Thread: Meet my 90, and share the adventure.

Originally Posted by Tombie

Did I even start a thread on our humble steeds?

No, we’re still waiting.....

And that reminds me, I must update mine.

Originally Posted by Tombie

Did I even start a thread on our humble steeds?

I don't know, but I did.

It has come to my attention that is has been over 3 months since I last updated this.
Well... what an uneventful 3 months it has been.

Thought I'd pen a quickie on an event I attended back on 30.06.2018

ComeUp Xtreme Winch Challenge

30.06.2018 marked round 2 of the ComeUp Xtreme Winch Challenge in Limbri, NSW, Australia, just outside of Tamworth. The event spanned 3 days, so I split the difference, and loaded up the Landy, the hound, and a few bevvies for the 45min trip out to the site.


The event was held on private property, with basic bush camping. All in all, the event had 10 stages, 3 held on the friday, 5 on the saturday (I watched 3 of them), and 2 stages on the Sunday. The tracks were held on and around river beds, and their surrounding gullies, making for some interesting obstacles.


Doggo approves.





About 10 teams competed. All some seriously modified vehicles equipped with large (but not crazy) tyres, and of course winches for completing the obstacles. This particular obstacle was a good vantage point, as vehicles climbed a steep rocky gully, and continued along it for approx 100m before completing a series of speed turns / obstacles on the hill top. Inevitably, the navigator / winch bitch has to run out the winch line to the closest tree, secure the line, and guide the driver over the obstacle.


There was plenty of opportunity to get up close and personal with the vehicles as they traversed the course.




Some impressive line speeds on those winches.









The side angle after the winching obstacle was quite severe. Most chose the high line to keep away from the tree, but most fell back into the ditch. Probably 30 degrees.

It was quite steep terrain. The pink tape shows the boundary of the course, which was fairly tight, allowing only minimal variance from the chosen line up the obstacle.



















This modified 100 series Landcruiser got a bit wild on the climb.


But the winch reigned it in without a problem.







Heavily modified Nissan Patrol.


Ready to winch.


I'm a big fan of the tray style most of these rigs run. I think if I ever went full-retard on the landy, it'd mirror something like this. Truck cab, cage, tube tray. BIG tyres. Because why not?!


Many of the vehicles ran some kind of winch hook 'keeper'. This particular vehicle had a attachment point on a vertically mounted spring off the bull-bar. This keep the winch hook accessible without needing to dig into mud or water to extract the vehicle. Winch controls were in the cab, and air or elect4rically operated free spool mechanism.






Tree protector straps and winch blanket were often tossed to the anchor point, rather than weigh the navigator down over the scramble up the terrain. There was a time limit per course, and I believe, time penalties applied for various fouls etc.


Another modified Patrol.


Most navvies would run ahead of the truck. Some would ride along, and get out only when needed.


Rigging up.









The final stage on the Saturday was a river run. The vantage point was about 20m elevation above the river bed, looking down into a valley. You can see the tiny track marshalls and film crew down below.


The track ran along the river bed, then hooked thru a rather deep water hole before exiting and following the valley.




(phone memory card was full at the end of this clip )

All in all, a great event to watch.


...stay tuned for more mildly interesting happenings in the world of the Toxic_Avenger- coming soon to a screen near you!

Anyone who hasn't been living under a rock might have heard a thing or two about the poor weather we've been having.
Maybe even rumours of farmers having to shoot their herds as a result of no feed, no water, an no more money to buy said resources.
Well, news flash. They are not rumours. The struggle is real.

I got involved with a crew of people who were collecting resources for helping these farming families out in these tough times.
The basic premise was that people donate food, money or anything else, and it gets distributed to those in need.
I put my hand up to distribute. It's win-win- landy gets some KM's, and I get to see the backlots of the region more, and feel good doing it.

Since I own only half a landy, and my ability to distribute this stuff was limited, so I phoned a friend. A friend with a full landy. Plus a trailer.
Achievement get: +150% storage capacity!

