Doodle's HDJ100

[Doodle]

So, almost exactly a year after purchasing my 95, I've made the upgrade to a 100-series by buying Julian's one.

As per the advert it's pretty well sorted but there are still a few jobs I need to do it. Oil & filter change took place at the weekend along with a new air filter, and today it's in with the Toyota service agent next door to have the steering column telescopic motor replaced, sort the handbrake and run it through an MoT.

I'm tempted to switch tyres to something better suited to my use (probably Grabber ATs), what's the going rate on a set of part worn Hankook MTs?

 

[Doodle]

The other job I need to sort ASAP is a CB aerial, as I'm out and about on Salisbury Plain this weekend. The 95 was easy, c/o a riser bar off the spare wheel mount but no such luck doing that trick on the 100.

I'm thinking either fabricating a mount off one of the original roof rack mount points, or possibly using the provided point on the front corner of the ARB bumper but can't help feeling this won't be as effective. I'm keeping a magmount as a quick and dirty solution in reserve if I can't get either of these sorted in time

 

[Doodle]

Well, Julian said to take it on some adventures, so I thought I'd start off with a gentle one. It's a lot more capable than I had expected!

On the 21st, four of us went for an outing on Salisbury Plain - the Amazon, a pair of well-kitted 90s on very knobbly tyres and a relatively stock DiscoII. As such, the Disco was always going to be the weak link and so it was all fairly reasonable until the climb up to the lunch stop - which actually turned out to be very lumpy indeed! Within 10 yards the Disco was decked out and going nowhere - one of the 90s pulled it back to the start of the track and made a new plan. The Disco was obviously going to have to go the long way round (about a 10 mile detour). Sent one of the 90s ahead to recce, and it scrabbled it's way to the top with the words "Well, I made it but only just" echoing over the radio. At this point, the expectation is clearly that the other 90 will follow on, and I'll take the long way round with the Disco.

Will I b*llocks. Engage everything and off we go...apparently it was like watching Westminster Abbey hauling itself up a cliff face. A couple of scrapes on the sill (sorry Julian!) so I need to pull my finger out and make some sliders. No pictures of the ascent, we were all laughing too much.

 

[Julian]

Drew, very glad to hear your using it properly!
To be honest and don't tell anybody else, I didn't ever find anything that would stop it! I think it is a combination of locking everything, momentum and the best axle articulation of any 100 series I have seen.
Good work fella, the idea was always to make the most capable 100 series, without making it look to extreme!

 

[Doodle]

Well, I've switched to the new style Grabber ATs and sold the RT03s to Andy Lomas - we'll see soon enough how much of a spanner that throws in the works! Hoping to get the Hellas and the winch moved over in the next couple of weeks.

 

[Doodle]

The Alpine CD player and TTI radio have made way for the all-singing Kenwood double DIN from my old car; navigation, DVD player, iPod, USB, Digital Freeview, Bluetooth handsfree, rear view camera, the works. I've got an Alpine Ezi-DAB going in shortly for digital radio.

Comms duties are now being handled by a Cobra 75 ST, with a Sirio Megawatt 3000 antenna on a MAG145 mount. The base unit is hidden away where the OEM CD changer was mounted, and the aerial runs to a BNC connector by the rear hatch so I can disconnect and remove the antenna when not in use.

At the front, I've added the ARB-specific fog lights and moved the chunky Hellas across from the Colorado.

 

[Shayne]

Cool , but personally i was over the moon to find my 90 had a cassette player , i recorded all my CD's onto tape where the music will last forever . The CD's have been put in a box in the attic where i'm sure they will somehow miraculously get scratched and become useless . Ironically my trucks CD player works fine despite being 15 years old .

 

[Doodle]

My entire CD collection has been copied to MP3s on my networked server. I think I can count the CD's that have been played in that unit on the fingers of one hand - mostly it's running the iPod or USB drives.

