- A few new post about the project. http://ow.ly/1NYu8 Including the new bull bar with Lightforce Striker 170s. #
- DinoEvo performed really well in knee deep mud and on steep rocky trails. It’s almost time now to start with the interior… #
- First short camping trip with DinoEvo. Looking forward to get the tires finally dirty. #
- Does anybody know nice 4×4 trails around Mount Baker? Any good, wild “campgrounds”? #
- New post about the changed speedometer gear. http://ow.ly/1JY7N #
- Front bull bar with the new light mounts is almost done. Just needs a few coats of rocker guard. #
Monthly Archive for May, 2010
This was really a hard decision. Way too many good fog lights out there, but in the end the Lightforce Striker 170 HID made it onto the bull bar. Main reason: Very light weight, low energy consumption (just 35W/3amp each), high-power light output, different lenses (wide beam, combo, spot), very good reviews and apparently good customer support.
At the beginning I thought two lights would be enough, but once I saw how nice three lights would actually fit, there was no way back. Unfortunately Lightforce just sells them in a set, so I bought a box for myself and shared one with a good friend.
Unlike normal lights you have quite a bit of electrical stuff (igniter and ballast) to hide with three lights. At the beginning we thought to hide everything inside the van, but apparently you are not allowed to cut the cables, so everything had to be mounted outside. I went to the Metal Supermarkets and found a nice piece of perforated aluminum, cut it in the right shape and built two little covers to hide the cables on each side. It also worked great to secure everything with tie straps on it. After screwing it to the light mount, the ballasts were hidden behind the left indicator light. The lights are secured with special lock-nuts which hopefully protects them against thieves.
I’m very happy with the outcome of the whole bull bar. Everything looks how I had it in my mind. I haven’t got time to try the lights properly, but I already can tell you one thing. They are fricking bright.
Thanks again to my friend Jay for the support on this project!
With the higher lift we use the side-step below the sliding door quite a bit while camping. After crawling under the van I discovered that all tubes from the step are just welded on the bottom and had no strength on the top. Not really ideal, so I took it of and brought it to Metal & Wood Products to get their opinion on it. After a couple of days they made the whole step stronger and reduced the flex.
Another problem was the rust. I already knew from our old van, that the side step can rust quite fast due the rock-chips from the front wheel (even with mud flaps). Therefore I cleaned and sanded it properly and used a few coats of black rocker guard as protection. The hardware is now also stainless steel. We will see how good it holds up.
It was time to work on the front bull bar. In general I was quite happy with the standard set-up we had on our old Delica, but wanted to improve a few things. To clarify it right from the beginning we are not planing to install a winch as well as there is no need for any Hi-Lift Jack points. It don’t have to be a heavy-duty bumper, more a light-weight protection of the front and a mount for fog lights.
The first step was to take the plastic cover off which I was not planing to use anymore afterwards. Unfortunately after the cover came off quite a few big metal brackets were welded to the bull bar. So I spent a whole night grinding everything unnecessary off. After cleaning up I had to figure out a mounting system for the planned fog lights in the middle of the bumper. In the end a metal plate was welded to the middle tube with three brackets attached to it. Also the main mount for the bull bar got a few additional welding spots to make it stronger.
Next step was cleaning, sanding and priming. As the first coat I used rocker guard to prevent any chipping. The second and third coat is white Tremclad.
The two main brackets which hold the bumper to the van were quite rusty as well as all the bolts. I used rust primer and again Tremclad, but I had to find new bolts. Not as easy as I thought. It turned out just one place in Vancouver sells fine-thread metric high-grad bolts: West Coast Fasteners Ltd.
The original bolts are grad 7, which is not very high specially when you use just ONE bolt to tow the whole vehicle. Therefore I bought grade 10.9 to give it more strength and used stainless-steel washers.
Next step: Mounting the fog lights…
With the 32″ tires (235/85R16) you notice quite a bit of a difference (roughly 10% slower speedometer) between your actual speed and the shown speed on you dashboard. I found that quite inconvenient and confusing specially when you try to measure certain distances with your odometer on logging roads.
To solve this problem you need to change the gear where the speedometer cable meets the transfer case. I knew the standard gear has 27 teeth. To get the correct amount of teeth for your tires you need to measure with an GPS the difference from your actual speed and the speedometer speed. Take this number as percentage and you know the correct speedo gear.
For example:
Speedometer reads 100km/h, but my actual speed is 113km/h ≈ 13%
Speedometer reads 50km/h, but my actual speed is 55km/h ≈ 10%
11.5% of 27 teeth ≈ 3
27 – 3 = 24 teeth
In my case 24 teeth is just fine. The speedometer goes 2-5km/h ahead which is perfect to not get a speeding ticket :)
Finding the right part number was not easy, because none of the importers could guarantee the correct fit. I was lucky and everything went smooth and the installation was easy. Here are the numbers I found out:
23 = MD 705463
24 = MD 705464
25 = MD 705465
26 = MD 705466
27 = MD 705467
One problem with the performance of this little Diesel engine in a l300 is the stock exhaust. It is long and just 2″ crushed bent piping with a standard muffler. Obviously the back pressure is high and it does not really support the breathing of the engine. Therefore using larger diameter, better bent piping and a free-flow muffler should improve the situation.
The manifold and the down pipe should be changed too, to have no bottleneck in the exhaust system. Unfortunately the muffler shop could not find the right parts. That’s why our exhaust starts actually with the stock down pipe where the new larger stainless steel pipe is welded to. No ideal, but better than nothing.
I bought one of the smallest round, stainless Magnaflow mufflers I could find and took it to a local muffler shop to get the proper stainless steel piping and hangers.
To save space for future modifications (hot water tank, additional Diesel tank) as well as keeping the exhaust as short as possible we went with an side exit right in front of the driver side rear wheel.
Update:
I was not very happy with the crappy work from Quite Muffler on Kingsway. They are neither very friendly nor have they done a good job. Stay away from them!
So I sold the exhaust again and was back to the drawing board. After a few more calls with the local Hot Rod community I found Muffler Tech in Port Coquitlam. They had all the parts in stock and had no problem fabricating the tubes. Also it turned out it is the only place in Western Canada which actually does mandrel bending. Great!
After a day I picked up the van with an very well designed exhaust how I had it in mind.
Recent Comments