Here’s the dyno sheet from the final run of the ute N/A


Knowing the ute was going to be off the road for a while, I had to find a way to get around. The missus recently sold her Yarris, and she’s being driving the ‘white knight’ as we like to know it (XH Tradesman). We were really looking for a Prado, but money is too tight atm to waste $30k + on one of those. So I was looking on Gumtree for something to run around in (or for the missus to run around in, and I’ll drive the white knight). Would have liked a 94/95 Toyota Surf (they have the pre common rail Turbo Diesel engines), but ended up finding this:



It’s a 91 4Runner RV6. Old, yes….but cheap!! Some bloke was selling it with rego, but it was not running. So it was a big gamble. Ended up getting it for $2k!! Old mate had bought brand new plugs, leads, coil and a 2nd hand dizzy from a wrecker. He didn’t know how to get car started or adjust timing, hence the price. I signed the papers and paid the cash, had a quick look, raced down to repco, put a new rotor button in ($32), adjusted timing – then drove it outta his driveway! Should have seen the look on his face!! I ALMOST felt bad….. haha

Air con is icey cold, heavy duty Reece towbar, bulbar, spotties, room for the dog in the back….missus is happy so that’s a good start. Went 4WDing up at Yanchep on the weekend and it went much better than I thought it would!! Stoked!!

Anyway, back to the ute… So started dismantling it. I had a busy day…. One of my mates was moving to Melbourne and had to get his EH on a tow truck, which still had the engine removed, so I took my crane and put that in Saturday morning…. Then got home and started with mine. Had a couple of mates over to help, one of which just picked himself up a pretty nice example of a stocko XH XR8 ute. Worked out well, as he was waiting there for all my hand-me-downs…

First pic of the white knight!!







Sorry bout my mug in this one…..but it’s a Kenne Bell!! And this photo just had to be taken!!

Ok, so started stripping what we could first. Started with bonnet, then front bar. My mate Dan worked on the engine bay, while I was underneath removing what I could. Need to remove the tailshaft, as it’s a 2 piece. This wont come off before the exhaust… so did this first.




I might just add how much of a deadest pain in the A-hole it is having a car this low. I would really love a car hoist!! It was due to this reason I decided there’s no way I’m pulling the box off first – the box is coming out with the engine.








Unbolted the tailshaft from diff…. noticed problem #1 – the bump stop on top of diff is completely stuffed.



Whilst myself and Dan were stripping my ute, Jack was pulling the upper manifold off his engine. Which reminds me, anyone got a spare plate handy (the one on top of explorer?) The allen key bolts were stuffed on this one and I broke his plate getting it off… :/

The plan for Jacks XH today was to run my 24# injectors and 73mm MAF (calibrated for the 24’s). This was the first mod I did to my 5.0L, and instantly noticed better throttle response, more power, and much better economy. Enough to get him started….and addicted!!




Thought I may as well pull the cobra manifold off my engine so I could palm off my injectors to Jack….




This of course meant I couldn’t NOT take these ones…

Tailshaft out


Exhaust – notice the spray of grease from the centre bearing. I’m not sure if this is from when it went the first time, or if it’s from excess grease after I changed it…. Either way – it’s left a massive stain under my ute & on the exhaust I’m keen to paint under the car now anyway, so shouldn’t matter too much




Next we ‘disconnected’ the air con hoses…..well Dan did while I stood on the road with a beer and laugh at him holding his breath….

Then it was time to yank the engine. Due to pulling the box out with it, I removed the shifter from inside the cab first. This prevents it knocking against the tunnel etc.

It was now I noticed problem #2!!




Yep….pretty sure I didn’t fill the box with white coloured oil….

Can only assume the box has ‘sucked’ in some water from the road trip/getting caught in the QLD floods in 2010/2011. Not happy….

Was starting to get dark, and the QLD Red were playing….So called it a day and drank some beer.

Sunday morning kept going…. Pictures explain better…..








Anyone for a milkshake??

By this stage I was pretty annoyed. Being that the box was almost brand new, and I didn’t even think to drain fluid after the road trip. Hindsight!! Can’t change it now, so will have to do what I can.






If anyone can offer some advice here, that would be great. Will post this pics soon, but basically I let box drain overnight. There appeared to be no signs of metal fragments or anything in oil.

I cleaned what I could get to with a rag (mainly only the shift hole), filled with 2L of ATF Dextron-III, swished box around (literally picked it up and shook it on all angles), then drained it for a few hours again. I have refilled it with 4L of Dex-III, and am letting it ‘soak’ as I’m away with work atm….

I know the best way to flush the box is to have it turning over. This isn’t an option right now….any other ideas? And could there be any serious damage and premature wear? Although assuming it’s not perfect, the box always felt as good as the day it was installed (new!)

