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Thought I'd slowly throw together some of the stuff I've done to our Cruiser over past 7years since owning it. It's pretty much finished now, but, lets face it, you never stop finding things to do to them. Lol.
It's a 2004 HDJ100 4.2 1hd-fte 5speed auto.
It's sole purpose in life is for getting off road and out camping. It's set-up to do go anywhere, we do the big remote outback trips as well as the weekend tough & technical tracks. It sits in the shed during the week until we need it.
Here she was as a virgin when we first got it back in late 2015. Had 188k kms, fairly stock except for the 185ltr long range fuel tank, the rear bar and the poxy OME springs and shocks.
And here she is now.
After owning our rig for a good few years without bolting on a single mod, It was time I started the mods off with the basics... firstly a front ARB bar and a 12klb TJM winch and a roof rack. After I installed all this, it was very clear that the OME shocks and springs weren't going to cope with the extra weight up front. I was never happy with the OME suspension in the first place, so the hunt began for some quality suspension.
After owning our rig for a good few years without bolting on a single mod, It was time I started the mods off with the basics... firstly a front ARB bar and a 12klb TJM winch and a roof rack. After I installed all this, it was very clear that the OME shocks and springs weren't going to cope with the extra weight up front. I was never happy with the OME suspension in the first place, so the hunt began for some quality suspension.
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Roof rack is Australian made by Tradesmen racks, it's an all alloy platform mesh with steel mounting rails to to roof. Best one I've seen here in Aus.
Stuffed it up there, edit function not working for me. Grrr.
Anyways, I settled on the stage4 Icon slinky suspension by our Aussie distributor Autocraft. Big dollars but so glad I bent over for it. Lol
Done nearly 70k kms on it so far and it's truly holding up to the punishment. I've had to do minor services to it over the years, like bushings, rear boots and guards, nitrogen top up ect. Will probably do a full tear down on the shocks soon, replace seals and oil ect, just as preventative maintenance.
During the suspension installation, that took me about a week to complete, I removed the front lower arms and replaced the frame bushes, ball joints ect. I also welded the supplied strengthening brackets to the lower arms and also laminated the torsion bar adjusting arms. Aussie conditions seem to break them fairly quickly if you don't.
Tracing out the shape of the adjusters to laminate with.
Tacking on the strengthening brackets.
Doing the control arm bushings, replaced with Superpro. Used some threaded rod, large square washers a socket and a bearing removal thingy from my press. s*** of a job but needed doing.
Oh yeah and I also did brake rotors and wheel bearing while all this was going on too.
In this last pic of the rear shock, I ended having to rotate the resi more towards the outside of the vehicle to give clearance to the swaybar. Even then it still slightly rubs when the vehicle is fully flexed up. It's not really an issue but has always bugged me why they couldn't supply the hose to remotely mount it like at front. It's also a pain to reach the cdc adjustment nob. Does anyone else have this issue with their Icons? Lol
I'll be addressing this in near future when I do the shock rebuilds.
+2 for DBA rotors. Had them on my previous hunjy, and big improvement in feel and confidence with a trailer on the back.
Have a set of T2s (slotted) in the garage, going on with the 200k service on Friday.
The suspension upgrade is probably by far the most useful and best mod I've done to the 100. When you can safely set the front height to a true 2.5" lift and still have plenty of down travel, unlike the OME shocks. Still don't know how they get away with call their kits a 2.5" lift?
Anyways, about 12 months later, it was time to do the lockers, I actually installed the rear one first and then 6 months later I did the front, I can't find any photos of the rear install but here's some of the front. After much research I decided using TJMs pro lockers. They're larger and more robust centre when you compare them to ARB or Eaton lockers.
Removed the ring gear from the factory centre, ready to installed onto the locker centre.
Pressing the new bearings on.
Nice build! I'm jealous of your suspension
Question on the reinforcement ("lamination") for the torsion bar adjusters - looks like you added the reinforcement not to the adjuster but to the outside of the crossmember the adjuster sits within.
Is that the case?
Nah, mate, just laminated the adjusters. Sorry I ment to show these photos them.
Will never break now.
Let me say, doing the front diff lock install is waaay harder to setup than the rear. Getting the diff out and torn down is the easy part, but getting the new centre in and set-up correctly is another story!
I used OTRAMMs youtube video on ARB locker install as a reference to see what I was in for. He's a pro and makes it look quite easy, however it's a lot harder than it looks. He did get very lucky with the shims and had to very little to set the correct preload and backlash, but in saying that, I reckon 8thou he set it up with is bit too much backlash for these diffs. I ended up having to get custom shims made up to get mine right, I literally spent hours getting it to what I considered to be right, this was 0.12mm to 0.15 or 5.5thou of inch. 0.13 to 0.18mm is what Toyota say, so yeah on the tighter side of life but considering these diffs are so bloody small and flex under load, I thought tighter side of life. Interesting, it was already fairly tight at 0.15mm before I tore it down, and that's with over 250k kms on it.
You can see the different shim washers and the feeler gauges on the bench, it was a long painfull process. Good luck getting a shop to go to this much effort. Lol.
You can see it has a much simpler air actuator design than the silly ARB units have. No unreliable orings to fail.
Ready to go.
Just before I was about throw the front diff back in, I noticed my steering rack was leaking... bugger! Oh well, I figured it was easier to replace it while the diff is out, I guess. Another reason I like doing s*** myself, most mechanics would ignore it and tell you about once it's all back together.
So out it came, not easily mind you.
Grabbed a cheap aftermarket one for now, this way I can get it on the road and will give me time to get the factory one rebuilt. Will be interested to see how this cheap one lasts.
Locker switches mounted here.
Compressor switch here.
I used to have a cheap no name compressor that serverd me well for 4 years but it was a bit slow at airing up tyres on the trails, so I eventually ended up with TJMs new style single piston compressor, it's a big improvement over the old one, easily more than twice as fast and less noisy.
Also have the diff lock solenoids mounted here next to it on a small manifold, keeping everything here in the back, out of the elements is good idea.
I think I did this mod before the lockers, but here it is, Emu wing side opening doors, to replace the back side windows. So good for accessing the gear in the back while camping. My wife says it's life changing. Lol
The installation is a total pain! Sorry this is the only pic I could find of the installation, but basically you rip the old windows out and glue in the steel frame, getting it all lined up and clamped in place while the Sikaflex drys, is a bit of a pain.
But totally worth the hassle and dollars.
Tells us about that "Idle Up" button - haven't seen one of those before.
ETA - never mind, guess it's stock on a diesel
Tells us about that "Idle Up" button - haven't seen one of those before.
ETA - never mind, guess it's stock on a diesel
Yep, it's secret 1hd-fte business. Lol.
Doing the control arm bushings, replaced with Superpro. Used some threaded rod, large square washers a socket and a bearing removal thingy from my press. s*** of a job but needed doing.
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How are you liking the superpro bushings? Do you notice any difference in the ride quality or nosie?
