Stiddys GLX-R newbie 4x4 build up.

[lachiem]

one or too two many beers.
I couldn't make heads or tails about the all the talk of catapults and montages

It looks like you've got a fair damn built up with that bull bar Stiddy, are you finding any issues with overheating from reduced airflow?
Looks well sick btw mate.

[StiddyGLX-R]

The mrs let's me get away with a lot lol. But she has an XR5 turbo focus I've been modding for her to (317hp at the wheels with more to come) she's right into the car/4wd scene.

Thanks for the comments guys. I'm leaving it at 590mm hub to guard for now which is the lowest. The main thing slowing me down is wait times or things being made to order. Like xrox bar and sliders.
I want to get all the protection stuff on first before winches and lights and other accessories.

Decided to keep the tub and have custom bar work done. Custom front and rear brush bars. But still waiting on the wider flares, xrox sliders and OP rear before that happens.

Doc I wish I crapped money. But I earn it the hard way lol 100-115hrs a week most weeks.
Sootie a lot more to go lol. Everytime I come on here I read about 1 thing. Get side tracked and find something else I need/want haha like everything though.
Bit by bit it will come together..

Heading up to watagans tomorrow for the whole weekend to put it through its paces. Let you all know how it goes. Will have pics and video footage.

Cheers
Mat

[trouble]

Bit of rain around Stiddy, watch it up there.
Ps good work on the build mate.

[StiddyGLX-R]

Please leave it in here. The more facts and info the better it is for me. George's mn is the first triton I read about and swayed me onto monster rides suspension.
I value everyone's input and comments. Like I said I'm very new to this and the more I read and learn the better..

[StiddyGLX-R]

Lol well I've done 60ks with the bar on. And I generally drive it hard. Keep it on song so to speak and I've not noticed any difference in temps.

[mitzikatzi]

Nice build! I wish I had you money and vision

No comment on the "ride height argument" that has seemed to have developed in this thread. Some searching has found these 2 threads that may be of use to others reading this thread.

Random Triton IFS ravings
Front diff drop down kit

[09andot]

Nice looking triton mate! Looks like its getting all the best bits. Out of interest, which eBay snorkel did you go with? Enjoy the watagans!!

[StiddyGLX-R]

Nice looking triton mate! Looks like its getting all the best bits. Out of interest, which eBay snorkel did you go with? Enjoy the watagans!!

Thanks mate. I'm liking the black on silver theme it's taking on..
http://m.ebay.com.au/itm/161228375264?nav=SEARCH

That's the snorkel I got. Ended up getting it for $118 with next day delivery.
Comes with everything you need but the template is out. Not hard to mark it right though.

[StiddyGLX-R]

Eventful weekend at Watagans to say the least.
My first ever 4x4 outing in my own vehicle and they shove me down Daniels Point road lol in the pissing down rain. The guys said its the hardest track they have ever done, I thought it was great fun and didn't find it all that bad. (youtube has heaps of vids on how challenging this track is)

My triton is bloody capable, more so than I would have ever thought. Doing stupidly sized rock step ups, driving down tree trunks, crawling along on 3 wheels, seesawing, the whole works.
Some things made me think.. 'not sure if....' but the triton crawled through, over, under and left me thinking.. 'oh, hmm, that was easy' lol.

The 'leader' of our group has a Patrol, 4inch lift, 35s, twin locked, reduction gears, sliders etc etc.. I went everywhere he did and some he didnt lol. Our 2 rigs did basically everything while the other 4 needed help, winching, snatching and taking chicken tracks.

When I arrived at camp, I got welcomed with "stidds is here in his tricrap, why buy a tricrap, they are shit, they wont go anywhere, its going to break down, mitsishitty etc etc, but it looks good atleast"
By the end of the trip, it was "Triton is a machine, im impressed, can't believe where it went, Its IFS how? " etc etc.. Made me feel pretty good.

I didnt get caught up, stuck, bogged or anything over the whole weekend, with no reported damage apart from a couple of barely noticeable scratches on the flares, and a slight ding in the back of the cab where the tub touched.

All in all, the camping, rain, mud, wheeling was amazing, had a brilliant time. Can't wait for Watagans part 2 and other tracks.

Anyway, Ive attached a few pics below. There are still lots of pics and vids to come.
Pics like usual doesnt do any of it justice lol.






Some other cars in our club - Scrubrunner4x4

[macca002]

Looks like an awesome trip!

[har05l]

It's always good to see any other 4wdrivers jaw drop after they see what a triton can do, especially silver ones

The guys with you will be spreading the word I guarantee

[DocBassett]

I remember one time at a local spot I came across a patrol and cruiser both 3inch+ lift, 35s etc etc struggling to get up a hill. I came along, friendly hello, asked if I could have a crack. Got laughed at (in my face). So flicked the locker on, crawled up easy, turned around and drove back down. Got to the botto. And asked them if they would like me to tow them up people will always hang shit on you, and it feels great once you prove them wrong. Looks like you had a great trip.

