When the line between daily driver and project becomes a blur. It happens to all of us.

You buy a car to get away from a daily than has become a project, sell the project, and suddenly you see it all happening again.

This is my ute. Bought as a humble country car, with a bullbar, canopy, and smelt more like horses than the local turf club. It was in reasonably good condition inside, outside was (still is) far from pristine. Manual XH 2, good service history etc. I bought it to get away from a project that I had actually finished but didn’t like driving to and from work.

Previous Project:


Anyway I actually have it for sale at the moment on eBay because I got the s**t with it last week, but after realizing that no one will buy it for my outrageous asking price I've warmed to it again, and decided to make a build thread to give me motivation to work on it. So here goes.

Pics from when I had had it about a year (nothing much had changed)




Things I've done so-far:

Replace horribly dinted door and fix hinge pins
Fake nardi steering wheel
17x8 wheels in e series offset
Lowered super low front and reset leaves with 2 inch blocks rear
Patrol rear shocks
Ebay front struts
Poly leaf spring, swaybar bushes.
Sub in between seats (10 inch)
Ef front bar
Ditch canopy
HD clutch
Head unit and speakers






Things I want to do:

Fix dents and get resprayed white
Lower another inch or two in the rear
Exhaust
Headers
Cam
Chip

So that’s it. Any advice on mods or anything I should do to it are appreciated. Actually just general maintenance stuff as well because its running like a dog at the moment. Going to replace all the ignition gear this weekend see if that has any effect.

Anyway shoot me a comment!

get a shorter shifter mate, will feel much better shifting thru the gears.
i personally wouldn't lower it any more, looks good as it is now and isn't stupidly low.

Looks a bit rough now, but it has definatley got potential. Time and paint will fix that.
I agree, don't lower it anymore, looks tuff like that.
Get an EA intake tube as soon as possible, it makes a noticeable difference.
And of course, do the cab extension!
Good luck.

I like the Liberty

The XH looks tough like that, real pig look to it. I like.

jeez fair f**k change to when you got it.
Hey I sold you that guard that night how'd you go at the beaters?

Thanks for the replies guys. Haha funny story that, got it into the panel beaters and the bloke took one look at it and said "mate we haven't got enough time for this one..." I was like "uhh.. righto" so I took it home. Might do it myself, everyone wants to much for the bodywork, its not hard, just time consuming.

By EA intake do you mean the upper one to the airbox? Or the lower throttle body one?

Can I just make a short shifter? I was looking at one in Troymans thread that he made, like that?

throttle body to air box.

looking good mate will look great after a respray.

i like those wheels what are they?

I'm not really sure what they are, they have numbers on them but no name or tags or anything. Look abit like the CSA e series wheels. A little different.

Got an EA intake today off a car at work, going to install a pod in the airbox.

I was replacing the leads today. Man that is a bastard of a job. Any advice as to an easy way of doing it? Just got the coil plug to put back on. Doesn't help doing it on a hot engine. That heater pipe is interesting company for my arms...

When I do the leads on mine, I first remove the ICS from the throttle body, then raise the car and reach up from below and remove the coil lead from the coil. Then take the leads off at the plugs. I then remove the dist cap and leads all in one. Replace the leads, then refit the cap, etc. I agree it is a prick of a job, but getting the ICS out of the way makes a big difference. And I let the engine cool down first.

Ahh from the bottom. This makes alot of sense, considering its right next to the oil filter. To get the coil lead back on I ended up taking all the other leads off and getting my missus to get her hand down there and click it on. I didn't replace the distrib cap or rotor, I probably should have does while I was in there ay.

In other news I mounted a pod in the airbox. I'll post pics when it stops raining.

yes and no it's not hard to do, but very easy to f**k up, so can be very time consuming, theres a reason my cars looks such a pig.
I work at a powdercoaters doing the style of work and yeah can't bring my self to bring the work home for myself, maybe one day I'll fix it, or f**k it off, to put money towards the ranchwgon.

Yeah I agree bodywork goes in the can't be f**k basket for now

nice XH there, but im mainly interested in that steering wheel of yours dude.

what'd you end up doing with the bullbar?

As far as the body work goes it will probably just be easier to track down some clean secondhand hand panel for a White xh, there would have to be & absolute abundance of xh's being wreaked as we speak. Good luck with your project I love the X-series had 10 all up some really nice some really ruff currently getting ute no. 7 a XH XR on the road