G'day from FNQ

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G'day from FNQ

Postby Matto-fnq on Wed Sep 14, 2016 11:22 am

Hi all,

Long time listener, first time caller. My name's Matt, and I live up in Cairns. We've just pulled the trigger on an '08 ML dual cab to be our new family 4WD.

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The new car is a VR with the 3.2L diesel and 4 speed auto. It's got a couple of extras on it - the hardlid and sports bars, the front nudge bar and a remote-head UHF. Otherwise, it's VERY stock-standard and original.

It will be replacing our old R50 Pathfinder, which has served us beautifully well.

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I'll miss the old girl. It's been good to us, SUPER reliable, and has always taken us everywhere we need to go. However, age is catching up with her, and at 260,000kms she's needing a bit of work to keep her in tip-top condition. Rather than sink money into it, we've decided to take the hit and step up to a dual cab which will be more practical for us day to day.

I'll be moving a bunch of stuff over from the Pathy to the Triton, including:
  • SC80 Dual battery. Customised system with a 100Ah D/C AGM battery. Not sure where I'm going to fit this in the Triton, don't want it in the tub if I can help it. The commercial chassis-mount kits only allow for a 75Ah battery, which isn't big enough. Might have to fab something up. Will include the standard Anderson plug on the towbar to charge the camper, plus some sort of battery monitoring.
  • Glind hot shower. Customised with thermostatic valve to prevent the usual scalding issues that these things can be prone to. Again, not sure where I'm going to fit the HE and the pump, but it'll go in somewhere.
  • Winch. I'll take it off the Pathy, but without a bullbar I won't be able to fit it up straight away. It's due for a strip-down and re-grease anyway.
  • Tekonsha P3 brake controller. Again, for the camper.
  • 245/75R16 BFG KM2's. They're probably about 50% shot, but they'll give a slight increase in diameter over the current tyres, and they're super strong. Plus they match the camper, so we can share spares if need be. The ute's current tyres will go onto the Pathy for it to be sold.
  • Depending on whether I can be bothered, I might swap the big transmission cooler off the Pathy onto the new ute.

My last Mitsubishi was an '84 Sigma, so I know very little about the new truck. However my Dad has a 2.5L MN, and my brother has a pair of Pajeros - an older 2.8L turbo diesel, and a nice new 3.2L one. The horrible turbo lag on the 2.5L was what swayed our decision to the older 3.2L motor in this one - hopefully that proves to be a good decision.

Future plans for the truck are at this stage very basic, unfortunately. As much as I'd like to set it up straight away, I've only recently started my own business up so money is tight, and will continue to be for a while.

But the additions will look something like:

  • Ebay snorkel for cheap motor insurance. We get a bit of rain up here.
  • ElCheapo Ebay 50" light bar with Bullseye windscreen mounts. Got to have SOME poseur bling.
  • tint the front windows
  • rubber floor mats all 'round.
  • Something to sort out the EGR. From what I've read here, blanks are out, and there's an ECU mod to do this. However I can't get the Search function to return any results at all for me, so I'm not sure what the current state of the art is.
  • Probably a Provent catch can as well, since that makes sense on a diesel.
  • Probably some sort of fuel filter with water trap & alarm function. Again, cheap insurance.
  • The existing radio is a 40ch remote-head Uniden. I like Uniden radios, but I'll probably relocate the remote head from in front of the gear shifter to up on the roof near the rear-view mirror.
  • ElCheapo SuperCheap sheapskin seat covers. Only buy them on sale, when they get dirty just throw them in the washing machine, and run them till they fall apart. Standard equipment on my 4WDs :lol: :lol: :lol:
  • New suspension will be out of the question for the near future, however, simply due to the cost. I *AM* considering throwing a cheap 2" body lift underneath, just to give the precious pretty cab some much-needed clearance. We go camping in a lot of off-the-grid spots, and I don't want to damage the new car. From reading here I understand that opinions on this will be split roughly 60/40 to the "don't do it" side, but at ~$300 vs $2k for proper Ultimate suspension, it's looking like a good short-term option. I will get proper suspension down the track, but this might be a good infill.
  • I'll need to sort out some underbody protection as well, especially if I go down the body block route and leave the chassis with standard clearance. I understand that there's a forum vendor who has a really good solution here, so that's probably the way I'll go. I really like the Xrox sliders too, but can't afford them.
  • Some sort of tubliner. I'll probably go a DIY paint-on option as a short-term solution. The old man has had Rhino-liner professionally applied to his, and it's fantastic. I've read that some people on here have had good results with the DIY path.
  • replace all the internal lights with LED bulbs, sort out rear-seat organisers, some sort of GPS, some sort of reversing camera, all those little things that make the vehicle usable both in town and out in the bush.
  • A winch-capable bulllbar will go on at some spot, but probably not for a little while unfortunately. In the meantime, the maxtrax and trusty snatch strap will do the job.