[StiddyGLX-R]

haha yeah its a pretty good feeling proving them all wrong and showing them up. On the 2-ways on the highway heading home they were saying how impressed they were with the Triton.

Ive taken the stock side steps off in prep for the XROX ones in a couple of weeks,
I fitted the extended brake lines today, and ive wound the front coilovers up to 600mm hub to guard, still 605mm rear. So its sitting nice.

Also ordered a uni filter and dobsons diesel filter kit thing.
Still waiting on Opposite Lock to get back to me about the rear bar.
Bought an Icom IC440N uhf.

Toying with the idea of making a 1-2inch spacer to sit between the UCA and ball joint.
Really want some silly flexi CV's so I can actually utilise the suspension I have.

So much more to do. Dont know what next, bit by bit lol I keep getting side tracked.

We are heading back to Watagans on the 12th of April.

OH!! Had my first service last thursday. It was a crack up lol. The mechanic was in shock I think. "Are you serious?" he asked me. LOL He goes, less then 800ks and you've built a tank, you dont muck around, blah blah, started asking how it goes and future plans etc etc. Few of the workshop techs took some pics of it and they parked it next to another couple of stock tritons and it kind of dwarfed them lol.

More pics for now.

[lachiem]

Hectic mate.
I wish I had your coin but I won't begrudge you it.
That tail end shot is fantastic. I'd have voted for that on the stubby holders

[StiddyGLX-R]

Thanks Lachiem.

I've jumped on eBay and bought 2 cv's for the triton, both left and right.
Im going to be taking these to one of Dads mates, Pete at Craft Diffs to see if he can build or outsource building a set of CV's to suit the Triton with bigger lifts.

Want to be able to lift the triton 3-4inches without the worry of breaking CV's.
In conjunction with this idea, it will probably require a new UCA or UCA/ball joint spacer.
I dont like the idea or want a diff drop.

Something like this is what I will have made.
http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/ae40 ... nboard.jpg

If Pete can't do it, I'll try another couple of places in Aus, if not I'll go direct to RCV.
No idea on costs. But when I had custom cv shafts made for my FG GT (kept snapping them from power/slicks at WSID) and my Mazda Familia circuit car(Toyota GT4 gearbox/diffs for strength and needed custom CVs/Axles and tailshaft made) they each cost around the 2k mark.
So I figure it will be somewhere around that price range, hopefully cheaper.

So will see how I go, prob be a couple of weeks before get any solid news about it all.
Jacked up Triton here we come hey. Hopefully

Cheers,
Mat

[Cowboy Dave]

Mate if you manage to swing some aftermarket CVs that can take the height better we'll all be lining up down the street - although it's often said that they're a useful fuse and it's better to snap one of them than bugger a diff. Someone was just telling me the other day that a lot of hiluxs have been blowing diffs of late, I can't imagine it's much fun.

Ages ago one of the other monster rides customers posted to say they'd found a Pajero CV that fit and worked but despite a request for a part number it was never forthcoming. I know at least one other member tried to hunt the answer down but he gave up after a poke around at a few wreckers and on ebay so we never did find out what the go was there.

Despite the grief I copped last time I commented in this thread about ride heights and with huge amounts of trepidation because of that - I noticed a few posts back that you had the front wound up so that the height difference front to rear was only 5mm. I've seen a few posts in the past where people have tried to get them running level and people that know more than me about such things have said that they're actually designed to run nose down a little. I can't remember now if it was about brake proportioning or some other handling issue but the gist of it was definitely that the rear should be a bit more than 5mm higher than the front.

If you're interested I'll try and dig up the old posts but I've got some computer issues at home (I'm at work at the moment) so it might take a day or two for me to find it, if I can find it at all.

[StiddyGLX-R]

Mate if you manage to swing some aftermarket CVs that can take the height better we'll all be lining up down the street - although it's often said that they're a useful fuse and it's better to snap one of them than bugger a diff. Someone was just telling me the other day that a lot of hiluxs have been blowing diffs of late, I can't imagine it's much fun.

Ages ago one of the other monster rides customers posted to say they'd found a Pajero CV that fit and worked but despite a request for a part number it was never forthcoming. I know at least one other member tried to hunt the answer down but he gave up after a poke around at a few wreckers and on ebay so we never did find out what the go was there.

