I ordered the DBA 4000 Series rotors and the Bendix 4×4 Pads.

The rotors took over 7 weeks to arrive!!, Seems dba only do ‘runs’ of these rotors, so if all the stock has been taken, you have to wait until they do another run before you ge them…..

I will also mention that as part of the upgrade, I had some braided brake hoses made up and Qdad fitted them during the 100,00 kay service they did for me, just these on their own did make a noticable difference to the feel of the pedal.

Heres the original front rotors next to the DBA 4000′s

Heres the pads compared..notice the lack of ‘cut’ in the middle of the bendix pads, I hope this wont effect there ability to clear.

And then installed with the new bendix pads.

Rear installed..

All in all it was a easy upgrade with all 4 corners taking about half a day.

Did it make a difference ?  Yes, they sure did… not as much as I was expecting initally… but time will tell.

More photos HERE

http://www.nissanpatrol-me.com/

http://www.autoblog.com/gallery/2010-nissan-patrol/

And…well….its crap.

This bit scares me…  ”4-wheel independent suspension”….Oh NOOOO!

Looks like if you own a GQ / GU Patrol….hang on to them as long as you can!  The King is dead!

Well, the old ute starts to get a bit hot under the collar come summer…So much so that solenoids and all sorts of stuff goes a bit funny when im stuck in traffic on a hot day (With the aircon on)

So, ive decided I will try some bonnet vents and see how things go. I did some reading and basicly there seems to be a bit of a rule for vents…

If you want air to come out of the bonnet, put the vents at the front
If you want air to go into the bonnet, put the vents at the back.

Seems this all applies to air pressure, when your driving down the highway, the air hits the front over the front of the bonnet, leaving a low pressure are, so air gets ‘sucked’ out. The air then flows along the bonnet until it hits the wind screen, and then has a resonably sharp change in direction, giving a high pressure area at the back, so air is ‘pushed’ in.

Anyway, heres a couple pics of what im propoasing for the ute….any suggestions ?
(Note that becuase I want air drawn out, ive put them towards the front)

I slept pretty well apart from the guy across the way snoring and the locals that live across the street from the Caravan Park playing ACDC at 1am in the morning – BLARING!!

We got up early-ish as we had to get to Undara before 10:30 for our tour.  Innot Hot Springs is approx one and a quarter hours drive (without a car towing a trailer / caravan).  There was quite a heavy dew the night before and it was overcast, so we had to pack up a wetish camp.

In the car park at Undara, we set up the awning to dry out.  Glen chamiosed the tent a couple of times before it got packed away and it was mostly dry.

I raced in to get a cuppa.  I didn’t have time to have a cuppa at Innot.

I thought that it would be a long 2 hour tour at Undara, but it went really quickly.  One thing we both got over really quickly was a couple of kids.  I think they were a bit too young – maybe 2 or 3 (they still had dummies).  Every time our guide was saying something interesting, these kids just chucked tanties.  I think that they were twins.  I said to Glen that if we do any trips with kids, that we will wait until they are a little bit older so they understand that they need to be quiet and respect other people.  These twins were just little brats and if they were my kids, they would’ve copped a smacking!!!

Damien was our guide and he was awesome.  He talked in basic english so we could understand and he didn’t get bogged down with crap that we didn’t really need to know.

I’ll be honest and say that I wasn’t very keen on going to Undara.  Mostly because it just looks like a cave and I’ve seen caves before.  I enjoyed the story of Undara, but it wasn’t anything new.   Not $45 worth in my opinion.   Well we’ve done it now so it’s another thing off the list.

After the tour, we decided to hot foot it to Townsville.   Glen was really tired, so I drove.  The back way to Townsville has only got maybe one lane of bitumen and the road trains do not budge off the bitumen.  It’s scary!  You’ve pretty much got to pull off the road and stop so they can pass.

The photo above is where we stopped for lunch.  We were maybe on the side of the road for about 30 minutes and only one car passed us.  It was like the road went on forever.

We booked  a room on Wotif as soon as we were coming into Townsville.  We’re at Hotel M on Palmer Street.  It’s awesome.  It’s fairly new  accommodation and we got upgraded and we’re on Level 9.  There’s kitchen facilities and the king size bed is really comfortable.  I slept like a log.

There’s a washing machine and dryer in our room too!  I had bags and bags of dirty clothes, so I’ve done a couple of loads while we’ve been here.  The view is fantastic and we had Benny’s Hotwok for dinner last night.   I had the Yellow Curry and it was great.  Glen even enjoyed his too!

Glen and I really like Townsville.   The  two times we’ve been now, we’ve both said to each other how much we like Townsville.  I can’t imagine how hot it it here in Summer though!

We left early-ish from Port Hinchinbrook and we made our way up through Millaa Millaa and Malanda.  It is a really beautiful landscape and it’s pretty dang cold!  We stopped at Nerada Tea and had Devonshire Tea.  We actually had jumpers on!!

