XL - something... Slow build up

Adbailey121 · Post by **Adbailey121** » Sun Jul 29, 2018 5:35 pm

Hey everyone,

Have been browsing through others build ups gathering ideas for mods to do to my XL something T.
Bit of back story, purchased a couple of months ago was advertised as a XLT.... Straight away noticed it was a XL, but for some reason at some point someone put an XLT tray on it and a front bumper off of and XLT as well.
Managed to bargain this down a fair bit and feel like i got a pretty good deal.
Came with the 285/75/16 rims as well as a 3 inch Dobinsons lift, fairly sure it has the 300kg or 500 kg leaf springs in it? Because every little bump feels like i dont have any suspension in the rear at all haha.
Came with a half connected EBay spec snorkel which i quickly replaced with an Ironman Snorkel. Have done all the basic servicing (engine oil, gearbox, diff’s, air filter, fuel filter, intake manifold cleaned and EGR blanked)

Replaced the cold side intercooler pipes with the plazaman upgrade and hopefully the hot side pipe direct pipe should arrive over the next few days.

Have heard it can be a little difficult to remove the Hot side pipe, anyone have any words of wisdom regarding this.

At the end of the day want to build this up as a tourer for myself and the family so bullbar, rock sliders, canopy etc are a must in the future, when the minister of finance allows it. Cheers for the great forum and any handy hints shoot them my way.

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lincolnland · Post by **lincolnland** » Sun Jul 29, 2018 5:51 pm

gday mate, nice rig. welcome onboard

Adbailey121 · Post by **Adbailey121** » Sun Jul 29, 2018 6:08 pm

Cheers, i noticed in your build up thread that you installed a new hot side pipe, is it just the one bolt holding the OEM U shaped bend attached near the bottom of the engine and then the hose clamps?
Your build has given many ideas and inspired the beer fridge to be brought back.

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lincolnland · Post by **lincolnland** » Sun Jul 29, 2018 6:13 pm

yeah mate hot side removal and reinstall is a non issue. undo clamps and slide off. really an easy job. a beer fridge is a must when spinning spanners

well complexity of a job is measured in cans

Adbailey121 · Post by **Adbailey121** » Sun Jul 29, 2018 6:29 pm

Awesome, cheers. Just gotta hope the pipe gets here in the next couple of days then.
At least in this cold weather the brews are staying cold whilst working thats for sure

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Adbailey121 · Post by **Adbailey121** » Sat Aug 04, 2018 9:14 pm

Well after a little bit of a test drive on some local tracks a couple of weeks I had to replace a 95 dollar ABS wheel speed sensor. That was the easy part of the day.
Next i started on the Hot side pipe replacement using the plazaman single piece....
It all went downhill from there. Around an hour later and a couple of beers (In no way do i blame the beers) i had managed to disconnect the old ridiculous pipe and remove the flexible bends but could not for the life of me manoeuvre that solid u bend out....

So after making 100 % sure that the new pipe was going to fit out came the hacksaw. Needless to say the job was finished 5 minutes later. Have yet to test for any difference as many more beers have been had. I wish i had taken a photo to compare the pipes next to each other, i think someone has done this already, but below you can see my hacked apart OEM part.

Next up will be a bullbar and a couple of little mods around the place.

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lincolnland · Post by **lincolnland** » Sat Aug 04, 2018 9:37 pm

which bit did you find difficult to remove? did u access it through the drivers side wheel arch? remove the tyre and fet in there that way? handy to know tips for others. cheers

Bill68 · Post by **Bill68** » Sat Aug 04, 2018 9:37 pm

when the minister of finance allows it? does she earn all the money you want to spend on it?

Adbailey121 · Post by **Adbailey121** » Sun Aug 05, 2018 7:23 am

Yeah tried the wheel arch with wheel off. Couldn’t seem to get that bulbous thing, is it a muffler?!, out anyway I tried. Could have just been me however.

As for why I have to ask the missus, another kid on the way so need to
1. Keep her happy with small gifts, happy pregnant lady = happy life
2. Need to get more stuff for kids.

So unfortunately I can’t dish out all of the spare cash on the ranger. As much as I would want to.

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lincolnland · Post by **lincolnland** » Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:22 am

cant you tell the ceo you have a gift for her? example A. a new bullbar. she will love it!

example B: a new winch - gauranteed to put a smile on her face!

