Pejoty's Hilux Build-up

[pejoty]

Hey, names Scott and this is going to be the long build thread of my SR 2011 Hilux.



I bought it back in April this year and in the last few months its been a real enjoyment to drive, compared to the two door Wrangler I owned before it. It was a real beast and it had everything I wanted on it, but it was just a bit too thirsty on the juice for the everyday commute, and it was pretty difficult trying to pack everything in for a week away bush/beach. So I did my research, came across this website, and the rest is history.

Since then I have been trawling through this form the last few months and I've worked out a pretty solid build plan for the lux over the coming months and beyond, taking it from a stocky to hopefully a capable tourer for years to come. I've a trip coming up in September to Fraser, and before that week away comes around I hope to have the bulk of the big improvements on the ute by then.

The list of gear I want to have on before then is:
- Rhino Roof rack
- Full MR Bash plate kit
- Awning
- Dual Batteries for fridge
- Some recovery points
- Rear tow bar
- 40mm EFS Suspension kit
- 50mm VMN Body lift kit
- ARB Sahara Bar

Thanks to this form I have a very good idea on what will be required to fit and modify to allow the body lift on the Hilux. In the last few weeks I have gone through pretty well every single thread on here, front to back about body lifts and I am convinced this is the path I want to go down. I've contacted qld main roads and they linked me a piece of legislation that states a 50mm cab lift is fine on 4x4's in Queensland without any extra paperwork. I am probably competent enough to fit the kit myself with an extra hand or two, but I have found a suspension and tyre mob in town that said they would be fine with fitting the kit for me the same time as installing the EFS kit, now I just need to find out how much they will quote me for labor....

I'm pretty sure every hurdle has been cleared in regards to the body lift, the last one now being the bullbar.... Tomorrow morning I plan on visiting and calling up engineering businesses in town asking about modifying an ARB Sahara bar, which does sound really painful choping and welding a brand new bit of gear off the shelf, but I have boilermakers I work with that said they would be happy to lend a hand doing the necessary modifications to the bar. The method I have decided to go with is the one outlined by form member, Mitch, here: viewtopic.php?f=41&t=4691&start=40

It seems simple enough and I'm a competent welder, with the help of a few boilermakers and gear it should be a breeze, it's just a matter off whether or not an engineer will be happy to sign it off and do whatever is needed to make it legal, as long as its not gona cost me an arm and a leg

Once that is out of the way everything else will go on in time, just fingers crossed that I won't run into many road blocks ahead...

Since owning the Hilux I have added in some Sandgrabba floor mats, rear seat mod, the Uniden UHF out of my last vehicle and a tray mat. This week coming I hope to have the time to paint and bolt on a set of mudguards I fabricated up for the new set of wheels I got with the ute. When I bought it the dealer threw in a 2nd hand set of decent alloy rims and said he would pay half the cost for four new wheels. The only problem was they had quite a large offset and the stock mudguards do a shocking job only covering just over half the width of the tyre, plus the sidewall of the front wheels stick out past the flares, which the only way to fix will be to buy a new set, most probably some 31"s BFG's or MTZ's later in the future, but until then I need a temporary fix.

Beut stock guards:


New ones to be painted:


Sorry I don't have to many pics of the luxy clean, I'll make sure to clean it up before I post up any more in the future Next project will be to clean up and paint an old ute tool box and bolt into the tray. Currently it's collecting dust and corrosion in the shed.

Anyway enough of this waffle, It may be a week or two till some real progress happens but I'll make sure to put it all in here for everyone

[pejoty]

Spent most of the day Monday collection quotes from 4x4 businesses in town regarding snorkels, Rhino pioneer roof racks, tow bar, dual battery cage, 3" exhaust and ARB sahara bar and recovery point. Also had a wander through Bunnings and picked up a tin of gunmetal hammer-tone paint and some etch primer for the tray box. Found some heavy duty carpet and a cargo net that will make a great addition behind the back seat for gear once its chopped a little smaller.

Booked the ute into a tyre mob in town to have the 2" EFS suspension fitted this Friday, also asked them a bit about the xtr range of shocks EFS sell and they said its only an extra $100 to get the bigger bore shocks so I went with that.

Had a chat with some of their mechanics and a few other people at other 4x4 stores and everyone one was pretty-iffy about the body lifts. After going through all the resources people have thrown up on here about cab lifts and not finding a single major issue people have found if going with reliable kits, there's no doubt in my mind this is the path I want to go down, but of course it's seen as a bit of a niche mod and is it really worth it to be able to slap on bigger wheels? I'd like to think so.

In the end I've decided to put the body lift on the back burners for a few months, I came to the decision that I'll only install the kit once I've got a decent set of wheels to fill the gaps that the combined 100mm of lift is going to create, otherwise the flimsy 'just bigger then stock' AT-R's are probably going to look ridiculous with all that empty space. So I think I'll save up and get them both at once, do my homework first and make sure it will all go smoothly.