We were off again to check out the Cathedral Fig.

And then the Curtain Fig.

We stopped in Atherton and got some info on where to stay and any other touristy stuff.  I wanted to go to the Cheese and Chocolate Factory but the info guy said that it takes a while to get to where we were planning on staying.  We took the highest road in QLD to Ravenshoe.  We stopped in Ravenshoe to get some fruit (yay – haven’t had any in a while).

Not too long after, we pulled up at Innot Hot Springs.  We set up camp and them we booked our tour for tomorrow.

A quick change into our togs, and we were off to the  pools to soak in the Mineral Water.  I lasted the longest in the hottest pool.  Then you’d swing over the pool separation into the cold pool.  The inbetween pool was the best.  I could’ve stayed in there for hours.  I think we were in the pools for over an hour.  Glen piked out first.

A cook up dinner – bacon, eggs, sausages, left over chips, baked beans and tomatoes.

We went into Cairns to get another Air Filter and some diesel additive just in case there was algae in any of the diesel we got on the trip.

Heading south, we saw a sign for Boulders and we decided to go have a look.  It was beautiful and it started to rain on us during the walk.

Lunch stop was at Babinda Bakery.  Everything we got was yummy.

On our trip up, Glen saw the signs for Paronella Park and remembered going there when he was young.  He said he really liked it when he was young, so we went.  I have to say that it is definately worth the detour off the highway to check it out.  Jos’e Paronella had a dream of a castle and he decided to build it.  He borrowed some stuff that he probably shouldn’t have along the way, but it really is quite an experience.  If you want to stay there (caravan, camping only) book in.  We thought that we could stay there, but there wasn’t room for us.  We would’ve loved to do the after dark tour if we had’ve camped there.

Glen was getting pretty tired, so we started to look for somewhere to stop.  It looked like rain so we decided not to camp.  We stayed at Port Hinchinbrook.  The cabin was awesome.  We got the Lake Cabin (more like drain cabin) because it had kitchen facilities.  There were two Queen size beds, so Glen and I took a bed each.  I slept really well even though we were right next to the highway (again – I can’t win!).

We got Fish and Chips (and salad for me) for dinner from Cardwell.  When trying to find somewhere to get F&C, we detoured and found the  Cardwell lookout.  It doesn’t look like many people come up to experience the view, but it’s really nice and it’s not that far from the highway.

When we went over to TI and Horn Island, we left out our kitchen camping stuff and chairs but locked up other stuff incase it went wandering – eg. our notebook.

One thing that didn’t packed away well enough was the Plain Flour.   I think it was just put into a plastic bag and put on the bench.

When we got back from the day trip, there was Plain Flour everywhere.   The Bush Turkeys had eaten all of the 2kgs of Plain Flour other than the white powder that had been spread all over our campsite.  Glen and I were one of the last travellers off the ferry, so the other guys had cleaned up most of the mess.  It was still pretty funny walking in to white powder everywhere!!

Here are a couple of dog photos.

Garry got up and started breakfast.  We’re pretty much all separating today, so we split some food and I’ve done some meal prep for the they others so they’ve got dinners to get back to Brisbane.  We had bacon & sausages on bread for breakfast.

We packed  up camp and went into the Cultural Centre in Laura to get the details on how to get to the Rock Art.  We all gave our $5 donation and travelled the 12km to Split Rock.

We climbed the stairs to get to the Art and it was pretty good.

Our next planned stop was lunch at Cape Tribulation.  We did the Bloomfield Track to get there.  Bloomfield is pretty but nothing compared to what we’ve seen on our cape trip.  Cape Tribulation was packed.  We had a BBQ lunch and the BBQ was free to use.  We did the board walk and then went up to the lookout.

We got stuck at the Ferry for a while – there were heaps of cars waiting to get across.  Glen and I took off after the Ferry and kept driving til we got to Ellis Beach.  We booked in for camping, but when we went down to the Camp Ground, it was packed.  There was no way our tent would  fit in.  So we went back to the Office and we’ve upgraded to a Bungalow.  It’s pretty nice but nothing on the Sebel. Doh.

Scott has found some room for his swag at the campsite, but he’s up here visiting us in our bungalow.  Tomorrow we’re heading south.

The plan was to wake up early and the GU plus the Challenger would do the Frenchman’s Track.  We would meet up with the Hilux at Archer River.  We were going to have a full cooked breakfast, but ended up with having snags on bread – thanks for cooking Garry!  It was quite a cool night and morning and it was hard to get going this morning.

We finally got on the road at 8:15am.  We started the Frenchman’s Track at 9am.  The road is a bit rough, but this track and the Northern OTL have definately been the best tracks on our entire trip.  They were both pretty and no traffic.  For those of you planning your Cape Trip, both of these should be on your ‘To Do’ List.

