William's 150 GXL D4D

[hookedon4wding Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close hookedon4wding]

Hi William, love the look of that ARB fridge slide! Propper bearing runners and all.

How do you find the latch on the Engel? Personally, I find them really annoying, particularly with the cover bag on. Just seems fiddly compared to others and is half the reason I ended up with the Waeco.

You should get one of those remote thermometers too. Mat of mine who has and Engel has one and runs it up to his dash to keep an eye on the temp whilst travelling.

[Rogerthatv2 Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Rogerthatv2]

Exactly what I was thinking Sam and I bit the bullet and bought my ARB 47L fridge slide today to suit my Waeco 50. Seeing it on Williams build up and then seeing it in the flesh today had me sold! Now I just need my Drifta drawers to arrive. The bearing rollers work great and it seems to be a real solid unit, it also has mounting holes for the ARB, engel and Waeco fridges.

[William Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close William]

Try the Keppel hut tk (Keppel Hut Track off Lady Talbot Dr Marysville.) After crossing the hut it is a good ascent and deep ruts and lots of snow and ice :-). Hope it's open as i heard a lot of the tracks will be closed during the snow season.

Sorry about the late reply, been busy! But yeah, I heard you went there on the same day as zerosecta on the myswag forum. Not a big fan of snow after an accident we had a long while ago. Sounds like fun though!

Cheers

[William Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close William]

Sam, that latch sh!ts me! I've seen an engel bag where there was a cutout for the latch. Thinking about modifying the bag myself. Not sure why the same design wasn't brought forward on this model. Nevertheless, it still suits my camping style. We're stationery most of the time, so it just means not locking the latch. The lid sits quite firm without the latch locked. Still happy with my purchase and if I do become unhappy about it I'll trade it in for an arb/waeco.

Cheers

[D4D Addicted PP Member Find all posts View Profile Close D4D]

Try the Keppel hut tk (Keppel Hut Track off Lady Talbot Dr Marysville.) After crossing the hut it is a good ascent and deep ruts and lots of snow and ice :-). Hope it's open as i heard a lot of the tracks will be closed during the snow season.

It closed on the Tuesday after the Queens Birthday weekend.

[William Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close William]

So I've been neglecting this thread for a while now since as I've been busy working on a boat restoration - which has now finished! Though this has not stopped the progress of the Prado build!

Quite a lot has changed since the last addition but I will post it slowly as time allows. So I'll post roughly in order of installation...

20/8/2011. Received a birthday present from my brother. A set of outback ideas recovery points from TJM.

I know there was controversy over the rating of the points whether they were genuine, however it was all cleared up by our mod team and the manufacturer of these recovery points.

Here are some before and after pics.

Before:


After:




Installation tips for fitting without removing the bullbar.
1. Full lock steering so you get more room to work with

2. Don't bother trying to get out the piece of steel ARB used to install the bullbar (it will drop once you remove the existing bolts). This piece of steel was used in similar fashion to the bolt/cable that came with the recovery points. We spent an hour just trying to get the damn thing to the hole of the chassis only to find out the piece of steel is thick and cannot be bent. Instead, cable tie it down - note there hasn't been any rattling or anything like that. One tip is to use a strong magnet to pick it up from within the chassis.

3. The supplied bolts were slightly bigger than the holes in the chassis (literally 1/2mm or so). Use a tapping tool to widen it up.

[hookedon4wding Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close hookedon4wding]

Looking forward to the rest of the updates William.

Cheers, Sam.

[LiveFreeAndRoam Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close LiveFreeAndRoam]

Hi William,

Nice write up mate. And great tips too.

3. The supplied bolts were slightly bigger than the holes in the chassis (literally 1/2mm or so). Use a tapping tool to widen it up.

This sort of thing really bugs me. I guess an alternative would be to replace OI's bolts with a set that fit without needing to widen holes in the chassis.

It might be worth giving feedback to OI. Maybe they can get this right for the next buyer...

Cheers,
LFaR.

[William Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close William]

Thanks Sam and LFAR. You wouldn't believe it LFAR but I actually went to Bunnings and bought an assortment of high tensile bolts. Only to find out that none of them actually fit (I bought EVERY one in that size range metric and imperial). The only way was to widen the hole in the chassis. Like I said it was minor, 0.5mm at the most.

[William Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close William]

Decided it was time the Prado needed some decent lighting as the old yellow halogen bulbs were becoming dull and boring. So I set out to replace every T10 halogen bulb, both interior and exterior, with white (6000K) LED bulbs.
Jumped on ebay and ordered a bunch of T10s and a couple of bulbs for the dome lights. Note the pictures show inferior T10 bulbs that cost about 2bucks each on ebay... they've sinced been replaced with far brighter ones that go for about 10 bucks a pop (and definitely worth it).

Here are some pics and instructions for those who plan on doing this mod.

Let's start with the map lights.


Get a flat head screw driver and wedge it from the windscreen side and pry it until you think its going to break (that's when the clip will detach).
There are two clips, the two white ones are the ones you want to get at first. Once these two are out, pull the whole unit down in a 45 deg angle towards the rear, noting the three clips on the end.


To replace the bulbs, all you need to do is unscrew the two black tabs located near the blue clips. It's self explainatory from there.


Here are the bulbs I was using at the time.



Here is a comparison - note these aren't the brighter bulbs!


To reinstall the unit, just slide the rear end in (part with 3 clips), then push up to reengage the clips.


I'll be posting more shortly.

[Melbo Member Find all posts View Profile Close Melbo]

Hi William,
More pics with the rest of the bulb changes please.

thanks,

[William Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close William]

Hi Melbo, I see you're interested in the mod haha. I'll finish up the write up for the LED upgrade tonight and move onto the next mod another day.

So next up are the vanity lights. Trick here is to get your flat head screw driver and pry from one side only. These come out much easier than the map light unit. It may help to push on the clip while the screw driver is inserted in the gap. Note, there is only one clip on each light housing. Pictures will explain clearer.





It has been a while now, however, if I recall correctly the clip for the vanity lights were on the same side, ie: you should pry from the passenger side. To change the bulb, simply pull the bulb out.

Here is a comparison.
Before:


After:

[William Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close William]

It is a little different to get the dome lights off. As the picture shows, there are two clips which are placed diagonally with two fixed studs (on opposite sides) that are secured in a hole in the roof lining. If you managed the get the vanity lights out, the clips on this work the same. Just do one side at a time. Refer to the pictures below:





To get to the bulb, you need to remove the metal plating. Just pry it off with the flat head screw driver and jam it back in place when you have replaced the bulb.


Here's what it looks like after the LED upgrade.

[William Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close William]

The replacement bulb that was used:


Next was the rear dome light. The construction and installation is exactly like that of the previous one (which was the 2nd row dome light).




Then the door lights. This worked similar to the vanity light, just pry from one side.


I also did the rear license plate lights... Each bulb is basically inside a waterproof housing. These housings are identical. It's as simple as taking off two screws and replacing the bulb. A tricky part was putting the rubber seal in place while you screw it back together - a magnetic tip screw driver would help here!

Job Done.

[Madkore Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Madkore]

Top job Will - although I do have one complaint - your finger nails are very clean and well maintained...