Well, after stuffing around Friday night, and Sat morning, I now have the arms fitted to my ute. I had to cut away some of the reinforcing that I had done to the diff for the bracing on the passenger side to fit. Im going to call Superior when i get a chance and see if i can weld these plates inplace, so I dont have to worry about any weaknesses.

You are supplied 3 Nuts and Bolts for the passenger side drop arm (The short one) I would of like to of seen new bolts included for the other side too, plus nuts for the chassis end…But there ya go. One thing that im a bit worried about is the length of the bolts, they seem maybe 2 - 3 mm to short, as the bolts doent ‘quite’ come through the nuts by a thread or so… Im going to talk to Superior about this too, and see if i have made any errors. If not, im going to go down to the local bolt shop and purchase longer versions.

Anyway, after fitting I jumped straight in and went for a quick drive around the block, on the highway, and then offroad. The first thing I noticed was how much smoother the ute drove. Just less harsh. Steering way waaay better, but im assuming thats because I finally have the right castor correction. Highway driving was the same, smoother and well mannered. I did notice ’slightly’ more body roll, but nothing to be concerned about.

Now…offroad, On friday afternoon, I went for a drive before i fitted the arms, and found a little spot where without the lockers ingauged, the ute would flex out, and id stop. I thought this would be a great spot to test the new arms, as in theory once the arms where in the ute would have enough flex to still have traction. I marked where i stopped with some sticks etc, and then took some photos.

On Sat morning after I had fitted the arms, I went back to the same place and tried again. But….I stopped still….what tha?? I had progressed further than on Friday afternoon, but only by about 6 inches, not really what I was hoping for. I started taking photos, and then noticed that now the limited factor was that my front shocks had maxed out.

If you look closely at the two photos above, you will seen in the bottom one that the ’skinny’ bit of the shock is showing…basicly meaning its reached its maximum travel.

Soo…. I didnt have the tools with me to drop that shock, but will get some longer shocks asap and test again. My bet is that it will increase travel dramaticly. So far im very happy with these arms.

More photos of the testing etc HERE

I took delivery of my new front radius arms for the ute today.  Its been a fair wait, but im pretty sure it was worth it!

Ill try and get time to put them in on the weekend, and see how they go.

More pix HERE

Went out with a few mates to Janowen 4×4 park, near Warwick QLD.

Had a fantasitic weekend!, ‘very’ cold during the night, but that just made us drink some more scotch!

The damage list for the weekend on the ute was.

* Broke tail light

* Beheaded type valve stem

* Broken Recovery hook

Nothing major, got a bit more rock rash on the back of the chassis.

Heres a couple pics for the weekend.

Well…while i was waiting for the Superior arms to turn up, i thought i would buy myself a Gu Patrol…hehehe

Anyway, i had decided i wanted a newer Patrol for a while, now, but only really just got off my bum and started looking. Managed to find a nice one at Wagga Wagga (1238 kms from Brisbane) , so a mate and I flew down and spent a coulpe of days driving back!..

Except for the fact standard TD42’s are gutless beyond belief….the Patrol drove really really well. Im very happy with it. This week i have booked it in to have a 3″ Mandrel exhaust installed, and then over to QDAD for a tune up.

Well, I finally got around to ordering myself a set of those Flexy arms I was talking about a while ago.

Heres some more pics of them, once they arrive, I will try and get some before and after shots to show you all.

For those that are intertested, heres a few more pics from the SSS Winch Challenge

HERE

Well, ive gotta say…what a awesome time i had! Im still a bit sore at the moment from dragging my fat ass all the way up some of the HUGE hills, but otherwise very happy with the weekend. We drew 1st run on Friday night, so on my first event, we were first to run the course…at night.. hehehe Couldnt of been too much worse, we got through it ok, except i manged to step over the darn winch rope 3 times, and then Mick hit some bunting on the way through.. 40 points penalties! DOH!

Although we scored a couple DNF’s , We ran clean stages for the rest of the weekend and still came 9th overall.

For those that are interested, the results are posted HERE

And theres are a few pictures of the event at Sam’s website… HERE

Feels pretty offcial now!

Well, looks like ill being Navi’ing in my first comp this weekend (Easter) at Cruiser Park. If you see the truck, feel free to come over and say hello!.

Well, i got my HID lights installed on Sunday, WOW….im very impressed with them so far. About the only real hiccup that i would suggest you watch out for is that the bulbs that i got were a fair bit longer at the back of the lense, so they hit the light housing and stopped the lense being screwed back in. Ill post a couple pics so you know what i mean.

Heres the difference between a normal halogen 100W bulb and a 55w HID

Heres the hole i had to drill into the back of the housing for the bulb to fit.

I then just plugged the hole with the plastic cup that came with the kit, glue it in and painted it black.

Theres some more pics of the install, etc HERE