NewHilux.net

Honestly not a clue! Now im curious where its at, will have to check

Well it turns out that a problem I read about awhile has decided to rear it ugly head When I was leaving work tonight i noticed a large clunk noise from the gear stick when I shifted up to 4th, stick felt a bit loose and clunky. Shifted up to 5th and it seemed fine. When i got home i played around with the stick and its only 2nd and 4th that feel crappy.
Pulled the center console off the sticks and found the "top half" of the gear stick to be sloppy on the bottom half. Looked at other posts on here about the dodgy gear stick bush and now im not sure the way i want to fix it. Gonna call a kinda local hilux wrecker and see what he says and if he has any second hand sticks and how much he wants for it.

Just wondering if i should try and screw, skaflex and tape the two parts together to save some $$$ for now.

drill hole in side of top section near the join (about an inch up). Pump in sika, tape around the hole and leave overnight. Remove tape next day.

Does a pretty good job of taking the slack out without going too far.

Thanks Steven, Ill try and get time to give it a shot tomorrow night

After driving to work and back again the bush degraded massively. I put self tappers in three sides of the stick near the bottom of the first half to help lock up the free play. Took it for a spin and was amazed how the gears felt, nice and crisp. A slight rattling noise was coming from the join in the stick slapping back and forth between the screws. So I pulled two of the screws out and squeezed some sika in one hole till it came out the other one. Then replaced the screws and did the last one.




Then got some electrical tape to cover the heads of the screws so they wouldn't rub on the boot. Now i just gotta wait till tomorrow morning to see if its tight enough and doesn't rattle on the way to work.

Great right up and read mate

That exhaust sounds tops!

Have you noticed any variance with fuel economy or performance after the install?

Thanks man. Nothing too drastic changed with fuel consumption. I installed a catch can at the same time so I don't know if that had a positive effect on the economy or it just kept it pretty close to stock. Performance didn't change too much, it's a bit quicker on take off and has a touch more top end. But that sound alone is worth doing it for.

Found some time this week to get back under the bonnet and did something about that embarrassing beep beep horn. 150db ebay special definitely does the trick. Apart from scaring the crap out of some school kids with it I havnt had much of a chance to let some idiot know they have done something to pi$& me off.

great write up, just wondering if the rims and tyres stick out past the guards?

awesome build so far man! hows toolangi for a drive? would you need to take a mate to winch ya out haha or is it cruisy

Hey white.lux the rims and tyres sit just inside the guards. They are stock 05 guards as well with no flaring, Im sure you could go something bigger because of the scrub bars but it might get close on the inside of the wheel to the upper arms.


Geoff, with the offroading up at toolangi it all depends on how far into forest you want to go or of you stick to the "outer tracks" Some of the tracks around the area where we went (and usually ride) have some pretty decent bog holes in them. If you intend on going up there with just one 4x4 I would recommend a winch but we made it through some of the rough stuff without having to set up recovery. The weather was pretty good that week too, so thats another thing to consider coming into the colder wetter months.

Been having a blast the last two weekends out camping. First trip was up into the high country heading for Craig's hut. A good chance to do some easy 4 wheel driving. Perfect weather conditions for it too! Grabbed a couple of snaps from the hill at the hut.








Then headed off for the easter weekend with the bikes and a group of mates thursday night. Feels great to finally be back on the bike after three months of recovery for my collar bone. Phone died pretty early into the trip only got a chance to grab this shot of the ute.

As always not enough time or cash to spend on the ute. Picked up a 4 pack of cans of plasti dip off ebay for $57 and finally fixed the chrome front gill. I pinched the badge off the stock SR gill that came with the ute when i got it.



While I had a set up for spraying I decided to do my front pillars in plasti too



Gonna try and make some time over the next couple of weeks to cut up my rear bar and match it to the front head board. Something ive been putting off for awhile now, but I have another project waiting on the rear bar to be fixed first

Well the rear bar came up a treat!




After alot of cutting, bending and mig welding I realized I might have been better off to get someone to roll it for me. Still happy with the finished product now i just need to figure out how I want to mount my new Adventure Kings 2 x 2.5m awning. Some time in the near future i would like to fit a canvas canopy and have the awning on top.

So a frustrating and expensive weekend for me, got around to doing a service on the lux and it took way longer than it should have.
The upper and lower front control arms were due for ball joints too. Absolute bastard of a job to do, felt like we were fighting with them the whole time.

Front shock on the passenger side had blown up so had to strip that down and take out the lifted spring into a new strut. Went for KYB skorched 4's hope they hold up well. The shafts are a touch smaller than the pedders that were in it.



I havnt checked the catch can in a little while and it was starting to back up the drain hose into the base of the can. So drained that while i changed the oil and flushed out the filter in some old petrol. At least its doing its job!



While we were under the bonnet decided it was time to have a look at the EGR valve and gave that a good scrub out too. The inter-cooler had a bit of oil residue in it, stood it on its end and blew air through it not much seemed to come out. Throttle body was pretty clean before I started just had to get rid of some of the soot in the elbow.




Then finished off the service with Ryco air, oil and fuel filters. Gonna be up for a clutch and rear brakes soon too. Maybe even front pads by then as well. Woo more money to throw into the pit

Soo its been awhile since I've posted. Finally got my 2m x 2.5m kings awning on. Great thing for staying out of the weather. Packed the ute up and went for a day trip out to Kirthkiln stopping at shiprock falls on the way back.
Thinking the next big purchase will have to be a canvas canopy, the old tarp setup is getting a bit rough.

I've shot the Lux into the future by installing a set of LED's in the glove box running off a generic door switch that I got from a local auto elec supplier. Pretty easy DIY job and makes it heaps easier to see in there at night!
All it needed was a feed of constant power (pinched from the Head units fused constant) and a ground wire.

Great build up mate. The ute looks and sounds great.

Thanks mate, hopefully get the time and cash to do a few projects on it and as the weather drys out take it out bush and use it for what it's built to do!

Spent yesterday doing some well overdue maintance. Took it to my brothers workshop, ripped all four wheels off. Pulled the rear diff centre out and resealed it due to a leak that had developed. Replaced the rear brake shoes and rear shackle bushes. Got the front disks machined and new pads in there too. Then we knocked out the front wheel bearings and chucked a new set in. Due to replace the gear box oil early next week so looking forward to some nice crisp gear changes.