Black Caviar's GLR Build

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Black Caviar's GLR Build

Postby BlackCaviar on Wed Oct 09, 2013 6:48 pm

Gday folks,

I've been looking at other member's builds and thought I'd start my own thread. I've seen some fantastic builds in this forum and as a 'do-it-yourself-to-save-cash' kind of bloke, I've been inspired to have a go a my new truck and hopefully inspire a few others who might be reluctant to modify their own pride and joy.

Firstly, I started with the typical blank canvass of a black 2012 GLR Dual Cab. From the factory floor I added an ARB Deluxe Bar, ARB Rear Bar, 125 litre Long Ranger tank and dark window tint.

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From here I took to eBay to see what I could find. :D

After convincing my wife that these were necessary I bought front and rear 3D moulded floor mats, front and rear sheepskin seat covers, rubber tray mat from "Booter" and a bungeeless soft tonneau cover. I wasn't going to pay to have the tonneau cover installed so I very nervously and anxiously took to my truck with the cordless drill. After an hour or so and a number of holes now in my tray, my soft tonneau was on!

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Next on the list was an improvement to the factory high beams. Bring in the Tigerz11 22" LED light bar. So now trying my hand at autoelectrical work, I set upon installing the light bar. After thinking to myself "how the hell am I going to get through the firewall without drilling?" I came across the removable seal on the firewall on the driver's side and thought "Yew beauty!" So a few hours later and some fiddling around with wires in behind the dash I managed to wire up my light bar without a hitch. I also love the look of the rocker switch I bought which was also installed above the internal fuse panel.

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And then the most beautiful thing in the world entered my life when my wife gave birth to our first born daughter. Needless to say Black Caviar was put on hold for a number of months. I did manage to find a set of Maxxis Bighorn 764 MTs on gumtree so I picked them up cheap on a trip to Sydney.

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Until recently, when while planning a Victorian High Country trip and watching youtube videos of our fellow Newtriton members and seeing the depth of some of the river crossings, I thought it best to price a snorkel. After pricing a Safari Snorkel from ARB, I decided on an eBay job and a self install. I had already done a DIY snorkel install on my old Pajero, but this was something different. After carefully studying the plans done up by Bogor and OEM water bottle retention by biggibbo, I was semi-confident in doing it correctly.

If I can pass on one piece of advice, always use the best quality tools. I bought a cheap holesaw set from Mitre10 for $25 thinking "I only need to use it once so it doesn't matter if it gets wrecked." Unfortunately for me, the first hole I started drilling completely blunted the hole saw, and only made a scratch on the surface of my guard! :evil: So back to Mitre10 and $150 later for 2 hole saws and the centre drill inclusion and I was back at it. The good Bosch quality stuff chewed through the guards like butter. :D

After a lot of stuffing around, sikaflex everywhere, cuts, bruises, expletives and time, my snorkel was installed. Took me all up about 11 hours but it was completely worth it.

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Next on the agenda is a set of 3mm bash plates courtesy of Mitch at Prestige Offroad which should hopefully be in the mail and installed next week.

After the bash plates are done, it's savings time again with the hope to buy an ARB deluxe steel roof rack with the intention being to relocate the light bar to the roof, and putting a set of Hella Rallye spotlights on the front, just because you can't get enough light!
If in doubt, plant the right foot.
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Re: Black Caviar's GLR Build

Postby al coholic on Wed Oct 09, 2013 6:58 pm

Looking good mate 8-) :D
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Re: Black Caviar's GLR Build

Postby BlackCaviar on Wed Oct 09, 2013 7:10 pm

Also forgot to mention the Uniden UHF installed somewhere along the line. ;)
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Re: Black Caviar's GLR Build

Postby stackator on Wed Oct 09, 2013 8:37 pm

Nice build up thread mate! The GLRs go the hardest!
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Re: Black Caviar's GLR Build

Postby BlackCaviar on Sun May 03, 2015 7:17 pm

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve updated here and I have so much to write! Firstly, Black Caviar tore through the Victorian High Country. And the High Country tore a little out of her! For a truck with standard suspension and pretty small tyres, my beast went everywhere my mate’s $80K fully decked out Hilux went. Just goes to show that a lot of 4WDing comes down to the person behind the wheel (not tooting my horn or anything, just saying.) What a beautiful part of the country that place is too! This is a pic of what one rut did to my rear bar!