Here’s the rest of the pics from the engine removal. It was actually a breeze to get out with the position of the chains (around engine mounts). I had it hooked up to the bracket, but took it off as I couldn’t get the required angle on the box to clear everything. Didn’t even knock the firewall!

Saying that, I should have really put a towel between the rocker covers and chain (or used a nylon strap). It scratched em a bit. Not to phased atm as these covers won’t be used with the KB – they’re too tall










Next thing was to sit the engine/box down, separate the box from engine, then pull the accessories and manifold of the donk...

Clutch looked rooted enough to warrant a new one. I don’t have a rattle gun, so the flywheel stays attached for now. Pics…

















One of the blown exhaust gasket ports…




Here’s where the box currently resides. You can see some red fluid there from the first 2L flush I did




The empty engine bay…

Now I am leaning towards having this painted. It won’t be anything fancy – holes won’t be welded shut or anything, but just a fresh lick of paint so it matches the rest of car? If I ask, I know the answer I’ll get…!





I need to pull this booster out and change it. Half the reason my brakes are so crap is cos of the collapsed diaphragm


This will need to be cut out, as there’ll be a 4” odd hole there soon for the air intake pipe. I have a billet battery holder which will be mounted in the ‘secret’ cavity in tray (next to fuel tank). Will have jumper terminals mounted in place near expansion tank, just in case I need em.


Since building the engine when I had the XF, my power steering pump has never had that annoying bolt that sits behind the pulley (you know, the shiit one you can never undo). Plus this pump had a very slow leak….



So will be using this one in it’s place. This is one I had in the shed from when I bought the ute. When it was removed, it had no leaks, plus it’s still got the bolt behind the pulley (I could actually get this one out when I removed it from the engine). So I’ll paint it black and this will go back on




The KB sits fairly low, so you pretty much have no chance of running valve covers like my old Trickflows (I think they’re 3.5”), I bought them taller initially to fit over the yella terra adjustable rockers.

I’ll have to resort back to the factory ones. These are once again spares I had from the ute. They already have the baffles cut out, and we’ll run dual gaskets to lift them up enough to clear the rockers. Will paint em in VHT wrinkle paint. I plan to do a better job on these than I did on the cobra intake!!




Problem #3 – Was wondering why my rear wheel looked so damn dirty… the brake calliper is pissing out fluid. Not very happy, considering I had these fully reco’d 2 years ago. Will investigate further later. Intially I thought my axel seal was leaking….thankfully it’s not





I’ll throw it out there…. I was sorta leaning towards having something different than most (although a few have done it), and running an EL dash. The more I think about it, I don’t consider it worthwhile unless I can find an NL dash. I picked up all this for $60 anyway, so atm it will just sit in the corner…



I have seen a few people do it. Looks fairly straight forward, just a few brackets to be welded near windscreen. An NL dash with dual airbags would be pretty cool…But then I remember how I’ve got my autometer gauges coming, and the XH dash is perfect for mounting them!! Choices…

Dude, I worked it all out and tilted the pinion angle of the diff towards to ground a little. You could do this with wedge shaped "lowering blocks". This gives a little more clearance for drive shaft (my wagon is about 70mm lower than standard and I no longer hit the drive shaft on the tunnel like I did when at 50mm) and also actually improves the anti vibration and balancing qualities of the drive shaft (if single piece - should also be relevant to two bit drive shafts, perhaps even more so) according to a reputable driveshaft balancing company it was subsequently shown to.

Can explain in not so technical terms if someone wants to argue....

Whatever, nice work. Good to see

Re the interior parts, the only real difference between an EL and NL dash is the instrument cluster. The physical dash is the same. The stereo surround is the same as the EL Ghia parts if they had the dual din gear. The NL may have had standard passenger airbag, but I think this is a personal choice in terms of looks.

My EB has an EL non air bag dash, with an NF/NL cluster (they are the same).

Cheers
BenJ

Plus an NL cluster doesn't look too bad in an XH . . . .

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Yeah, I know what you meean mate. I am already running those wedges in there now. I have spent a lot of time getting the angle correct, as it used to cause bad vibrations. All good now. I think the car is just far too low. I may have to change the setup once I get more power, or it's ganna be a pain in the a** to get the power down (but fun!! )

Thanks for the input Benj;

Is it just my eyes, or do some of the NL dash's have a darker finish/different texture?? I like the darker charcol colour. I'd imagine they'd be hard to come by. I have read a few threads around the place with guys doing the swap. I think it looks great, but I'm definately having second thoughts about going to all that effort to only fit a GLi dash, in the stocko grey colour.

