[rgren2]

Sometimes you need to follow your head, not your heart. An older vehicle will always be a time and money pit.

 

[dkril]

Oh @james008 .

 

[geeyoutoo]

Been there and done that , fully understand your reasoning and feelings, and as rgren2 says things like this can be a money pit, Oh! James has already used that phrase in his build thread. What I will say however is that in another 20+ years you will have regrets, I have those feelings about a vehicle I had in the 70's, they come back to haunt me from time to time.

 

[rgren2]

What I will say however is that in another 20+ years you will have regrets, I have those feelings about a vehicle I had in the 70's, they come back to haunt me from time to time.

Don’t we all. Not mine but one identical.

 

[Ethanissan]

I’m never going to be able to make a decision about this, so I’ve taken the EOI off the AD, if someone comes and offers me the right price I’ll take it, but until that time comes, I’m going to plough on ahead and keep working on it. Maybe I’ll convince myself that it’s nice enough to drive in the process.

Anyway, the major things still on the list are:

-Cosmetics; Drivers door, all door cards, matching interior colours, touch up passenger side when I’ve got colour matched paint, and fix the rear D pillar where I stupidly dropped the roof rack on it during removal. This is the cheapest of all things that needs to be done.

-ZD30 Turbo (GT2052V) and 2.5” exhaust; got a quote from the guy down at Dats Cool fabrication, from memory he said roughly $850 to mount the turbo (make an adapter and get it bolted on, I sort out oil and air piping), and about $1100 for a full 2.5” press bent exhaust with a muffler, either hotdog or diagonal straight through, my choice. That’ll be a 3” mandrel bend off the back of the turbo to dodge the starter, and 2.5” press from there on. So if I can get 2k together with a reasonable amount still in savings so I’m not spending every dollar to my name I should come back from that with change. Then sort out the actuator system for the turbo with whatever setup of Dawes/Tillix and needle valves, so there’s not an immense amount of emp wanting to snap my crankshaft at 1000rpm, and it’ll be time to go tune it properly.

-head gasket; I’ve determined that since the head has pretty obviously been off at some point, the head gasket was replaced with a non-genuine one, and that’s why it’s leaking oil down the sides of the block. So at some point I’ll have to learn how to replace a head gasket and get that all sorted. I’m hesitant at the moment because there’s no other signs of damage so I’ll just live with topping up the oil once or twice between services for now.

-Sound deadening on the interior; I think this is the one that’ll make me want to keep it the most. Once I can drive on the highway and have a normal conversation with someone I’ll be a much happier camper. Someone in the past already did the entire roof, so props to them because I guarantee it’d be heaps worse without that, no wind noise at all even with a roof rack on. But now I’d say 80% of the noise I hear comes from the engine/gearbox and road noise, so that’ll be a big step towards comfort.

-barwork; I intend on using the vehicle, and have already done so, on technical rock tracks and places where wheel placement is key and panel damage is something that needs to be taken into account. Because of the condition of the body of this thing I need good barwork, which I’d make myself but I can’t weld yet. A running theme throughout the build. This’ll also let me modify the ARB to fit a winch, which is another mod I definitely need.

-electrical tidy up; things like covering wires, getting rid of blank unnecessary wires, replacing wires, redoing my old garbage wiring for the head unit and door speakers, and just generally tidying up the wiring is something that I’ll need to do. It’s an absolute birds nest at the moment, but as usual I’ll leave it for later, at which point I’ll probably leave it for later again.

Anyway still a lot to do but I think I should probably slow up on doing stuff. The way I’ve been managing financially is… barely. And that’s mostly because I earn not much and spend most of it on the car. Not a good way to live, and definitely couldn’t sustain it if I had my own place or a rental. So yeah. I realised by looking back that I’ve done a hell of a lot in almost a year, way more than I should’ve probably spent in that amount of time. So I should slow up a bit, and I know that, it’s whether I’m able to put it into practice that’ll be the real challenge personally.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[geeyoutoo]

Do you have a gt2052?

 

[rgren2]

The cheapest option you have mentioned is learning to weld. Do a little reaserch on rod sizes and materials, don’t go too deep, get some general type rods and learn to strike an arc, then start running some beads. Get comfortable with this before trying to join materials. Moisture in your rods is a huge problem, that will cause difficulty in striking your arc. A small bedside cabinet with doors and an incandescent light, even an old bar fridge with the light going is a cheap (free) dry cabinet for your rods. A decent mask is imperative, there’ll be blokes on here that are professionals that can recommend what to get, some protective clothing, cotton and wool don’t melt into you, there are decent cheap leather gloves and aprons about. A bucket of water to drop your spent rods into (metal bucket), it can also be used to put out some fires.
After you have learned the basic, then you can practice some joins. YouTube will be your friend as will the advice from this forum.
Have fun.