All up, we did about a 200km loop from Tamworth. Dropped off about 40 care packages containing non perishable food, toiletries, and bottled water in a day. Had some heart-warming, and heart breaking conversations with our farmers, and did just a little bit of good to brighten their otherwise brown week.




Cue pics, so you believe my story.




Consolidating the goods and creating the packs. Great work by the community, including the CWA ladies, lions club, and Rotary. The dollars and cents were managed under the guise of a church- apparently you cannot just collect and distribute money for a good cause without a charitable org status...



The group organising this ('Doing it for our Farmers') is non demoninational, just a group of good blokes and shielas on facebook who want3ed to make a difference. They comandeered a vacant commercial premises for packing and distribution, and this is the result:








Landy Power! The perentie loved it!



The mule hauled it's share...


Ready to roll out


We did drops to places just like this- rural mail boxes in dry areas, with livestock in distress.




BONUS FACT- minions!
NB. Pretty dry.


Lots of cattle grazing on some very barren land.




I don't think I've seen a more sorry looking cow in all my life. You could put your fist in the sunken void between it's hip and ribs...


One for the heart strings: This lamb was attempting to get milk from it's mum. I was in the distance, viewing as best I could with a maxxed out zoom on my phone. In the space of 2 minutes, it had had 3 attempts for a feed. Nothing left.








All I can say, is if you have any kind of disposable income and want to do some good, get it to these Aussies in some way or another.
They are literally living with the arse hanging out of their pants, doing their hardest to keep their livelihood afloat, and trying to keep the herd alive.
Many are paying up to $400 per tonne transport for feed for these animals- to put it in perspective, a well growing animal could eat up to 15kg of feed per day, to maintain growth, and to be marketable. Do the math.

Anyone wanting to do some good, get in touch, I'll take you for a grand tour, and fill your truck up with stuff to help.
Next weekend will probably be out west.

Good job Mitch. Lachies school raised $56,000. so far and the campaign has just begun.

Closing in on 12mths since the last update.

Sept-Dec 2018
Not much happened on the landy front. I did notice that the hand brake was not holding the vehicle. I got under the mule with the ratchet and gave it a few twists to tighten it up. Also purchased a rubber wheel chock from supercheap for a bit of added protection, as my driveway is on a bit of a slope.

In October, I got a new work car, being a salesman-spec 2WD colorado dual cab, complete with boring interior, no attitude, and a canopy. So this has been doing a lot of the kays in lieu of Landy power.

Jan - April 2019
Removed wheel chock from the landy which was parked up for an embarrasingly long time. Still haven't re-tensioned the hand brake... I think I need to clean the brake shoes up a little, as there might be some oil contamination.
This whole exercise was to do the old driveway shuffle to get the Z32 on the flat part of the drive for some maintenance, effectively locking the landy in the backyard.

Nissan 300zx info below...
This is what I begrudgingly found myself working on again...


The astute reader will remember the April 2018 pics of zedfest, at which time I noticed a problem with the Z's engine mount. Parts were ordered with an 8 week lead time, due to some excuse of ARP not having the right hardware . Because of the nature of a Z32 engine bay, and let alone the ability of one to work on it in a driveway, parts were shelved until motivation arrived... (sounds painful). It was not until christmas / new years 2018 that I pulled my finger out.

So, engine mounts shouldn't look like this. Something about urethane, turbos <150mm away, and engine bay temps consistently in the 80+ range probably had something to do with it.

This was what they looked like upon inspection.


To get to the engine mounts, with the engine in the vehicle, involves a bit of finesse. First thing to get out of the way was the AC. This has been without gas, and seized solid since I bought the car in 2010. So in the intrest of +10HP, and stage 3 weight reduction, it found its way onto the healing bench.




I finally managed to get to the engine mounts - installed these units (not my pic) which are quite trick.

TIG welded chromolly tube, with inset rubber isolators. The mounting pad is machined to allow an offset design, allowing up to 3" intake piping to the turbos. WINNING! Although my main motivation was gaining as much access around the engine block as I can.