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Anyway, my baby got a few battle scars from Billy Goat Bluff and another track heading towards King Billy’s, but mechanically she was still A1. A good service afterwards and she was 100%.
I must say, I bought a set of 3mm stainless steel bash plates from Prestige Automotive, and due to my lack of clearance, they took an absolute belting! I really mean they got hammered! But besides for a few small dents on the very lowest part of them, they stood up to everything I threw (or drove) at them and have come out shining on the other side. They have been, without a doubt, the best mod I installed on my truck before this trip. If you were considering upgrading your bash plates from standard, DO IT! And ring Prestige Automotive to order them. You will not regret it.
Now she had to take a back seat for a long time as funding this lifestyle was getting too much so the modifications laid dormant for a while until we bought ourselves a camper trailer in May 2014 just after my daughter’s first birthday. After getting the camping bug again and now having the means to take a 1 year old camping, I found out what little luxuries I could get with a few added mods.
Firstly, I managed to hunt down a canopy from an older model Triton (MK I think), from a bloke in Canberra. It was green and didn’t fit 100%, but it was close and for $500 it was a bargain.

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I decided to fork out and have it painted the same as the car so it didn’t look so odd and this was the result

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From here I convinced the wife that a second battery was a necessity, as I didn’t want to get stuck out bush with her and the baby because the fridge had drained the battery, so in comes the dual battery system.

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I managed to order the battery and kit from eBay and the battery box from Autopro, and after a few days playing with it, I managed to have it wired and working properly, except for one thing. I also installed two small LED flood lights to on top of roof racks on the canopy which seem to play havoc with the isolator’s fuse. I haven’t worked out why yet but whenever they were turned on, it would blow the fuse for the isolator. But the lights themselves work a treat! (I finally worked out that the fuse I had for my isolator was not rated high enough and had nothing to do the lights. New higher rated fuse installed and no dramas!)
I also managed to pick up a roof basket from a very good mate of mine for a few beers and it has come in very handy when carting wood to campsites.

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I had also remounted my LED light bar to on top of my bulbar, which after a week of looking weird, look like normal now and placed the Hella Rallye 4000s where the bar was. It’s good to have both contrasting light sources and now I can turn night into day.
And finally, my most loved mod (if you can call it that). After 43 years of heart break, particularly the last two years, my beloved Rabbitohs finally claimed that 21st premiership. To celebrate the occasion, my wife bought me these for my 30th birthday.

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For that little bit of added safety and ease of reversing up to my camper, I bought a cheap reversing camera setup from eBay. After installing the LCD I found it a pain in the ass to have to turn it off the blue screen when the camera wasn’t operating whilst driving, so I rewired it to the same power source as the camera. So now it only turns on when reversing.
Next up, for the price of on the house (when I renewed my subscription to 4WD Action), I got a new Tigerz11 awning which sits nicely on the roof racks.

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With our trip to Fraser Island fast approaching, I finally made the decision to spend the funds and get myself a lift. I spotted a deal on eBay for Archm Industries 2” lift kit on special for $1050, marked down from $1350. So with a nervous click of the mouse, the lift kit was on its way. Since I was in a spending type of mood I also bought myself a long handled shovel/high lift jack holder.
After using the lift kit install manual on here provided by subi_man, I had the courage to do it myself. And I figured I had done everything else myself, why stop now? So after 3.5 hours by myself, I had the front struts replaced without any issues. The following night I had a go at the rears. Now, subi_man said the rears are much easier than the front so I went in with high hopes of having this done in no time.
Now, in an earlier post I mentioned that having the correct tools makes a job so much easier. And this was no different. I won’t bore with too many details, but if you attempt this install, make sure you have either 2 jacks or adequately heightened stands to lift the car enough to be able to drop your diff enough to take the tension off the rear springs. Also, make sure you have enough height in the garage to do it! After having the rear end off my truck hanging out of the garage (so I couldn’t close it) with no wheels, on one jack and tools and things everywhere for 2 nights, I managed to get a bigger jack and finish the job off with relative ease.

