Well the time has come to stretch the memory bank and comb through the receipt pile and try and document how my hilux came to be. I have been lurking around this site in the shadows for 3 years now and have found it to be an excellent source of information, inspiration, talent and humour
I hope to share with you all what I have learned, and maybe even provide a little inspiration for someone to take to their near new pride and joy with an angle grinder, spray can, welder, hammer, bigger hammer and whatever this big brown land can throw at it
In the aim of licence preservation, and after having spent many years growing tired of dragging lowered Commodore and Falcon utes into the bush, 3 years ago I decided to trade my wonderful/loud/fast/fun VE SS ute in on a brand new 2012 SR D4D dual cab lux 4x4. While I don't have any photos of my car back then, it looked a little something like this:
Thankfully it didn't stay looking like this for long. First modifications ordered and installed were of the usual ARB tick and flick sheet variety. Deluxe bullbar, Safari snorkel, canopy and tradesman rack, black sunraysias and 31" BFG AT's. I guess touring and camping were the main focus back then, hence the plethora of ARB accessories, but also a lack of knowledge that there was other options.
The second photo was the aftermath of my first camping trip away with the hilux. Up until this point I had regretted my decision to get rid of my SS but once I got the lux off road it really came into its own and I was reminded why I got the thing in the first place. Also on the way into camp that weekend I cleaned up a wombat and the hilux took it like a boss whereas my old ss would have gone home on the back of a tow truck!
Next came the electrical stuff. Dual batteries, UHF, Runva winch, Lightforce 240's, light bar. outlet in tub, upgraded stereo (Pioneer head unit, Pioneer rear coaxials, Infinity splits), key in ignition beeper removal and seat belt beeper removal (thanks to this forum). Also the rear seat mod was done early on in the piece.
I knew I wanted 33" tyres on my truck so i set out to make that happen. In hindsight, I had no idea what I was in for. I had seen several current model Hilux's in magazines with 33s so I knew it was possible. I had read that you needed a 3"-4" lift to make that size tyre fit so I ordered a 4" EFS/Bilstein lift kit from Superior Engineering including UCA's, very basic diff drop (re; spacer) kit and Brown Davis bash plate and went about getting it all installed.
Then out came the precision toolkit! Cut, smash and bash. then weld.
I was very happy with how it turned out. Despite the fact it took me quite a while to find out that you need a specific front wheel alignment with as much castor as possible, within factory specs, to get the tyre as far away as possible from the firewall. This resulted in probably a little bit of excessive guard and flare trimming, and a few experimental chunks out of my new MTR's, but we live and learn. Plus, I've already done half the necessary mods to clear 35s!!!! lol