Engine mounts in, I renewed the bearings in the alternator. Ghetto backyard press is ghetto!

That's a truck drum brake, a 10mm socket, and a bottle jack FYI. Can recommend!

I then turned my attention to the rear of the car. I have had some 4.1 diff gears on the parts shelf since 2011, and I thought it was about time I considered installing them into the R230 nissan diff that is in the Z.
I had a bit of a trouble getting a bearing kit locally for this diff. It's a weird one which was fitted to the nissan Z32 Twin turbo variant, and a truck of some description in the 90's. It's a bomb-proof IRS diff with a 9" (230mm) crown wheel, with viscous limited slip centre. It was a stronger variant of the ubiquitous R200 diff of many other japanese cars in its day (skyline, various Z cars, 240SX... and many more)
After a few weeks of 'digging thru the parts books', the diff shop conceded that I'd need to find the bearings myself. So another 3 week wait for the post, and stupid american shipping costs later, I had diff bearings in hand ready to have installed. I don't own a shop press big enough to build a diff like this, so thought it was best to leave it to the pros. After the run-around I got, it probably would have been cheaper if I tooled up and did it myself... live and learn.




The diff job also involved new diff carrier bushings and some shims for the subframe assembly to stiffen it all up.


Proud to say, the Mighty 300zx now whines like a race car with all the added driveline noise now. Almost up to Landy standards!

I also added some flash suspension back onto the car which had been in storage for a while.
The reinstalled (new old stock) suspension setup now includes some Tein Flex coilovers which have adjustable perch, preload and something like 32 settings for dampening via the valving. Also threw on some of the adjustable camber gear to make things a bit more aligned. Overall, its now approx 20mm lower, for max flex appeal.



Then I came to an added 'feature' of the Z. The factory 2-piece driveshaft and centre bearing.
As you may be able to see, this was completely and utterly dickered.


Normally, we'd expect a bearing to actually be connected to the driveshaft.
Might be wear and tear over the last 28 or so years of its life... or might have been those hard launches at Eastern creek back in 2011.

Anyhow, nissan wanted $450 for the centre bearing.
Managed to get a 1-piece aluminium driveshaft out of the states (more stupid shipping costs) for similar money. I did try to source locally, but this is an uncommon diff, and uncommon transmission in an uncommon car. Plus the Australia tax is alive and well.




Around March 2019, I thought it was about time to set the Z back on the ground for its first drive after a bit of an overhaul. But the Z had other ideas.
Upon starting the engine, the radiator fan was clipping the harmonic balancer. After prodding around, I thought the viscous coupling for the fan was shot, as it was a bit wobbly, and hence, clearance over the radius of the fan blades led to a pronounced 'clearance problem'.
Another shipment of parts, and it was all back together.
But the problem persisted.
Looking closer at it, the water pump (to which the viscous coupling connects) had suffered a bent shaft. Nb this part is less that 5000km old, genuine nissan, and this failure really ruined my day.

The job to replace the water pump is a bit of a painful one...
Radiator out:


Crank pulley and Timing covers off:

...and replace the unit.

Man, this car just keeps on giving.
I question my vehicle life choices most days...


So jump forward to April 2019. The Z has had a heap of work, punctuated by a lot of waiting for parts from overseas, but is now in a much more mechanically good place.
All the while the Landy has been land-locked in the driveway.
When it was time to do the old driveway shuffle to get cars in the right order to use them, the landy had the unfortunate click of a flat battery. Some numpty forgot to give the vehicle a charge over the last 8 months of being idle. the only drive it got was to rearrange the driveway back in december. Whoopsie doodles!

So this, gentlemen, is a great way to kill a D34M optima. Run it to bare bones flat. I'm talking 4.5V flat. Then leave it there for 5 or so months. Recommend it to your friends! Bonus points if you 'accidentally' leave the air compressor on, so it charges the hose once every hour for an unknown amount of time!