The tub is a problem for us, and I'll probably have to pull the hard-lid when we go camping since the fridge (ARB 47L) won't fit under it. I wanted to buy one with a tray, but there was nothing suitable around. Down the track, I'll tap Norweld to fit one of their alloy tray packages. Perfect solution, and fantastic quality, but out of my budget for now:

Click to view larger picture

So that's the new car, and the rough plans. It won't be anything too special, but I'm looking forward to having a ute.

I don't know an awful lot about the 3.2L engines, so if there's anything else that I really should be doing to help it out, please let me know. I've been busily reading through the site over the past few weeks, to come up to speed with these cars. I'm confident it'll be a good base for us, given what we want to do with it.

Cheers everyone,
Matt
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Re: G'day from FNQ

Postby Ricky on Wed Sep 14, 2016 11:48 am

Welcome to the forum mate.

You can fit your full size aux battery under the bonnet with the aftermarket battery tray if you get a smaller starting battery.

I have a 10" starting battery at 700CCA which is plenty, plus a 12" 105amp/h hybrid as my Aux.

Just be careful putting your agm under the bonnet, check warranty terms.
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Re: G'day from FNQ

Postby Cowboy Dave on Wed Sep 14, 2016 1:31 pm

Wow, that's quite the first post.

I won't pretend to remember all of it but I think user SRB has the glind hot water exchanger fitted to his ute. Some other people have similar from memory so there will be posts on that. Room is tight, and you'll want to put it in before putting in a dual battery tray unless you're happy removing it all again for access.

As mentioned above the AGM batteries don't like heat so under the bonnet usually isn't feasible. Again lots of threads on dual battery options.

For EGR the solution is the SPV industries plug and play module. Email Tony@spvindustries.com for that one. His username on the forum is Tony (clearly he uses up all his creativity and imagination on tritons judging from that user name).

The jury is still out on catchcans. Some think them essential and some think the added pressure they could potentially introduce could be a problem. On one view of it by taking the carbon out of the equation with the EGR mod the oil mist in its own will do less damage in terms of clogged manifolds etc

If you do go with a catch can the Provent 200 appears to be the pick of them.

I read this morning that sliders can be had for about $500 in Brisbane. If you keep an eye out on the for sale section and maybe join a couple of triton groups on Facebook you might occasionally come across a used set from someone trading in their car and pulling various bits off. So money to be saved there if you get lucky.

Anyway, welcome along and thanks for the detailed introduction.
The Hitchhiker's guide to the the Triton universe and NTN.

A how to on finding your own way - search me.

The two threads I wish people would use more: thing 1 and thing 2.
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Re: G'day from FNQ

Postby Duck on Thu Sep 15, 2016 8:38 am

Welcome :) Everything seems to be covered above, I had a cradle made up & my 100amp battery sits on top of the rear tow bar, a truck load of space in there just keep your ball weight in mind, but out of the way & when you take the spare wheel down plenty of space to work with.
Enjoy Cairns & the Triton 8-)
Life is what happens while you are busy making plans........
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Re: G'day from FNQ

Postby Matto-fnq on Thu Sep 15, 2016 9:19 am

Thanks for the welcome guys, and for the mass of very knowledgable info! Much appreciated for a noob like myself.

Ricky wrote:You can fit your full size aux battery under the bonnet with the aftermarket battery tray if you get a smaller starting battery.

I have a 10" starting battery at 700CCA which is plenty, plus a 12" 105amp/h hybrid as my Aux.

Just be careful putting your agm under the bonnet, check warranty terms.


That's a good option Ricky - thanks for the headsup. I don't typically like batteries under the bonnet, due to the heat, but it might be not a bad way to go. I could always move the AGM to the camper and buy a cheap wet-cell deep cycle to go under the bonnet. I'll have a think!

Cowboy Dave wrote:Wow, that's quite the first post.

Yeah, I can get a bit carried away... :oops:

Cowboy Dave wrote:I won't pretend to remember all of it but I think user SRB has the glind hot water exchanger fitted to his ute. Some other people have similar from memory so there will be posts on that. Room is tight, and you'll want to put it in before putting in a dual battery tray unless you're happy removing it all again for access.