Despite the grief I copped last time I commented in this thread about ride heights and with huge amounts of trepidation because of that - I noticed a few posts back that you had the front wound up so that the height difference front to rear was only 5mm. I've seen a few posts in the past where people have tried to get them running level and people that know more than me about such things have said that they're actually designed to run nose down a little. I can't remember now if it was about brake proportioning or some other handling issue but the gist of it was definitely that the rear should be a bit more than 5mm higher than the front.

If you're interested I'll try and dig up the old posts but I've got some computer issues at home (I'm at work at the moment) so it might take a day or two for me to find it, if I can find it at all.

Thanks for the info mate. Will work out how much the setup will be and see if I can find someone to build a batch of them if its going to generate enough interest.

As far as heights go, im planning to lift the back up another inch with extended shackles, but not overly worried about that at the moment until I can comfortably get the front up.

I tend to agree with the CV being a fuse, but how strong are the diffs? I'd imagine they would be fairly decent and would cope with stronger cv shafts. Add an ARB locker and it would be a fairly solid front end. Guess theres only one way to find out.

Once all said and done, if I have problems with the front diff I will look into stronger gear sets, or again have something made.

cheers
Mat

[Cowboy Dave]

Yeah I hear you on the diffs, ARB in mine. There have been quite a few lokka diff centre failures but I reckon they had a defective batch. I suppose on the fuse thing the trick would be to have a cv that's stronger than oem but just weaker than the diff. God knows how you could ever work that out though. Touch wood I've not blown a cv yet but always carry a pair and the gear to change them. Dual locked and a steady right foot seems to keep me out of trouble.

[Homer]

I'm not too sure on the strength of the front diff components to be honest. The rear is like a truck but I've seen a few twisted/broken front input shafts on these cars now. Probably from jumping and landing etc and from memory was on unlocked diffs, but that was enough to make me cautious about the strength of them if really stressed a lot.

Nothing like the Hilux diffs though

[StiddyGLX-R]

OK, little bit of an update on this CV situation.

Before going to Craft difts or anyone else, I got talking to a mates dad about my idea. He saw me walk into his work shop and hid behind the counter He knows I never come to him with something simple haha.

Explained to him what I wanted to do and what I think is the best way to achieve it.
We ripped a front wheel off my triton and had a look at it all, along with the new cv's I had taken.

As you can imagine there is a fair bit involved. But he used to race rear engine buggy's so had a pretty good idea on long travel cv's, and had a box full of parts that he starting playing with shafts and and flexy cv joints, Uni joints and all sorts.
In a matter of minutes he had something laid out on the bench that could possibly work lol. Kind of annoyed I didnt take any pics.

But basically - This is what is to be expected as a start. I still want a slip joint included in the middle.


but include this -


so we get this -


Having said that, the Upper control arm wont allow this amount of down travel so an angled ball joint spacer will have to be machined up. Easy. Something like this -


Next issues will be the tie road ends and swaybar links. They both limit down travel.
The tie rod end will need to change from a ball joint type to the below


Swaybar - Will either be a dislocation set up or simply just a longer link.

Seems like in theory its all fairly good to go.
Mates dad is taking control of the whole thing lol, he seems to think I will comfortably get the full 4inch that the monster rides coilovers can offer.
As far as price goes, Its working out as a complete bolt in kit for me to do it as a first it will be around the $1300ish mark. Cheaper once a kit is actually formed.

cheers,
Mat

[DocBassett]

Shut up and take my money! But in all seriousness, I'd love to see how this all pans out. If it works, and is safe/legal(ish) I'd be interested.

[3M W018]

Yes very keen on the out come myself.

[Homer]

That's pretty awesome looking

[StiddyGLX-R]

To be clear.
This is not a slap together job, im not building this in my back shed. This is an idea im trying to put into reality using quality parts and professionals.
Ron (my mates dad) is a mechanic and an enthusiast, type of a professional, but hes there for help and advice for the start, this will go from here to engineers/machinists/driveline and cv specialists, which im sure wouldn't be involved or even attempt it if they didn't think it would be legal(ish) or safe.

However, thats just the CV shaft. The rest of the kit, spacer, drop link, and steering arm extension/ball joint I will try in my car and get the professionals to look over it.

As you can see, Ron, is just the entry into getting this started. He's helping me. He's got the contacts for the people that can make this happen. Theres still a ways to go, its not an overnight development unfortunately. This at a guess will take atleast a month to 2. IF no issues arise.

I have done this before, granted not for a 4x4 that needs big up and down travel, but for other cars and i've been pretty successful.

I know this will happen. Plus if other makes and models can have it, why can't we? Because triton isn't as big as the hilux, fords, and nissans! Bullshit! Triton was/is the 5th highest selling vehicle in Australia! It's time we have a go and if 4x4 specialists won't have a go. I bloody well will!

There are other ideas in my head that will be revealed soon.

stay tuned,
Mat

[lachiem]

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