 

[Doodle]

Yesterday saw a very long day at Overland Cruisers while the 100 got a thorough health check.

Diagnostics came out all clear, but a few fiddly jobs on the mechanical side left the list looking like this:

Front offside caliper has 2 seized pistons, fluid contaminated, pads at end of life.
Front diff leaking from pinion seal, diff oil in poor condition.
Handbrake mechanism seized and out of adjustment
ARB link rod bushes worn out front and rear.
Rear locker actuator not working.
Oil and fuel filter change.

Big thanks to Martin and Julian for getting so much sorted at short notice - I just need to do the rear link rods and take some time this weekend to figure out if the rear locker can be fettled back into life or if I need to come up with a different plan. While I'm working on the back end I can fit the new bumper too.

 

[Doodle]

Today's job - remove the standard bumper and towbar, and replace with the TJM bumper I came across recently.

First action, douse all the fasteners in penetrating fluid, go have a coffee then come back and do it again before starting. Some of the bolts were ok, others were a serious bind and took all my not inconsiderable weight and strength to shift. Finally got all the bolts out with only 3 casualties - sheared lower bolts both sides for the bumper corner mounts, and one of the forward captive nuts broke loose.

I'll be drilling/cutting those tomorrow for reasons that will shortly be clear. At this point, all the visible bolts were out and I've removed the centre piece for more space, but the mounting plates still won't drop away. Turns out that when the towbar was originally fitted, whoever did it couldn't be bothered to do the job properly and line up everything, clean the threads etc. Rather than get all the bolts in place and aligned, they just welded the brackets to the chassis instead. Lots of very rude words came out at this point.

So tomorrow I have to very carefully tease them away with the angry grinder and plasma cutter.

 

[warrenpfo]

Shout if you need a hand as I am only around the corner.

Nice work by the way.

 

[Doodle]

If you want to pop round and survey the chaos, feel free mate.

There was a lot of heaving on long breaker bars, and a fair amount of swearing to go with it! Ideally want to clean up and rust proof the rear metalwork before putting the bumper on, but I forgot to order some RC900. May have to settle for Kurust or similar at short notice.

 

[warrenpfo]

I might have some about if that helps....i can head to the shed and check.

 

[Doodle]

Could be handy...it's mainly for the bits that I won't be able to reach later when I do a proper underside cleanup.

 

[warrenpfo]

Ill head out and have a look for you...2 min

 

[warrenpfo]

Bugger i have everything else but the rc900. I know i had a bottle but must have finished it as i have a small bottle of Kurst but thats it. Sorry not going to be much help there.

 

[Doodle]

Lol, that's ok. Will probably just kurust it before painting over...it's better than nothing at all. Ta for looking anyway

That said, depending on how long it takes me to sort out the snapped fasteners and cut this crap off tomorrow, I may not be fitting the bumper til next weekend.

If you do pop round just give me a shout beforehand, in case I've thrown the tools out of the pram and gone to the pub in a huff!

 

[Doodle]

So, today's job was to remove the offending brackets. One of them was spaced away from the chassis allowing use of the plasma cutter without risk of damaging the chassis, but the other one was hard up against it so back to the angry grinder.

Thankfully the welding was just as poor as the fitting job, so once I'd removed some of the bracket for better access it was quite easy to remove the rest with minimal effect on the original metalwork.

 

[Doodle]

Another weekend, another round.

Drilled out the sheared bolts and used the tap set to clean up the threads, got the bumper mounted on and with a bit of wiggling it all lined up nicely.

Started to strip out the old towbar wiring and run the loom for the bumper lights, and came across yet more bodged install.

Scotchblocks. I hate the f*cking things. Cut the excess wiring away but not sure I can remove the blocks without wrecking the factory loom, so for now I've taped them back up left alone.

The lights are now in, the last job is to fit the mudflaps but I need to work out a different fastening method - whoever wrote the TJM instructions clearly never actually tried them.

 

[Gary820]

Nice rear end