Red Wagon

Nice work. Must be fun on your tight blind windy roads!

Pretty countryside. I enjoyed living over there.

Do know of anyone who has done a driver side swap in one of these over there? With the rest of Europe driving on the right side I wonder? I'll have to driver side swap mine when I take it to Australia.

It's cheaper to ship it and driver side swap it over starting again with a stock rig building from scratch. Double for every bit of it.


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aviator

Swapping the driver's sides would be a huge job... don't know if it would be worth it once you factor in the cost to ship the truck down there and pay all the import duty etc. ... you'd probably be better off to sell it here and buy a new to you one down there.

Red Wagon

I'm a dual citizen. I've had the vehicle already for over a year. I don't have to pay a bunch of duty etc. An Australian citizen can bring 1 vehicle home provided they owned it over a year. I don't have to driver side swap it either but I will.

Shipping a vehicle is not as expensive as you might think. I would be moving all my stuff too. Why cant I put my truck in the sea container with all my other crap?

The work doesn't scare me. It was a lot of work to get the truck where it is now.

As a cost example, I can buy any brand of ring and pinion set for one diff for around $200. The same in Oz is $400+ with limited brand access.

It's cheaper for me to ship and swap.

I just googled and the cheapest SR5 I found was $1500 with damage and a blown engine. On average they sell for double what I can pick one up for in British Columbia. A good condition one still goes for $7 to 8K.

Getting one to where I am now will be a $20,000 job and I'm not finished yet.



http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/boola...0lt/1018445380


$5200 more than I bought mine for. $5k is a lot of aftermarket work. Makes that $2000 in shipping not so hard to swallow. Especially not after a 4.7L engine swap and SAS.

aviator

That's true if you're getting a whole seatainer anyway then no worries mate...
I did'nt know citizens could bring back one vehicle duty free...
I did know they hold their value really well down under you just have to remember to think of it as a "ute"... surprised that parts would be hard to get though.

Red Wagon

I was thinking of being cheeky and buying a mid 90's sports American muscle car. They are RARE down there..

Put it in the fiances name. She needs a car anyway. She's the Australian, met her in London backpacking 9 years back. She dragged me to Oz long enough to get citizenship and will make me go back. Too hot but loads of great wheeling. Another project will be an air conditioning unit. Desert driving will SUCK without one.

Australia is too hot for Canadians.


Parts are not hard to get just much more expensive.

Australia even specifies car types and years that mush be driver side swapped. A 95 Mustang would have to be swapped to be road legal but the exception is if it was your personal vehicle. Mine is under the enthusiast class, something like that.

Pre 89's can be imported without being driver side swapped.


You can also share sea containers. So say I go on a last yeehaw road trip I could leave it in California and wait till I get a spot. I don't mind waiting a few months to save money. It will take me time to find cheap enough wrecks to do the swap anyway.

Perhaps when I do my engine swap and SAS I could get things ready for the eventual swap?

Dreaming.... See how it goes right.



Sorry for the thread hijack!

aviator

Make sure you put in a car alarm/immobilizer... don't know if it still the case but when I was in Sydney 20 years back a mate told me that car theft is such a big problem they come factory standard kit... they get jacked and they're in a seatainer bound for asia/middle east the same afternoon...

Red Wagon

Yeah they are required by law to get it registered in some states. Had to install an immobiliser in my awesome 98 Suziki Swift go-cart over in Western Australia while living and working the mines out there.

I hate those things, cause nothing but problems. I had to get RAAC to come bail me out 3 times due to it. We just disconnected it in the end.


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At least with this thread hijack we get your thread post count up!

I wonder if OP is coming back?

an1mal_69

Long overdue updates..

long story short..decided to re-do the front 3-link as I'd bought a Torchmate 4x2' with a view to starting a little fabbing side line, the geometry was a mile out also, and I did decide to plump for coilovers (16" radflo's) as opposed to the swayaways.

K'.. So, front re-do pics..

Shock towers..



Link mounts..



Painting up (new crossmember in there too)



Installed..









There's tons more pics of the build if you follow the pics back to photobucket & a pretty concise build thread over on HPOC.co.uk, but you would have to register to access it.

With moving the top link, I had to remake the exhaust. I decided to revisit the side pipes, but make a proper silencer, these sorta act as side steps & the mounts/outriggers are jackable..

Bits..



Stuck together..



Outriggers..



Mounted up..