 

[Ethanissan]

The cheapest option you have mentioned is learning to weld. Do a little reaserch on rod sizes and materials, don’t go too deep, get some general type rods and learn to strike an arc, then start running some beads. Get comfortable with this before trying to join materials. Moisture in your rods is a huge problem, that will cause difficulty in striking your arc. A small bedside cabinet with doors and an incandescent light, even an old bar fridge with the light going is a cheap (free) dry cabinet for your rods. A decent mask is imperative, there’ll be blokes on here that are professionals that can recommend what to get, some protective clothing, cotton and wool don’t melt into you, there are decent cheap leather gloves and aprons about. A bucket of water to drop your spent rods into (metal bucket), it can also be used to put out some fires.
After you have learned the basic, then you can practice some joins. YouTube will be your friend as will the advice from this forum.
Have fun.

Do you have a gt2052?

Yep, I bought it a couple months ago off a guy who’d put a UFI on, so should be in good condition as long as it was an upgrade not a fix. Only spent $150 on it so even if it’s just to get the mounting sorted I’m ok with that. I can make the actuator move slightly by sucking air from the diaphragm chamber thing, and the shaft play seems good side to side, no in and out.
Worst case scenario I put it on and get it running, the turbo turns out to have blown seals or something, and I convince dad to hurry up and put on his eclipse so I can have his old one…

@rgren2 ;thanks, maybe I’ll be moving the front shackle mounts back sooner than I expected . Would love to get them on the correct angle like you see with most modern utes and stuff, should also improve the ride a heap. And I’ll be able to use the extended shackles but still have the correct castor.

Oh yeah I forgot to mention, I went and put the standard shackles back in the other day just to see what a difference it would make, and I’m pretty surprised with the result. I put the swaybar back in too, so I thought it might ride a little harsher just because it’s another thing swinging off the axle down there, but it’s a smoother ride. I’m assuming this is mainly because the front of the spring has been brought upward closer to the chassis, giving the same effect as adding drop boxes to a coil patrol, where the wheel hits a bump and instead of moving straight upwards, or upwards and forwards into the bump, it moves upwards and slightly backwards. The general bumpiness is the same, but the initial shock when hitting a bump is much less, so I’m going to keep them in at least until I move the mounts for the extended shackles. Also because of the castor correction it’s done at the same time, it drives nicer on the highway, bit less correcting that has to be done. Not one of the issues that make it uncomfortable, that’s mainly noise I guess, but it does feel better at the moment.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[geeyoutoo]

If you have any issues, I have a couple of gt2052's in the shed, one water cooled the other air cooled.

 

[Ethanissan]

If you have any issues, I have a couple of gt2052's in the shed, one water cooled the other air cooled.

Ohh I didn't know Nissan made water cooled ones, if I were to hazard a guess I'd say since the turbo is cooler there'd be less strain on the oil cooling system (of which the SD33 is known to be laughably bad)? I might even pm you to discuss that one anyway, sometime in the future, even if this one does turn out to be good, because to me at least water cooling sounds like a good thing. I forgot to mention another thing I'll have to sort out, sooner now that I'll be playing around with extra air and fueling, is an oil cooler to mount up the front. Shouldn't be too hard, either get an adapter that fits on the current oil filter housing and has external lines, or find some other way of doing it.

 

[geeyoutoo]

Ohh I didn't know Nissan made water cooled ones, if I were to hazard a guess I'd say since the turbo is cooler there'd be less strain on the oil cooling system (of which the SD33 is known to be laughably bad)? I might even pm you to discuss that one anyway, sometime in the future, even if this one does turn out to be good, because to me at least water cooling sounds like a good thing. I forgot to mention another thing I'll have to sort out, sooner now that I'll be playing around with extra air and fueling, is an oil cooler to mount up the front. Shouldn't be too hard, either get an adapter that fits on the current oil filter housing and has external lines, or find some other way of doing it.

You will get many different thoughts on this, yes all DI's were water cooled turbo's up until 2002 sometime. It doesn't add anything other than a temperature stability, Personally I think Nissan dropped it for expense reasons, when you know all your models you can see where little things were dropped to save money. The eclipse come with ability to run water cooling and even though it is a pain in the arse to remove a water cooled turbo from a DI I wanted to keep it and I know another highly respected fan of watercooling on here. I did a small mod which I wrote up in my build thread so now I can disconnect the water cooling very easily and have the trubo off in 1/3 of the previous time and no need to remove second battery.
If I can help just call out.

