Okay I am back, we will be fitting a cardan jointed propshaft at the rear to do away with the two piece with the centre bearing, this will be much stronger and relaible, in front we will just leave the standard cardan joint, but may have to lengthen it as required. okay once the chassis is comp[leted we have decided to buy a 3L diesel engine as the drive unit, we will only buy the engine next year when we need it, here in South Africa we can get these engines from various engine importers with power steering, 4x4 sump, complete for R11 000. als the bell housing, the 3L engine is in fact the 2.8 Diesel engine that is a standard Toyota engine, it is basically straight forward, we will be fitting a snorkel and we will make sure that this vehicle will be also to swim, we will also be lengthing the diff and other breathers with extended breather pipes.
My other Hilux also has extended breathers and a snorkel, thus we have experienced with these items and we know that they do work, friends we will then be fitting the engine, but we will be fitting extended engine mountings to give us a lift of the engine to correspond with the lift of the gearbox and transfer case for the straight cross member. thus the radiator cowling will have to also be modified at the bottom, we will just work out what is the best method for it, once the engine and the rest of the drive train is all correct only then will we go about the fitment of the cab, now remember we have had the cab wheel arches modified for the 35's thus we know that we will have to lift the body by an additional 85 mm, yes we do know and are aware of the higher that we go the more unstable this vehicle becomes, however with the rock slider plates at the bottom, dual fuel tanks, everything will be balanced.
Then when the cab is mounted correctly, we will proceed to connect up all the engine attachements, radiator and then the wireing, then we will start the engine (this engine that we buy has already been dyno tested with a written report)
When we fitted the ARB Lockers to my Hilux we came up with a great idea of how to fit or connect up the actual piping for the air supply, what we did was use some Wurth air truck suzi hose, the type that has the smaller coil of pipe, we measured the correct length taking into consideration of the drop of the front and rear axle at its longest point and when it is up and then we pushed the blue std air piping for the Lockers through this suzi hose, we then mounted the top end to the cross member above the diff pumpkin with a clamp and the other end we used some silicone glue and let it loose against the diff housing where it enters the diff, with this pipe fitted like this it works a dream, when I contacted 4X4 Mega World here in South Africa, the ARB supplier they said that I must just make a coil with the std pipe and tie it up with a cable tie, now what will that do, how will it expand as required, these guys just made me realise that they have no idea of how to go about fitting thiese Lockers
I have photo's available on request of this fitment of the air piping, I also used another thicker ID pipe to cover the rest of the Locker pipes, to give more protection against the elements and once again clamped it to the chassis.
Some more advise, do not fit the air compressor in the engine compartment, too hot in there and the pressure switches get damagedWe fitted mine in the one corner of the rear load body, even attached an extra air tank to give more pressure available for the two lockers, made a removable cover type box to give it more protection.
Getting back to our project 4x4, then once we are happy with the engine, cab we will then fit the dog box and then the load body which is the easy part. Basically straight forward, rear lights.
We have thought of doing a special paint job, you guys will have to wait and see what it will be
All for now, please give us ideas