Awesome! Looking up SRB's build thread now :). Thanks for the heads-up and the tips.

Cowboy Dave wrote:For EGR the solution is the SPV industries plug and play module. Email Tony@spvindustries.com for that one. His username on the forum is Tony (clearly he uses up all his creativity and imagination on tritons judging from that user name).

Sounds like the easy option. From what I've read, the SPV Industries box is a nice, reversable way to do the resistor mod? My brother's been running the resistor on his 3.2L Paj, and swears by it. Because I'm cheap, I might just DIY instead. I'm sure Tony's solution is fantastic for people who are just looking for a plug-and-play option - the photos I've seen make it look like a very professional install.

Aside - during my searching, I came across this, which I assume is the same thing from a different vendor:
http://chiptuning.com.au/products-page/egr_module/
The bit that caught my eye though, was this quote:

  • No tuning or calibration required nor is there any need for a EGR Blanking Plate or drilling of the Throttle Plate and the EGR valve will still open to allow the turbo lose the excess boost pressure so to act as a Blow Off Valve, as per the factory spec.

This is the first, and only, time I've seen any reference made to the EGR valve functioning as a blow-off valve. My understanding (from years ago, playing with hot imported Japanese coupes) is that legally, you couldn't simply vent your charge air into the atmosphere, you had to recirc it back into the intake. I'm assuming that someone's just got their wires crossed when writing up the description to make it sound good?

Cowboy Dave wrote:The jury is still out on catchcans. Some think them essential and some think the added pressure they could potentially introduce could be a problem. On one view of it by taking the carbon out of the equation with the EGR mod the oil mist in its own will do less damage in terms of clogged manifolds etc

Done. EGR mod first, catchcan on the backburner.

Cowboy Dave wrote:I read this morning that sliders can be had for about $500 in Brisbane. If you keep an eye out on the for sale section and maybe join a couple of triton groups on Facebook you might occasionally come across a used set from someone trading in their car and pulling various bits off. So money to be saved there if you get lucky.

Great idea. I'll actually be picking he car up from SE-QLD, so it wouldn't be hard to drop by Brisbane on my way through. I'll trawl the classifieds sites now :)

Duck wrote:Welcome :) Everything seems to be covered above, I had a cradle made up & my 100amp battery sits on top of the rear tow bar, a truck load of space in there just keep your ball weight in mind, but out of the way & when you take the spare wheel down plenty of space to work with.
Enjoy Cairns & the Triton 8-)


Great idea Duck! That sounds really, really good. I'll check it out as soon as I get my filthy hands on the car. Sounds like a good solution for me.

I've also just been given the heads up on how to convert the standard radio to have an Aux-in connection, so that'll be one of the first jobs too. I knew the mods would start to pile up!

Again - thanks to all for the detailed responses - this is certainly a great community.

Cheers,
Matt
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Re: G'day from FNQ

Postby ChairmanChan on Wed Feb 22, 2017 3:50 pm

Hi Matt,
Did you go ahead with the EGR mod with Chiptuning or with SPV Industries. I am also wondering about the turbo waste line venting. I've had my 08 ML 3.2 since new and this is the 2nd time now the intake has clogged. Time to do something permanent about it :) 9 years is long enough! Hahaha.
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Re: G'day from FNQ

Postby Matto-fnq on Wed Jul 12, 2017 10:26 am

Hi ChairmanChan,

Sorry for the late replay mate - I've only just seen your post now.

I did do the EGR block with the SPV Industries module. Couldn't be happier with the service from SPV. Originally the wrong module was sent, but they sent out a new one as soon as I raised the issue with them, and included a reply-paid post bag to send the first unit back to them at no cost to me. Wouldn't hesitate to recommend them.

I've noticed no side effects since fitting the module, so assume the waste-gate thing is just a load of bollocks that someone was spouting off about.

I did the intake clean a couple of weeks ago, and mine was pretty bad. That's at 160,000kms. Pain of a job though - I wouldn't recommend it unless you're mechanically minded.

After seeing the amount of oil in the intake piping, I'm considering fitting a catch-can as well. After doing the EGR module I wasn't going to bother, but there really is a LOT of oil in there. I've got to pull the intercooler and empty it out - I wouldn't be surprised if there's oil just pooling in the bottom of it.

Great job on keeping your ML since new! Sounds like you take a lot of care of it.

Cheers,
Matt
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