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.
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.
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
- 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:
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