So, needless to say, the Landy has been running on 1 battery for a while.
This is easily managed with the way I set it all up, it's just a matter of hooking the starting battery to the factory fuse and circuit, and disconnecting the ACR and winch cables. I could bring in the ex-box circuits if I wished, but for now, I've left them disconnected. So top points for forward thinking.

May-June 2019
Visited a long lost relative of the Mule.
This is my uncle's series 1. Currently serving as a glorified stand for a firefighting water pump, which is hiding under an old garage roller door. Yes it's sad. Yes I'd love to save it.
AFAIK it's a bit of a custom job with the cab? Or did they come like this?







Around the home, I had the fortunate death of our hot water system. Not being one to waste things, and having the need for another stupid project, I thought I'd make something out of the old tank inside the HWS.
Since the BBQ bug had bitten, what better thing to make than a BBQ smoker? Who can say low and slow brisket?

This is what I had to work with. Banana and Doggo for scale.


After a few strategic cuts with the grinder, I had the inlet and outlet ports blanked off.

Started out with a cheap little stick welder and 2.5mm GP rods, but have since borrowed a MIG.

Hinge design


Went a bit crazy with the drill


For added aesthetic, decided to plug weld the door finishing straps from behind. Looks cleaner IMO


Hinges done


I built this aberration out of 5mm plate. It's what those in the know call a chimney plenum. Imagine it as a collector for smoke. Assists with even smoke flow, even cooking temps, and overall badass BBQ pro points. There will be a 5" smoke stack welded to the top of it.


There was a bit of fab in this... as it will weld to a convex surface, it has a lot of curves (AKA grinder surgery) to make it fit.For the rest of it... there is a grinder and paint.

It is currently sitting like this:

Need to fab up a stand / legs for it, and a firebox.
Because I'm a glutton for punishment, I'm planning a double wall insulated firebox. Helps with wood burn and economy. Less heat loss thru the firebox walls, and more smoke and heat where we want it. ON THE MEAT.


July 2019
I thought it was time to take it for a solid drive. I went for a trip down to Newcastle, and the mule was the whip of choice. Usually work car wins by playing the '100% greater fuel economy at no cost' card, and '+10 comfort'... but this time, I needed the roof racks. 1) to return a ladder I borrowed 18 months ago , and 2) because I had bulky things to bring back north.

Achievement get! 51,000KM ODO! (I probably should drive it more).


On the return leg, I loaded the landy up with some goodies:



I now have a roof top tent. It's just a kings brand, but will be more than adequate for our needs. I'll need to fab something up so it will work with the 'full basket' style roof racks I have. I'd rather not hack it apart if I can help it, but I do have a welder and an appetite for destruction.

Under the RTT, is some steel. I saved 9 lengths of 75x40x5mm RHS from the scrap bin. Will be good to help progress the BBQ build.

NB Landy on the lean in above pic! Probably around max roof load.


After this whole big story, the Landy's hand brake is still not fixed. I should probably get around to it...


Edit
Forgot my Booze Revooz!



Another White Russian while watching 'The Big Lebowski'.
'That rug really tied the room together'
'The dude abides'


...Well that's probably all for this year.
Be excellent to each other, and party on dudes!

Just a non Land Rover themes aside...
Smoker now has a frame to sit on. It will also sport some wheels when I find a suitable set.



Just need to weld on the chimney plenum, attach the chimney proper, build the grill plates for inside (simple), and then the big job of the firebox. Not sure if I'll buy a sheet of plate and build my own firebox, or buy a flat-pack commercial one.

Then it should be ready for long boozy days of beers and fires, and a solid meat feed at the end of it all.

Nothing land rover related here...
But the smoker build is nearing completion.
Ended up buying some 6mm plate, and Welded up the firebox which is 500mm cubed. Made my own air inlets and they turned out better than expected.





All that's left to do is build the cook trays, build a dampener for the smoke stack, then a few little jobs like handles, knobs for air vent actuating, a grease drain point, and a lick of paint.


Next welding project will be a set of home-brew rock sliders for the 90.