Adbailey121 · Post by **Adbailey121** » Sun Aug 05, 2018 12:28 pm

Haha will have to try that method next time.

Have been for a drive this morning and definitely seems a fair bit of increase on the response side of things.
Will have to get around to upgrading the intercooler at some point, probably around the same time as the exhaust and maybe tune.
Has anyone installed a Plazmaman upgrades for the ranger?

Also working on replacing the ribbed section of the inner tailgate with a bit of carpet, hate that ribbed plastic when your kneeling on the tailgate, also previous owner must have used a bbq or something directly on the plastic as it has deformed.
On a side note is there a way to upload more than one photo at a time using the tapatalk app on a IPad?

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lincolnland · Post by **lincolnland** » Sun Aug 05, 2018 12:33 pm

yeah mate click and hold on you images, and tapatalk allows you to load 9 pics at one time. keen to see you tailgate mod. more pics please! cheers

Adbailey121 · Post by **Adbailey121** » Sun Aug 05, 2018 4:46 pm

I usher it off this afternoon, pretty happy with the way it turned out. If I did it again I would probably use slightly thinner ply. All in all for around 30 dollars I think it looks a lot better and is actually comfortable to sit on rather than getting the plastic ridges up your behind. Used the original screws so didn’t have to drill into it or anything.
Now to get the photos to work

Used the our middle screws to secure it down

Can’t claim too much credit for the idea as I’ve seen similar.
Cheers

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lincolnland · Post by **lincolnland** » Sun Aug 05, 2018 4:54 pm

thats way cool! so u cut the original tailgate liner and dropped in the carpet bit? nice! i like it

Adbailey121 · Post by **Adbailey121** » Sun Aug 05, 2018 7:35 pm

Yeah pretty much. My liner was all deformed and bent from previous owner in the middle but i dont mind the outer section with the extremely small can holders.

The bottom of the carpet panel sticks up a little more than the plastic but tailgate closes perfectly and dont notice it sitting there.

Cheers

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GerryP · Post by **GerryP** » Sun Aug 05, 2018 7:44 pm

I've done the same but used a sheet of 1.6mm aluminum with vinyl glued to it for easy cleaning.

lincolnland · Post by **lincolnland** » Sun Aug 05, 2018 8:48 pm

pics please gerryp

Adbailey121 · Post by **Adbailey121** » Sun Aug 05, 2018 9:42 pm

GerryP wrote:I've done the same but used a sheet of 1.6mm aluminum with vinyl glued to it for easy cleaning.

Also a good idea, I’m hoping the marine carpet will be easy enough. Definitely should have gone a thinner grade ply, or like you have, aluminium.

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Adbailey121 · Post by **Adbailey121** » Tue Aug 07, 2018 10:14 am

So I’m on the edge of ordering a Ironman bullbar this weekend, just the commercial, and wondering how much droop it will cause in the front end. Anyone else got any before and after photos of this?
Thinking if I need a 10 mm spacer or a 25 mm spacer.

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GerryP · Post by **GerryP** » Tue Aug 07, 2018 8:16 pm

lincolnland wrote:pics please gerryp

As requested... not real exciting though.

lincolnland · Post by **lincolnland** » Tue Aug 07, 2018 9:38 pm

is your gate liner underneath or did u cut yours gerryp? i wana do thus mod asap. was kneeling on the gate today loading leaf springs in whilst thinking this is killing my knees!

Adbailey121 · Post by **Adbailey121** » Tue Aug 07, 2018 10:37 pm

GerryP wrote:
lincolnland wrote:pics please gerryp
As requested... not real exciting though.

Tailgate.jpg

Very effective though.

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GerryP · Post by **GerryP** » Wed Aug 08, 2018 7:30 am

Nah Linc, took the liner off completely, it's back home in the shed. I just cut the ally to size/shape, glued on the vinyl and slipped it into the existing rubber strips on the tailgate.

Adbailey121 · Post by **Adbailey121** » Sat Aug 18, 2018 10:13 am

Pulled up the rear of the centre console yesterday and installed a dual USB socket i scored off of fleabay.
Didn’t realise that power is always applied to the accessories line and got the socket with a nice blue LED.
Shouldn’t draw too much power but will have to keep an eye on it.

Cheers

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Adbailey121 · Post by **Adbailey121** » Sat Aug 25, 2018 3:44 pm

Finally got the ironman bull bar yesterday and finished installing early this morning. Very happy with how it looks and the install wasn’t too bad. Drilling through the chassis rail was probably the most time consuming part. Aligning the position of the bar itself was definitely made easier with a few mates.

