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I have just done a run up the coast to Port Gregory which included a lot of hilly country and the Navara struggled on the hills towing the boat.
It didn't overheat but it is a slug compaired to the D2a for this type of work and constantly running through the gears on uphill stretches was a PITA.
On the flat or on the beach it is very capable But It's little 2.5l engine really struggles on the hill climbs when loaded up unfortunately.[bigsad]
I fitted a 160w solar panel to the roof of the Navara a few weeks back and hooked it up to 2x 125ah deep cell batteries via an MPPT controller as a "Stand Alone" power source for my 12v fridge/fridges and whatever else I want to run in the tray.
NO power whatsoever has been fed to the system from the engine via the Anderson plug I have connected to the dual batteries in the engine bay (Just in case) in this time and the 40l Primus fridge running at -2 (perfect beer temp) has ran flawlessly without making any significant dent in the SOC of the 2x stand alone batteries[bigrolf]
I did connect another 80l Waco fridge for a week over Christmas to the system and this did increase the power usage overnight and the SOC went down to about 80% But it didn't take too long next day for the solar panel to get the batteries back up to 100% SOC.
I am very happy with this setup and it didn't cost me an arm and a leg to install it either[thumbsupbig]
I also replaced the crappy little battery that came with the truck for a 720CCA one and installed a second battery tray on the passenger side with a matching 720CCA battery wired up in series.
The single 720CCA battery had No difficulty turning the piddly little 2.5l engine over But as I am going to fit a 12000lb winch a second 720CCA will be pretty handy to have was my thinking.
Some pikkies, Taken early this morning.
Attachment 147408Attachment 147409Attachment 147410
I need to tidy all this wiring up and put the MPPT controller inside the big toolbox to tidy it up and keep it out of the weather[bigwhistle]
I recently fitted a blanking plate into the EGR system because of the black smoke on take off But after about 1000k's of use I am still getting a fair bit of black smoke still.
I am not sure it this smoke is the engine still slowly getting rid of all the crud in the intake manifold from the exhaust gasses or there is some other problem, The truck is still under warrenty
Navara’s are Smokey by nature.....
I picked up the truck from the service department yesterday arvo after they had removed and skimmed the exhaust manifold and the smoke has gone completely[bigrolf][bigrolf]
The engine also feels a bit more responsive now, I will hook up the boat when we get some decent weather and see if this has made any REAL differance[thumbsupbig]
After having such a good run with the Domi8tor 12000lb winch I have fitted to my D2a I decided to splash out the $400 and get on for the Navara.
All up it took a bit less than 2hrs to fit with the help of the Missus putting the 2 top bolts in for me while I held up the winch under the truck and that included pre tensioning the winch rope after it was fitted[thumbsupbig]
Luckily I didn't have to rotate the motor or the gearbox like I had to on the Disco because it was "Good to Go" straight out of the box and I didn't have to remove the bullbar either [bigrolf]
Fitting the control box was a bit of a PITA because there isn't that much room on the ARB bar But I managed to squeeze it in there.
As I do a lot of beach launches and use a lot of "Bush" boat ramps a winch is pretty much an essential bit of kit for me and it has got me out of some sticky situations when fishing "solo" at remote fishing spots at times.
I only have to rig up a small LED lightbar as a reversing light now and the little Navara is all setup for the next extended fishing trip to the Pilbara and the Kimberlie's in May this year[thumbsupbig]
