac]

Awesome build up mate.

Just wondering what the inner guards are that you had cracks in that you got welded?

also what brought the crack to your attention? Just looking?

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Thanks Matt, glad you enjoyed the read. Some of the work I see when browsing through PP just blows my mind - it's pretty inspirational.

Smac, the cracks were evident in the inner guards under the bonnet - some I just didn't notice when I purchased the car I'm sure. I've included a couple of photos below of where the cracks were that I've had welded.





We did a 6 month trip around Australia in 2010 that took in Cape York (including the Old Tele Track), around Alice, Ayers Rock etc and round the west coast (Gibb River road and up to Cape Leveque) - amongst these roads we did a lot of corrugations and had a few roads turn into roller coasters (had the whole rig air-borne). I think the corrugations and a few hard landings opened up the cracks further.

When I was checking the welds that had been applied recently I decided to remove the front left quarter panel to get a better look - that's when I noticed the spot weld that had let go and the long crack in the support strut. With the level of movement allowed by these two problems + corrugations I'm not surprised I had cracking in the engine bay skirts. As others have suggested on here I think the spot weld probably let go as a result of the original Toyota bar install from new and over-tightening of the body mounts.

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

great build, very good looking rig.

your drawer system has got me thinking about how I'm going to finish mine now.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

Get Stuck into it Wooley!

I compromised on the isolator for the wireless winch controller and fitted the missile switch under the bonnet and not into the dash as originally planned. I paid about $10 for the wireless winch controller on ebay and notice they look very much like the Ironman winch controllers and others and had worried that someone else winching with one of these for their car may activate the winch in my car if they are on the same frequency - not good if that happened! For $10 I'm not sure how many or randomised the frequency usage would be. So I've isolated the winch operation now with this under bonnet switch - I need to lift the bonnet anyway to free-spool the winch cable off.



Apart from adding support to the inner guards the ARB battery tray is coming in very handy as a mounting point for all these bits and pieces.

In case anyone is interested, I made mention in a previous post of the winch operating against the brake when winding outwards - apparently this is typical of winch design and the drum does get very hot and it is recommended that winching out be limited especially if you're running rope instead of cable. I didn't know this until I ran the winch on my bench and touched the very hot winch drum.

[samo Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close samo]

the Old gx (lol) is comming along nicely,the drawers look great, nice work on the winch controller, the wireless is good, i have had no problems with mine, other then the solenoid, i looked at moving the control box under the bonnet but put that in the to hard basket this time. cheers samo

[BigDog816 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BigDog816]

G'day Mcgonical,

Great build up, I see you've used the ARB tray to mount a few bits and pieces. I priced this up the other day and they told me I needed an extra kit/bracket to relocate the Power Steering ($44), looking at your post it looks to just mount onto the side of the tray - is that correct or are there some bits i'm not seeing??.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

G'Day Samo, yeah I though about relocating the winch controller under bonnet but I figured it's been mounted low in the front bar for yonks and looks to have weathered it well, and they're cheap to replace. Not the same for the controller connector - it was fixed twice but just didn't like being exposed to the weather and so I replaced it with the wireless.

BigDog the D4D engine does require an extra bracket to fit the ARB tray but I've got the 1KZ so no need to relocate power steering (that unit you can see on the side of my ARB tray is the diesel filter). I'm very impressed with the ARB tray - very thick steel makes it a solid unit and lots of bolts holding it in. Instructions come with the ARB tray and make it easier to figure out.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

At the Queenbeyan show we got a good deal at ARB on one of these:



I need the new fridge because in April we take delivery of one of these:



We'll be keeping the Prado for a while now since I've blown the budget for the next few years on the Tvan acquisition. This week's problem is figuring out how to get my spare, spare down to Track Trailers in Melbourne along with a couple of extra rims and tyres. I think I'll stick with the Cooper ST's to match the car and they've worn pretty well - I'd love to try the ST Maxx but will have to wait until they release it in the 245.

[BigDog816 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BigDog816]

Thanks, should have had another look under the bonnet before posting.

BigDog.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

After our last camping trip I decided I needed more light so that I can see what I'm after in the back of the car. I grabbed a 5m roll of LEDs from eBay for about $25.



The strip of LEDs is covered in what looks like a silicone coating to protect the electrics and lights - it gives it a nice finish. You can cut the strip every 3 lights between the copper connectors.



I ran a strip of LEDs across the top of the rear door.



Turned out pretty well.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

LEDs Continued...

I went for the switch in the door handle recess that I'd seen somewhere else on PP.



Tried it out tonight and it throws plenty of light so I think it'll work well.

While I was at it I replaced the interior lights with LEDs too.



and the door lights.



The bayonet style LEDs are a bit week so I've ordered some brighter lights from ebay along with another festoon light for the interior rear door.

I replaced the parkers with LEDs too and it looks pretty sweet but they're noticeably whiter/bluer than the headlights.

[mcgonical Member Find all posts View Profile Close mcgonical]

So I knew my front brake callipers were in bad shape and on Sunday afternoon I decided to take a look at how bad. I removed the front passenger's side calliper from the disk and with it still connected to the car I gave the brakes a bit of a pump. A quick check showed only one calliper moving, perhaps they needed a couple of more pumps... A couple of more pumps on the brake and I hear a clunk. Sure enough when I checked the calliper one of the pistons is on the floor and brake fluid is leaking everywhere. Bugger! Stupid!

I knew I was up for a major brake bleeding pain now so I tried prising the remaining pistons out but no luck. I reconnected the calliper to the brake lines and started the engine, clamping my one mobile piston I tried to get the other pistons to move and had some success but the damn things wouldn't come out even when they had the smallest connection to the piston bore. One of the pistons was stuck fast. I'm pretty sure that only one or two pistons were working and you could feel it in the roller-coaster style of stopping that the car had developed.

Here you can see the calliper with pistons corroded in place.



So I jump on here and post about my woes in the 120 series brake section and get a few helpful and much needed replies with advice. The idea of reconnecting the calliper and using the brakes to eject the pistons is good but since all the pistons need to be in-place to generate the required pressure this technique left me with all pistons stuck fast. Another suggestion was to put the calliper the vice and go around tapping downwards on the piston collars to force them out - this approach worked well even for the pistons that were fully retracted and going no-where. I had tried to use multi-grips to twist the pistons back and forth but this only worked on one out of the eight pistons, the rest refused to move at all but I did burr-up the piston collars with the grips.

Trying the multi-grips.



The cause of some of the trouble was broken seals. Even where the seals look in-tact corrosion and dirt have combined to ruin the brakes - I should have serviced them with a complete dismantle and clean-out much sooner.