Lastly, I went to my local ARB dealer yesterday and asked them about their Sahara bars for my Hilux. They asked all the relevant questions like does it have flares, do you want it colour codded and so on. I am pretty sure there are a few different versions of the Sahara bar floating around on the market now, the two main types I have seen are -

Plastic inserts gen1:


Fog lights only gen2:


So I asked them if I could get the one with the fog lights? Which they said is not a problem, and asked if have the wiring loom for the fog lights which I'm pretty sure I don't so they included that into the quote.
For the bar itself it's going to cost $2,370
The 'fog light's' $90
Colour codded white $245
Fog light loom $75
Which comes to around $2780
Seems a bit steep compared to what other fellas have said on this form, but what can you do...

With all this info I can pick out who's the cheapest and start getting some gear fitted, can't wait to see it all come together Will be posting up pics of the lift on the weekend, just gotta give it a wash and wax first

[pejoty]

The weekend got away quickly but I got some alright pic's this morning in the early light of the new lift,





I'm very happy with the EFS kit that's now in the ute, I took it through some back roads on Saturday, over some dodgy railway crossings plus some corrugation and the new suspension feels 10x better the then factory setup it had. I opted for the 'heavy duty range of coils and leafs due to the amount of gear I'm going to be throwing on it in the future. The leafs are the 300kg variety and I think 70kg front coils? Had EFS in the last vehicle and once again I'm just as happy with this lot. Booked in to get a free 3 week checkup to see if everything has sagged appropriately and everything is still all right.

This week I'm gona go ahead and order the MR bash plate kit, which includes the front bash plate, engine guard and transfer case guard. I'm also tossing up between whether I should order the Sahara bar and recovery point now and get it out of the way, or put it off for a few more weeks....

Finally I decided on going with my local iron man 4x4 dealer for fitting their brand of snorkel and the Rhino Pioneer roof rack, they where the cheapest and the boss is a friend of the family. Probably get that put in at a much later date though, no rush just yet.

[TRDLuxxy]

Colour coded tray lookin the goods!

[rds_929]

looking nice man looks like you got a massive lift with the efs 2.5 ??

[mylux04]

Coming along nicely looks good.

[pejoty]

looking nice man looks like you got a massive lift with the efs 2.5 ??

I really should have got a tape measure out the morning before I took it in for the lift, cause it seems a bit more then just the marketed "40mm" on the website. The day I booked it in for the lift, I talked to one of their mechanics and asked him is it really 40mm or 50mm? He said something along the lines of there are three different settings? Ranging from 40mm which is comfort to 50mm medium, and 75mm coarse. Whether that is a combination of different springs or if the stuts have adjustable heights I'm not sure, I just took his word for it

But I'll make sure to ask them to clarify when I visit again for the 3 week checkup (I didn't pick it up after it was done originally, my old man did that for me) Just need some bigger tyres to fill in the gaps now

Colour coded tray lookin the goods!

I'm actually thinking about a project some time in the future to get it sandblasted, chopping and modifying bits on it and then get it painted a different colour Don't mind the the dual colour schemes, but I'll get over that bridge when I come to it, till then I'll just have to make sure I don't scratch it too much otherwise the rust shows up real nice!

[pejoty]

Afternoon on Saturday was spent wire wheeling an old toolbox that will eventually be bolted to the tray.



After it was cleaned up I gave it a spray with some etch primer mixed up in the paint gun, which didn't turn out so good. Turns out the 500ml tin didn't cut it and I had to make do with lightly primed handle ends on the box... Probably should have left the inside and bottom till last... I'm confident that it will work though, I've got a 1L tin for the top coat which I'll have to make sure I do the outside first before the inside

Sunday was spent pulling out the rear seat and giving things a clean up under the vinyl floor in the back. With help from my Dad we removed the factory maspro clips holding bits of the seat cover on the rear of the seat. We then managed to shove some rubber foam backed carpet behind the cage in the back of the seat. Once that was done we figured out where the net would sit, maspro'ed it in, hot knifed off the excess cargo net and added in a length of bungee cord along the top lip. Replaced the original clips holding the fabric to the seat and done, looks like it should have been there since factory! Cheers to the forum members who came up with the idea.



The permanent gear found a nice place to live in the net, that'll stop it all from rolling around on the floor in the back.


Then we addressed the issue of the holes in the floor of the cab In it's past life it obviously had a roll cage installed in the back, this I found in all Hilux's I looked at in this price range around Brisbane, so it could not be avoided. When bought, little effort was taken to block up some of the holes in the back, that I found out today. The main big ones in the floor in the back where cold galled, grometed and sickaflexed in sufficently, I was happy with those ones. The ones they missed where in the wall at the back of the cab.



The two already filled are ones I pointed out to the dealer, which he fixed sort of fixed and the other ones bellow it where very well hidden under the vinyl floor so where kept open. Ended up giving the holes and peeled paint a hit with some cold gall, filled the holes with gromets and covered with sikaflex, hopefully that will fix them for good.

While we where under the floor everything was given a good clean, apparently hilux's don't come standard with aircon now days so people keep the windows rolled down when driving along dirt roads I'm supprised the seats haven't gone brown yet due to the amount of red dirt I keep finding under the floor and behind the dash!



Waiting on a reply from MR about the bash plates. Everything is coming along nicely

[jakelux]

Very neat back seat net install. Well done.