Wagon Boy's 2004 Grande minivan

[wagon boy Member Find all posts View Profile Close wagon boy]

Forgive how dirty the car is, went for a bit of a camp up at Mt Mee over the weekend and haven't had time to wash it!

I removed the roof rails on the weekend, and have started fitting an ARB trade rack. As I first suspected, it's way too wide for my likings, so took to it with the grinder to make it suit a little better. SIdes are gone (too high) and the middle is being chopped out and narrowed right up, about six or eight inches. Will most likely chop them front end off too, as it sits over the sunroof. Will probably extend it somewhat to in front of the sunroof, and give me a mounting point for some extra lighting.

[wagon boy Member Find all posts View Profile Close wagon boy]

Aaaaaand have also gone a little silly with lights. The Aurora light bar was amazing, but can never have too much light so I bought a set of Rigid Industries D2 spots to help get a bit more distance. These were mounted alongside the 20" and were more than ample!

But ample isn't good enough, I wand ludicrous amounts of light. So I fitted a set of the Aurora R series driving lights. I'm not afraid of the dark, the dark is now afraid of me. The longest straight stretch of road I could get to was just over 700m, and there was still a decent amount of light at the end, and everywhere in between!

[wagon boy Member Find all posts View Profile Close wagon boy]

While I was playing around with wires and lights and stuff, I mounted a few small led bars in behind the grill so the engine bay can be fully lit. No longer need to hold a torch if anything were to go awry at night!

[wagon boy Member Find all posts View Profile Close wagon boy]

Fitted a set of the TJM Underbody guards over the weekend, and noticed that both inner CV boots were leaking, one due to the clamp becoming loose, the other due to a tear. Bugger. Booked it in Friday for a new set throughout, no time to do them myself this week!

Factory Nav unit was replaced with a Pioneer DEH-80PRS in preperation for the overhaul of the audio system. The new head unit handles two USB inputs (iPad and iPhone) and runs 3 24-bit Burr Brown DACs so will be a good base for the upcoming changes! It doesn't look like the system will be done before we head off to the Cape (62 days ) but at least I can have access to the phones music storage.

[wagon boy Member Find all posts View Profile Close wagon boy]

So finally got a chance to take it off road, wow! What a capable vehicle! Wasn't too confident to push it very hard in rutted bits; too concerned about having an airbag pop out haha. Will do the coils next week when I fit the new ROX shocks. Might need to do something about the TJM bash plates, I think they were made of kraft cheese or something. Both are bent to crap already.

Roof rack is narrowed, but still needs to be shortened by a fair bit, then tidied up and painted. Everything will be getting coated in tub liner, make it a bit tougher, and I can modify it without needing to re-powdercoat.

Very very happy with off road performance, the TC does wonders, only needed the rear locker for a couple seconds, and just to make it a little smoother on a tricky corner.



And all clean again after hours with the pressure cleaner!

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

Looks like a fair bit of fun was had.
Too bad about the TJM bash plates, I need to get a set myself at some stage, but might skip the TJM ones now.

[wagon boy Member Find all posts View Profile Close wagon boy]

Yeh I think I might replace mine with some from buds customs or something. He makes them for the FJ so they'll fit. Pretty disappointed really, $500 for a bit of steel was hard enough to swallow, before damaging it so easily.

[wagon boy Member Find all posts View Profile Close wagon boy]

I had always planned to fit my Runva 11Xp winch in behind the sovereign bar, so I ordered a winch cradle, maybe one of the last ones around! I hear toyota Australia are out of stock with no more to be produced... And after careful consideration, decided to fit it. So off with all the old stuff

Looking nice and staunch, in my opinion!

And on with the new!

[wagon boy Member Find all posts View Profile Close wagon boy]

As much as I'd wanted to, I just couldn't see myself keeping the sov long term, so an arb deluxe now sits out the front. Winch will go in tomorrow morning, forgot to get an offset hawse! I got the one without the factory fogs after reading so many stories of them being crap. For the time being, I have a set of Rigid Industries dually spotlights in there (they won't be getting used, I just wanted to check for sizing before I order the driving beams)


They fit ok, but will have to make a blanking plate to hide the holes. Onwards and upwards, 37 days til we leave!

[wagon boy Member Find all posts View Profile Close wagon boy]

This week has been fairly quiet for me, just been tinkering away with some smaller jobs. Fitted the winch, and a new tjm isolator.


Then yesterday afternoon I finally got onto the project of removing the rear seats and starting my shelf/platform.




Will carpet it tonight, then finish off the wings for the drawers.

[wagon boy Member Find all posts View Profile Close wagon boy]

Updated first post!

[wagon boy Member Find all posts View Profile Close wagon boy]

So today I fitted a set of superior engineering front swaybar relocation plates, and some superior extended sway bar links. Is there a certain angle that your swaybar should sit at? I ended up going with some links that were about 25mm over standard, because the next length looked like it may foul on the lca under full compression... Help!