ITS THE LATEST UPDATE!!!!When I last look at when I did somthing to "Kate's Dirty Sister" well it really has been a while. As with probably a lot of you, I came back from the High Country Trip with a list of things that I wanted to do to the car. This list has grown and shrunk, ebbed and flowed, and little bits have been done here and there.
So to try and think back to around July when some of this all started. Looking at the photos sure does help jog the memory, but when you are one camera down (I dont know where it is in the house at the moment) it makes things just a little more difficult.
So the last thing that I wrote about/mentioned was that I was going to or had spent the day moving my winch control box to beneath my bullbar to make room for my Red Dog Offroad 22" LED Lightbar. This involved dropping the bullbar to get access to the winch cradle which would be its new home. This wasnt really that big of a job as with the TJM T13 Outback Bar you just have to take out 4 bolts and loosen 2. The whole bar then just hinges forward...as seen here...
So I thought that this would be an awesome time to pull out the intercooler and give it a bit of a clean. There was a quite a bit of oil in there so it took a bit of time to get it all nice and clean. I was a little bit unsure as to the "not supposed to have residual fumes" left, so I tried to hurry things along a little bit...
Then it was the control box. I had to extend the cables so that it would sit there, but at least that enabled me to tidy things up a little bit. I did later rewrap the winch. It was just left like that after the High Country. It needed a clean and so again it was a perfect opportunity to.
I think by this stage I had received my LED Lightbar from Boycee, and so I set about trying to figure out how to get it all set up. Originally, I was hoping to use the original mounts on the bullbar, but the distance between these holes, and the bolts on the lightbar were too far, so I got to brainstorming how I could go about attaching my lightbar. I ended up getting some aluminium plate from work and after measuring and cutting it up, drilled some holes to make use of the oringinal mount holes and the 2 that I had drilled for the winch control box. I sprayed it black and also got some leftover foam strip to seal up the front and sides of it. Mounted up and it turned out really well.
As some of you helped me out with, I had inadvertantly wired everything up to be powered off the highbeam circuit, instead of drawing all its power from the battery. Not to worry though, as I fixed the problem now and it works fantastically. I even upgraded my switch to a 3 gang bank for future spots. It all looks a little neater now, although I am tempted to source a new lower cover bit and start again to neaten things up a little bit. Its good for now though.
One of the main things I took away from the High Country that I wanted to put in was some LED strip lighting under the bonnet. I had seen this on Motoz's car and it really was a great idea. I pretty well carbon copied Daves setup (as we did it all at his old work) but because I have an ML and he an MN I didnt have anywhere to mount my switch. Another couple of bits of aluminium and I had a bracket made up and mounted to the front of my battery tray. I somehow also jagged the height of the switch so that if I accidently leave it all on, it all switches off when I close the bonnet.
I also decided to expand the idea and light my tray. This now throws out a ridiculous amount of light from the back. Of course, still having the hard tonneau cover meant that it had to be removable as well. So a waterproof plug was included so that I could still take the cover off and everything still work. I have another bracket for the back here as well, and it still needs a bit of tidying up.
And this brings me on to the roof racks. I had purchased a set of Rhino Racks and Heavy Duty bars through a mate quite cheaply. As with everything I was going to install this myself, but it was not without its dramas. The first major issue that I had was 2 of the rivets decided to shear prematurely leaving half a stem. This meant that I was unable to fully set the rivet, and the point would have been unusable beacuse of the stem sticking up. Not to worry though, because I just tapped it down, drilled the rivets out and started again.
I have noticed with where the front bar is currently, is that I get a lot of wind noise/buffeting from it at speed. I am hoping with a slight adjustment that this may help that, or even if I just get a tray. Now I have to start looking as to the sort of tray that I want to throw on - alloy or steel?
The other main issue was the fact that before I started everything was working, and I didnt perform any work in the cab at all. However when I came to drive it, the trip meter had reset, and the radio and display were not working. I checked all the fuses I thought were related, like computers and radios and everything but did not find what was wrong. It wasnt until I realised that the interior lights were also not working that I thought I would check that fuse. Low and behold it had blown. A quick change and everything was back and working.
So I think that brings us up to date. Just a few small mods done, nothing that major, but all included in one big update. Now the next mod is possibly a battery box/electrical setup of some sort. Though as always, this will probably change at some point. I really must tidy up the electrics just a bit more, but that shouldnt be too hard.