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Then to top it all off, I upgraded my set of rubber from 225/75/16 Maxxis 764 (30”) Bighorns to 265/75/16 Falken Wildpeak ATs (32”) and so far I love them. Had a bit of a play off road the other day and noticed the big difference in traction compared to my old Maxxis muddies, but that’s to be expected. They still handled really well and cleared a lot of mud and crap out from them. They are also whisper quiet on the road which is a nice change. I also noticed the big difference in handling and the amount of flex with the new suspension set up.

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And I was glad to see that after going full flex, it returned to its original position without any hiccups!

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If in doubt, plant the right foot.
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Re: Black Caviar's GLR Build

Postby tacticaltriton on Mon May 04, 2015 5:53 am

Nice rig. You sure have put some work into it.
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Re: Black Caviar's GLR Build

Postby alastairlee39 on Mon May 04, 2015 5:01 pm

Nice build mate, how do you find the archm suspension? Is it comfortable? Was looking at the same kit and that price seems really good, any feedback would be good cheers. :)
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Re: Black Caviar's GLR Build

Postby BlackCaviar on Mon May 04, 2015 6:13 pm

Yeah mate so far so good. Handles well off road and a bit more comfy on road than standard. Raised a bit too. I got 45mm out of the front and 60-65mm in the rear. Still a little early to be completely convinced but so far I would definitely recommend it and for the price it's great value for money. And the kit came with dobinson leaf springs and King coil springs so you know you've got quality there.
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Re: Black Caviar's GLR Build

Postby alastairlee39 on Mon May 04, 2015 6:22 pm

Sounds very tempting haha, Thanks for the info mate :)
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Re: Black Caviar's GLR Build

Postby parfittron on Fri Jul 31, 2015 9:22 pm

Hey mate, I've been looking at the arch-m kit too. You just went for the standard springs, rather than the heavy ones?
Build quality of the shocks seems good?
Did you need / do you need to extend the brake lines?
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Re: Black Caviar's GLR Build

Postby BlackCaviar on Thu Sep 10, 2015 8:28 pm

No I got the 300kg constant load springs due to the front and rear bars plus canopy etc. And yeah the shocks seem to be built well. I've had them on now for over 4 months and haven't had any dramas yet. And no I didn't need to extend the brake lines or install a tail shaft spacer.

Hope this helps mate. I know it's a bit late.
If in doubt, plant the right foot.
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Re: Black Caviar's GLR Build

Postby BlackCaviar on Thu Sep 10, 2015 8:50 pm

Over the last few weeks I decided I wanted to create and install my own custom made drawers for the back of my ute.

After watching a few youtube videos and seeing a guy make a set out of 1" x 1" aluminium and connected with "connect it" pieces from Bunnings, I thought I'd give it a stab.

With a few minor plans scribbled on some paper, I set out making them. The aluminium is rather cheap, light and quite strong so it seemed like the most logical choice for a frame. I secured the whole system to the tray using hook and eye tensioners (normally used with shade sails) in all four corners and using the factory bolts in the tray that appear to drive into the chassis rails. I just replaced the factory bolts with eyelet bolts and it seems to work a treat.

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In an afterthought I changed the design from 2 drawers to 1 drawer and a fridge slide. I sourced the drawer slides and fridge rails from eBay (which ended up being the most expensive part). After painstakingly cutting the 12mm ply and glueing and nailing the marine carpet to all exterior faces, fixing some 1.2mm aluminium sheeting to the drawers and sides, my drawer system was complete.

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