Not too phased about the cluster itself, snap I know you have fitted one and it looks mint!! You would be the best person to talk to about the difference between the looms I suppose to...

I'm an electronics tech, so not phased about splicing what I have to, but if I were to throw the EL dash in I was going to use my XH loom and re-route what I needed to to make it work (climate lights etc). Wasn't keen on running the auto climate control as per a fairmont/fairlane as I thought I read somehwere the motors/actuators on the heater box foul on everything. May as well keep it simple and stick with the old vacuum control!

Very tempted to go buy a cheap NL off gumtree and use what I need and part off the rest...:/

Actually, you are correct in that there are two shades of grey used in the EL/NLs.

The EL1 cars had a lighter shade of grey, which is perhaps only 2 or 3 shades lighter than the EL2, which has a darker grey, similar to the EF. EL2 also has the sniper button on the passenger door top deleted.

Just make sure you get the matching door trims to match.

Sourcing a complete NL Fairlane is a good solution as you also get all the other parts you will need to take advantage of the NL cluster features.

Cheers
BenJ

Thanks BenJ,

I am currently looking for a cheap fairlane!! I think it would come out mint if it was done properly! (And probably cheaper than having existing stuff retrimmed).

Can you shed some light on options for the bottom bit of centre dash, when the centre console normal attaches. This is the main thing putting me off, as I really wanna keep my AU console - it matches the BA seats nicely with the leather.

Is there an attachment you can fit on there - like what they would have used if running a bench seat? If so..... how can I get one!!??

You could graft the EF/EL centre console front to the AU console possibly - have a look at Johnny_FX's ??? thread grafting EB/ED to EF/EF.

IMO fitting the NF/NL cluster is only worth it if you're hooking up bulb out, front door switches, fuel flap, and adding a courtesy light switch to the tailgate.

The climate control Blend door motor won't fit under the XH windscreen channel - there was a guy on here said he had no probs, well, check it out for yourself.
I rebent the BDM bracket to sit on the front of the heaterbox, then made a relay rod to the blend door arm, there was a nice recess in the XH dash to fit it in when fitted.

Other thing is, may as well fit all the high series stuff - dimmable lighting (you'll need to mod a fairmont light switch), power aerial, etc. See the X series docos.
Probably best to get an NL dash + wiring, better suits the XH dash connectors, even though the XH BEM is an EF one.
You'll need an EF/EL vaccy reservoir, fits in the drivers front guard, also the floor pan may have the pressed section where the floor mounted handbrake goes.

Snap, thank you once again for your expert feedback!! Thanks for taking the time. I have read a lot of your threads on here many times, and read the ones your referring to above as well. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be enough detail for my liking (more so - understanding clearly) - in regards to the thread on putting an EL/NL dash into a XF ute. I guess I'll figure it out once I do it myself if I go down that road.

I agree with you on the cluster. I will just keep my current one. I still have the docco you emailed me regarding the fuel flap, but I will not go down that path on this ute.

The climate control would be pretty nice, but yes I'd have to just see for myself. I'm not sure how old mate fit it in his XF. My ute has the antenna hole deleted and welded shut so wont worry about that.

Is there a difference between the V8 and 6 dash loom connections? (I dont see why there would be). Reason being I may have found a cheapish 6 NL for sale over here in Perth. Wasn't sure if I required the V8 though.

I didn't even know about the vacuum res. Thats an interesting one. So theres a big long vacuum line that runs in there??

My ute has the handbrake holes already, and I have the handbrake. I wasn't keen at all in changing the handbrake mech on the diff, I was ganna try join the handbrake cable section to where the ute's "L" bracket is (if that makes sense!!) Seems much easier, if it will work... haven't looked yet.

I'll have to look into the thread on grafting the console. I would really prefer to have them separate though, as I think it will crack/break trying to put it all in, then the rattles etc whilst driving.

Thanks again for any feedback...

Thanks for the kudos mate.
IMO too the dash conversion wouldn't be complete without E series door trims - Pepeguts has a thread showing the inner door skins swapped out. So fair amount of work.
Nah, be okay.
Yeah, you'll need to run one from the drivers kickpanel, along the lower windscreen - I think you'll find the XH one will be too big to keep.
I know this because I'm looking at fitting an EL PAB to the XH dash - using the XH dash section as it's lid.
Nah, I welded the bracket's on BenJ's diff - PITA !!!
Have a look at banarcus's ED V8 wagon build - he made up a lever setup to do this -has pics. The EF/EL travel is a lot less than the EB/ED/XH.

How much do the rocker covers foul by? You could always go for a phenolic spacer to avoid using the ugly stock covers.

Do the pulleys on the KB line up right on the HO serp setup or do you need to make some modifications?