We got to Archer River at 1:30pm and we decided to push on to Laura.  We were leading in the GU and when we got to Musgrave, we caught up with some people we’d met at Punsand and we did the trip with them to TI and Horn Island (we call them XTrail man – sexist I know but woteva).  They are also going to Laura today.  They invited us all to go and have dinner with them at the Pub. We had dinner at the pub, but there wasn’t a table big enough for us all.

We got a pretty good campsite, but the amenities weren’t fantastic.  They’d run out of toilet paper and there wasn’t any room to change in the showers either.  I had to dry and get changed in the middle of the ladies amenities.  Nice job.

Old Mate XTrail told us that there were 27 cars waiting on the dock at Seisia to be sent home.  Apparently they’d all been drowned – maybe at Nolan’s?

I stayed up late to finally get some blogs up now that we had internet connection and I went off to bed.  The wind picked up during the night and I thought that we might get blown to the Land of Oz.  The tent was actually getting picked up by the wind… Scary…  Glen pretty much slept through it all.  There was also a Bull that was walking around our campsite too.

The best advice that I would give people going up to the Cape would be to stay at Loyalty Beach rather than Punsand.  The drive maybe longer to get to the top, but there’s better amenities and there is actually grass campsites.  Plus it’s just that little bit cooler and there’s a breeze even at night.  There are ferries that go to TI and Horn from Seisia, so you won’t miss out on that either.

We went into Seisia to see how the Jeep was getting along.  The car has been there 3 days now, and they’ve done nothing.  NOT HAPPY JAN!  They don’t think that it will actually be ready until tomorrow!  There have been other cars that have come in after the Jeep and they are getting worked or will be finished before the Jeep.  There are other things that are broken on the Jeep, but all they’re doing is the welding.  They said that they will try to get it done by lunch time, so we went and had lunch and coffee at Bamaga Bakery and got some diesel for the GU. $1.90 per Litre. 65 litres ish… Ouch.

After lunch we went back and the Jeep still hadn’t been done. Without using names, we have met someone that works at Top End Motors.  He’s a bit of a wild one (referred to now as WO).  While we were waiting for the Jeep to be seen to, WO told us about his escapades over the weekend.  Him and his friend, Feral (hint hint), had been drinking at Bamaga all day on Saturday and they were in the car park of the Pub when Feral asked if WO was up for a game.  The game is called “Ass Slap”.  So there were two blokes in the Bamaga Pub’s Car Park slapping each other’s bare bums.  The below photo is of WO’s bum.  I ever so nicely asked if I could take a photo of his butt after he’d shown us before.  BTW, WO is pretty aesthetically pleasing.

While waiting at the Mechanics, we met an old guy with a Land Rover.  They were from Western Australia.  They were on Seisia time.  They were just sitting  in the shade just drinking coldies.  They didn’t care when they mechanics got to them.  They said that they couldn’t really do anything until the parts had come off the carrier anyway.  They had some awesome stories about the trips they’d done in the landy.

When WO looked at the Jeep, the news was not good.  More was needed than the welding.  Rear tail shaft including Cardan Joint with  unis, lower control arm bracket welded and braced, draglink, pitman arm, steering box and the rear shock absorber bracket all needs replacing and / or fixing.  WO was giving Scott a fair bit of a paddling.  WO asked Scott when the Uni Joints got grease.  Scott’s response “Erm, not exactly sure.”  WO said next time you need to do Trip Preparation on the car.

Seeing the car needs so many parts, Glen called Fester (All Four x Four Parts – Minden) to see if he had any parts for the Jeep.  Fes has the parts and is going to send them up.

Scott is now a passenger in the Challenger.  Scott’s stuff has been split between the cars.  All we could fit was the stuff out of his fridge / freezer.  Scott will have to fly back up to Bamaga when his car has been fixed.  It will actually be cheaper to do it like this than get the car shipped back down.

After the great news about the Jeep we wanted to get the hell out of the Top End.  So we bolted to the Jardine Ferry and down the Bypass Roads.  The Southern Bypass Road was pretty bad, but not as bad as Battle Camp Road.  We’ve spoken to a few locals and they reckon the rooads were fantastic up til when the Endeavour Rally went through.

We made camp at Bramwell Junction Roadhouse.  I made Spaghetti Bolognaise for dinner.  While we were eating dinner, a lady came over to ask if anyone could put in a dislocated finger.  I told her that no, you shouldn’t re-locate the finger without having medical attention (and an xray).  We asked what had happened.  A guy had had a pretty bad accident down the road.  His vehicle had gone off the road and he’d hit a tree front on.  He was okay, with some bruising on his ribs, but all he was complaining about was his finger.  His dog, Stormy, had actually gone through the windscreen.  They said that the dog was okay but a bit sore.  I’m wondering about internal injuries on both of them.  The owner of the Roadhouse was going to be taking them to Weipa for medical attention in the morning.  Our thoughts are with them.

Injuries & Ouchies:

Jeep – Dead (for the time being anyway)