William's 150 GXL D4D

[Melbo Member Find all posts View Profile Close Melbo]

A very neat and clean job . Well done William.

[Johno Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Johno]

Well done William. Thanks for sharing.

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

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

Thanks buddy. Haha, one can only imagine what yours look like

Thanks Melbo and Johnno, hope this helps. More to come shortly...

[VXWesty Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close VXWesty]

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.[/QUOTE]

Hi William,

Im planning on installing the same recovery points to my rig but I'm not quite following your tips. Are you saying that after widening the hole in the chassis, you are using a magnet to pick up the old nut and piece of steel to tie then off with a cable tie, then how are you getting the new nut inside the chassis rail? Or are you using the newly tapped hole and securing the new bolt straight into the rail?

Am I missing something simple?

VXWesty

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

Hey there buddy, theres actually a hole in the chassis rail that you use.



Hope this answers your question. If not let me know and ill talk you through it.

Cheers

[VXWesty Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close VXWesty]

Ahhh, so there is. That makes a lot more sense now. Thanks heaps.

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

Not a problem

Alright, here's the door handle vinyl wrap idea. Credits to Zerosecta for the idea. 3M carbon fibre-look vinyl sourced off ebay.

Did it for all 4 interior door handles, did not do the dash or steering wheel as it would be a nightmare to do and I'm not too sure how long it would last. Very happy with the 4 handles anyway, it looks great.

First thing you need to do is get a flat screw driver and pry out the handle trim. I start from where the door lock is as there's already a gap there.

Here are some pics of the process. Cut a piece of vinyl and lay the trim on top, ensuring you have cut enough for it to wrap around.


The vinyl is very stretchy when it is heated. So to get those tricky corners and edges, heat it up with a lighter and stretch appropriately.


It should look something like this afterwards. Then it's just a matter of sticking down the parts you stretched. I find that working on the long bits and leaving the ends till last is easier.

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

Here's what it looks like when it's done.



To reinstall it's just a matter of pushing the clips back in.

Forgot to take a pic of it installed, but it looks shmick.

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

Next set of mods happened hand in hand.

1. Wiring for the aux battery to the rear.
2. Fusebox, switch, sockets and wiring for rear work lamp through rear door.
2. Kaymar rear bracket with twin 24W LED work lamps mounted on a DIY telescopic pole.

Part 1:
Wiring was done over the engine bay and through the passenger side grommet.
Down the door sills to the rear quarter panel.





It was really just a matter of pulling the trim off and feeding the cable through. I used a tongue to make it easier.

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

Part 2: Wiring the rear work lamp.

Remove the rubber grommets and insert tongue through until you hit the other end. Notice I layed down some tape as I didn't like the kaymar bracket(bare metal) touching the paintwork.


I got it in one go tape the cable to the end and pull it through.


Remove rear seat trim and lay the cable down to the quarter panel where the fuse box is set up.

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

You can actually feed the cable through the existing rubber grommets. Here are some pics.





I didn't take any pics of the fuse box setup, but here's what it looks like from the outside,



It was painful to have to drill through the trim, but in the end it worked out very nicely!

Two Merit sockets (one for the fridge as the cig socket was always too loose and I found it came off half way during a trip and spoiled some food!)

One Cig socket and a switch for the rear work light (I will be integrating the wireless switch for it another day)

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

Part 3: Kaymar bracket and telescopic light

$122 from the local 4x4 shop.


I found it was rubbing against the edge of some paintwork, so I ground down the sides and a bit off the light bracket. Here's what it looked like afterwards.

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

I was then happy with the mock fit and it was time to start building a telescopic pole for the lights.

Didn't take many pics of this process as my hands were dirty to handle the phone.

Here's a pic of some shoddy welding I did... Welded two pieces of 25mm square tube and two nuts were welded onto the pole as to secure the light pole that slides inside.



It was all ground down, metal filled and sanded... then primed, painted and clear coated. Note this is version 2 of the worklamp, version 1 had an inner pole that rattled with two locking pins, hence the reason for the nut and bolt treatment in version 2. No more rattles!

The Kaymar bracket got a few coats of paint too.

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

I deliberately designed it to sit as high as it could so that it could be extended as high as possible. You cannot see the light units from the rear vision mirror and it does not add extra height to the vehicle. Also added a lock with heat shrink around it to prevent rattles.... and welded the bolts on the LED mounts and painted over them for additional security...

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

Toyota contacted me about my DPR on the mudflaps and had me come in to get the front and rear changed. Very happy with them, they work very well.





I'll post some more once I find the time...

Cheers