Finally, swapped the steels for some MT's..



and did a little wheeling..

an1mal_69

I'm still planning to do the back end..axleis stripped ready now..



I'm pretty sure I'm gonna go 4-link and make a new tank sited where the under slung spare used to live..I know it's not ideal throwing extra weight out past the axle, but with the 1UZ motor, the tank is always empty anyways

Discombobulated

Dang!!!!!!!!! Looks wonderful, just wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!!

Speechless

an1mal_69

LOL.. cheers dude..appreciated!!

RBX

Did you use the torchmate for those shock towers? They seem very intricate, any issue with warping the steel? Hoes the new suspension handle? Did you accomplish what you were looking to change?
Nice work, suspension and all your work looks tight.

an1mal_69

Cheers!!

Yea, I used the table for 99% of the cutting..



They were cut from relatively big sheets so I don't know if that made any difference, but no warping no.

Better detail of the top..



The top mount is adjustable, albeit only by 30mm or so, but I've tried to build in as much adjustability as possible for fine tuning & future mods/upgrades


It's getting there.. I still need a proper alignment doing (and try tweak the castor a little) as I've only eyeballed it at present. It's night and day from the 1st time round..I don't feel the need for any anti-roll control at the front anymore, where as the airshocks were locked down with limit straps for daily use.

I'm still chasing an issue, when you load or unload the transmission slightly..applying light throttle on and off at say 25-30mph+ it feels to be steering from the back??? I've tried all the rear bushes with a pry bar and they don't seem excessively worn, the left hand lower link-chassis mount has taken a hit from a rock and is bent over slightly but has been that way since I bought it?

I think it's gonna have to wait until the back end is done before I sign off on it properly.

RBX

I just recently used a torchmate to cut some parts. It's so cool to see your drawings get built.
Keep it up

Red Wagon

Nice work dude.

aviator

Very sweet work... liking the Martian detailed web work in the cuts... looks very solid...

loving the side pipes... are they meant to double as sliders?... gave me an idea to look into a double skin slider... an inner SS exhaust pipe with an outer layer steel slider tube...

an1mal_69

Cheers!!

I'm gonna name the truck 'Area 51' and use the same name for that side of any business I get. I run a strut brace from the top of the towers which interfered with the throttle cable bracket so I had to make another..



Drew it up using the existing bits of bracket, shame I stuck my thumb in the paint..I'll touch it up at some point



The brace is only a temp job too..will come up with something fitting eventually


Yea..the pipes will take a hit although I'm not really intending to use them..that first hit is gonna hurt..lol I also plan to run a skid under the silencer, but haven't got round to it yet. The initial plan was something similar to what you're thinking, I was going to run the silencer inside some geometric, stealth bomber looking, boatside, rockslider pod thingy inspired by some of the modern sports bikes Ducati 1199 panigale springs to mind but I had to reign it in due to time and money! Having mounted the outriggers with bolts, I'm open to realise the dream (lol) somewhere down the line.

Mounting detail..

These 'pads' were cut..



consisting of 6 & 3mm plate, then tacked to the chassis, using the pilot holes on the pads I drilled through @ 8.5mm and tapped the lot M10..no mean feat with (x6) on each pad..one of those jobs you wish you hadn't started

Red Wagon

How much ˟˟˟˟ do you get from the greenie dickheads in the UK? I remember Jeremy Clarkson got ripped on pretty bad years back for doing some wheeling.

Red Wagon

That would be fun.

If we do that before we leave Canada we could do it again when I move to Australia.

an1mal_69

It's tough & getting tougher!! something like 90% of the trails (we call them 'green lanes' over here) are now illegal to use. Most of those are called byways which are basically old drovers routes and are under control of the local councils, the vehicle has to be road legal (TAX, MOT & insurance) as they are still classed as public highways.

What you have to remember is our island is relatively small (you're never more than something like 76 miles from the coast here in the UK!) and it's all owned by someone..there's no open spaces you can just go wheel

Living in Wales, we have some of, if not the best lanes in the UK with some ok driving and lovely scenery. The more challenging stuff tends to be at 'pay & play' sites (like the above pics), speaking of which, we have hired a site called Seven Sisters for this wkend (where they run the UK equivelant of KoH..king of the valleys) so looking forward to that.

lol..I'm guessing I meant 'Portmeirion' there..funnily enough we visited there over winter..looked a little drab in all honesty, probably best in the sunshine when the gardens are at their best too!

I'm still open the busmans holiday plan, would be great yea!