William's 150 GXL D4D

[hookedon4wding Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close hookedon4wding]

Yep, well done Toyota for finally admitting to the problem and coming up with a very good solution.

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

Next up was a full 3" Redback exhaust. Part number and details below:

RPC 4043: Dump Pipe / Cat Assembly 3"
STR 4044 Front Muffler 3"
STR 4045TP Tailpipe 3"

Dump pipe installed:


Muffler and tailpipe install:


Old exhaust:


Impressions:
Should have been one of the first things I did. Performance improvement is noticable down low. Not all that much louder compared to stock, however definitely has a deeper note to it. All parts were black and the fitters painted it some more after it was fitted. Turbo whistle is very noticable now. No droning across the rpm range.

Had a problem with the tailpipe vibrating at idle (vibration goes away when revved slightly (ie 200rpm) above idle. Took it back to the fitters who installed clamps and weights on the exhaust. Vibration gone!

Might take a video later if anyone's interested...

Cheers

[Pete67 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pete67]

Recovery Points

So I've been neglecting this thread for a while now since as I've been busy working on a boat restoration - which has now finished! Though this has not stopped the progress of the Prado build!

Quite a lot has changed since the last addition but I will post it slowly as time allows. So I'll post roughly in order of installation...

20/8/2011. Received a birthday present from my brother. A set of outback ideas recovery points from TJM.

I know there was controversy over the rating of the points whether they were genuine, however it was all cleared up by our mod team and the manufacturer of these recovery points.

Here are some before and after pics.

Before:


After:




Installation tips for fitting without removing the bullbar.
1. Full lock steering so you get more room to work with

2. Don't bother trying to get out the piece of steel ARB used to install the bullbar (it will drop once you remove the existing bolts). This piece of steel was used in similar fashion to the bolt/cable that came with the recovery points. We spent an hour just trying to get the damn thing to the hole of the chassis only to find out the piece of steel is thick and cannot be bent. Instead, cable tie it down - note there hasn't been any rattling or anything like that. One tip is to use a strong magnet to pick it up from within the chassis.

3. The supplied bolts were slightly bigger than the holes in the chassis (literally 1/2mm or so). Use a tapping tool to widen it up.

Hi William just a quick question about your recovery points. I have recently bought the same ones and was interested in what the piece of ARB metal was and how/where did you cable tie it? Also did you have any major probs with fitting them?

Cheers
Peter

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

Hi there Peter,

I believe the metal rod (with nut attached) in the chassis is what the ARB guys used to fit the bolt when they fitted the bullbar. It is similar to the wire/nut that is used in the recovery point kit however instead of wire, it is a solid piece of steel. Don't bother trying to bend it as it is far too thick. The best way is to cable tie it through the nut on the rod to the holes in the chassis. You can see this in a picture I posted for another member who queried me on the same thing. Was it easy to fit? Took us a couple of hours because of the bloody metal rod and trying to fit the supplied bolt in (ended up tapping the chassis by half a mil or so). If I were to do it again, it would probably take 30mins if everything went well. Definitely a DIY job than paying the fitters $150 (this is what I was quoted) to do it for you. It's just a fiddley job. Just have a crack at it and if you still need help let me know.

Cheers

[Pete67 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pete67]

Thanks William,

Ill give it a crack after the new year Iv'e lined a mate up to give a hand so hopefully wont be too bad a job lol!

Cheers

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

Good luck Pete, I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Anyway on with the build thread... next up was a ScanGaugeII... haven't had much time to mess about with it but the stats it gathers and the ability to scan for faults is impressive. The SGII completely obsoletes the stock trip computer.

I decided to mount it to the windshield so I get easy access to the buttons.


Routed the cabling via the steering wheel column.


How it looks in the drivers seat...

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

Took advantage of a special at SCA for a 2.5m x 2m awning. Thanks Amts for the heads up.

Fitted nicely to a pair of Thule Aerobars using a mounting kit that I bought for an earlier camp light project. Here are a couple pics...

It's got a nice height to it.


Runs a good length of the vehicle.


I rolled it out to see what material i was made of and to get an idea of how far it went out. Pretty happy with it! Didn't bother setting it up but there are aluminium twist poles.

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

A couple pics of how it was mounted...

4 T bolts on each bracket...

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

bloody hell william those awning brackets wont pull out of the racks, i would cut it down to 2 per bracket thats overkill lol , and swap the wingnuts out for some zinc coated nyloc nuts so they dont vibrate loose. but on another note the rig is looking sweet with all the gear on her now. cheers samo

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

Sammow!! Haven't been on PPchat a while - its so good to hear from you.

Given the package came with three brackets, and I'm only using two... I figured I'd utilise all 4 holes on each bracket... after all I had 8 T bolts from the old light build and wanted to keep them all together. Besides, I've had a heap of stuff with those wingnuts on. They were actually designed by Thule to hold a ski holder so I guess it should be fine not having nylocs on them. I must say though, the pissy bolts between the bracket and the awning concerns me! I'll make adjustments once I get to take her out for a play next month.

Wishing you and your family a merry Christmas and a happy new year. Play hard and be safe

Cheers

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

yeah same to you and your family william. cheers samo

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

Back from a week at the Murray. Thought I'd post a couple of pics of the awning. It literally took seconds to setup and just as quick to pack up). I should have set it up with the the car's side to the sun, but it still did the job very well. We had strong winds during one night and I was surprised at how sturdy it was (did not move at all!). I got a couple of sand pegs from BCF before the trip and secured the poles down using the guy ropes provided.





Also to those planning on launching their boats off the rivers edge sometime soon, take extra care... The river has dropped about 1m from when I last visited the region some 2 months ago. This has made the edge deceivingly soft (looks and feels hard on the top but extremely soft and muddy underneath). Found out this out the hard way when retrieveing the tinny.. luckily the Murray has an abundance of huge trees so we had the winch recover the prado and tinny in tow. Sorry forgot to take pics

[hookedon4wding Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close hookedon4wding]

Hi William, we were up in the Murray last week too. Just out of Yarrawonga on Bruce's Beach #2. Our awning also came in handy on the very hot days. We just kept moving the car around to keep the awning providing shade.



Cheers, Sam.

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

Nice one Sam! I was up Mildura way. Any luck with the fish where you were? It was pretty quiet over here.

By the way have you tried mounting the awning brackets the other way around? It closes the gap between the car and awning.

Cheers

[hookedon4wding Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close hookedon4wding]

No fish William although we didn't try all that hard.

Good tip on the awning, will have to try that next time.

Cheers, Sam.