Next on the list will probably be either rock sliders or steps, haven’t decided on which option to go for, winch for the bar and some lights to mount up the front.

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Adbailey121 · Post by **Adbailey121** » Mon Sep 10, 2018 12:21 pm

Wiring up some driving lights for the bullbar. Obviously need it to be wired into the high beams for legality. Have people just piggybacked off one of the wires going into the headlight itself or should i try and find the trigger wire from the steering wheel switch.
Thinking of using the back of the headlight to be honest but trying to figure out which wire to use has me stuck at the moment, will be using this through a switch in the cab somewhere so i can isolate when high beams are on if needed.

Cheers

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GnR81 · Post by **GnR81** » Mon Sep 10, 2018 9:38 pm

Watch this clip - it may help.

https://youtu.be/tgpMXlcZrU4

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lincolnland · Post by **lincolnland** » Mon Sep 10, 2018 11:01 pm

hook into the high beam trigger wire. drivers side loom is behind headlight. a how to is in my build thread with pics and wire colour to hook into. cheers

Rbjet · Post by **Rbjet** » Tue Sep 11, 2018 7:03 am

You could use a pre made loom from somewhere like Stedi and save the headaches.

Adbailey121 · Post by **Adbailey121** » Tue Sep 11, 2018 9:59 pm

Managed to find a pearl of a wiring diagram which managed to speak my language and got it sorted. Now just to find a suitable place to put the switch. Anyone got any photos of rocker switch panels, apart from the stock one? I’m half thinking of taking out the sunnies holder and putting one up there... or making an overhead console of some sorts.

Cheers

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lincolnland · Post by **lincolnland** » Tue Sep 11, 2018 10:12 pm

popular spot on the px1 is to remove that useless sunglasses holder and throw a switch in

Adbailey121 · Post by **Adbailey121** » Wed Sep 12, 2018 5:55 pm

Yeah that’s what I was thinking. Anyone know how difficult it is to get wires up there?

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JMW · Post by **JMW** » Wed Sep 12, 2018 9:48 pm

It’s pretty easy to get wires up there - I ran mine up the passenger side of windscreen behind panel with grab handle then they just tuck into roof lining across to sunnies spot.
I used a 6 gang switch panel from AOB in place of sunnies holder and it wasn’t too expensive- just over $200 including switches but this was two years ago - they might be cheaper now?

lincolnland · Post by **lincolnland** » Thu Sep 13, 2018 12:07 am

also easy to get wires to the business card holder if you wana throw a switch in there. cheers

Adbailey121 · Post by **Adbailey121** » Thu Sep 13, 2018 9:45 am

Awesome glad it’s not too much of a pain for wiring then. I’m using the business card holder spot for another project. Some engine bay LED lighting.

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Adbailey121 · Post by **Adbailey121** » Thu Sep 20, 2018 10:06 pm

Well bad news today for the ranger. Had it in for a Aircon service before i drive up to sunny qld and apparently the condenser has a leak as well as the compressor seal is about to go.?
The guy at the local Natrad said that the px rangers compressor had this common fault and I wanted to know if anyone has experienced something similar.
He quoted 1600 dollars for repair...
I’m fairly confident i can get the parts for fairly cheap and avoid the cost of labour regarding the removal of the radiator which is apparently necessary to replace the condenser, just wondering if there is anything to look out for. The system is completely out of gas and I’m not looking to replenish myself.

Cheers

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butch. · Post by **butch.** » Mon Oct 01, 2018 1:51 pm

Gday mate, my Ranger is coming up to 5 years old and 110,000ks and never had an AC problem. Haven't heard of this as a problem but keen to know more. Cheers, Butch.

Stefs-cruiser · Post by **Stefs-cruiser** » Thu Oct 04, 2018 8:06 am

same here, just over 5 years old and 110K no air-conditioning issues...

stock61 · Post by **stock61** » Thu Oct 11, 2018 8:20 pm

same 6yrs 170,000 no problems.

Adbailey121 · Post by **Adbailey121** » Sun Oct 14, 2018 8:13 am

Yeah seems a bit weird, any way draining the radiator and replacing the condenser today at some point. Will get it rebased this week and fingers crossed it will hold.

On a side note installed some engine bay LED lights, will get some photos of those also.

Cheers

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