Hilux Max build thread

[9W6VX]

Great pictures.

Always like to see your rig in action.

Cheers

[Hilux Max]

Thanks mate, I couldnt go too risky as my 3 year old daughter was in the back and as much as she enjoys offroading, when we started balancing on 3 wheels, she knew, and said that she'd had enough and wanted to go home....LOL

next time, I'll try and get some video of that rutted area so you can see the suspension working!

[ArkEngel78]

my ex missus daughter was only a year old and we were out driving at one time going for a strap offraod and completely by accident we hit some pretty outrageous corregations in the road, some pretty nasty stuff the whole truck was shakin and bouncin and went down our spines and all, wasnt reading the road too well that day i tell ya and my next thought was id hear a little baby in the back screaming its guts out but i screeched a stop and turned my head and all i saw was a dummy in a mouth and an ear to ear smile, cheeky girl.

sorry that was way out left field but its one thing ill remember forever lol

[Hilux Max]

its surprising how much the little kids enjoy the bumps and small corrugations. Im not talking about getting the rig airborne or the like.

[Hilux Max]

Hey all,

Went with workmates care of work to do a 4x4 course at the Werribee 4x4 Proving Ground at Cobbledicks yesterday.

It was a 3 day course crammed into one - that being beginner, intermeddiate and extreme.

Mate, Ive been 4x4'ing for the best part of 10 or so years, and I thought I knew enough about how far to push my fourbies in the past but I'll be MAN enough to admit that you dont know shit until you have an instructor beside your truck, guiding you through alternating ruts that have your vehicle severely on 3 wheels on one side, then back down and up again on three wheels on the other side.

That and I never knew that my hilux could drive on such a side-on angle that I had to hold on top my centre console to drive her....LOL

Heres a pic of a 60degree drop we took our rigs over.
And yes....my rectum did lock up....as did everyone elses who went down it. The back end of the hilux started to lift up, so you have to brake enough to stay as slow as possible (whilst slowly sliding forward) but not too slow coz the tail will overtake the roof.





The bloke next to me is one of the instructors - you need him to guide your wheels into position before the drop coz you cant see shit from the steepness of it. Many have rolled he said....

Will post more pics of our adventures yesterday as the boys process their pics on their computers and pass them around. Hopefully Ill be able to get some video footage of the hilux climbing over a pile of tree trucks lay down in a hill, and driving over alternating rut track.

If anyone ever gets the chance to go there, you will not regret it. I have a new found respect for my hilux now.

:eek:

[9W6VX]

Very cool.

I remember when I started off-roading in 1994 in my first 4x4 which was Daihatsu Feroza petrol.

First of all the manual Feroza's crawl ratio was hopeless and it was worse with the petrol engine. I did something similar to your pictures and boy, my precious jewels went hiding! LOL!

And the worse part was, is that you have to stay away from the brake pedal and let the engine braking at low range 1st gear take over.

When I changed to a diesel Toyota Bundera shortie it was much better with a manual diesel and 4.875 diff gears.

Now, with the Hilux auto diesel, the crawl ratio is also not up to my expectation. The manual is respectable though.

The only way to improve on the crawl ratio is to change to lower diff gears but I have never heard of any 2005 on Hilux changing their diff gears.

Regards

Brendon

[Hilux Max]

you can change the diff gears, the diff centres are the same size as the previous models.

With my 33's, I should ideally be running 4.1:1's which were standard on the previous models 3.4 V6 manuals, and could be sourced at the wreckers.....thou the cost of doing this is holding me bakc, but down the line....who knows?

[9W6VX]

Hmmm.... are you saying that the diff gears are similar to the LN167 Hilux?

[Doug67]

I love the cliff photos mate.

[felix]

Where are the photos of you driving UP that incline !

[Hilux Max]

Here are the rest of the pics from the day fella's.

First off, me driving up the other side of that incline, not "as" steep, but still pretty bloody scary-




As well as that, there was a pile of tree's layed down of varying sizes and spaced inbetween radomly, which we drove over a couple of times, and I was lucky to drive away with minor dints to both sidesteps.....bring on those sliders.





And heres another one of me just climbing up an alternatingly rutted slope (you know what I mean). They do this to test your ability to pick the correct line uphill aswell as test your vehicle.



Hopefully me mate gets round some time in the next week or so to get me some digital video files so I can post em here.

[Doug67]

I'm happy to see you have bent your side steps but only just, you can do better than that I would think.

[9W6VX]

Doug67,

I'll do one better.

Mmaaxx, your side steps are not bent enough! You need to bash it thoroughly!

[Hilux Max]

yeah, ha ha thanks guys, I'll see what I can do about bashing the sidesteps before I get some sliders.

But whatever I do, I'll post pics of the bent up pieces of crap......ha ha ha

[oldrev]

mmaaxx,
great pics from your day out.
dunno if i'd be game to go over that steep one i take my hat off to ya .
cheers
ken

[9W6VX]

mmaxx,

Good boy! That's the spirit!

[Hilux Max]

G'day all,

Another small instalment to the life of my hilux.

Well, as mentioned earlier, I bought some lightforce 240 Blitz of my mate and I installed them on Friday night. I had to buy no globes for them so got a set which turned out to be the longer ones from the XGT's. No problem there as they fitted right in anyway.



I some metal brackets from me towbar (which were there to accomadate an SR5 bumper which I had removed), which I modified and gave 2 coats of black spray can to and mounted them on the bullbar to get the lights sitting in the position I wanted them to. The ARB Bar has the spotlight holes too far to the sides and to the front so the lights just miss the two vertical posts and they would have sat just pass the end of the bar. I didnt want that - I wanted them to sit centralised and just behind the front, hence the brackets.





And today, I thought I'd make a rear diff breather extension with some fittings I had sitting around from my last hilux that I never ended up using and some fuel hose. I made sure there was enough slack so when she flexes up it doesnt over stretch.



I ran the other side with the end of the breather fitting to a bracket between the cabin and the tub, nice and high up.



While I was at it, I thought I'd extend the front breather abit more so with as you can see in the pic below, the green arrow is where it was and the red arrow is where it is now.

[Hilux Max]

Now if only I could sell my polished 16x8 mags with zero offset (hint hint anyone - 700bux, only been used for 3weeks on the road)


(tyres not included by the way)
Then I'll be getting some custom made rock sliders for the beast-

[9W6VX]

As usual, you get good brownie points.

Your Hilux is going through an accelerated improvement programme..............

[Hilux Max]

"Accelarated Improvement Program" ?

HUH?

Yeah I wish. Not "accelerated" enough. The inflow of cash isn't as high as I'd like and theres just "so much" , nah, really just a couple more things that I'd love to do.

Next biggie will be custom made sliders for the beast, and in the meantime some window tints.

After that, some sort of rear bear/slider with another a set of Lightforce 170's with yellow lenses above the current Lightforce.

And then maybe an auto locker for the rear....I can get myself to part with that much cash needed for an ARB locker.....I can blow 2-3 auto lockers and still be in front. (not that Im planning on blowing locker of course)

Eventually, I havent decided but maybe a black custom made sports bar and rear rack for hunting, or might get a sliding black canvas canopy from flexiglass. Havent decided.

Now, wheres my lotto numbers gone????