 

[jonesy547]

The cheapest option you have mentioned is learning to weld. Do a little reaserch on rod sizes and materials, don’t go too deep, get some general type rods and learn to strike an arc, then start running some beads. Get comfortable with this before trying to join materials. Moisture in your rods is a huge problem, that will cause difficulty in striking your arc. A small bedside cabinet with doors and an incandescent light, even an old bar fridge with the light going is a cheap (free) dry cabinet for your rods. A decent mask is imperative, there’ll be blokes on here that are professionals that can recommend what to get, some protective clothing, cotton and wool don’t melt into you, there are decent cheap leather gloves and aprons about. A bucket of water to drop your spent rods into (metal bucket), it can also be used to put out some fires.
After you have learned the basic, then you can practice some joins. YouTube will be your friend as will the advice from this forum.
Have fun.

Totally agree mate, learning to weld is the most cost effective option. If you're after some good advice on where to start and what to go for in terms of welding gear e.g. gloves, aprons I'd definitely recommend the guys at Alphaweld. Have found them really useful over the years whenever I've needed advice. Here are their contact details: Contact the Experts

 

[Marko_SJ]

I vote do the "small" stuff like your sound deadening, electrical cleanup and fix the leaks and forget the engine mods and exhaust for how.

There's 2k you'll never see again and you know an SD33T works with a HT15. JMHO.

 

[Ethanissan]

Alright I've done even more thinking and I like it too much, I've deleted my listing off marketplace. I'm a bit hopeless
I'll live with it and now I can continue spending money on it (albeit slower) without thinking I'll be wasting it before selling.
I went and got colour matched paint today so I can finally fix up the drivers door, now I've just got to find a straight one around Caloundra, even in Brisbane would be fine.
I'm going to put the extended shackles on and take a leaf out of the front 6-spring pack, the shackle should take up the lift lost by one less leaf, and until I cut off the shackle mounts and relocate them the spring will be flatter so the shackle will have more angle.

I looked a fair bit into sound deadening today and it doesn't seem like a hard job, just long and tedious given I'll have to gut the interior and take the dash apart for the first time. Maybe at the same time I can figure out which of my fusebox wires is dodgy and fix it, and tidy up my wiring, especially the head unit wiring (just using squeezy connectors at the moment).

Any good recommendations for a good budget sound deadening similar to car builders or dynamat? Don't need to do the roof, someone already did that in the past, which I'm very happy about considering how much of a pain removing the headliner would be.

 

[Benny Jahmin]

I used this stuff.

PingJing 30 sq ft butyl rubber sound deadener

BUTYL RUBBER SOUND DEADENING is used to reduce panel vibration which will reduce road noise, improve sound quality from your audio system and more

southeastcaraudio.com.au

I can't imagine its much different to the car builders product.
Also used this on the roof and inside the doors and rear quarters.

53.8ft PingJing Thermo-Acoustic Liner + Premium Application Roller + Australia Wide Courier Delivery

This a a high density thermo-acoustic foam primarily used as a high performance replacement for carpet underlay to further reduce road noise and heat. Normally applied to the interior on the firewall, floor, inside rear guards, roof and doors, but can also be applied to other areas including...

southeastcaraudio.com.au

I went pretty light on the application, only covering about 50% of the large flat panels. I also avoided going over any body seams so I can keep an eye on any rust issues.

 

[Ethanissan]

I've also just messaged someone asking if they can measure up a set of stock 79 series leaf springs. They're apparently the longest leaf of any landcruiser, longer than the old leaf up front models, and I'm going to see if they might suit the rear of the MK to give a bit more shackle angle than the standard springs. If they actually end up fitting it'll open up a whole range of options for other LWB 160 owners. If not I'll keep looking for alternatives for both the front and rear.

 

[Ethanissan]

I used this stuff.

PingJing 30 sq ft butyl rubber sound deadener

BUTYL RUBBER SOUND DEADENING is used to reduce panel vibration which will reduce road noise, improve sound quality from your audio system and more

southeastcaraudio.com.au

I can't imagine its much different to the car builders product.
Also used this on the roof and inside the doors and rear quarters.

53.8ft PingJing Thermo-Acoustic Liner + Premium Application Roller + Australia Wide Courier Delivery

This a a high density thermo-acoustic foam primarily used as a high performance replacement for carpet underlay to further reduce road noise and heat. Normally applied to the interior on the firewall, floor, inside rear guards, roof and doors, but can also be applied to other areas including...

southeastcaraudio.com.au

I went pretty light on the application, only covering about 50% of the large flat panels. I also avoided going over any body seams so I can keep an eye on any rust issues.

Seems like a good option, from what I've read proper sound deadening is supposed to absorb and stop the sheet metal vibrations, and that 50% coverage should be enough to stop that. In saying that I really want to make it as good as possible, so I'll probably try to get as much coverage as I can.

I didn't think about leaving body seams, that seems like a really good idea, I think I'll leave gaps at the seams and use a spray-on sound deadening paint in those areas to both sound deaden and prevent rust.

 

[Benny Jahmin]

The butyl layer only stops resonance. It doesn't do much for sound travelling through the panel or heat for that matter. Unless you are serious about your sound system I would put more money into a decoupling layer and cover as much area as possible with that.
I had the dash out so I used the car builders mass loaded vynil up the firewall with a few bits of butyl deadening on the flat areas.
In the back under the drawers I put strip's of the butyl layer in the low sections of the ribs in the floor. (See first pic) Not really sure how much this would do but the old 'tap' test reduced the resonance.
I haven't put any on the floor under the seats yet but through out the floor I have put down some rubber backed carpet mats with the carpet face down as a decoupling layer under the carpet, which I stripped of the mouldy cotton mill scrap that comes from factory. (See second pic)

Since I had the roof lining out I did that similar to the rear floor and then covered as best I could with this acoustic liner 53.8ft PingJing Thermo-Acoustic Liner + Premium Application Roller + Australia Wide Courier Delivery

Another area to note would be in behind the kick panels at the base of the A pillar and also base of the B pillar. From factory in the GQ there is a small hunk of foam stuffed in there. I'm guessing this would have been worth while enough for Nissan to do to cut down some road noise from the front wheels. I assume the MQ would be constructed similar in these areas.
The area I haven't worked out what's best is the 'plenum' under the windscreen where the fresh air enters the fan. I imagine you would get a fair bit of engine bay noise transferred through here but other than making sure there are no air gaps into the cab (which would require a full dash removal) I can't see what else could be done.
I haven't done the bonnet yet but that is meant to help.

But at the end of the day there is alot of glass you can't do anything about.

 

[Ethanissan]

Thanks Benny, given me good ideas to think about, I'll have a good look around at what people say works best and decide what I'll do then.

Anyway, exciting today, I finally fixed the tacho and it works now. The whole time I've had it on the road I haven't had a tach, which I know is the norm if you've got an MQ, but in the MK it's always been there, just not working.
Since I'm using the petrol dash, just taken out the petrol tacho and replaced it with a diesel one, I had to make up the wiring for it and graft it into the petrol loom.
For some reason the red ute MQ had:
- a tach and wiring (not doing anything),
-but was an '83 round headlight model,
-had turbo stickers on the doors,
-was an N/A (no tach sender in the timing cover).

I basically cut the positive and negative wires from the ute loom, threaded out the hall effect sensor wires, and ended up with a plug with all 4 wires, positive and negative ready to be grafted in somewhere, and sender wires long enough to reach the timing cover. I removed the petrol tach from the dash, and bolted the diesel one in (direct swap), and instead of grafting the positive and negative tach wires into the loom I attached them to the positive and negative pins on the petrol dash.
For some reason the petrol tach gets it's power off the back of the dash, where the diesel one gets it out of the loom. I've circled the positive and negative pins that the petrol tach uses, and there's also a module on the bottom right of the petrol dash that I've no idea what it does, but if it's unplugged the starter solenoid doesn't fire:

The petrol speedo also has a wire going to it, the blue one coming out of the weird little module, that I also have no idea what it does.

Anyway, so the diesel tach has always had power, and always been connected to the sender in the timing cover, but the tach itself has never worked, or worked sporadically when the dash wires are pushed in certain directions or wiggled. Today I decided to get to the bottom of it. Took the dash out, took the tach out of the dash, and thought maybe the 4 pins needed resoldering:

Didn't work, so I investigated further. I determined it wasn't my wiring by taking the dash and tacho out of the farm ute (not the red one, the white MK we've got) and plugging the tach into my loom, and voila, it worked!

So it was the tach unit itself that had the issue. Since that was the case I was willing to pull it apart, if I broke it it wouldn't be any more useless than it already was. I undid the 4 copper legs at the bottom and pulled the circuit board off to see if I could see an obvious problem. At first I couldn't, but upon closer inspection a lot of the soldered pins had hairline cracks in them, so obviously weren't making proper contact. That explains why wiggling the capacitors and things on the back made it work in my experimentation:

New solder on everything, tested it, and it's right as rain!

Somehow the tach from the rusty red MQ ute (right) looks heaps better than the one from the less rusty white MK ute (left):

 

[Ethanissan]

Decided while the dash is out I’m going to replace the backlight bulbs inside. I’ve read that LED replacements don’t work well in GQ’s, but I think they’ll work well in the MK dash as the bulbs are covered with a white plastic cover, and light is spread evenly behind the dash. I decided I’m going to do an experiment as I like the look of people’s blue lit Gq dashes, so today I’ll pick up a few blue replacement LED’s and see how they look. If it doesn’t work I’ll just get white ones, they’re cheap anyway.